#it was just like. thats the trans people song

[creatingblackcharacters]

hi yes back with another submission for the september challenge

May from & Juliet! (nobody is surprised im sure)

May is a non binary character. they genuinely mean the world to me. theyre fun, theyre happy, thryre colourful and bright but most importantly? complex. (well, as complex as you can get as one of 8 main characters in a 2 hour musical)

from their first scene, you might think they're just another gay best friend stereotype. but the amazing thing is is that theyre NOT!

May has their own story. they get a solo song about their experience with being trans, being non binary, and it's so beautiful.

theyre Juliet's best friend. theyre one of the first two main characters we see Juliet interact with and the love there is so CLEAR. they love each other so much, they love her so much!!

some actors do little things to show that theyre also close with Angelique which is just so cute to me, i love them all sooo much 💙💙

Reggie's Obligatory Actor Section: the actor ive selected for this is Jesse Dutlow! they were the May principal actor in the australian tour, and theyre a huge fan of the show too! (theyre travelling to GERMANY to see it, and im pretty sure they dont speak german)

Jesse's May is super confident, not particularly shy, very outgoing, and i love that! (although i ALSO love a shy May, i just love May)

Jesse has some FANTASTIC vocals. with May's love interest, one of their lines is really special, and i love the way Jesse says it!

the line is "you know im not a girl, right? because if thats what you think-" and Jesse says it in a way thats clearly like, nervous. and considering that ive mentioned that their May ISN'T really nervous, i feel like it shows their vulnerability in that moment. (and the love interest responds great, saying that it doesnt matter to him and that he just likes them)

sorry for the Jesse ramble, theyre a super good May actor and i love their portrayal of them a lot

like i said, May is a 'gay best friend' who gets a STORY. they get to be so much more than just that. they get to fall in love and fight for what they want and they get to sing about their life and i love them! i love that they get to do this!! (also ive met Jesse before and theyre like, literally one of the most lovely people on the planet)

i think ive rambled on long enough so here's some pictures of other Black May actors that i didn't talk about!

this isn't all of them but theyre all fantastic, genuinely Jaz Terry (the third one) is so amazing and one of her vocal choices for May's solo always has me screaming cause shes just so GOOD

tl:dr, i love May i love Jesse i love all May actors and i also love & Juliet

You sure do love it lol. That's good though. I'm happy to see that so many important roles, especially around Juliet, are other Black people. That outfit on the top right though!! I'm also glad to hear they're not another gay best friend stereotype. I feel like Black men specifically (ik this person is nonbinary) get tossed into that role in a way to... to make them more "acceptable"? I've mentioned it before that it feels like many people try to go the "feminine twink" route to make Black men less threatening and "more relatable" (without saying that), which really reveals how they feel about Black men as a whole. It's like they want the Sassy Black Bestie, but toss in some mode of queerness to sound "inclusive". So to hear that there's an actual nonbinary bestie played by an actual nonbinary actor whose identity isn't a token for story and cushion or laughingstock for viewers is a relief.

Hot Chocolate: The nonbinary best friend actually gets their own time to shine and character depth??? Hell yeah 🙌🏾🙌🏾. I'm sure we're all tired of that trope in general, but it also annoys me because it often leans into the magical Negro trope. We have lives, concerns, and personalities- we shouldn't have to remind y'all of that. Anyway to see the character get treated with such respect and genuine love is all we ask for. It's not that hard and I'm glad this musical achieves that 🔥🔥

[mbat]

wait no im still thinking about how that one dancer on agt danced to 'the village' by wrabel. like that was wild because like... that song is trans, like its blatantly about being trans. and afaik the guy is cis

of course anyone can do whatever they want with a song, and interpret it however, but like. that was so wild to me. mostly cause it was on agt, a massively watched show that most people at least know about if not watch

like. damn. ok

[formosusiniquis]

Aging rockstar Eddie Munson who goes viral on tiktok after dueting a fancam of him and Stevie that is backed by the bi wife energy audio.

It's shaky, clearly a spur of the moment response, Eddie is obviously captivated for a second by a clip of Stevie that starts to play. He sighs and directs his attention back to the audience. "I love my beautiful wife, the sun to my moon, the light of my life."

You can just make out another voice from somewhere in the background call out, "Love you too!"

"But I did not survive being an openly gay teenager in the 1980s in rural Indiana to be called a heterosexual!" 

He zooms in closer to his face, it's unclear whether this was intentional, "I did not go through a sexuality crisis in the early 90s when she transitioned, to be called a heterosexual."

Stevie comes out from somewhere behind where Eddie is ranting to drape herself around his shoulders, "Oh that's a good picture of us." The original video is a step above thirst trap and the picture in question is a pap shot of Stevie and Eddie from a long past Halloween. Stevie is in the famous Farrah onepiece and Eddie is in first husband Lee Majors' Six Million Dollar Man red tracksuit.

"You just like it cause we actually ran into Farrah and she liked your hair."

"It was also-"

She isn't dislodged as Eddie fails, well practiced at staying on her perch. "I didn't cancel the back half of our 1995 tour because of morning sickness to get called a HETEROSEXUAL!"

Stevie's smile is indulgent and soft, it wrinkles the corners of her eyes in soft crows feet that betray her age. "You can be trans and straight."

"A fucking ally then!"

She's got a sage Mona Lisa smile as the video ticks to a close, "I love my husband, and he's actually bi."

[phantomkapok]

i thought about this forever ago already but it's still wild to me that Carrie Mark will have the ONLY song with lyrics in petscop directly associated with her, and it has these words:

"I got a new life, you would hardly recognize me, i'm so glad."

"For so many years, I've wondered who you are"

"Living without you, I've left you, oh-oh-oh"

"But where do you belong?"

it's such a good song and it fits super well considering everything but also, i feel like when/if Paul ever finds that song again it will give him a horrible attack of some sorts. million yard stare while the funky pop song plays

[supersecretnerd]

Ok so these designs are cute as hell, the Internet is just mean

I have too many thoughts about a game I still need to watch

[foxpunk]

i think everyone who is reblogging that post about how horrible and creepy and fucked up it is to speculate about someone being possibly trans needs to

1) think about why/when these speculations are being made. context matters. are they harassing or crossing boundaries of anyone specific/an actual concrete person, or simply making comments to themselves, to friends, or in a general open online area.

2) ask yourself if it is actually so bad and harmful to say someone could be trans.

3) ask yourself if these speculations about transness actually uphold gender norms. does being trans upholds gender norms. is a trans woman reinforcing stereotype if she wears makeup, or is a transmasc reinforcing stereotype if they get top surgery. why do trans people, especially trans women, do these things. if these actual actions are okay for trans people to do as their form of gender expression, then is this actually bad to simply speculate about.

4) ask yourself if you've heard this shit before like. does this at all bring to mind how straight people found it offensive to be speculated as gay, and the subsequent gross backlash against gay people helping anyone out of the closet, and the movement of "let bros be bros" gaining more attention/priority than. yknow. simply normalizing people being gay and that not being a bad thing or an insult to think someone may be gay.

5) most importantly: who is making these speculations. is it "people" in general like the post says or is it fellow trans people, who know what it is like to be closeted with no info, no other trans people to talk to, no way to explore themselves safely until someone says something first. and is it trans people or specifically trans women, who are especially vulnerable to these things. are these trans women actually being harmful or do you view trans womens' personal speculations as inherently forceful, creepy, and invasive.

6) ask yourself why that may be.

7) be honest.

[generationa1trauma]

currently struggling w the concept that the community i so desperately want to be a part of relies heavily on talent and always involves some level of rejection through auditions

[neonvqmpire]

one of the most interesting things about realising my gender is looking back to when i listened to against me! as a teenager and relating to the songs knowing laura is trans but not even considering that i could be too.

[krizkrozapplesoz]

give \o/ ∞

I WANT TO SHOW YOU THE WORST THINGS ABOUT ME not out of anxiety, but out of pride and you'd laugh and you'd say "I'm so glad you're mine."

5H4D0W H34R7Z by Ada Rock

[gmos]

it has been funny to see some idkhow audience (heavily online 13-16yos) bleed over into "joywave twt" and try to ask them the types of invasive or irrelevant questions that fandom types usually ask. youre barking up the wrong tree. the lead singer wont even admit a song about sex is about sex. go home

[reel-fear]

I think we need to bring back 'troll fics' but very specifically the ones where you are very much trying to potray the views and opinions of a made up author bc those ones are just objectively the funniest. Like I get why they went of out fashion a lot of them use tropes that can be mean spirited or even bigoted and not all of them were really funny. Typos can only be hilarious to read out loud for so long but also I do miss the days when u would read the most batshit plot and it basically laid out the authors opinions on certain fandom stuff very plainly. Stuff like when you didn't like a certain ship for some reason the way you would cope was by making a fic where your NOTP are together but one of them is a acoholic and the character u want to get with someone else constantly thinks abt how they totally made the wrong choice. Like no matter how nice and calm the characters would be if they were in a popular ship ppl didn't like suddenly you would get fics where they actually were super controlling and horrible. And it was bad dont get me wrong, it uses abuse as nothing more than a plot point to get a character to then claim they made the 'wrong choice' and get with a different person... But it was also really funny how far people went with it sometimes-

[frumdyke]

ummm i watched i saw the tv glow uh it hit bit too close to home i think 👍 film that leaves you with one of those feelings innit

[snekdood]

personally, i dont see the fundamental difference between deleting your account and making a new one and deleting all your old posts, if we're talking about "running from ones past", then what are you tryna hide there, bud?

[sugaryoats]

Ughhh the Dylan Mulvaney song drama on TikTok is so annoying. This is why I stopped using that godforsaken app as well as the other hellscape (Twitter)

Cis woman here ✋ wearing makeup and going shopping and being stereotypically feminine IS part of MY womanhood. Let her be a woman whatever way she wants!! I do not care how not like other girls you are. You are a sad little person if you put other women down to prop yourself up.

[faggy--butch]

is it just me or is the "trans guys are just some boring guys and they make lame music and trans women are cool and interesting and make loud music" jokes almost like. an excuse for why theres not that many trans guys who are popular content creators or musicians or actors or authors or what have you. like blaming the invisibility of trans men on being "boring" and therefore not doing anything rather than oppression.

not to mention the example of music being that people have heard of one singular trans guy who works in a genre they dont like [people really love to act like cavetown is like specifically bad or cringe but thats just what most indie pop/rock/folk sounds like] and theyve heard of a handful of trans women who make hyperpop that they already like [and laura jane grace of course] and its really telling on themselves. theres trans guys making hyperpop and trans women making ""lame ukulele music"" and both of them and nonbinary people making music of tons of other genres. like. cmon. it reminds me of xkcd 385.

also i dont think these jokes are intentionally malicious or anything [most of the time] but it also feels sort of weird to be joking about how boring a group of marginalized people are. im not going to act like its the biggest deal in the world but its sort of low level bullying, innit? and i imagine having this weird expectation to be "cool and interesting" isnt fun for trans women either. its nice to get to be lame sometimes.

Yeah it's super weird, especially because it's repeated over and over, that part is the suspicious part. I even saw it on reddit a few days ago in one of the ftm subs. I do think it's like blaming the lack of trans men artists on trans men being "boring" instead of, you know the bigotry, the erasure, the inequality I think it's also a weird expectation that we all HAVE to live up to what other people think of as "cool" like if we're all not making hardcore metal and being as "SICK" as humanly possible, we are failing at transgender music and therefore are the reason trans men aren't represented as artists enough, which is ummm. okay.

why can't we make soft love songs about being bugs, or whatever. What happens to trans women who don't live up to the metal hardcore aesthetic? Look at Dylan Mulvaney. She made a dumb cutsie girlypop song and everyone acted like she is the founder of misogyny herself. So not only are we ridiculed for the music we make, we're trapped in transphobic expectations of what music we can or should make.

If you expect all trans women to make metal, you'll only see trans women who make metal, if you expect all trans men to make soft music, that's all you'll find! because that's all you looked for! Another thing is like, Oh all trans women music is cool and hardcore rock and roll, but trans men music is dumb and cutsie ukulele music? I wonder what gender those genres are normally associate with? Uhoh we're doing a sexism maybe the person making the joke doesn't have malicious intent, but the joke itself sure does.