#like she was a lesbian the whole time but considered him a genuinely good pal 😭
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slashersweethearts · 2 months ago
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every time i ponder the meliwes orb i get a little emo out of guilt. i am so sorry white boy wes n i say this as melina’s #1 defender she did NOT deserve that boy 😭
#what if YOU đŸ«” befriended ur frenemy’s (n thats a kind way to put it) ex gf post breakup#bc she hit ur dms on some ‘im going thru it and ur the only 1 ik who wouldnt be biased against me bc u n amber arent close’#knowing you would feel bad for her#n then she female manipulated u into developing a crush on her and shooting ur shot and believing that was YOUR idea#n u were w this girl for 3 months. first ever girlfriend mind u#shes super sweet super affectionate gets on well w ur mom top tier absolute sweetheart#for the first time in all ur 17 yrs u even get to feel a tidd-*i am SHOT*#then ghostface rolls back up and ur girl gets stabbed thru the shoulder literally on day 1 after the massacre starts#ur already paranoid and now ur FR SCARED bc ghostface almost got ur bitch!#and then ghostface gets YOU (and unbeknownst to u ur momma)#n even when ur abt to die ur still scared for ur girl
#and turns out the same girl WAS the ghostface who put a knife thru ur neck and she aint even love u#and just used u to get back into the group to be around her ex again and then killed u at her command the min she offered to get back w her#imagine that. well wes hicks does NOT have to imagine bc thats wtf HAPPENED to him!#tbf melina feels incredibly guilty for it n his death haunts her like. BAD. but girl
yk he aint do shit to u 😭#like she was a lesbian the whole time but considered him a genuinely good pal 😭#yk that boy innocent n aint deserve allat but amber satan freeman says stab him n melina says yes my queen i live 2 serve u what can i do-#like i love melina w all my heart n i will defend her always but i cant get behind this. she was foul for that 😭#what toxic yuri does to a mf#— ♡ đ˜€đ˜¶đ˜±đ˜Șđ˜„'𝘮 đ˜€đ˜ąđ˜­đ˜­đ˜Ș𝘯𝘹 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘱 đ˜©đ˜°đ˜źđ˜Șđ˜€đ˜Șđ˜„đ˜Š! // melina bates.#— ship: meliwes.#— slasherverse posting.#— ➮ 𝘱 đ˜Žđ˜žđ˜Šđ˜Šđ˜” 𝘭đ˜Șđ˜”đ˜”đ˜­đ˜Š 𝘭đ˜Ș𝘩 (đ˜€đ˜łđ˜ș 𝘾𝘰𝘭𝘧 đ˜€đ˜łđ˜ș.) // meliwes.
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bloodyshadow1 · 4 years ago
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just finished Alanna’s route and I gotta say, I’d give it a C, it wasn’t bad, but I didn’t see a lot of good either.  There was so much crammed in as much as possible between the Society (that we barely get to see anything of), Time travel (which is fine but done pretty poorly with little buildup or fanfare or explanation), Immortals (like time travel, a decent story enough on it’s own, but only mentioned in the final 3rd of the story and barely talked about afterward), and Magic power stones (pretty vague power system that no one seems interested in telling the MC about) it feels like they accidently threw 4 darts at the idea board this time and never bothered to throw again.  It’s such a mess that the MC has to take on faith without ever being given a real reason to side with the Circle over anyone else other than her ex girlfriend is part of it and they hate her dad.  It’s so quick and it doesn’t ever feel like the right decision at least to me since you spend so little time with the Circle even as background characters to Alanna’s story.
Alanna as a character is kind of meh for me overall.  Physically her design is fine, seems cute more than hot or sexy, but sort of bland and generic.  there are other cute love interests that never felt this generic, she feels like she should be the sister or best friend character instead of the love interest of the MC.  It doesn’t help that by making her the MC’s ex returned, we know little to nothing about her, so much of a romance arc is missing because even if the MC knows, we the player don’t know what’s so great about Alanna.  All of Alanna’s character feels told instead of shown, the MC seems to worship the ground she walks on, but the actual story leaves much to be desired because we don’t really see her do anything super charming or amazingly skilled.  She’s pretty, but she’s not even the most beautiful woman in her route much less London or the world. I could understand why the MC would love her since she’s still hung up on her, so I could believe it if I took the story with a grain of salt, but the fact that her personality seems to be she’s so charming and everyone loves her without every truly delivering on such claims makes her whole route fall even flatter than it’s plot led to. The fact that the MC slept with her right away as a â€˜palette cleanser’ was sort of interesting, but it still felt like being told about her, nothing about what she and the MC had gone through felt like she was so irresistible that the MC would need to get her out of her system, because we don’t know anything really about her relationship with Alanna.  And that’s a big problem to her selling points as a love interest
  We don’t know all the stories the MC has with Alanna, especially if they only dated for 2 months, the audience/player/readers, need to understand why the MC is in love with their love interest besides the route being named after them, by making their entire relationship when they first fell in love we miss all of that and are left with empty feelings and gestures between the two of them. The little back and forths between them about their past are okay to start with, but nothing about Alanna as a character from her 12 chapters makes me believe that she’s so lovely the MC can overlook her massive flaws and go along with her very unpersuasive desire to have the MC join them to help the world.  Her depression and feelings of helplessness after 200 years was interesting, but it felt like it came too late.  I’m actually really glad the MC called her out on her bullshit, by the end of her first chapter, I get a bit of where she’s coming from, but what Alanna did to the MC was fucked up and she doesn’t get to just pretend it never happened.
Plot wise, the story is a mess, like Alanna, so much of the story is told to the MC and she’s supposed to take it on faith that the Circle is somehow more morally right than the rest of the Society.  It fails because the Circle has barely any real character, they have interesting traits that if they were around more to make me care about them as something other than the vehicle to do the time travel and nothing more.  In so many routes, you’re introduced to all your love interests at the same time and they’re already a group, while you spend the most time with your love interest, you get to know most of the characters as people outside of their routes, but the rest of the Circle is pretty bland.  Not to mention that the Society is built up as this big maybe evil maybe just powerful and in the wrong hands thing..., but you barely interact with them at all.  The only people tell  the MC and her brother that the Society is bad is the Circle who are actively members of it and nothing about what they say or do makes me feel like they’re any more trust worthy than the rest of the society except most of them are going to be future love interests.  In Alanna’s route, the only member of the Society not in the Circle that has a unique character portrait is Arabella and she’s kind of a more interesting character with a more sympathetic story than the Circle. We hear about how corrupt and morally bankrupt the higher ups in the Society are, and we know the MC hates her dad, who seems to be considered the worst, but aside from being a bit stuff and arrogant, (much like the wealthy elite of our world) we don’t see much evil, and it confuses me if the Circle wants to bring down the Society or try and take control of it for the greater good without much of a reason to trust them.
The Immortal plot point fell flat to me, like the story basically skipped over the time travel plot device by making it literally a this happens and barely talk about it, but adding the Immortality plot felt unneeded in a narrative that needed a lot more structure, not irons in the fire.  I feel like if Alanna/your love interest was the only one of the Circle that was immortal other than the Elites of the Society it would have made a better route to go.  Having an immortal character in your romantic story is fertile ground, they could be a tragic figure, a figure who is hedonistic and loving their immortality, etc, there are plenty of ways to go, an immortal character with a bunch of their pals who are already incredibly powerful and have a vague sense of goodness about them, makes it feel far from a curse or whatever they’re trying to portray it here.  It could have also been introduced better to the MC by say meeting Arabella in the present day and being shocked by seeing her and needing confirmation from the Circle or Alanna, instead of Alanna dropping it in a mood to the MC.  
Overall, it felt to complicated of a story to tell with all the moving pieces that didn’t deliver on any of them sadly.  the whole story felt like it was a mix between Queen of Thieves and Astoria Fates Kiss, without the charms of either the story or the characters, replacing Greek Mythology with time travel.  I will also say, it the plot made me kind of uncomfortable with how a bunch of mostly white young adults have decided to be judge and jury throughout time with the first antagonist being a powerful black lesbian in london 200 years ago, and we only have their word that something is afoot.  I know that she actually was doing bad stuff, but the Circle is just a vigilante group with no actual authority and using time travel as their own means of policing people and if it wasn’t a simplistic romance story disguised as a scifi fantasy story, I feel like more nuance would have saved it.
The good parts: Alanna’s route for Immortal Hearts Society wasn’t all bad, I  I will admit I am probably overly harsh since I just finished it.  I actually really enjoyed the both the Female and Male MC character designs, they both were surprisingly interesting compared to a lot of MC’s.  I really did enjoy the MC for the most part and I liked her relationship with her brother, most of the time I’ve seen sibling relationships in Lovestruck they’re fine but don’t tend to have much actual conflict, just superficial.  But I like that the MC loves her brother, but burned her bridges with him to keep him safe, she regrets what she had to do but not what happened which is a pretty interesting take.  Alanna was enjoyable as a love interest in the beginning, but as the story got more and more convoluted, it felt like she didn’t have much actual character.  I do have a soft spot for the Circle characters, except for the two current love interests, I’m more annoyed that we didn’t get to see and interact with them more, especially since it looks like they’ll be future love interests if the pattern holds.  It was a fine story and I know I’m being overly harsh, but it just felt underdone instead of bad, which tends to make it worse in my mind because the lost potential is frustrating. 
 I wouldn’t mind continuing if the writing got tighter next season, I’ll still give it a try.  I would very much like an Arabella route before anyone else, she has such a gorgeous design and despite not seeing a huge amount of her character being a warm genuinely kind person stuck between a rock and a hard place for her family was an interesting take instead of making her one of the many false sweethearts in Queen of Thieves that stab you in the back.  I also think that if she still is around in modern day she would have fit the story as a love interest better than Alanna. 
Not sure if anyone is going to bother to read this but it feels good to get it out.  Maybe you think I’m full of shit and I’m fine with that, maybe you love Alanna and she’s your favorite love interest.  I’m sorry you read this because I don’t want anyone to feel bad, this is simply how I feel after reading the first chapter
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fuzzbuns · 4 years ago
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Can we get your ramblings on comphet Nyaa-chan?
idk why I keep getting anons who wanna open up the Pandora's box that is my mind but like I would literally LOVE to talk about comphet nyaa so I will!!!!
(under a read more tho cuz this is gonna be long once again)
Before I start I just wanna say: I’m a lesbian and I'm gonna be talking about from my own personal perspective/ experience so obviously there is gonna be some bias and projection going on (Also I’m assuming everyone who is reading this knows what comphet means/is but if not comphet stands for compulsory heterosexuality). I don’t think Oso staff was literally making an episode to comment on comphet (I refuse to give Oso staff more credit than they deserve) so this is probably all accidental but I'm obsessed with reading the episode this way because I think it just fits so well and also totonyaa.
So let’s start with when Nyaa notices Oso. When we first see Nyaa interacting with Oso she honestly seems pretty guarded. She is glad that he saved her baby but she quickly pulls her kid away from him and gives him an awkward nod as if she is saying â€œok thanks but now you can go”. However, the second her baby seems to show an interest in Oso (reaching out for him because his big brother charm is just so strong...) Nyaa’s reaction shifts. She keeps and eye on Oso while they are at the park and when he leaves she laughs to herself. 
This is the first aspect of comphet I want to dive into. From personal experience, I found that a lot of the “crushes” I developed on men usually stemmed from the thought â€œomg he is so funny lol”. To this day, the only fictional men I end up interested in are ones that make me laugh. Nyaa seems to be doing something really similar here. When she and Totoko are talking about Osomatsu she says:
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In the beginning the only real opinion she can form about Osomatsu is that he is funny. When Totoko presses her for more Nyaa isn’t able to offer up much other than â€œyou know”. She is interested in him because he is funny and she wants to get to know him more because he is funny. It’s really easy to mistake these feelings of thinking someone’s funny as endearment and attraction even when it isn’t that deep. You can tell it’s not that deep because Nyaa can’t explain to Totoko what about him is so great. And lets be real... its not like Osomatsu is a super hot guy and Nyaa is just being superficial...... she’s not infatuated with him because of looks.... Whatever it is that is attracting her to him has to be his personality but she doesn’t know much about him outside of him being good with kids and funny. She just runs into him now and then and is interested in knowing more.
Totoko goes on to tell Nyaa that he has issues to which Nyaa pretty much responses to with â€œepic. I like him,”. We end up seeing Nyaa do this a lot. Totoko and the others will point out undesirable things about Osomatsu to which, in response to, Nyaa will just re-affirm that she likes him. We will get into this more later when its more relevant but liking unattainable men is textbook comphet. Also the way she says â€œI like him” kinda sounds unsure. Like as much as she is trying to convince Totoko, she is also trying to talk herself into it. It’s ok if Osomatsu has issues because she has already decided that he was going to be the guy she likes. 
Totoko goes on warning Nyaa and we see on Nyaas face that she is getting annoyed. If you wanna go full totonyaa here then you could argue its because Nyaa is wondering why Totoko won’t just say â€œdate me instead” but like.......... i would never argue that lol..... me??? no..... haha.........................................unle-
So Nyaa is getting annoyed and starts bickering with Totoko like they usually do and from here on I would argue Nyaa is purposely trying to piss Totoko off. She says she was â€œjust sort of interested in him” and goes on to say you dont know what kind of person they will be unless you date them (not true at all queen). Totoko tells her that’s stupid and this REALLY upsets Nyaa. It almost feels like Nyaa was trying to make an excuse for why she should date Osomatsu even if she wasn’t totally into the idea. Comphet makes you think that maybe if you try hard enough, even if you don’t feel anything now, eventually you’ll have to feel something romantic for a guy. Totoko shooting this idea down is essentially ruining that excuse for Nyaa. So she angrily says: 
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Which......... if I were... like a totonyaa....... enthusiast... I could say like.... This is Nyaa basically doing the classic â€œwhy do you care about who I date” thing...... that would be crazy tho haha.............................unles-
I also think Nyaa saying â€œchoose” is interesting (tho I'm aware I'm going off translations and she might not actually be wording it like that) because with comphet you literally are choosing who you fall in love with. 
Totoko responds: 
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And its clear that Nyaa is escalating her attraction to Osomatsu out of no where. In this scene alone we have gone from â€œhe is funny” to â€œI like him” to â€œI was just sort of interested” to â€œlove” even tho nothing has happened to change her feelings. She is escalating because Totoko keeps shooting her down and in order to reaffirm her feelings she has to make them more intense. She is also pissing off Totoko in the process. We see it again when she goes:
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I’ve been joking about it but like... totonyaa goggles on... she is clearly doing this to annoy Totoko and get her attention. The way this line is delivered makes it so clear that she is not actually interested in getting Osomatsus number. She wants Totoko’s attention. The next frame is literally her smirking at her phone as Totoko starts panicking. Nyaa likes having Totoko’s attention and the best way to get it is to bicker with her. She is choosing a guy Totoko clearly does not like (I mean I think Totoko and Osomatsu are pals but like she knows he’s a P.O.S) and continues to egg her on about it to keep having Totoko telling her to not date him. Another key aspect of Comphet is trying to constantly get the attention of other girls. Plus, speaking from personal experience, talking about a “crush” you have on a boy with the girl you are actually interested in and having them tell you no feels nice and when I was little and the ceo of comphet I would do it constantly. 
So Totoko gets the brothers involved and Nyaa seems uncomfortable and less into the conversation (probably cuz its no longer just between her and Totoko but that's just me). Her tone is less confrontational and more just confused. It’s almost as if she feels the point of the conversation isn’t there anymore. None of these opinions matter to her. What she said to Choro was harsh but she had a point. She doesn’t know these people!! She wanted to talk with Totoko about this. However, she doesn’t seem to keep that same attitude with Osomatsu? Like what makes Osomatsu any different from Choro? 
She ends up asking everyone to leave and saying:
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Once again she is using the word â€œchose”. She is stating she loves him despite not knowing anything about him besides his crimes against humanity (Which she agrees to that being vile so????). It really feels like she is just being stubborn. She said she likes him so stop confronting her about it because the more holes you poke in her story the more she has to try and convince herself that she genuinely likes him despite her knowing deep down that she doesn’t.
So fast forward to the night they all get together. That part about her liking a man that is unattainable is showcased here in full force. 
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She loves the idea that he does not give a shit about her. The idea that he isn’t interested just makes her like him more. I can not overstate how textbook comphet this is. When the guy you picked to like turns out to not be interested in you; that is the best scenario a closeted lesbian could imagine. You get to keep “pinning” over a guy and playing the part of a straight girl without the pressure of acting on it. He isn’t interested so you are never put into a situation where you have to prove that you are. All the things he does that show that he isn’t even considering her (like not fixing his bed head and literally going after Totoko instead) are things she loves. The more disinterested he seems, the more perfect he is. This reaches its peak when Oso literally doesn’t even remember her and she says:
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The idea of Osomatsu not even being bothered to remember the moment they met literally has her rolling on the ground lol. 
Osomatsu jokingly askes Nyaa if she is interested in him. She gets really quiet. Obviously this could be read as embarrassment and its probably what was intended. However, continuing with the comphet theme it could also be her realizing that she has to make a choice. She’s interacting with Osomatsu now and he’s (jokingly) flirting with her. She can’t keep acting like he is unattainable at this point so she prepares herself. He jokingly asks her out and she says yes without hesitation, confirming that she would like to date him and even adding a â€œplease”. Because... this is what she wants right? She has been arguing for this the whole time and she was finally given the chance. Why should she say no? This is the beginning of the end.
We see Totoko and Oso having a drink (and she looks so pretty in this scene I fall to the ground and die). Totoko leaves and her body languages looks so emotionally exhausted. If I were a totonyaa enjoyer I would say â€œshe told Osomatsu that she loves Nyaa but wants to see her happy”............... oso staff DIDN’T PUT ANY DIALOUGE IN SO ITS MY CITY NOW-
We see nyaa excited for her date and picking out clothes because!!! this is what she wanted!!!!! she fell in love and got a date! everything is going perfect!
Then she wakes up.
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She is startled. Whatever she realized in her dream it was a lot to unpack. mayhaps... a dream about toto-
She sits up and you can tell from her body language that she is really reevaluating. Her feelings vanished over night. She can’t shake the feeling that something is missing. Even though everything is going right and she should be excited and happy, she isn’t. Something is wrong. It’s like the second it hit her that she actually has to go on the date and that Osomatsu is showing interest, she loses any interest in him that she had. She liked the idea of going on a date but the second it starts looming in and becoming a reality she can’t do it. 
When Nyaa apologizes and turns Osomatsu down you can tell she is embarrassed. 
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She runs away, unable to face him, knowing that its her fault. See, if she woke up and was like â€œoh shit he IS a P.O.S” I don't think she would be so apologetic. But she is. She is apologizing for leading him on and knows that she can’t keep up the façade anymore. She knows she caused him a lot of trouble feels miserable.
So to sum it up: Nyaa was in love with the idea of having a guy to pine over. She liked that Osomatsu was an unattainable guy and that being interested in him annoyed Totoko and made her pay attention to her. But the second things got real and she actually had to go out with him, she couldn’t follow through. This can all be explained by comphet and I would even argue its like one of the only explanations for the ending that makes sense but I might just be bias. 
also I think Totoko and Nyaa should just make out...... Happy Valentines day!
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reading-while-queer · 5 years ago
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This month on Reading While Queer, I’m doing something a little different! In order to try to direct more attention toward indie web fiction and short stories, I’ll be doing a series of Indie Spotlights like this one.  This month’s review covers two short stories, both queer retellings of folktales, both free to read online.  The first is â€œWith Roses in Their Hair” by Ennis Bashe, a retelling of Tam Lin.  The second is â€œTristan” by Lucy Hughes-Hallett, a retelling of Tristan and Isolde.
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Rating: Great Read Genre: Short Story, Fantasy, Science Fiction Representation: -Lesbian protagonist & love interest Trigger warnings: Violence, injury, body horror, parental abuse metaphor, colonialism metaphor Note: Just on the edge of being YA-appropriate, but on the sexual side.
“With Roses in Their Hair” is an f/f retelling of Tam Lin, the Scottish folktale about a woman who rescues her love from the Queen of the Fairies.  Bashe’s spin on the original tale takes place in an apocalyptic world which has been reorganized by the Visitors - aliens with a striking similarity to fae, both in nomenclature (even calling themselves changelings, etc) and in the fae-like laws they rule themselves by.  The Visitors control how many humans can enter a public place, issue identical clothing and rations to all, and are only opposed by the small resistance living underground in the subways.
I found this premise delightful, if confusing at first.  Reconciling the many names the Visitors have for themselves (Visitors, changelings, fairies) with the fact that humans can also have fairy wings (though mechanical), and differentiating clearly between the two factions, took some time.  I liked that Bashe didn’t hold the reader’s hand, which would have been more unpleasant than taking the time to untangle the threads of worldbuilding myself. 
The Visitors are one of the best visualizations of aliens that I have read - the fae interpretation is ingenious, and really drives home their fundamental difference, making the Visitors much more frightening. These aliens are so strange that they aren’t even governed by the same physical and chemical laws as humans are - rather, their version of the laws of physics are the laws of deal-keeping.  Shape-shifting and light-bending they can do, breaking a bargain they cannot. The magic-science of this world is accomplished beautifully, reminding me a little of Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer, but ultimately, all its own.
Sometimes Bashe’s worldbuilding, beautiful as it is, does not quite support its own weight - it is a very rich sci-fi world built on fragile stilts.  As much as I love how sparing the stilts are, the richer the world, the more stilts you need, or else the reader ends up having a decidedly Fantasia-like experience.  I was delighted by the style of the story, the on-the-page description of the Visitors, of Jennet, the human resistance fighter, and of Tamburlaine, the changeling she falls in love with.  The old subway car that Jennett calls home, the horses made from light-constructs - I could go on.  But we were missing a few stilts, and so I was never really sure of the rules, or why what I was reading was happening.  Part of this is a problem of adaptation.  Bashe sometimes leans on the reader’s prior familiarity with the Tam Lin folktale in order to patch issues of character motivation.  “Why does the Queen of the Fairies do x?” is not so much addressed by the story itself as by the context of being a retelling.  The Queen of the Fairies acts as she does because that’s what the Queen of the Fairies does in the original story.
Despite scattered motivation and worldbuilding issues, what makes the original Tam Lin a compelling and timeless story shines through in this retelling as well.  I wasn’t sure about the hard sci-fi pivot to an alien invasion story, but I came to really appreciate that angle and what it brings to the table.  Rather than humans and fae being two separate, parallel worlds which find themselves at odds over Tamburlaine, the alien invasion adds a colonial aspect to the story.  Fae-aliens with seemingly nonsensical laws, violations of which are punished swiftly and ruthlessly, make a brilliant allegory for settler colonialism.  A culturally strange group of invaders may as well be aliens - or the fae! Or both! The allegory is there if you choose to see it, but nothing more than a gentle undertone, which was accomplished well.  
The romance between Jennet and Tam is well-developed, with a natural-feeling progression that is difficult to accomplish in short form.  However, in a short story with so much ground to cover, it’s no surprise that it has taken me until the end of the review to even consider the romance.  There is so much to sink your teeth into, that “With Roses in Their Hair” hardly needs to be a romance at all.  In fact, my favorite parts of the story had nothing to do with Jennett and Tamburlaine’s growing feelings for each other.  The value in this story is multi-faceted: between the romance, the parental abuse metaphor of the relationship between the changelings and the Visitors, the colonialism metaphor of the alien invasion, and the retelling of Tam Lin, one could even say “With Roses in Their Hair” is a shape-shifter itself.
“With Roses in Their Hair” is free to read on Xanwest, here.
For more from Ennis Bashe, visit their website here. 
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Rating: Great Read Genre: Short Story, Literary Fiction Representation: -Bisexual leading characters Trigger warnings: Ableism & ableist slurs, drug abuse Note: Contains overt sexuality, not YA
“Tristan” is a short story billed as “Tristan and Isolde but make it queer” - that tagline is what got me to click the link to Electric Lit where the story is hosted.  However, “Tristan” is a lot more than a retelling.  Rather than a straightforward retelling of the medieval romance between the knight Tristan and the princess Isolde, “Tristan” takes a left turn into “She’s All That” territory.
Hughes-Hallett sets the tale in the modern day with quippy dialogue that brings to mind British romantic comedy of the early 00s.  This literary style makes an amount of sense, considering the 00s were well and truly laden with rom-com retellings of English literature, from George Bernard Shaw to Shakespeare.  “Tristan” slips easily into a “pop” style of storytelling without sacrificing any of its poetry, making for a very interesting read. The trimmings of the modern retelling - from Tristan doing a tab of acid in the park to his boss-slash-boyfriend Cornwall running a private museum of antiquities - were fun, and they provide a sharp complement to the meat of the story, which is more pensive study on the nature of love than rom-com.
As much as I liked “Tristan,” I had a bad first impression.  The story opens with an extended scene of expository dialogue between Tristan and Cornwall as they arrange for Tristan to pick up Cornwall’s wife-to-be, Isolde, from the airport.  Dialogue is “Tristan”’s Achilles heel, an obvious and fatal weakness that almost made me write off the whole story. There is an invasion of poetic (convoluted?) language in the dialogue that breaks suspension of disbelief, and between the poetry and the lack of any dialogue tags to offer tone cues, one is led to read the dialogue as stiffly-acted soliloquy.  What are the characters doing? How are they speaking? Do they exist in the world, or are they standing center stage? The real crĂšme de la crĂšme of my initial dislike of “Tristan” was not the style of dialogue, however, but the content.  Within the first page, Tristan questions why Isolde needs to be picked up from the airport - is she [insert ableist slur]? How about [other ableist slur]?  Some aspects of the quippy, sarcastic 00s I could do without.
I continued to be underwhelmed by Hughes-Hallett’s dialogue throughout “Tristan,” but this was almost entirely made up for by the remarkable writing of every other part of the story.  First, the premise itself defied my expectations for a queer retelling of Tristan and Isolde.  The passionate romance between Tristan and Isolde is not gender-bent to make it between two WLW or MLM; rather, Tristan himself is bisexual, and Cornwall’s casual lover before Isolde enters the picture.  Where our story begins, Cornwall doesn’t like how attached Tristan is getting to him, and is ready to settle down with Isolde, his email pen-pal who he’s never met.  I was genuinely delighted by this creative choice as an interpretation of the “how to queer medieval literature” exercise.  It doesn’t take the easy way out, and recognizes that the value of a bisexual character doesn’t lie only in stories of same-gender romance.
I also liked that “Tristan” wasn’t a romance, not really.  Despite the similarities one can draw to the 00s rom-com (for good and ill), the meat of the story is not feel-good fluff at all, but a discussion of passion versus love: a prolonged meditation on loving someone who ostensibly loves you back, but whose feelings do not compare.  This discussion peeks through Hughes-Hallett’s beautifully detailed work; from intriguing descriptions of the antiquities in Cornwall’s gallery, to the otherworldly presence of Isolde, to the skillful weave of one sentence to the next, “Tristan” is scattered with gems.  One must only sift through the sand.
As a retelling, “Tristan” more than accomplishes its goal of “Tristan and Isolde but make it queer” - it also asks the reader to think about the very genre of romance.  Tristan and Isolde being a 12th century romance that is so culturally ubiquitous as to have mothered the Arthurian tradition and captivated the imagination for centuries since, it was the perfect groundwork for the story about the nature of love that Hughes-Hallett wanted to tell, (with characters that just happened to be queer.)
“Tristan” is free to read on Electric Lit, here.
For more from Lucy Hughes-Hallett, visit her website here.
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