#stories where the characters are queer and its not a big deal they just Are

[screamingsquamousthings]

i <3 queernormative settings reblog if you love queernormative settings

[namtanlovesfilm]

burnout syndrome: everything we know & my guesses

since burnout syndrome seems to be in its very early stages of development, here is what we know & certain of my plot point guesses:

while the show is written by jittirain (who wrote theory of love), it does not come from one of her novels. it will therefore be an original script made for this series.

offgun must have had some details about doing this show for about 6 months, since off has worked out very intensely almost every day since then (since p'nuchie required it for this role), and it also coincides with gun saying that off would have a six pack next year. I believe offgun had a knowledge that their next show would be more mature & sexual, which is when p'nuchie got brought in, and I believe dew arrived later as the third one in the love triangle, around the same time jittirain signed on.

p'nuchie working with offgun again is surprising considering her previous treatment by gmmtv (cutting her budget repeatedly & not promoting not me at all despite p'nuchie being a big deal director), however it is not THAT surprising since not me was by far her most popular & mainstream project, and she has always had a soft spot for gun with whom she has worked repeatedly. she also seems quite close to off.

now, for the plot: we do not know any character's name or much about them at all, which is why this project really seems to still be in its infancy. I would not expect an early 2025 release... I think this will be an end of the year release à la not me & cooking crush.

gun seems to play a poor character compared to white in not me, while off plays a rich character compared to sean in not me... it's a role reversal! gun's character seems to be the struggling artist type, and an openly queer character. he's basically yok from not me (yes I'm keeping the not me comparisons bc there's a LOT!) he's down to do any odd job for money which is how he meets off's character. he seems quite daring & confident, while also a bit introverted & in his own world.

off's character definitely has todd vibes for me (and not just bc that pool kiss scene reminded me of the first toddblack confrontation lol). he seems to be a businessman but is very shady. he is described as a "bad boy" by emi's character, and he hires gun to be his "stand-in"... but he's still in the same room, dictating everything to him?? he says he doesn't like people, but what does it mean exactly? does he have a phobia of people? then in this case, why is he going outside so easily? all of these questions will be answered once the script will be fully written imo. I think that, just like not me, the mock trailer & final show will be very different but evoke the same vibe & characters. in any case, off's character is highly intriguing, he's clearly a red flag & kind of a weirdo, and I can't wait to know more!

next we have dew's character, who is a fortune teller? probably not as a job but as a hobby? (side note, I find it funny that so many gmmtv 2025 featured fortune tellers & psychics lol.) although I feel like choosing dew for the role bc they seem to make him want to seem a soft nerd against off's character who's possessive & rough is kind of a miscast bc since dew is SO tall he just doesn't give off these kinds of vibes imo, I'm quite interested in this love triangle. both dew & gun seem to like each other, and gun's tears when dew leaves are giving SERIOUS "in love" vibes. HOWEVER, gun's character definitely has a strong attraction for off & uses him as his artistic muse... the last quote of the trailer is "if one day he has a heart... I can love him, right?" indicating that off's character has shown gun that he has no heart but gun falls for him anyways... I JUST WANNA KNOW THE BACK STORY FOR THESE CHARACTERS SO BAD BC I KNOW IT'S GONNA HIT SO HARD!!! but to get back to dew, I really wanna know where he fits into this story, because...

this is almost guaranteed to be an offgun endgame. I say almost bc there's always the possibility of it being a poly endgame but let's be for real, I don't see dewoff having any chemistry lol (though they can surprise me, I didn't think dew would have romantic chemistry with gun either!) but the fact that offgun have been a stable ship for 9 years, that they came out on stage from a different platform than dew, the positioning in the poster... and also everything in the trailer indicates that they are endgame. I'm curious to see what happens to dew then though lol, we shall see.

I'm very curious about emi's role. she obviously played gun's sister in the trainee, and now she plays his best friend so she's now the only actor who has been featured in 2 offgun shows with sing, especially back to back lol! seeing how there's only 5 characters shown for now & she was in the main actors list alongside offgundew... I think she'll have a big role, but I have no idea what it can be. in any case, I stan!

lastly for the characters, we have thor, who I'm also really intrigued by. we know he works in burnout bar but WHAT is burnout bar? why do they match random people by numbers? does everyone who comes there needs to be burned out? as a background place for the show, this bar is interesting & reminds me of the one in the jungle (which also featured off!) I wonder if we'll see off in that bar, even though it's been established as dewgun's place in the mock trailer, it's too central to the story to keep its main character out of it for the whole show. I'm hoping thor has a bigger role than just the bartender lol.

in conclusion, a lot of things are very vague about this show, which is a bit frustrating bc I WANNA KNOW MORE, but also really nice bc it means that, compared to certain other shows from gmmtv 2025, we won't be spoiled most of the story by the trailer :) also I'm betting that they will add one or two other cast members, but they haven't written the show yet so all of the characters aren't fleshed out yet. anyways, I can't wait! 💚💚💚

EDIT: turns out I have more to say lol

so I was looking at the poster closely while editing my thumbnail for my gmmtv 2025 reaction video, and I noticed something:

the whole poster is in red tones: the background, the title, the lighting in their hair... and their clothes... EXCEPT for dew's shirt.

although this is just a mock poster & once again, the show will likely evolve once the script is written, the visual story telling of this poster is extremely interesting!

dew's shirt is light blue compared to the rest of the poster which is overwhelmingly red. blue represents calm and peace, which seems in line with the little we have seen from dew's character so far.

gun's shirt is pink. in terms of value, him & dew both have lighter colored shirts, but in different families. dew's blue is a cold color while gun's pink is a warm color.

now onto off, who has a dark red shirt. in terms of value, his is completely different from both dew and gun's, which also fits the little of his character we've seen. he is called a "bad boy" and "chaos" in this trailer after all, which fits the darker red color well. however, in terms of color family, off & gun are more in line bc they're both wearing a shade of red which is a warm color. since this show will clearly hinge on their sexual desire for one another, this makes sense. and since the poster unity is in the red, which IS the color of passion, sex, and violence, it is clear that offgun are the main pairing of this show, with off's hand on gun's head while dew is only passively touching gun by being close to him.

although red is the color of violence, I don't think there will be much physical violence in this show, as the trailer didn't hint for it at all. although I wouldn't be surprised we get a scene of off & dew sparring to stay in line with the classic bl love triangle tropes. though since dew is much taller than off, I wonder how they'd make it look like a fair fight lmao.

anyways, back to the poster. by having gun & dew's clothes in the same value which is light, as well as dew snuggling to gun's heart, we can infere that gun will first like dew. after all, we meet dew before off in the trailer, and it seems to be the same for gun's character. dew is the "good guy" in this show, the one that "makes sense", where things are "easy." however, his clothes ARE in a different color family as gun's. blue is calm, but it's also cold. which is why dew seems to be able to walk away from his job with off, and more importantly, gun, in the trailer.

but for off, whose clothes are darker than gun, showing his "bad" side, he is at least in the same color family as gun's. we see in the trailer that gun has a lot of sexual desire for off, which is clear with the drawing he does of him where off's genitals are OUT and he's touching himself:

side note - I'm gonna need the full nude scene to include the moment off touches himself while gun dies in a sea of desire bc I genuinely think this will be the peak of queer cinema. yok in not me said nude drawing isn't sexual? make it. please p'nuchie, make it sexual in burnout syndrome 🙏

second side note - damn they made off's waist so snatched in that drawing, I love it 😏

ANYWAYS to conclude: we have offgun showing so much more visual cohesion in this poster, which really makes me think this will not be a full love triangle (in a poly way) but a show where the logical suitor (dew) gets overtaken by the chaotic, messy one (off.) now, how are they going to make it make sense and make us root for the bad boy? idk & I CANNOT wait!

although I do think that having dew (light blue) and off (dark red) have some sort of gay scene together WOULD make sense, and it would even more make sense that they wouldn't work bc they're literal opposites in everything, creating even more stakes in the love triangle.

that's it, I've ruled out that I don't want a poly ship or any trio scene, I want offdew having hooked up in the past & it haunting them LMAO

[asraindarkness]

If it’s okay, not necessarily BuckTommy but -

This season feels SO weird. It’s even weirder because for the first time they had a long time to plan it - they knew they were renewed for a Season 8 early into Season 7. So much so that, for the first time, they let the season end with a cliffhanger. Multiple, even.

And they they dropped all of them in a rushed and unsatisfactory way. If they didn’t want S7’s plots to continue on to 8, they could’ve ended them in S7. Never bring Ortiz or Gerard back. But instead, they went with the oddest choice and created a nice cliffhanger, only to disappoint pretty much everyone.

But for me it’s more than that. It’s also the way the characters don’t always feel like them. You’re telling me Buck never went into a deep dive about queer history or rights when he discovered he’s bi?? that Maddie would make the making men gay comment?? that Chimney wouldn’t talk to Hen about the possible second pregnancy?? I could go on and on.

And the dynamics also feel… broken. We barely have friendship moments, at all. Buddie this season feels weird, like Eddie doesn’t really want to be bothered by Buck. Hen and Chim are barely communicating. The firefam doesn’t have moments outside of emergencies (save that montage of them asking Bobby for help).

It feels like the writers have stopped knowing how to write these characters and their dynamics. And for me the found family that I fell in love with at first watch feels gone, you know?

i’ve been saying this since s6!

like aren’t they tried of keep writing buck the same all the time??? he doesn’t get promoted on his job that he’s fucking good at it, they had a kind of story about it when buck wanted to be captain in s6 and then bridge fall happened and buck was a fucking powerhouse in it and i thought they finally gonna show buck more that just a young goofy firefighter that thinks on his feet, show them he’s a leader but then they dropped it.

he doesn’t get into lasting relationship and is always chasing one and apparently now he’s gonna forget his character’s growth and gonna be right back in s1. it’s like buck’s always gonna be the boyish bratt they made in s1 when he was 25/6 not a 33yo man!

eddie can’t fucking move on for 6/7 years and tries constantly to make a mom out of everything woman he dates but now a confession and a random priest apparently healed him like he was possessed not fucking mentally traumatized!

madney are most of the times are dealing with doug that comes out like random jump scares. maddie had 2 stories last season both was about her trauma with him. yes you can’t heal from something like that for a long time or possibly never but for god’s sake that woman raised his brother as his own child when she was still a child herself and what did 911 do with this part of her? NOTHING

and you don’t need me talk about hemren’s endless suffering

and where is athena’s children???

it’s been a mess since s6 but now it’s wors cuz tim starts writing 5 minutes before they start shooting. i said it 100 times the only thing good about s7 was buck’s bi arc. they make a big deal out of problems and solve them in most childish ways in the same episode!

i know it’s basically a soap opera but ffs it’s not a fantasy. they pulled dead wife no.2 cuz it’s a soap but in what word a child can land a plane?

honestly after i reed that tim rewatched the whole thing before writing for bi buck i was sure the show gonna back to its root where chim and hen are besties and hen and athena spend time together etc etc, but apparently all he got from that is abby had a boyfriend named tommy

[caw4brandon]

How to End a Story

Stories are often told through two styles. It's either a recollection of something that has already happened. Or, it's an ongoing event happening to the character's life.

The story can be told through just one main character or multiple characters but like all stories. They have to end. Let's discuss the ending of three shows that I recently watched. (I'll try not to get into the spoilers)

- They're Not just Frogs -

< Amphibia > by Matt Braly; follows three girls; Anne, Sasha and Marcy who stole a mysterious music box that transported them into another world of talking frogs, toads, newts and other horrifying monsters.

Our main character is Anne Boonchuy who found her temporary home with the Plantars; Hop Pop, Sprig and Polly. A small family of frogs who took Anne in and helped her better understand the world. The show is good at using little segments to build the world. Such as a mind manipulation sentient spore, the divisions between the main races and the mystery behind the music box.

Story-wise, the show tried to make the flow of events happen at a nicer pace. Season 1 was used on Anne to better understand the world and how things have changed between her friends. Season 2 used that change to add another twist to their relationship. As the seasons progress, the cast slowly expands.

The show eases in the main trio and their new friends. Some episodes foreshadowed what was coming for the characters, and some felt pointless. With a cast that big, it would slow the story down but surprisingly, it felt okay.

You get to spend some time with them, learn what makes them tick, what changed them and how they felt about the current state of the story. As a person who had some regrets in life, I really liked Sasha Waybright's development. She went from someone who took charge to becoming a character who matured into a better person. Giving her time to improve, showed that she improved but is still a work in progress.

As far as the ending goes, I felt a little bittersweet. I liked that it ended and that the big arc of the main trio is resolved but I would really like to see an expansion for how they deal with all the events they went through as it was rather traumatic. Thankfully, we have fan artists for that!

- Eat This Sucka!!! -

It would be impossible to avoid spoilers when < The Owl House > by Dana Terrace was at its peak. Spoilers were happening left and right!

Context, The Owl House follows the outcast teen; Luz Noceda who was meant to go to a summer camp. On the day she was about to go. Luz got distracted by a thief who went through a mysterious door that led Luz into the Demon Realm.

The series takes on a familiar arc where the outsider; Luz learns the ways of the witches but with her own creativity and innovation. Luz also resides under the care of the Owl Lady; Eda Clawthorne, King and Hooty (The house itself)

As the seasons progress, Luz helps the other witches her age improve and come out of their shells. Importantly, she finds new friends she never had in the human realm.

The Owl House is a show of obviously coded Queer characters and individuals that don't fit with the norm. Dana is a genius that never made a big fuss over the fact that some characters are openly Queer. Although the studio; Disney tried to limit the screentime to avoid public outcry.

The show is my first-ever witness to openly Queer characters being completely normal about it instead of being preachy. Perhaps this has to do with the title; Demon Realm.

"Where the general belief of the overzealous conservatives in a so-called Good and Righteous God thinks that's where Queer people and other abnormal people belong."

The main villain; Belos tries his hardest to "purify" the realm by limiting how witches use magic and violently persecute anyone who opposes these new rules. It's a symbolic view of the Puritan tyrant. That their ways are destined to be divine when it was all a ruse to further their own personal agenda.

The show suffered a mess of developments as Disney has a strong Anti-Queer policy with their shows. But Dana, the sneaky bastard that she is. (he says affectionately) Slipped in undeniable proof that the characters are proudly Queer and the Puritian miserably fails.

The ending was pure cinema! The show uses Luz's perspective to show that kids can have their own complexities and what we may think is good may not be what is right for said person. The show also displays good values of being open to change, that it's never too late to right the wrongs and Weirdos Gotta Stick Together.

- The Freaky Friends -

We finally came to my favourite show of this batch. < Hilda > by Luke Pearson is a fun and adventurous show about a young girl who loves adventures living in a world that is brimming with magic. I would like to talk more about it but I've already covered that in [The Beautiful World of Hilda]

For the sake of this post, I'm only focusing on Season 3. The final season of the series. While the show is not as plot-driven as the latter mentions. I think there is much to be said about the breath of fresh air Hilda brings to the table.

Hilda has a special place in my heart for how she managed to bring wonder and joy into my viewing experience. This season, took on a more ominous turn where the adventures get deadlier and the stakes get higher in this little world of the blue-haired adventurer.

Season 3 was commented on by the viewers as "underwhelming and inconclusive" and that it tore its own "fan theories" apart. Personally, I loved that the showrunner revealed everything and also nothing because that's the point.

Hilda is not about a big mystery, it's a pure adventure and curious exploration of the mythology surrounding Trollberg and the rest of the world in Hilda. The feeling of fulfilment but also, melancholy that the series has ended is in my opinion, the best conclusion.

Admittedly, I didn't know how to end the post. I just wanted to get my thoughts out about these three shows and how it ended. It feels like the end of another era. A close to another chapter for animation and the stories it can tell.

These three shows; Amphibia, The Owl House and Hilda proved that animation is still taking new heights but still maintains the charm of what stories are. A good ending where the arc may be over but the adventures will still carry on.

It's been a fun and tear-jerking journey with Hilda, Luz and Anne. Their worlds are unique and brimming with excitement that I haven't felt in years and a desire to catch up more.

I'll miss them dearly but hey, such is the life of an adventurer. Don't be sad that it's over. Be happy that it happened and above all. Go make your own stories!

[bagog]

Star Trek: Discovery Narrative Highlights

So I really like Discovery, but differently than I like other Star Treks. My love for Voyager, for instance, is based off the sense of found-family in the face of sci-fi shenanigans. I could pick out favorite episodes, but my favorite episodes don't necessarily represent the epitome of what I love about the show, y'know?

It's different with Disco. There are concrete moments from through out the show that made me go "Okay, I like this, I want this. More of this." Here's some of them! This is indulgent and all from memory

Season 1 - Klingons Speak Klingon

In a story about Klingons fearing the Federation as an institution which will irrevocably alter their culture, the Klingons actually speak Klingon. Love it. Season 1 - Gabriel Lorca

I loved seeing a Star Fleet captain who seemed to have ascended because of his skill at war: a trait which ordinarily would not elevate one within Starfleet service, per se. It made him interesting. Your mileage may vary on where this went, but. He's still a big appeal on rewatch.

Season 2 - Queer People Helping Queer People

The introduction of Jet Reno is one of my favorite hallmarks in the show. I love Jet, and I love the way she serves as a foil to every other character. But best of all, I loved the scene when she is talking to Hugh Culber about how distant he's been from his husband (since coming back from the dead, so, you know) and helps him by relating her own story about her wife, who is now passed. To say I'm happy to see queer stories on Star Trek is a massive understatement, but this was the moment it locked in for me. In the world of the Federation, there's no difference between being queer or straight and anyone could've talked Hugh out of his funk. But in our world, it's usually queer people helping queer people make sense of their experiences. Recognizing the importance of that distinction and going with the queers-helping-queers take is a really big deal for me.

Season 2 - Amanda

This is hands-down the best representation of Amanda we've ever been given and she is so wonderfully human and warm that it helps you understand Spock and Michael so much better. I don't know what to say other than that, I love her.

Season 3 - The Future

I love that they went not just into the future, but further into the future than any mainline trek lore has gone. Hell yes. I'm bummed it's kinda a post-Utopian mess, but I get storywise why that's the case. I love the future starships, I love the future technology, I like that we just "BZP" to wherever we want to be in the ship now. In a show increasingly steeped in centuries of canon lore, it's smart and challenging to try to do "a millennium in the future."

Season 3 - Queer Family

Queer Family! Queer Family in Star Trek! This is my queers-helping-queers point but dialed up to 11. Love it, would do anything for it.

Season 4 - Artificial Intelligence

The ship is alive and she's named herself. This comes to a head in an episode in Season 4 where Paul Stamets feels very hesitant about this, after the plot of Season 2 was trying to stop AI from destroying the galaxy. There's this whole Measure of a Man but Not Quite Because Its the B Story thing going on, but at the end of it, there's a twist. Paul eventually learns to accept his new crewmate, but then he asks the person in-charge of the inquest "What would you have done if I said I wasn't comfortable serving with an AI?" and the dude goes "I would've assigned you to another ship. This was never about whether she has a soul or whatever, it's about if you can learn to accept that with you 22nd century brain." And that's.... that's great.

Season 4 - Mental Health

Mental Health is a thread running through some of Discovery (Season 2 flirts with Spock's neurodivergence, for instance) but never more than in Season 4. Hugh Culber, the ship's ray of sunshine and de facto counselor, is in bad shape, mentally, and he needs help. But the best moment is when the away-team is beset by chemical memories of panic and basically rendered useless with fear... except for Detmer, who helps them all get through it. When asked why she was unaffected, she says "Oh I totally was affected, but after my grievous injury during the war, I went to therapy for the PTSD and learned some coping strategies" AND THAT'S WHAT SAVES THE GALAXY.

Anyway, this is very indulgent and probably nobody reads this, but thanks if you did.

[warpedpuppeteer]

i just don't trust these major network showrunners and writers to actually write buddie to its logical and rightful conclusion. I've followed so many shows and observed so many fandoms over the years, so many amazingly layered characters with extraordinary bonds that spawned popular and beloved ships. And each and every one of those ships were used to bait viewers without ever going canon, this way they get the views from the ship fans as well as the more general fans. The only difference in 911 is they somehow managed to make Buck canonically bi, which is a huge deal for a main male lead on a network procedural show. Yet they immediately slapped him with an underdeveloped character who has zero onscreen chemistry with buck, and relegated their relationship to the background entirely. Almost like the networks's checking off a box and being done with it.

if buddie is in the grand plan, I feel like there should've been some onscreen textual hints already this season after buck came out. But there's been nothing from any of the characters, and it's just heartbreaking. I'll remain a buddie truther for the rest of my life, but it really does feel like the show is trying to draw the line in the sand to say "buck and Eddie are bros only," even if the way the show does this is to forcibly retcon/erase all of the buddie buildup over all these seasons.

Sorry Non for not answering this for awhile. I absolutely understand where you're coming from as I've also been a part of fandoms for a long time especially ones who gleefully use queerbaiting to keep fans interested. I think the biggest difference between 911 and other shows is that generally other shows don't have any queer characters or only minor queer characters. 911 however has a main queer couple (henren) and plenty of side queer characters/pairs as well. So that's an advantage for us; this means they're very much open to a queer storyline.

We've gotten bi Buck which is a very big deal for not only queer representation but also in regards to Buddie. The are clearly aware this is something we want and they've told us that it has been discussed in the past for Eddie to be queer as well so they have definitely at some point discussed making Buddie canon. The actors are down for this as well (Oliver no. 1 buddie truther). The setback seems to have come from the network before so it couldn't happen. But things are changing with the new network.

The reason I think they haven't made Buddie canon yet is that it was simply too short of a season for them to do so. Also it seems like there have been a lot of issues with this season and a lot of it was written hastily. Tim probably had completely different stories in mind for the characters but I guess things like scheduling issues put a wrench in it (Natalia's actress had a scheduling issue and the issue with Marisol's actress). I think Tim had planned completely different arcs for Buck and Eddie in regards to their relationship but had to just do whatever to finish the season because of the issue with the actresses. I think he introduced Tommy as a sort of placeholder for the moment because they couldn't expand Buck's bi story just yet. This was also probably to test the audiences' acceptance of a main character being queer after 6 seasons and to test how much leeway they have with the network. This doesn't mean I agree with what he did because I actually hate it lol. Leaving them both single would have made much more sense than introducing another shit character/actor who only created a divide in the fandom and brought in absolute weirdos into it.

Honestly I could go on forever on why I think Buddie being canon is in the books but for now all I can say is that don't give up just yet! I personally think there's been a lot of deliberate choices this season that were made to jump start the 'making Buddie canon process'. Give it another season at least! If they don't get together, I'm hoping there would at least be a CLEAR indication that they're heading there towards the end of season 8. If they don't do anything of that sort then we can consider giving up on them and living happily in our fanon bubble. But for now stay with us! There's much hope yet!!

Also sorry if this got rambly and doesn't make much sense! My inbox is always open and you can shoot me a message if you wanna discuss or vent more!

[wanderingwomanwondering]

911 Season 7 Critique

This is a long post. If you don’t make it to the end, I totally understand.

I know we all have lots of feelings about this season and most of what I’ve read from others in the fandom here on tumblr has been overwhelmingly positive, but I have serious and persistent concerns. Here me out, if you’re willing and able.

This entire season something about 911 has felt off for me in a big way. I couldn’t quite put my finger on exactly what the problem was until recently. All I knew was that season 7 was weird out the gate. Now I finally think I have something coherent to say about this season now that it’s over. The whole season’s main plot(s) have been overblown and overworked. All season long, the characters have felt bodysnatched by extraterrestrials being just similar enough to our beloved characters to not raise total alarm - at least initially - but different enough to snatch some epic side-eye outta me. Then ep 4 happened and the whole time I was a mix of elated and confused. Anybody who’s been paying attention for the last 7 years knows that Buck is queer so that wasn’t the shocker. For me, it was the way everything went down in ep 4 with the characters that felt heavy-handed and untrue to who they are. The weird strange bizarreness through the season just kept on coming like a freight train with no breaks or relief. By the finale I was scratching my head and kinda irritated because the tiny bit of actual character work that we saw over the course of the season was odd as hell and now it’s over and I’m not really excited about much of anything that’s supposed to be coming in s8. The characters feel too ooc and the plots feel too uncharacteristic of 911. Like for a bit there I thought I was watching Days of Our Lives meets Miami Vice meets The Walking Dead, and that’s not what I signed up for with 911.

Season 7 left me earnestly wondering: Where are the family feels, the tight bonds, the heartfelt connections, the vulnerable conversations, the healing community that is the 118, the fucking togetherness? Everyone feels like they are adrift and alone without the found family support that they enjoyed in previous seasons. This season has been a trauma fest with little to no emotional payoff. Drama for its own sake. Problems resurrected, rehashed, blown way out of proportion, repackaged, and sold as authentic current issues. This season I felt like I was watching a completely different show.

Yes we are on a new network. Yes Tim is back. Yes a bit of shake up can be good. But this doesn’t feel like a good shake up. I feel like I’m being jerked around for sport. Like past BS is being thrown in my face instead of laid on the table and worked through by the characters that I know and love. Season 7 was mostly just trauma porn and I did not enjoy it.

Yes we could argue that Tim is trying to grab the attention of new viewers on a new network. But honestly that kind of feels like a cop-out explanation given what he delivered. If I were new to this show, I would not feel like I have any idea who these characters are beyond the wild crap that happens to them. I feel like I know more about how to sink a cruise ship or how to traverse the desert than I do about how the characters relate and connect with one another.

As someone who’s watched 911 from the very beginning live and in real time, the plotting, pacing, and character choices in season 7 feel like Tim is putting on a show instead of telling stories. Shows are a wacky wild ride with little cohesion and/or progress; characters take a backseat to whatever the ptb can cook up for the weekly plot. Stories center characters and what’s happening to them is processed by them and moves their arcs along in mostly coherent ways. A show is ‘shit happens’. A story is ‘shit happens TO ME AND I DEAL WITH IT in ways that show the audience who I am and what matters to me’’.

Maybe season 8 will feel more like a story since it won’t be a truncated season, and season 7 has reintroduced people to - aka dredged up long-past but somehow present again - character issues. I don’t know. I hope season 8 is more coherent, character-focused, and progress/healing-oriented like previous seasons have been. Honestly the show has been running too long to act like rehashing the past over and over again is enough to carry it for 7 more seasons.

Anyway, my specific concerns with season 7 are below the cut.

The main plots have just been hilariously bad. Soap opera levels of wtaf.

The cruise ship disaster had pirates, cheaters, and poorly-developed conflicts between lovers all of which (mostly) came out of the thin blue sea air and/or were handled in incredibly ooc ways. MIssing groom because of viral encephalitis. Hospital wedding like its a good thing and preferable to the warm fuzzies that Madney deserved. Long-dead wife put on such a high pedestal by Eddie that she walks the earth once more. Bobby chasing a random man from his past into the desert to say/do what exactly? All while mixing it up with a literal Mexican cartel. A desert crossing complete with traumatic flashbacks, a car crash, and a makeshift stretcher. (Bobby should have left Amir where he was after the crash and just walked the mile to the road without him in tow. But instead he slowed himself down and risked sunstroke in the process. That was a drama choice made by the writers, not a paramedic/firefighter choice made by the character.) Post-house fire Bobby’s heart stops for 14 whole ass minutes and he wakes up fine and perky as meringue. Athena Grant choosing cold-blooded vengeance over holding vigil for her allegedly dying husband. Racist and misogynistic Gerard returning for absolutely no narrative or character-related reason at all, at least not for one that couldn’t be more effectively accomplished by some/any other means.

The women have been side-lined in their own stories, and/or their characters altered in problematic ways.

Hen dismissed the councilwoman’s son in the season’s opening arc and ignored his potential injuries because he was being an asshole. A lesser paramedic would do that, but NOT our Hen. Also that plot point was unrealistic af because if someone is not in their right mind to make a life-saving decision for themselves, like in the case of intoxication, medical personnel can ethically treat them anyway. It was such a weird plot/character choice to Hen use that guy’s intoxication as a reason NOT to treat him when it’s actually a great reason to go ahead and check him out. She should have and would have worked the problem (poised and professional) instead of storming off in a huff (emotion-driven and unethical) because that guy was being a dick. Hen is not easily unsettled, nor is she unprofessional!

Hen and Karen were oddly clueless about Mara’s trauma and the fact that it was actively relevant to her behavior when they took her in, despite the fact that they have fostered several children at this point in the story. They considered “returning her” before they considered the trauma factor. Unreal. Our Hen and Karen were not born yesterday, are no strangers to hard times with foster kids, and have hearts the size of the 7 seas. This writing choice made no sense to me and made Hen and Karen feel like extraterrestrials to me. Ignorant ones at that. In the finale, Hen didn’t tell Karen she was going to see Mara. Like. Why? They talk about everything. Hen claimed it’s because Karen would have tried to stop her but we all know that would have been a half-hearted comment while she put her shoes on and grabbed her purse. No. Hen and Karen are partners and they act like it. The one woman show era between them has been over for a while. Especially when it comes to their family.

Athena and Bobby had a conversation at the end of season 4 about cutting each other out and leaving each other emotionally stranded and since then have been actively committed to communicating and staying a team. So what the hell was that vibe between them on the cruise. Athena was evasive and weird the whole time and in the most banal gender stereotyped way possible. In addition, Tim seems obsessed with women as damsels in distress this season which is not and has never been Athena’s vibe. Even with the Jeffrey arc in season 5 while she coped with the trauma of that encounter, she displayed agency. So I’ll never understand her indirect approach to dealing with Bobby running off to ‘Step 9’ Amir or her decision to turn right around and talk to Amir about Bobby instead of talking to Bobby directly. Athena is a direct person, especially about her family. She cuts to the quick and gets to the heart of things. The drama I needed was Bathena working through Athena’s fears for Bobby and Bobby working through his trauma/recovery with Athena…not a Mexican cartel and shenanigans in the desert. Then there was the way Harry talked to Athena when she discovered that he ran away from Miami. Athena’s response to Harry would have been understanding but corrective. She wouldn’t have stood there and let him disrespect her. Not in a million lifetimes. She also wouldn’t have left her allegedly dying husband at the hospital to reenact a revenge plot from some B movie. Plus what was up with her blaming herself for Amir supposedly burning the house down, and her doing no police work to puzzle out what happened? She just went on an emotion-fueled rampage. That’s not how Athena operates. Remember her namesake, goddess of WISDOM and warfare. Come on bffr.

Maddie. Oh where do I even start. From ep 1 she was treated like a means to an end instead of the first responder former nurse badass that she is. This whole season, she comes across as ‘just another dispatcher’ instead of the focused problem-solver and active agent that we know her to be. Prior to season 7 Maddie would have had her thinking cap fully on right along with Hen in the first episodes as they worked out a way to get in touch with the cruise ship. Calling Tommy could have even been Maddie’s idea since Chim and Tommy are still in touch but Hen and Tommy don’t seem to be. Then there was the whole Maddie hearing what she expected to hear with the abuse victim on that one call. Like. What?! This is not Maddie’s first rodeo, she is not easily unsettled, and she’s a damn professional. She would have done what she had to do to emotionally regulate and help the woman in danger before she let herself ‘hear what she expected to hear’. Admittedly she would have cried the whole time because that’s JLH’s jam and she’s good at it but Maddie wouldn’t have fallen down so hard on the job (especially not after what happened in season 3 with Tara and Vincent). And the wedding stuff! Maddie was just watching and waiting instead of using what she knew about her partner in life Chim to deduce where he might go or what he might do. Instead of collecting information about their previous calls and how they might be playing into Chim’s disappearance, she was busy being insecure about whether Chim actually wanted to marry her. Mind you, Maddie was the one who was originally reticent about marrying again AND she’s the one who proposed to Chim. After all the drama with the ring, there is no world in which Maddie would have imagined Chim was running from her. She would have known something bad was up and that it had nothing to do with their love for one another. In the finale Maddie calls Chim to talk about Athena’s suss behavior but Maddie has more connections and professional wherewithal than just ‘call my husband he’ll know what to do’. She would have called the precinct and asked about 727-L-30 in a discreet way and put most of the pieces together herself and then actually sent Chim and Hen to stop her. And she would have been ready at a moment’s notice to call the cops on the rogue cop. The way that scene actually played out felt more like gossip on the high school bleachers than Maddie doing her actual job.

The relationships seem plain odd/ooc, distant, and/or superficial. Very few vulnerable emotional conversations happened and when they did they felt generic, shallow, and/or incomplete.

Bobby and Athena on the cruise. Athena just didn’t feel like herself because she refused to talk to Bobby. When they did finally talk it was when they were about to drown and it was more of a mini-therapy session for Bobby. After Amir was introduced, Bobby pulled away again and Athena let him. Then Athena chose to approach the traumatized stranger rather than have a talk with her own damn husband. When they finally confronted each other about that situation, she walked away from Bobby almost like she was punishing him for walking away first instead of them both leaning into the conversation as partners. Really? Bffr.

Buck and Eddie having a bro convo about womanizing in the early episodes of the season. The ‘hey pal please talk to my kid bro because you have experience with these issues’ rather than the all important ‘there’s no one in this world I trust with my son more than you’ vibes of it all. Eddie making limited eye contact with Buck and ignoring him in ep 4. Eddie’s physical demeanor in ep 4 being bro-ed up and distant. Yeah I know we can argue that was all from Buck’s perspective in the moment but that explanation seems insufficient to me because it was so extreme, and was kind of maintained in some ways throughout the season. The ‘i’m gonna maim my best friend’ energy of the bucktommy origin story despite the fact that buck is not violent at all and definitely not towards loved ones. (Tim seems determined to ruin everybody just enough to generate unnecessary and ooc drama.) Buck’s weird dudebro conversation with Eddie while on his date with Tommy as if the foundation of buck and eddie’s relationship has ever been conversations about women solely to assert their heterosexuality * facepalm emoji * The super textbook sterile coming out scene in ep 5 like these guys aren’t besties and don’t actually know each other deeply. I wanted that coming out scene to have 504 patio conversation energy, not whatever it was we got in 704. Like that coming out conversation could have played out the exact same with one of the no-name background firefighters at the 118 or with Connor or some other rando. It felt so impersonal to who they are and to their particular brand of vulnerable courageous conversations. Honestly even the hug in 704 was weird. I was happy to have it but it was still weird. The kitchen conversation in ep 9 at Eddie’s place felt odd and incomplete for buddie. We get queer sexual innuendo (‘skulking around my back door’), basic mutual acknowledgment of worry about the dead wife doppelganger, and that’s a wrap? Okay I guess * eyeroll emoji * Then we had the finale where Eddie is obviously losing his mind and Buck is just sitting on the arm of the couch like ‘i dunno what to tell you man’. Like they’ve never had a (chris) conversation before in their life. Like buck wouldn’t have been the one to VOLUNTEER to go talk to chris without eddie spelling it out. Like buck wasn’t the person who stayed with chris talked to him and took care of him when eddie got shot and when eddie lost his damn mind in 513. The buck in the finale was not the buck who did all those things. He was so bodysnatched it’s not even funny. Also, in what world would buck have snarked that chris can’t keep eddie out of his room??? Buck, my good sir, if eddie wanted to break down chris’ door he wouldn’t have called you over bc he can do that on his own without a consult. That scene felt ooc af plus the dialogue was just plain dumb.

Hen and Chim have barely had a meaningful friend moment this season. It’s mostly Hen razzing Chim, a polite smile, or nada. Let’s not even talk about the ‘betrayal’ in the beginning with the councilwoman’s son and then the deeply meaningless drama that ensued after. So much so that they commented on it in a joking way on the helicopter. That’s not how Hen and Chim roll. They give each other clear and unapologetic honesty at all times. Not the cold shoulder for sport which is what it felt like when Hen finally said she wasn’t actually mad. The gender and racial implications of how that played out are not lost on me. It felt like a 180 from how these characters normally interact in serious circumstances. Complete waste of time and invented drama for drama’s sake. I don’t blame Hen and Chim for that, like everything else I’ve mentioned in this critique of the season, it’s pure writing room weirdness.

Bobby’s locker room conversation with Buck in ep 9 was more like mentor-mentee than father-son. We’ve stated that as their dynamic several times but that’s not what we got in that locker room. They were standing several feet apart, Bobby and Buck smiled politely, no hug, no shoulder pat. Just textbook sterile ‘you’re okay kid’. Bobby could have given that speech to no-name firefighter number 12 and it would have felt the same.

You mean to tell me in the finale that Bobby was just gonna stroll back into work in uniform after quitting like nothing happened? Like he’s still employed. My good sir, you didn’t even call headquarters before showing up to be like ‘just kidding i want my job back’. You mean to tell me Buck and Ravi were at work, in uniform and clocked in, but didn’t already know Gerard was there? You mean to tell me Bobby was supposedly that allergic to having a real emotional/vulnerable conversation with literally anybody that he strolled into work WHEN HE NO LONGER WORKS THERE like he was gonna get to actually work??? I just can’t -

Anyway, this post is long af so if you made it to the end, thank you. Honestly, I'm still processing this season but as of now, in the words of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, “I take no leave of you, [Tim Minear]. I send no compliments to your [season 7 showrunner decisions]! You deserve no such attention! I am seriously displeased!”

[miilkyrolls]

okay fine, Murder at homecoming, YOU WIN

so i finally finished MaH after putting off continuing past chapter 1 since like...february and, i almost used this book as a diamond mine cause i preemptively was like "this looks lame 😒"

... i came, i laughed, i gasped, i yelled, i cried and i left... then i CAME BACK BECAUSE HOLY MOTHER OF REPLAY-ABILITY BATMAN🥲

but no this book hits right where it needed too. I know one of the biggest upsets people have with MaH is A) the villain being guessable and B) not solving Perdita's disappearance and sorta C/ B.2) it being a standalone. and imo for A, that's up to you to feel that way. imo cause choices is a visual form of content, it's kinda hard to have genuinely surprising "twist" villains cause the visuals already clue you into who done-did it unless they pull the twist straight out they ass(i feel this way about movies and shows too. the only way surprises genuinely get me is in books or podcasts, so non visual entertainment)

and B/C, i actually think NOT solving perdita's story AND making it a standalone was actually very mature of PB (first and possibly last time i'll ever say that in this day and age 💀). it's possible they might've made it their next teen drama series if they had the budget. But unfortunately it's honestly realistic. unfortunately a lot of women go missing and rarely do they get found alive and in a short amount of time (esp if you have as a bipoc mc/ perdita). it's an extremely tragic cookie crumble that unfortunately a lot of mysteries in our lives often take us our entire lives to solve and a lot of them we'll never solve in our lifetime. it's a great paradox / parallel to gabbie's death. it took us all of say 4/5 months (cause in the US, most schools go on winter break in late December) to solve with justice being fairly swift, fair, and harsh but unfortunately a lot of victims don't get their day for a long while, if ever. it's a healthy ying and yang of enjoying fictional justice but it being unrealistic with acknowledging the devastation of losing real victims while acknowledging those lost and their unsung stories that we should never completely give up on their days to come. (ofc however, i hc that perdita is still alive and uncovered corruption in the city and knew that making her family deal with legal repercussions would make their lives more difficult and be ostracized by the elites of Beachwood, so she just left and changed her identity. i like to think she did it also cause MC deserved to have a normal teenhood and not be ousted for her actions)

also i love the open and candid conversations around the treatment of queer children, bipoc mistreatment , misogyny, sa and grief. idk why but the ability to choose if you'd experienced homophobia/ transphobia based on your pronouns and who you've romanced, and tyler talking about thinking he was straight before meeting us (i had a masc body) idk why but i like that touch. i feel like PB kinda grazes over the aspect of being queer / trans and the concept of love, coming out, and society acceptance when your same sex romancing/ nonbinary so it's real shocking when they actually..idk address that thing😭. it's nice to have characters acknowledging their sexuality rather then just be automatically playersexual and everyone around them is just immediately accepting/ suddenly bigotry just seems to evaporate for mc's life/ society

also also, WE CAN BE POLY AND LIKE ITS CALLED POLY AND EVERYONE IS HAPPY AND THE LI WE DON'T CHOOSE AREN'T FORCED ONTO US/ GIVEN AS A OPTION

smaller things: i like the heavy usage of sound effects, idk why but i do. i like the flashbacks into mc's and perdita's relationship, the mix of free and paid clues that are non linear, STEVIE (yes she needs her own category)

overall: 9.2/10. i really like this book, it's going on my personal shelf next to the likes of crimes of passion (minus proposal...), Queen B, big sky country, blood bound, immortal desires 1, and with every heartbeat for my good book shelf

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 1, Wave 1, Poll 8

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave here.

Renarin Kholin- The Stormlight Archive

Qualifications:

Renarin is canonically autistic and gay (or at least MLM).

He's canonically autistic + has epilepsy, and he's been confirmed to be gay and have a crush on a male character (which will.be explored more in future books)

Canonically gay as confirmed by word-of-god; canonically autistic and has anxiety.

Renarin is canonically autistic and gay.

Propaganda:

Renarin is one of few characters in epic fantasy literature who's canonically neurodivergent or queer - it's rare enough to just see one of those things! He is also the best, just all around. He is so reckless and has such a strong moral compass: like he ran to help fight a giant crab monster with no weapons, no armor, and no training; he jumped into a 4vs1 duel to help his brother, with no armor, no training, and a sword that deals him psychic damage anytime he holds it.

He's autistic and gay; disability is a big part of his story; he's so much of an outcast that he was the first person to join his world's extra-marginalized order of sinister-but-not-evil magic users; and while he's quiet and self-contained, he's full to the brim with suppressed rage. Sidelined second son and quasi-cursed prophet. I fully believe he can take this tournament by storm.

Renarin is autistic, epileptic, and queer as the day is long. As a kid, he struggled to win his dad's approval due to his inability to fight as well as his abled brother -- but these days his dad's wised up and realized that Renarin actually kicks ass. When Renarin gets magic powers, he isn't "cured"; he's still epileptic, he's still autistic, and he still has a crush on the strapping young alien lad in his squad. Not only does he break down class barriers by hanging out with ex-slave humans (he's the prince of a major kingdom), he breaks racial barriers by dating an alien who's entire race was, until recently, enslaved by humans. Overall, he's a complete badass who is getting more confident, more appreciated, and more gay with every book in the series.

Loam Arnault-Entropic Float

Qualifications:

she canonically has arthritis and chronic fatigue, and is canonically bisexual and omnigender (using all pronouns)

They're chronically disabled (dont remember their condition :() omnigender, and pan!

i don’t remember what it is (or if that’s even said) but his disability gives her trouble walking some days and on others makes it so they can’t get out of bed. bisexual &nonbinary omnigender!

Canonically disabled, nonbinary omnigender and bisexual

Propaganda:

listen. i love him. oh my god i love aer. their disability and queerness are both central to the narrative. due to it being disabled, she is not taken seriously where he comes from. xe has given up on insisting on its gender being respected - every time thon tries, its taken as a sign he is having a bad day symptoms wise, which in turn is taken as though she has never grown up past being eight years old. through the game proper, it hides hir disability most of the time. to ask for help is to let someone know. and throughout their entire life, everyone who knew has treated him as stupid - perhaps not always, but everyone has. this is why she doesnt really want to get out of the anomaly; this is the first time fae has had friends who dont know, and therefore dont have "a reason" to infantilize it. star hides everything behind a chipper demeanour. well, that demeanour isnt entirely a lie; she is really silly and pleasant - one of my favourite things he says in the entire game is "isnt blue super bad for computers? like blue balls of death or something?". upon being asked "where do you come from that computers have balls?", they respond "well, how do they reproduce if they dont?" in conclusion. Loam my beloved.

silly guy... oh he's a lil bit fucked up actually

:3

I’m disabled and queer and Loam makes me feel so seen. He’s an incredible character, I love her dearly, I need everyone to understand how incredible they are.

The qualifications and propaganda correspond, @prinxe-with-no-crown is the first submitter @mythologeekwriter is the fourth and there were two others.

[evilisk]

Gacha Games I've Played (And Dropped) in 2024

I'm broke but gacha games are free

= = =

Soul Tide (2022 - Present)

I didn't even stick with this for a week. I hate almost all gachas where the player characters have the magnetism of shitty harem anime protagonists. This game had that and a VERY inconsistent artstyle between all of its playable characters.

Fortress Saga (2023 - Present)

This shouldn't even really be here since it's more of an idle game than a gacha one, but it has the same shitty monetization as other gacha games and I didn't want to dedicate one post to one game since it's the only idle game I played.

This was fun for maybe the first hour, then it was addicting (but in an unfun, nasty way) for the next 20 hours. It's a shame because I do like the general concept (it's called Fortress Saga since you're running a Howl's Moving Castle-esque castle), but it's designed to be extremely addicting.

You do tasks that will get you pulls, and then you use those pulls to complete tasks which will get you more pulls, and you can use those pulls to complete more tasks to get more pulls to complete more tasks to- you get the idea

Didn't feel like I was playing a game, it felt like I was getting played by the game. I think certain types of people should REALLY avoid this.

Path To Nowhere (2022 - Present)

AKA "I can fix her" the gacha game

This game has some interesting things going for it. Even though I dislike "harem anime protagonist" syndrome, you can at least choose to be a female harem anime protagonist. It may have probably been designed with straight audiences in mind, but a not insignificant portion of the fanbase seems to be queer, so that's pretty neat.

...Unfortunately I just couldn't get into the gameplay. I thought it was just Arknights, but this game confirmed that I cannot play gacha tower defense games AT ALL. Gacha RPGs? I can deal. Gacha tower defence games? Absolutely unplayable to me.

Higan: Eruthyll (2022 - Present)

I thought I'd check out this game, because it's not doing so hot and an end of service announcement may be imminent. It's still not canned yet but I got nothing. Nothing to say about the budget Genshin designs, the story or the auto battler gameplay.

Grimlight (2022 - 2024)

I stuck with this one for a while, mostly because I'm going through a whole "South Koreans doing their own takes on western fairy tales" phase (other things that currently interest me are Lobotomy Corporation, Not Sew Wicked Stepmother and A Wicked Tale of Cinderella's Stepmother. I'm just hooked man).

The story is essentially Kingdom Hearts and the character designs (in the portraits at least) are very nice. There's not much of an actual game though. It's an auto battler so you're not really doing much of anything. The tiny battle sprites don't do the character designs any justice. And when the game's 'cancellation' was announced I had no real reason to continue.

Langrisser Mobile (2019 - Present)

The last game I dropped. It got me to stick around for 3-4 months, which almost no other game did. I think this is actually pretty decent if you're looking for a PVP game, that's just not what I wanted. Having to do PVP matches every day *just for my dailies* ended up being a big reason I dropped it.

The other reason is that progress is sooooo slow. I actually wanted to see how the main plot would get resolved. But 80% of my story progress was in the first month. After that it'd take weeks of grinding just to see the next story cutscene / fight. Then after progressing by one stage, you're back to grinding again.

Even gameplay progress is slow. I thought twice about dropping Grimlight since I had so many characters unlocked. But in Langrisser, I was still using the same 4-character team (Leon, Vargas, Almeda and Liana) from the beginning with only 2-3 new characters I actually picked up and was using (Varna, Bernhardt and Rozenciel).

I respect the game for having some of the coolest crossovers in any gacha (they got Slayers, Valkyria Chronicles 1, Yu Yu Hakusho, Gintama, even Pop Team Epic), I also *love* that dork Almeda, but if I ever play more Langrisser, I hope it's through remasters of the original games.

= = =

There is one final game I played, but unlike the others, I didn't actually drop it:

Reverse:1999 (2023 - Present)

That's right this was actually just a roundabout way of saying "I am now a Reverse 1999 fan".

I don't want to get into it now, but it feels more like "Touhou if it were a gacha game" than Touhou LostWord, which at this point, barely has anything to do with Touhou, if we're being honest. There are more of these "alternate universe" characters (read: OCs that are only loosely inspired by Touhou characters) than there are actual Touhou characters in LostWord.

All this to say that "I'll probably be posting about Reverse 1999" on this blog.

[alpaca-clouds]

Why I hate the concept of player-sexual characters

Okay, you know what? Let me talk about this. Because it really irks me. Like, it really irks me. I cannot express how much it irks me, to be honest.

I love BG3. And BG3 is doing a lot of stuff right when it comes to queer representation. Not so much in regards to any other form of representation (How is it that there is only one none-white character among your teammates? Why is there literally no body diversity at all? Why is there no fucking combat wheelchair?), but on terms of queer rep the game is doing very good. I mean, literally, most canonical relationships you interact with are queer. You meet a lot more happy queer couples than happy straight couples. Which is nice. And while I could've done with maybe one canonical trans character, you can at least play your player character as trans, which is fucking nice. So yeah, we are getting there.

But for heaven's sake, I will never, ever see player-sexual characters as bi/pan representation. Because they are not. Their universal sexual attraction serves not to define them as characters in their identity, but just for the player to fulfill their own power fantasy in whatever way the player desires. The fact that the characters do not care about what gender the player character has, is not really tied to the character or their story.

Which is why I like it so much more the way that Bioware did it with Dragon Age: Inquisition and some of the later Mass Effect games (is this true for Starfield as well? I have no idea). Where the characters do have a canon sexuality that influences who you can romance and who you cannot romance.

Like, I am in general not a big fan of the Dragon Age games, with the exception of Inquisition, because boy, I got invested into those characters and part of the reason is this. Like, holy hell, I cannot explain to you how invested I got into Dorian and his entire story. Like, back then I was still in egg-mode and I played the game with a female character - but I then did a second playthrough with a male PC just so I could romance Dorian.

Their sexuality is tied to who they are as people.

And sure, yeah, fine. Basically BG3 goes about sexuality in the way of: "The world does not care about it, so neither should you." Like, there is so many queer couples, some have kids that might be their biological kids, because magic, I guess, and nobody really bats an eye. So, I guess something like with Dorian, where part of his story was dealing with a homophobic dad would not happen here. Still, you know, with their supposed bisexuality not playing any role at all, it feels... hollow.

Because it does really feel like this part of them only exists for the player - not as part of their characterization. And I would feel a lot better about it, if it was.

I think it feels partly so offensive to me, because I am a bisexual trans dude and lived as a bi woman for so long. And as that my bisexuality has often been seen by men as something that they can consume in one way or another to act out their personal fantasies. So, player-sexuality/bisexuality in games being used for the player to act out that kinda fantasy feels... wrong.

How could Larian have done it or do it in future games? Well, pretty simple.

Bring in former relationships of different genders, let the characters comment on finding other characters (both in your party and out of it) attractive, allow the non-romanced characters to hook up together or hook up with other NPCs. Make their sexuality part of their story.

I totally would be fine with the characters all being bisexual. Sure, its a bit boring, but I also totally could buy into "in this world bisexuality/pansexuality is the norm" as part of the worldbuilding. But then show it through their interactions outside of being willing/able to hook up with the player character.

Though admittedly, this is in general one of my biggest issue with the writing on the game: Rather than having the characters talk with each other about stuff (outside of the idle banter in your party), they talk to the player character about how they feel about each other. You know, I have seen a lot of comments about how the ending feels unrewarding because apparently (I am closing in on the ending, but I am not quite there yet) after everything is said and done everybody just goes their own way, not acknowledging each other at all. But I think it is a problem in general.

Like, I get that each scene in which the characters interact more significantly than awkwardly standing in front of each other is a ton of work, because you gotta motion capture it - and also rendering it on the system make the workload on the hardware you are using a lot bigger... But it definitely would help the characterization.

To come back to Dragon Age: Inquisition (look, it is the one game I played that worked a lot with this), I had a general feeling for how the other characters related to each other, like, what their relationships were like. I knew how Cassandra felt about Solas and Varric. Or Sera about Cole. Sure, not all character relations were as well defined, but there was a lot happening there. Which here... I mean, I know how Shadowheart and Lae'zel see each other and how that evolves over time. I know how Karlach and Wyll feel about each other. But for example, there is never a scene where Karlach and Astarion argue with each other, even though they are moral-wise fundamentally opposed and probably would argue. Like, when you learn about the ritual and Astarion goes like "I totally should do it!", none of the other characters has an opinion on him planning that, let alone confronts him about it. Or where Gale gets annoyed with Karlach's approach to solving problems by just beating her axe at the problem. Or, like, Halsin and Janeira hanging out with each other, talking about druid stuff. Because outside of single cutscenes and the idle banter, the characters just do not interact a whole lot.

And I think that is a shame. Because they are already fun, engaging characters. But they totally would be more fun and engaging if they had a life outside of their backstory and their relationship to the player character. (And mind you, if you play an Origin playsthrough this does not change, because whatever character you play, still is the player character.)

Allow them friendships and romances outside of the player character. And be it just by having them awkwardly stand together and talk in front of the same tent at camp from time to time. lol

When you have that, their sexuality also would feel real - and not just like a device to propell the player's power fantasy.

Also, for fucks sake, just give us some aroace characters. Q-Q

[coldflasher]

Answer the Questions and Tag 5 Fanfic Authors

Tagged by @kitkatt0430 and @softboydepot - Thank you both for the tag :D

1. How did you get into writing fanfiction?

So I was about 13 years old, I was scrolling through my brand new One Direction tumblr, username "its-a-1d-world", soon to become "curly-and-boobear-stylinson", a harrowing username that genuinely makes me shiver like someone just walked over my grave. Like I'm sure this means nothing to someone who wasn't in the fandom AND an extreme larrie but let me tell you. Imagine the most intensely cringe superwholock url you could have. It's on that level

And I remember seeing what we would soon come to very derisively refer to as a "harry het fic" on my dash. So like, in 1D fandom, you had your standard self-insert Y/N fics, you had the queer RPF where you were shipping the boys with each other, and then you had the "het fics", which is where someone would make up a female character for one of the boys (usually Harry bc that man had and still has an insane chokehold on teenage girls everywhere) to date. If anyone has had the misfortune to read and/or watch After by Anna Todd... that type of deal

ANYWAYS I was totally unaware of fanfic as a concept, which is quite funny because as a little baby writer I'd been writing extremely derivative pseudo-fanfic for quite a few years by that point, like stories inspired by Young Dracula or Narnia or whatever without really knowing what it was. But this Harry het fic floated across my dash and a little switch went in my brain because I was like WAIT. I COULD BE WRITING STORIES ABOUT THE BOYS?? Like this was so exciting to me because writing is like probably my biggest eternal special interest and One Direction was my like, most intense special interest at the time, so I was like WAIT. I CAN COMBINE THESE THINGS. And also PEOPLE WILL READ THEM AND COMMENT ON THEM and I was sooo convinced I was god's gift to writing at the time so I was like well OBVIOUSLY everyone will read MY fics and I'll get super fandom famous instantly.

So I wrote an incredibly terrible Harry het one shot with an original character and literally got crickets. Nobody read it. Very embarrassing. I think I wrote a handful of these and nobody wanted to know, which is fair enough because I'm sure they were very bad. But THEN I was like okay fine, well everyone is obsessed with Larry, including me (though I very much liked it in a "bromance" way at the time, so I'll write a Larry fic instead. This is Louis and Harry for the uninitiated. It was the biggest fandom ship. We shipped all and every configuration of the boys but Larry and Ziam were the hard hitters. I think I wrote a few different one shots for various pairings but then I did my first Larry multi-chapter

ANYHOO the Larry fic was a big hit, I got all the outpouring of compliments and attention that my enormous thirteen-year-old head was convinced I deserved and that was kind of it really lmao. I was hooked. When I tell you I'd update my fics MULTIPLE TIMES A DAY because I was writing so fast and so obsessively, like god idk what the fuck was going on in my head but it was the greatest high I have ever experienced in my life. I also got incredibly deeply involved in the conspiracy theory about Louis and Harry's secret gay relationship and spent the next five years of my life tinhatting obsessively but that's a whole other story

2. How many fandoms have you written in?

In terms of what I've posted to AO3, only a handful—as mentioned, I started off in the One Direction fandom, I've written for The Flash and Legends, and dabbled in Doctor Who. In terms of fandoms I've written little bits for but never shared... so many lmao, the list (as far as I can recall) includes the following:

Batwoman, Supergirl, The Bold Type, The Devil Wears Prada, Once Upon a Time, Supernatural, Torchwood, Twilight, X-Men, and bizarrely, The Witcher, apparently??? I have ZERO memory of that, but it's in my fanfic folder. No idea what that was about

3. How many years have you been writing fanfiction?

I think I started in 2011/early 2012, so upward of a decade at this point... eesh.

4. Do you read or write more fanfiction?

Definitely write. I do want to read more fic, but I have a hard time choosing what to read and I am very bad at using AO3's search functions to find what I want.

5. What is one way you’ve improved as a writer?

I've finally started finishing shit!! Big moment for me lmao

6. What’s the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

I read an entire book on public defenders for a fic where Barry becomes a public defender instead of a CSI. I own a copy of a book called Forensics for Dummies which I'm slowly working my way through for fic reasons... I feel like none of these are that weird lmao

7. What’s your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

Who doesn't love the mega long comments pulling out random lines the reader liked to yell about them. I sometimes get so excited reading these comments that I lose sleep over it lmao i love them so much

8. What’s the most fringe trope/topic you write about?

Lmaoo this is a very odd one but I once wrote a Larry Stylinson fic where Harry was Slenderman and he was haunting Louis, and either Zayn or Liam was like a Van Helsing type who was trying to hunt Slenderman!Harry down and kill him. Or maybe it was Nick Grimshaw, the at the time host of the BBC1 radio breakfast show. He was the go-to fandom villain at the time

I never finished it but that was a cool time, someone in the fandom actually composed an instrumental piano piece inspired by Slenderman!Harry which is up there with the coolest things that have ever happened to me

In general I don't know if I necessarily go that fringe. I feel like it's somewhat obvious I have a bit of a thing for femdom, and also like. Coldwest/coldwestallen in general lmao, I guess that's fringe-ish

9. What is the hardest type of story for you to write?

Funnily enough probably pwp. I feel like smut is generally considered to be just an easy fun time but I feel like my line-editing process is not conducive to smut writing thing because I write the first draft in a haze of feral horny energy and then edit and revise it over and over to the point where I no longer find it sexy at all and am unable to tell whether it's even still hot or if I've totally killed the vibe in my quest to find the most poetic way of describing the way people fuck nasty. It's very frustrating ngl

10. What is the easiest type?

None of them. This is such a cop-out but everything I write is hard because I'm an insane perfectionist and everything HAS to be beautifully crafted so at this point everything is hard. But ngl I find multichapters easiest to draft in some ways just cos I can kinda cling to the high of "ooh a new idea" whilst also contributing to the same project because the "new ideas" are just new chapters, if that makes sense? It's fitting them all together that's the hard part lmao

11. Where do you do your writing? What platform? When?

I use a combination of Microsoft Word, Scrivener, and a notes app on my phone called Penzu, which is where I scribble down all the random snippets and ideas and bits and bobs that come to me during the day. The bulk of my drafting and editing is done in Word and I basically only use Scrivener for its notecard function where you can move scenes around really easily, and then I transfer everything back into Word because of Tracked Changes. Does Scrivener have that? Probably. Scrivener has everything

12. What is something you’ve been too nervous/intimidated to write, but would love to write one day?

Honestly it's never really a case of "too nervous/intimidated" because I genuinely have never encountered an idea where I was like "hmm idk if I can pull it off", I have extreme faith in my own capabilities to an almost delusional level lmao, it's always just "I do not have time". But I do have this extremely long Coldwestallen fic that's inspired by Hades and Persephone, with Barry as Persephone, Len as Hades, and Iris as a soooort of Demeter figure which i know is weird because Demeter is Persephone's mother, but whatever, she more embodies the familial connection of the whole team rather than being an actual blood relative if that makes sense

So the concept is basically Barry as Persephone spending half his time with Len and the Rogues in the criminal underworld (I thought I was so clever for that one lmao) and the rest with Team Flash, and then the lines blur and it becomes coldwestallen-y eventually, but it's soooo long and basically split into four novels that I have written between 25 and 50k for each. It's gonna take me literal YEARS to tackle this thing so I've kinda put it on hold for now but I miss it so much

13. What made you choose your username?

So I wrote a joke in a fic that I genuinely have no idea whether I even posted it or not, it might have been in Aftermath. But basically Barry's suit gets blown up and he gets photographed literally streaking through the city totally nude (you can't see anything bc he's moving too fast but you can tell he ain't wearing any clothes lmao) and there's a newspaper headline that's like "THE FLASHER???" Let me tell you I was very annoyed the other day when I learned they already made that joke on Supergirl

And then I just added "cold" for Len lmao

[goldenbloodytears]

I would really like to know more about Sam, without spoiling the plot of future projects what can you say about her and Danny in the asks 2, 3, 9, 10, 14 and 15?

Also if Sam was a character of the scream franchise which one would she be?

Send by Mx. 👍

2. How do they treat themselves when they're feeling sad?

Sam's go to is to put on Elton John (most likely Honky Chateau—I can probably write a small piece on how Rocket Man can be seen as a metaphor for gay alienation) and then probably get a big tub of ice cream going. She’s not a stranger to depressive spirals, but sad and depressed are not quite the same thing—she deals with sad a lot better than depressed I would say.

With Danny… I think he tends to bypass sad and go straight to irritated. I’m a big believer in old man Johnson toxic masculinity indoctrination, so Danny probably lowkey thinks crying is for weaklings (and women). I think he might result to trying to calm himself with a couple drinks if for some reason he can’t immediately fix the problem that is causing him to be sad/irritated… however, said combo is more likely to lower his inhibition… and that’s when you’re probably more likely to get an impromptu murder (in comparison to his more planned stories).

3. What parts of themselves do they tend to hide?

Sam tends to hide her sexuality. Or at least attempt to. She lives in a small town, and the gossip mill would surely have a field day with the local English lady reporter turning out to be a “lesbian” (because bisexuals don’t exist in 1994 /sarcasm). The result is where she’s inoffensive enough to not cause outright homophobic drama, but she’s not exactly living the best life she could be either… especially when she’s partly trying to play nice for a family that aren’t nearly as accepting as they could be.

Danny hides himself. To be clearer, I’ve been considering whether his usage of personas happen to allow him to connect with an element of himself that has long been suppressed by his old man’s teachings. This is kind of a half-baked thought that I need to think about more. It’s a bit like being a method actor, an inherent element of performance. Think about how many seemingly outgoing and over confident performers are actually rather introverted (and not just because of paparazzi hounds)… also consider how people tend to act more freely when anonymous, for good or ill. Danny hides a lot of himself, he hides his literal self as Danny, but also other elements. His sexuality just like Sam, since being a bisexual man in the 90s is just… asking for trouble. However, he’s so strongly manifested in his expected gender roles as a masculine military brat that you wouldn’t even guess he might be queer unless you went for some crazy extreme like the fact he tends to dress well on average. I don’t think his personas suddenly act flaming (just to be clear) but he’s a little bit nicer, way more talkative, a little bit goofier/nerdier and I don’t think it’s entirely an act (although he believes it is and will tell you so).

9. What are their insecurities?

Sam is insecure about many things at the start of the story. This isn’t really a plot spoiler. She’s insecure about the fact both her brothers are married with kids, she’s insecure about the fact she’s queer, she’s insecure about her relationship with her girlfriend. She’s insecure about her future in the province she was born in—quick history lesson, in 1994 Quebec proposed a provincial referendum to decide whether the citizens of Quebec largely supported the idea of Quebec becoming its own sovereign country to be voted on in 1995. There was a major divide along language lines with English speaking Quebecers largely supporting the federalist Canadian position (No) while the French-speaking Québécois generally supported the sovreignist Yes side. There was a large exodus of English speaking Quebecers from the province around this time, settling in Ontario and Alberta primarily. You had small towns with flourishing English populations suddenly lose multiple families which had lived there for generations only for the towns to become much more French. This is the situation Sam finds herself facing, working as a local English newspaper which is now struggling as a result of less readership… so honestly she’s even kinda insecure about the future of her job too, period, lol.

I think Danny’s insecurities would require a whole post of their own, however, I’ve briefly touched on one of them in question 15.

10. What are their emotional triggers?

For Sam: curiosity, fear, frustration.

For Danny: boredom, frustration, praise.

I’m not entirely sure what this question is asking so I’ve kinda listed the emotions that I think are most likely to motivate them to do something for good or worse.

14. What kind of people do they tend to gravitate towards?

Sam tends to gravitate towards people with big personalities. She’s a much more subdued person and kinda lives vicariously through them. She’s intrigued by the promise of life outside small town Quebec, so it’s very easy to get her attention with stories of travel. She has a major obsession with this random cold case that happened when she was a teenager, to the point that everyone thinks she’s a little bit weird for it, and in this way she’s also drawn to people that will put up with this particular quirk. I think you can already see where I’m going with this.

Danny, like a true confidence trickster, is drawn to people most likely to believe his bullshit. This doesn’t mean he looks for idiots, he’s still a bit of a wannabe academic blowhard in spirit and as such I think he’s still drawn to people who profess at least a bit of a braincell…. But it’s the trust element. He’s looking for people who want to believe what he says. He’s also looking for people who think he’s cool. Even if he’s Jed or persona #632.

So when taking these tendencies together, you can already kind of start to see how Danny and Sam compliment each other in terms of the people they are seeking. They’re both looking for somebody who’s going to gas them up—feed their egos and hope for the future.

15. What do they like/dislike about themselves?

Sam likes her skills as a journalist, she feels like her stubbornness is a useful trait. She wishes she was better at being more traditionally feminine. She dislikes her height, at 5’10” she towers over a lot of guys and it’s worse if she wears heels.

I feel like we all have a rough idea of what Danny “likes” about himself, so I’ll focus on what he dislikes. His emotionality. He knows he can be impulsive, and he thinks feelings like fear, anger, and sadness are not particularly useful for himself when he’s supposed to be this killer who goes around murdering in the night. If he could be a mindless killer, I’m sure he would do so.

Bonus: What character in Scream would Sam be?

Hmmm, that’s a very good question. I think I would need to do a complete series rewatch to really pin it down but I think she would kinda be a weird proxy if you were to mix Gail and Dewey together (she’s their forbidden baby). She has a lot of Gail’s tenacious journalism qualities but she’s a lot nicer, similar to Dewey. Her brother Chris is also a cop, so she’s a little bit functional to Tatum in a way.

[literaryspinster]

I’m on ch 3 of your limoreau fic and I’m struggling a bit with the decision to make Powerlad racist, why does every story about Black people have to involve racism as a plot device?

I don’t believe it does. I just made that specific choice because one of the big themes of that story (and The Boys itself) is toxic celebrity culture, and I wanted to convey that theme in a way that felt somewhat high stakes without getting into big conspiracy territory or putting Marie through what Starlight went through (or any other sort of physical violence).

A privileged celebrity having their problematic nature exposed, only for their fans and those in power to go out of their way to protect them, often at the expense of the less protected people in their orbit, is something I’ve witnessed online multiple times, and as a Black woman it’s exhausting to see. I can only imagine what that’s like for those more directly affected. That’s kind of what I wanted to explore with that plotline.

I also don’t think racism is a thing that just exists in media to make Black people feel like they can never escape it. It’s an actual part of our lives. I’ve been disrespected and hurt on account of my race, and while the fact that that’s happened doesn’t define me, or even figure into my day to day life as much as it once did, it is something I’ve felt the need to grapple with in various ways, including through writing. I also address queerphobia and sexism but racism is what I feel the most equipped to unpack because it’s what I’ve dealt with the most in my interactions with people (I’m a part of the queer community but quite straight-presenting, and am not a part of a profession or lifestyle that’s heavily associated with men or manliness, so sexism isn’t something I tend to feel on a visceral level).

Furthermore, I believe racism is one of the ‘isms that speculative fiction actually tends to be the shyest about. I’ve watched plenty of mainstream content where sexism is addressed repeatedly, meanwhile race is never commented on in any way in spite of the cast of characters being racially diverse (The Beauty and the Beast remake is the example that stands out the most to me). Or I’ve seen white women dealing with sexism and only Black men dealing with racism while the Black women in the story are just kind of there (i.e. Outlander, a show I could not finish in spite of all of the praise it received). Or some entirely fictional creature or concept is meant as the stand in for racism. I understand wanting to read about different things, but I do believe that there’s a middle ground between making our stories entirely about race and just pretending that it doesn’t exist.

All that being said. Fanfic is meant for escapism, I get that. I wasn’t trying to make anyone feel annoyed or let down or anything like that, I was just doing what I always do when I’m writing a fanfic that’s not a complete AU, playing in someone else’s sandbox with someone else’s toys. The Boys is all about satirizing topics like public bigotry (and yeah, it’s a Gen V fic but the point of it was to imagine them in The Seven so therefore on The Boys). I’m not always a fan of how they go about it, but I do appreciate its point of view a fair amount more than something like South Park, or even the show’s own source material. I doubt I would have stuck with it for three seasons if that wasn’t the case. So when writing for a show that frequently lampoons racists and other types of ridiculous people, the decisions made with Powerlad came pretty naturally. If I’d known I’d be disappointing people to this degree (you aren’t the first to comment on this) then I would have maybe gone in a different direction. To be honest the criticism has taken the wind out of my sails a bit.

In spite of everything, the rest of the story is planned out and partially written. Even though the fandom is understandably in a bad place right now, I hope the way everything plays out feels rewarding to people who choose to finish.

[talenlee]

Story Pile: Girls Band Cry

Girls Band Cry is a 2024 original anime series made by Toei Animation (tons of stuff), directed by Kazuo Sakai (tons of stuff) and Jukki Hanada (again, tons of stuff). It is a unique project, not derived from a manga or a game, meant to fit into the idol music genre that is very popular this uh, millenium, and it follows a story about girls, in a band, who cry. It is also a 3d animated anime, where instead of conventional digitally drawn cells, characters and environments are 3d objects, and that’s a type of animation that is generally known as ’emergent’, in that it’s still being developed.

Girls Band Cry is also an anime that has generated a bunch of Angry Wordsing, which is not aided by there being no official English translation. Girls Band Cry is being produced in Japanese and French, and the rest of us have to deal with the fansubs like it’s 2002 or something. Which, you know, that’s cool! I checked it out explicitly because of this, because I couldn’t imagine why this thing wasn’t being localised for the English speaking audience!

Turns out, I liked it! And then I checked out the internet about it, and wondered what the hell people are doing?

I’d like to offer a counter-spoiler warning; I’m not going to explain anything in this series beyond the things that are relatively obvious from the advertising, like that this series is going to feature five girls, who are in a band, by the end of the series. You’d have to do a pretty impressive bad faith reading of me to act as if mentioning the two band members you don’t necessarily meet in the first episode is a ‘spoiler’ for a show that puts them in the Opening.

I’ll also offer a content warning. There are some low-level themes in this anime that can create anxiety, like school and financial precarity, but more important than that is that central to the story is are characters unpacking parental neglect and lived experience of bullying in a Japanese school, which brings with it a talk about suicidal ideation. If that particular mix of social cruelty and helplessness bums you out, just know it’s gunna show up here. This series doesn’t dwell on it, but it’s part of the story.

Girls Band Cry follows the story of Nina Iseri, a rural schoolgirl who, in response to an unhappy home life and terrible school experience, flees to Tokyo (supported by her family) to attend university and try to establish a new life and new identity as her own person, apart from everything she’s dealt with that was making her unhappy. This is obviously an experience that has lots of ways to go wrong, and they do. Tumbling through her new life, Nina meets, to her shock, her favourite musician who is busking, having ditched the band that made the single that helped Nina to endure her unhappy life so far.

They hang.

And then they sing together, as part of a scheme.

That’s where the story starts and from there, these pieces accumulate the makings of a band, with a story that shows these characters who are each, in their own way, unhappy with how they’re perceived and the place that society has selected for them. The story arc follows forming the band, finding inspiration, making songs, struggling with what you can do as a band, and then building and growing together, with the big culmination of the series being Pretty Nice.

It’s good! I liked it! It seems hard coded to disappoint people who expected it to be more than it is. It’s a series where there’s a queer confession, that then doesn’t turn into extensive making out sloppy style. Tragic, I know. It’s grungy about the lifestyles of its characters and full of struggles with the limits of what it’s doing and there’s not just a School Band Club to provide structure, because these are all characters with lives and day jobs. It reminds me most closely of Beck, in that it’s using a familiar structure (music anime) but isn’t coming at it from the same ordinary perspective.

The eerie thing about Girls Band Cry to me is that it’s such a creature of its genre that is nonetheless going to be judged by the standards of that genre with none of its forgiveness. I’ve watched more of this particular glurgey genre of Buy An iTunes Single, Thanks, and I don’t talk about them much because it’s just kind of mean. This is a space with an audience that already likes the way these things are and if I watch these shows and consider them bad because of things like ‘incoherent plots’ and ‘forgettable details’ or ‘structural messiness’ or even ‘tedious one-note characters clearly defined as being Gacha product.’ But these fans don’t see these things this way and in my most optimistic and kind perceptions I’d say: Okay, sure.

It’s important to hold onto these kind moments because it’s hard to not feel like a lot of the fandoms around these shows choose the ‘good ones’ are the ones with girls and songs in it they like, and the ‘bad ones’ are the ones that don’t do that. Or maybe the ones that have girls and songs they like but aren’t properly coy about sexuality.

I try very, very hard to treat the Idol genre with some respect because it doesn’t get me anywhere to not, but it’s hard to hold onto that. In this case, I did joke about the idea that Girls Band Cry is an example of an anime that fails the Reverse Bechdel Test, where two women have a conversation about something that isn’t a man and the audience doesn’t understand what the hell is happening.

Anyway, what does this apply to Girls Band Cry? Well, the story is cut off at a weird spot; it builds to a crescendo, then there’s another two episodes. It has a set of dramatic arcs that it kinda fulfills at different points. There’s an untidiness to what it doesn’t resolve, and an anxiety that it almost feels like the series is supposed to resolve and then doesn’t. Mixed in with all that is also the way there’s a very clear and obvious love confession that the characters then never talk about again, which is somehow perfectly positioned to provoke bad translation and then unsatisfying resolution.

I like this anime, and I like it because, I think, its novelty. I think it is a ‘queer’ anime in the way most queer anime are, where nobody says or does anything queer, but instead it centres on a world of nothing but girls and some miscellaneous dudes. The aesthetics are rock band, the music is enjoyable and the characterisation told through action has details that I enjoy.

Judged by the normal standards of what I watch, Girls Band Cry is a series with a cool prompt, enjoyable characters, some good music, a bunch of nice characterisation touches and a shaky conclusion. There’s plenty of anime that fall into that space of being Perfectly Enjoyable Mid shows, but I somehow feel like Girls Band Cry should be more special than that, should be better than it is. Some of that is attention to detail, and part of that attention to detail is a byprodut of being a 3d, high-frame rate anime.

This is where the technicalities of the anime come into play. Anime, if you’re not familiar, is typically animated at 24 frames per second. I don’t have information I consider reliable in English for this, but it seems to me that Girls Band Cry is animated at a higher frame rate, which makes it smoother and gives the animation a very different feeling. It evokes videogame cut-scenes to me, but it also makes it feel very different from being an anime the same way that the animation speed of that has that pace. The speed and fluidity of the animation brings with it a different relationship to spectacle, too, with detailed mouth animation and lip syncing and art-shifting over into traditional anime projecting being a kind of choice.

I think that’s part of what sticks with me about watching Girls Band Cry. There are anime I’ve watched (against my better judgment) where I can keenly feel something missing, in the tenor that someone was making a product and ran out of material to Make All Of The Product, leaving behind a project that had me expecting more. There were plot beats that don’t connect, scenes that feel like they should be shown, concepts that weren’t explained, that stuff all feels tangible in what it’s missing.

With Girls Band Cry I don’t feel like it’s missing anything. I just feel like I want more of it.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[thirdmagic]

honestly i often cannot help but thinking about how of the two PDL cross-dressing-baihe-heroine works i read, the way gender and sexuality is approached like, it is so different for each of her main characters. like, fgep is a pretty classic mulan-type setup where lin wanyue only cross-dresses to get into the army, and specifically disguises herself as her twin brother, and the male identity is not really her, li xian is decidedly and explicitly only interested in women and not at all into her for as long as she thinks lin wanyue's a man, it's very much a temporary state of being for her, and while this isnt the central conflict of the story by any means it's very present in the story as a conflict bc lin wanye actively angsts over her attraction to li xian and has to get accustomed to the idea of queerness and herself being queer, contrast to li xian herself who came into her queerness at a young age and is very fierce in asserting it even as she has to keep it a secret, she's very firm in 'i like women and only women even if i will use marriage to a man for political advantage and to have power in the world', this is like a big thing for them both.

and then contrast jwqs. qi yan was quite literally assigned male at birth. she clearly recognizes herself as a 'girl-in-disguise-as-a-boy' and identifies herself as a woman in text repeatedly, but also, she spends pretty much her entire life publicly living and presenting as a boy, the androgyny is basically baked into her identity, she is clearly very comfortable with her male identity and presentation bc that's just her default way of being. and she and jingnu fall in love pretty early on, jingnu is clearly attracted to and in love with her both before and after seeing qi yan as a woman. and she does go out of their way to tell qi yan she is her wife. but also its not really that big of a deal? like yeah this is at least in part because they have much bigger issues to deal with by the time qi yan does her big reveal, like all the crime qi yan did and the fact that they're on enemy sides and the general extremely tumultuous political situation that they're at the center of, these are much bigger problems, especially once all the murder and arson get uncovered. but it is still of note how even though the topic of gender does come up it's basically a side note in comparison to all the other big reveals and jingnu doesnt really struggle all that much with the idea that her true love is a woman or what that means for her, and qi yan is much angsiter over being attracted to and in love with the daughter of the man who destroyed her life and kingdom than she is over the fact that it's a daughter, it's discussed and not dismissed but it's not reaaallly an issue.

and just in general qi yan is just so. so aggressively androgynous, and i don't just mean in looks, her very identity is androgynous, her experience really feel like it falls somewhere under the umbrella of transness. idk theres just so much interesting stuff going on there and i wonder how much of it was intended on the one hand because i feel like the idea was basically just to write a cis woman lesbian like lin wanyue but also on the other hand pdl made the very active choice to have qi yan's crossdressing and gender stuff happen literally from the day of her birth, like, it wasn't actually needed for her to Already be an established crossdresser by the time li yanru finds her or for the revenge plot to happen, especially because she basically gives her puberty blockers which does the lion's share of work to disguise her. like no this was an active, character-shaping choice that also kind of persists until the end.

anyway i have not read her other stuff yet so i dont know how she approaches it there, i assume there's differences there too because she probably wants to vary stuff even if she uses similair setups or tropes, but fgep and jwqs just stand out to me as having the strongest contrast.