#these screenshots are all from queering the map

[sexhaver]

Would love to hear what your word alternative is to describe the specific oppression faced by trans men because base level "word means this and can only mean this and has to be able to mean the same thing when broken down to it's base words" is "bi means two so bisexuals don't like enbies" levels of bullshit on both a social and linguistic sense. Trans men experience transphobia and mysogny specific to them on top of other oppressions that is not experienced by other trans people or cis women and the chosen word is transandrophobia, the oppression and specific hatred of trans men. Transmysogny describes transfem specific oppression, transphobia covers all trans oppression experiences, what can transmascs call our oppression since one word in it apparently offends you? If its just the name that offends you, what's an alternative? Idk how to tell you that trans men do experience oppression for, in cis people's eyes, "trying" to identify as men therefore yes, they experience oppression for being men, trans men specifically. The word androphobia is loaded but so is the word queer or gay or homosexual or literally every other language used by the lgbt community. All around, yikes.

Your literally only looking at it from the perspective that cis people see trans men as men, just trans ones therefore they dont attack or question their manhood, just the fact their trans. When they don't. They see us as ugly, immature and disfigured women who don't know our place. This idea that trans men's oppression just evaporates and they suddenly gain male privilege when they transition to any degree, regardless of medical or passing status is bs. Idk how to tell you they are experiencing oppression for being trans and specifically trying to transition from womanhood to manhood due to our society's view of what women should be. But sure, take all my shit out of context and post one screenshot. You really proved a point by ignoring trans men's oppression and deaths as a result of their transmasculinity, I'm sure Nex can really attest to our sudden transmasc privileges. Didn't realize you were the most surface level "men = bad. Men face no issue in society." type of "feminist".

Would love to hear what your word alternative is to describe the specific oppression faced by trans men

"transphobia".

Transmysogny describes transfem specific oppression,

transmisogyny is the synthesis of transphobia and misogyny that trans women face. the reason trans women get their own word is because that word represents the intersection of two different axes of oppression, not because every trans identity needs its own descriptor for hatred against it specifically.

transphobia covers all trans oppression experiences, what can transmascs call our oppression since one word in it apparently offends you?

...you answered your own question, "transphobia".

If its just the name that offends you, what's an alternative?

"transphobia".

trans men do experience oppression for, in cis people's eyes, "trying" to identify as men

this is transphobia.

The word androphobia is loaded but so is the word queer or gay or homosexual or literally every other language used by the lgbt community. All around, yikes.

Lol. Lmao, even.

Your literally only looking at it from the perspective that cis people see trans men as men, just trans ones therefore they dont attack or question their manhood, just the fact their trans. When they don't. They see us as ugly, immature and disfigured women who don't know our place.

wow, so the reason cis people are biased against trans men is because they see them as fundamentally being failed examples of the gender they were assigned at birth and lying about their actual gender identity? damn, that's wild. if only there was a name for this phenomenon that could also map onto other trans identities to provide a unifying framework for analysis.

This idea that trans men's oppression just evaporates and they suddenly gain male privilege when they transition to any degree, regardless of medical or passing status is bs.

literally not what this discussion is about.

Idk how to tell you they are experiencing oppression for being trans and specifically trying to transition from womanhood to manhood due to our society's view of what women should be.

you are describing transphobia.

I'm sure Nex can really attest to our sudden transmasc privileges.

what the fuck? 2. Nex was nonbinary not transmasc? 3. what the fuck?

Didn't realize you were the most surface level "men = bad. Men face no issue in society." type of "feminist".

hello? what year is it? can anyone hear me? it's so cold

[i-am-totally-not-a-lizard]

*looks at you like a kid in bed awaiting a bedtime story* what was reddit like…?

Ahh my old home... It was beautiful... Well actually not really it kinda sucked but it was home. After a long day of hard work I would kick back and relax by immediately getting into arguments with conservatives about whether or not I deserve to exist, spending all night moderating every new post made to r/familyguyporn (erm... You broke rule #274, how dare you, permabanned for life), and visiting 30 different subreddits only to see the same unfunny joke recycled and reposted for the thousandth time!

Haha but seriously though it wasn't all bad I actually really enjoyed my time there. If Reddit ever becomes not stupid again there's really great communities on there and it provides a much more structured and useful method of interacting with interests you like. There are some great communities that I honestly can't find comparable groups to on Tumblr that I wish I didn't have to continue using Reddit or a discord server to keep in touch with.

If you guys ever want to see what's up with Reddit I'd highly recommend r/196 (currently not allowing posts but maybe someday, also it's just fun to look through the old posts) and its little sister subreddits r/691 and r/19684 because they have a similar Tumblr (queer, lefty, shitposty) vibe, it's where most of the Reddit refugees on here came from initially. Also r/Tumblr and r/curatedTumblr (both private right now), because it's just reposts of Tumblr screenshots so the people there would probably be more accepting of you little tumbleweeds. r/wunkus (silly cats and stuff, I love that sub so much, criminally underrated). r/vexillologycirclejerk and r/mapporncirclejerk (private) are some of my favorite communities and I'm sad there's not a similar big community here. They're pretty left wing and focus on shitposting and jokes about flags and maps, they're very funny but some of the jokes get old quick. As well as literally any community you can think of! I swear, no matter how niche your interest is, there's probably a subreddit for it. And if there isn't, you can make it!

I'd avoid major shitposting subs, as that seems to be where the 'edgy teenage suburban white boy with unlimited internet access' archetype tends to congregate. I'd also avoid sorting by controversial in the comments when LGBT people get brought up on mainstream subs. Reddit takes itself a lot more seriously than Tumblr does and people will not be afraid to argue with you. A lot. Also you get punished with downvotes if people don't like what you say.

Anyways that was a lot. I hope Reddit stops being dumb because it's honestly hard to replace and it's such a great place to find things and people that you're interested in. Not to mention if you have a very specific question about basically anything, Reddit will literally save your life. I like Tumblr a lot, but Reddit will always be near and dear to my heart.

[sakarrie-creates]

It’s that time of year! Here’s my 2023 art summary! After two years of having to include non-colored pieces, I finally did enough ‘full’ pieces to fill my art summary template! I did have to get a bit creative with the months since I was able to draw a LOT more during the summer, but I’ll take it! Sorry it's a bit blurry. I'm not sure if that's just for the preview or not, but it was a smaller file than normal and since these reflections are 99% for my own interest, I decided it wasn't worth trying to change.

As usual, I got rambly so reflection questions are answered under the cut. The template I used is available here in case anyone else wants to make their own! My fic summary will be coming in a week or so, so stay tuned for the stats and round-up there. :)

What events did you participate in (with art)? Player Appreciation Week, Fandom Trumps Hate, Dear Fellow Traveler (Animatic), Weird People (Editing), SPN Comfortably Queer Zine (dropped), and lots of zine applications for page artist, merch artist, comic artist, and spot artist roles!

What was your biggest challenge this year? While time, like last year, was still a challenge, I think my biggest challenge was a mix of low motivation and an intense perfectionistic mindset. At the start of the year, I got super into TOH and was super hyped about all the zines with apps opening. I really REALLY wanted to get into them and figured I should apply for art too just cause it would increase my overall chances of getting in. After the finale, I did a screenshot redraw that ended up being absolutely fantastic for where my skill level is. I went deeper into rendering than ever before, and somehow it worked for me. 

That probably was the start of my unreasonably high expectations, and I got it into my head that maybe if I could make a whole portfolio of artwork at that quality level, I actually stood a chance at getting into a zine as an artist. From then on, I was hardcore crash-coursing perspective, rendering techniques, and generally trying to improve without allowing room for mistakes. While I do think it helped me grow a lot, it burnt me out so I struggled to work on stuff past summary (when all the zine apps were) and even dropped from the SPN Comfortably Queer Zine cause my imposter syndrome was so strong. (Though that was also partially because it was a ‘sign-up and you’re in’ zine, so they never saw my art during the application process and had no way of knowing if I was good enough.

What was something you were surprised by? I’m pretty sure I discovered the perspective tool is CSP this year! CSP has so many tools I’m not aware of (despite watching tons of tutorials and guides), so it wasn’t super surprising but it was nice. I have to say, they’re a serious hassle to work with and require a higher understanding of vanishing points and such than I currently have, but I could see it being very useful for future scene art pieces.

Did you try anything new this year?

Yes! This year I kicked down the door to the merch world and have been collecting and designing throughout the year. Though the designs have mostly just been for zine app portfolio’s, everything has worked out really well for me and I hope to produce charms for my collection as I improve my skills. Where do you think you most improved? Definitely my confidence in rendering! And probably my rendering itself too. I did a ton more pieces with it this year and it’s definitely a favorite part of the art process for me. I think I’ll have a lot more fun with it this year too, since I’m trying to keep it lower pressure, so I can experiment more to find out what brushes and styles I like most. What are you most proud of? I think I’m most proud of how ambitious I was with my zine apps. Though I didn’t get into any for art and it burned me out a fair bit, I did a lot of hard work and made pieces I can be mostly happy with. As for specific pieces, I’m very proud of my animatic clip for the Dear Fellow Traveler MAP (which is what the Belos art from the summary is from). My portion was about 5 seconds with 24 fully colored and shaded frames. A few of those were moving frames too, so the end result is the closest thing to actual animation I’ve done. I also really like the rendering on the Huntlow Epilogue art and generally how the Steve&Matt hug turned out.

How’d this year compare to your 2023 goals? I honestly couldn’t remember what my goals were, but all things considered, I didn’t do too bad! Thankfully past-Sakarrie was wise and made it a bullet list so I can just check things off. Met: -Player Appreciation Week -Add to zine portfolio -Apply to at least one zine as an artist (fine if don’t get accepted) -Keep experimenting with backgrounds and shading -Pull out some old WIPs -Build more consistency of style

The checked off ones I definitely met, so good for me! This was a very zine-focused year, so I way exceeded those goals. The last two I did do, but they’re a bit subjective. Specifically, I think the ‘WIPs’ I was referring to were old sketches, but most of the old WIPs I revisited were already colored and I was either adding rendered or cleaning them up for zine usage. As for style, I’m REALLY bad at telling haha. That said, my characters seem reasonably similar when I draw them, so I’m going to tentatively count it. Kinda: -One fully colored piece per month

I’m gonna give myself a half check on this one. I didn’t have a fully colored piece every month, but I did have over 12 fully rendered pieces in the end, several of which had backgrounds. So while I didn’t meet the letter of the goal, I feel like I met the spirit of it.

Did Not Meet: -Finish Huntlow comic -30 minutes animatic digitalize rough draft -Maybe make some fanart of my favorite fics

These don’t shock me. They’re all personal projects and this was a very external-goal-driven year for me. The Huntlow comic is a big love of mine but it’s definitely ambitious for where my skill is. I’ve got the whole thing messy-sketched and most of it has been clean sketched, but the jump from that to lineart is gonna be hard, and I have no idea what I’d be doing with color since the panels don’t have a background. That said, I do feel like it’s some solid work and I adore the angst vibe of it, so maybe I’ll get it done one day. I could also see myself posting it as a messy lineart comic so that others could enjoy the concept being executed in case it never gets finished.

As for the 30 Minutes animatic, I still 100% intend to complete it eventually. I love the way it fits to the music and I’m so proud of the thumbnails. Even if it never becomes a full animatic, I want to digitize the frames and line it up with music so I can share the concept I see in my mind with others. My brain was somewhat overtaken suddenly by TOH this year, so now that that’s settled and I’m hoping to follow my muse more this year, maybe this will be something I can get excited about again.

The fanart for favorite fics is no surprise since it’s kinda the tack on. With low motivation and projects with deadlines that needed my focus, personal art like this was buried way below other priorities. It’s a nice though for sure though.

Alrighty then, now it’s time for 2024 goals!! Oh goodness, I really don’t know what to expect of myself. I definitely am going to try to allow for more personal projects with lower pressure, but I do still have some goals. Hopefully most can be accomplished without applying big pressure though.

2024 Goals:

-Number One Priority: Create for my and don’t put myself in a place to get crazy burnt out and still have requirements. If I meet this goal, then it’s okay if I don’t meet any of the others. (It would be sad.... But I would still count it as meeting overall goals.) -Participate in Summergen and PAW Week (Art or Fic) -Design Handplates charm as anniversary gift (November) -Design CS Charm -Have a fully usable Zine Portfolio (Currently need more merch samples and rendered pieces with backgrounds) -Apply to new TOH Zines or other loved fandom zines. If I end up getting into any, I can pull back, but since that doesn’t seem likely, I want to get into the habit of always being ready to apply with what I have. -Make an ongoing project list to pin to my tumblr. This applies mostly for fics, but that way people coming to my page can see what fandoms I’m actively creating for and what they can look forward to (as well as have an opening to ask questions if they’re interested). -Post more (at least 10 times throughout the year) and add my best pieces to instagram (8+ pieces by end of year). -Do ONE of the following:     1. 30 minutes digitized so it can be shared with music      2. Open Up Your Eyes fully thumbnail      3. Fanworks for other people’s fics      4. Participate in an extra bang or exchange with art      5. Design and manufacture a pin -Play with different brushes and rendering styles -Draw something from scratch every month, no matter how small -Not exactly art, but I want to have a finalized long-term merch display plan for all my items Overall, how’d the year go? I think I did well! I didn’t meet all my goals and I pushed myself too far, but I learned and improved a LOT this year. All things considered, I made pieces that last year me would be blown away by, so I think that’s an automatic win. I’m pretty uncertain on how this next year will go (even more so than last year, which is surprising since I was changing schools last year), but I’m hoping to enjoy what I do and create art semi-regularly. Here’s to 2024!

[dial-a-dyke]

Do you know about Queering the Map?

Hey y'all! I wanna highlight a queer platform I've been really interested in recently, one that has gained popularity in the last couple months especially. You might recognize this heartbreaking and intimate excerpt from Gaza that's been circulating social media platforms in the last couple months:

I’ve always imagined you and me sitting out in the sun, hand and hand, free at last. We spoke of all the places we would go if we could. Yet you are gone now. If I had known that bombs raining down on us would take you from me, I would have gladly told the world how I adored you more than anything. I’m sorry I was a coward.

The post comes from queeringthemap.com which, according to their Instagram, "is a community-generated counter mapping platform for digitally archiving LGBTQ2IA+ experience in relation to physical space."

Basically, Queering the Map allows you to post your own queer memories from anywhere in the world, completely anonymous. Wanna mark where you and your girlfriend had your first date? Drop a pin. Wanna place yourself in the middle of the ocean as a metaphor for unrequited love? Drop a pin. Wanna reflect on being the only queer person in your town? Drop a pin.

There is no limit to what users can post - or what they can see. Every post that users have ever created is still on the site, serving as make-shift digital archive for queer memories. Posts are public to any user who visits the website, allowing people to browse the digital globe and the queer experiences people have shared.

Founded by Canadian artist Lucas LaRochelle in 2017, Queering the Map has connected countless LGBTQ2IA+ people from around the world. Some like to share their own memories, others find hope in reading others' posts, and some share the posts to other platforms for rhetorical purposes.

Take the excerpt above from Gaza, for example. It first began to circulate the web (to my knowledge) roughly a year ago, and then again in June after it was featured in a NYT article. Then, in October, Instagram, Twitter, Tik Tok, and Tumblr users began sharing the screenshotted post to show solidarity with Palestinians - especially queer Palestinians. The Dyke Project used this excerpt and others from Gaza to display on bus advertising systems. Something about Queering the Map captivated attention in a unique way - something about it made people feel like it was the right place to turn in moments and feelings of tragedy and horror.

Other times, people share posts that simply spoke to them. Illustrator Aude Nasr brought some posts to life, helping us picture the moments people were trying to document. I've posted some of Nasr's art here.

I encourage you all to check out queeringthemap.com at some point, if not to post for yourself but to just see the beautiful, lively, and complicated memories someone, somewhere, wanted you to see. And to my queer siblings everywhere: I am constantly amazed by our desire to connect with each other, to defy borders and time, and to write our stories down.

Quick userguide:

Entering the website, users find themselves in a zoomed in location on the map. The water is blue, but the land is pink with dotted lines indicating borders between states or regions, and straight lines between countries. Using their mouse, one can scroll to zoom in or out. Memories are marked on the pink map by black location tags, which you can click on to view the specific memory a user shared for that location, or simply run your mouse over it for a smaller box to show the text. Zooming out too far, a user might see a black blob, no pink space in sight as so many memories have been posted to a particular region.

Were you familiar with Queering the Map before this post? What about before the last couple of months? What Queering the Map entry speaks to you? What does queer memory making mean to you?

Here's some posts I've been thinking about lately.

It gets better. When I first got here I was so unsure of myself and if I would be accepted. Now, I know I am loved, I am more sure and I have been accepted and embraced unlike ever before. Roll Pride baby!

came out to my daughter here while driving her to school, 6 years later and 6000km away she came out to me .

Came out to my folks. It didn’t go too well.

Was with the cutest guy I’d ever met

I’m from rafah and she’s from deir al balah, she got married later and i left gaza strip, to this day i think of you, to this day i wish to be back to sleep with you in the same bed, i want you to call for my name again, i wish if i can be with you again my heart. بحبك وبالرغم من الي صار دايما في بالي.

Idk how long I will live so I just want this to be my memory here before I die. I am not going to leave my home, come what may. My biggest regret is not kissing this one guy. He died two days back. We had told how much we like each other and I was too shy to kiss last time. He died in the bombing. I think a big part of me died too. And soon I will be dead. To younus, i will kiss you in heaven.

First kiss 16 years ago

One day, this sea will not divide us.

i hope your family knows i will love you until the day i die. i hope we meet in every life, no matter how many times you break my heart. Wo ai ni

故事从这里开始 : ) Un día te olvidaré, no importa que sea tan difícil. Me lo creo.

[songofwizardry]

things i liked in 2024

for the past few years, i've kept a running list in my notes app of media i really enjoyed over the course of the year, and last year i finally wrote it up properly and put it on tumblr, which was fun! so we're doing that again. with some vague categories, and links where possible, here we go—my 2024 media list:

words (prose, poetry, etc—book links go to storygraph):

non-essential work by Omar Sakr [poetry collection]: i did not read as much poetry as i wanted to this year, but i discovered Omar Sakr online and his work just hit me very hard. my favourite is probably on finding the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in Dante's Inferno.

the gardener's hand series by Felicia Davin [prose, fantasy trilogy]: i read a lot more books this year, and i'm very happy about that! i absolutely adored this series. i started it on a recommendation from a friend (thank you @everyoneinspaceisgay), and not only was it extremely readable, i loved the worldbuilding and the magic in particular, our main characters are so compelling, and it's just a really queer series. not just in the 'oh there's a gay relationship at the centre of this', it is very very queer. loved it. can't believe i haven't heard more about it tbh.

the adventures of amina al-sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty [prose, fantasy]: i knew i was going to love this book, because i adored the daevabad books, but god, this was good. amina is such a good protagonist, there were djinns and magic and high sea hijinks, and while a decent chunk of the reason i loved daevabad was because seeing a fantasy world filled with the islamic mythology and folklore that i grew up with made me really happy and excited, this hit that even more—amina sails the indian ocean, and that's my coastline! i grew up on the Swahili coast, my community's immigration history is shaped by the indian ocean, and i had no idea before i read the book that the indian ocean and its coastlines and trade routes would form such a major part of the story. it was excellent. i got very excited at multiple points. you should read it.

paris daillencourt is about to crumble by Alexis Hall [prose, romance]: my partner is a connoisseur of queer romance. she recommends to me a lot of queer romance, but this one has maybe been my favourite. idk what it was about it—the birmingham references, the joy that was the love interest Tariq, the intense quotability of it all (i have so many screenshots, particularly of quotes from Tanya, who is a secondary school science teacher and who was just extremely relatable to me), the nostalgia it gave me (they're disastrous just-about-twenty-year-old gays and one of them lives in, i quote, 'a house with four other students in birmingham with one bathroom and rising damp', it took me back to 2016 in a very vivid way tbh), it was just great. if you need a gay romance, you should read this one.

honourable mentions go to the two t kingfisher books i read this year (nettle and bone and a house with good bones, both excellent and creepy in a wonderful way) and bury your gays by chuck tingle, which was the perfect thing to read in the depths of summer.

video (ish):

we built a TUBE MAP out of LEGO with working trains! by Geoff Marshall [youtube video]: i don't know how to describe this other than this is a delightful bit of nerdery. so much nerdery. the lego is great, the little trains are incredible, but it's the work that goes into it and the justifications about which lines should be above and below the others that make this video incredible.

bingo - game changer season 6 episode 5 [video, dropout exclusive]: game changer just... keeps doing wild and weird and wonderful things with their format, and i don't know how they keep doing it but they do and i'm having way too much of a good time here. it was really hard to pick one episode from the most recent season to go with. this could easily have been a recommendation for deja vu or beat the buzzer instead. i guess what i'm trying to do is recommend the whole season. anyway, i loved bingo because it did something that got me into game changer to begin with—set up what feels like an innocuous game, so you know there's a twist coming, and slowly, layer by layer, reveal the twist. except this one goes places. it reminded me of some of my game changer favourites (tell us about yourself, lie detector) except boy does it take things to a wholly ridiculous level. sam reich, never stop please.

chris grace: as scarlett johansson [video, dropout exclusive]: (link goes to youtube clip from the show, which is sorta... spoilery?) i don't even know how to describe this. it's a stand-up special about racism, it's about scarlett johansson, it's a one man show, it does some absolutely incredible things with its form and format and works with the medium of dropout presents so well, it made me cry and also left me a little shell-shocked in places, it's funny, it's... look, it's a lot and it's really fucking good. i tried looking for a solid review of it to try and explain what it's like, but i didn't succeed. i think you just gotta watch this one to understand it.

rogue - doctor who season 14 episode 6 [tv show episode] - the most recent season of doctor who has just been... fun, okay. like, i think doctor who is at its best when it is not taking itself too seriously and it's a bit ridiculous and also ridiculously heartfelt. this episode was basically made for me. historical shenanigans! aliens with very specific abilities! d&d references!!! (was not expecting that and got SO excited by it.) the doctor getting overly attached to someone and then losing them promptly! emotional high stakes! banter! a+ work all around. i'm told the bridgerton gays loved it as well (my only reference for this is my partner). it was great. this is what doctor who is about, folks.

the importance of being earnest - national theatre revival [theatre]: ("salmon, this isn't video no matter how far you stretch the definition of video." look, i'm aware. idk where else to put it though, and also, it's going to be in cinemas in february and then it will be video, so i'm just ahead of the times. go with the flow.) i keep saying it feels like i've waited fifteen years to watch this exact production of earnest, and i will keep saying it because it is true. i will write up a better post about it sometime soon (promise), but this was so much fun—it was incredibly camp, it starts off with a drag interlude, it's unabashadely gay and also incredibly pretty (the sets were amazing), and it just felt like a love letter both to the text of the play and to the spirit behind it, yknow? i had an absolutely amazing time watching it, and it's one of my favourite things i've experienced this year. when it's in cinemas, you should watch it if you can.

honourable mentions go to: heartstopper season 3, for pulling absolutely zero punches this season, making me feel extremely nostalgic and a bit old, and for the side-characters of the two gay teachers that i have gotten way too fond of; the good place, which i had obviously watched all of as it aired but that i rewatched with my partner this year, and the ending is still so so so good; and to the nein hells (critical role c3 e111), which was an absolute fucking riot—chaotic and hilarious and still heartfelt, and a very good summation of why i love this ridiculous d&d show.

audio (briefly, because this list has gotten very long and out of hand):

this year i started listening to let's learn everything, which is a truly delightful sci-comm podcast (that i discovered via hearing the cast on Tom Scott's lateral). all their episodes are great commute listens (and remind me to have enthusiasm about science when i am tired which is helpful when my job is... yknow teaching science and being enthusiastic about it), but i particularly enjoyed the episode that has interviews from the Ig Nobel ceremony and the episode about epigenetics and the World Games.

i also kept listening to if books could kill which does a great job of tearing to shreds terrible airport books. i don't have any specific episode recs from this year, but if you've never listened to them before, the episode on the secret is a good place to start!

ok, this has gotten a lot longer than i intended, so i'll stop there. if you've read this far, thanks for coming on this journey with me! i've enjoyed making these lists. 2024 was really wonderful in some ways and... relentless and exhausting and very difficult in other ways. i'm hoping for a bit more time and a bit less exhaustion in 2025, and i'm going to try to keep up my reading, to write a bit more, and to hopefully watch more actual play stuff, because i really didn't watch as much of it as i wanted to this year.

let's see what 2025 brings—new critical role stuff? another season of game changer that will blow my mind again? (definitely.) more doctor who? an alecto the ninth announcement? (if we are very lucky maybe.) we shall see! happy new year, folks!

[kawaoneechan]

A random ramble about Animal Crossing, data mining, JSON, and Project Special K.

So I have a program that takes the data from Animal Crossing New Horizons and turns it into JSON files that Project Special K might use.

I also have a separate file that can list extra stuff (like for example queer headcanons) and add that to the final JSON data. It also lists stuff like which game a given villager debuted in for namespacing purposes — right now, most villager IDs are like "ac:cat18", but for example Raymond is "acnh:cat23". Which makes me wonder if I should subdivide them further using those debut lists. That way, you could have "afe+:cat18" be Lolly but with a Natty Tee, while "acnh:cat18" is Lolly with a Snowy Sweater (gray), and they technically could co-exist. Though honestly because I'm not about to datamine the other games on top of this it'd just be another block of data that specifies the differences from the ACNH version.

This special file also lists how to map cows and bulls to the singular "bovine" species. Because that's a thing, too.

I could add a bunch of things here. Renaming certain villagers any which way, recreate villagers that haven't returned in ACNH from whole cloth without risk of losing the work when recreating the final JSON...

I might even go completely nuts and steal Switch Toolbox' ability to load game textures and export them to PNG so it can automatically include villager icons and textures, which are right now manually added. Heck, that "right now" only really applies to the icons — only Rosie, Kid Cat, Lolly, Chief, and Audie have their textures.

...

Heh.

All that and I still don't have a single graphical screenshot of Project Special K to show. Too many mental issues to continue the OpenGL tutorial so all I do is expand this dumper and write small backend parts. Like something that takes all the separate item icon PNGs (separate because that lets you add/replace them easily with mods) and generates a big ol' sheet of them on load, because I figure having one big texture for them might be better than having about 620 smaller individual textures. Please, by all means correct me if I'm wrong.

[secretmellowblog]

I noticed a bunch of new people in the Les Mis tag because of @lesmisletters, so I thought I’d share my Les Mis Blog recommendation list! If you’re looking for Les Mis blogs to follow, here are some people I recommend checking out! : D

Because Les Mis Letters is a readalong of the Brick I’m going to keep my recommendations to “currently active Les Mis blogs who focus on posting primarily canon era Brick-related things, are participating in the readalong in Some way, and post a lot of meta or academic analysis or information about historical context/political context/artistic movements relevant to Les Mis.” if I were to include every Les mis blog I enjoy this post would be 200 miles long XD.

1. @pilferingapples is basically the pillar of the Les Mis fandom on tumblr! They’ve been here for a decade and have an extremely organized blog that basically feels like an archive of the entire fandom- including everything from meta on all the different characters, information about lesser known adaptations like the anime Shoujo Cosette, and discussions about the historical context around the novel/French Romanticism/Victor Hugo’s life. I definitely recommend looking through the tags in their pinned post ajdjdjd. They are also just Very Nice.

2. @everyonewasabird is a Brick-Club member who has already done exhaustive chapter by chapter analyses of the entire book, and writes amazing intensely researched fanfiction. They are also very nice! (Just assume everyone on this list is nice)

3. @fremedon also has tons of exhaustive analysis/meta, and also writes great funny intensely researched fanfic that captures Hugo’s writing voice extremely well.

4. @bobcatmoran posts a lot of great things, but i especially love their recent posts about the Arai Manga and its translations!

5. @vapaus-ystavyys-tasaarvo has been posting tons of great historical context/footnotes lately—- and they’re also the number one source of Les-Mis-related maps!! So many high quality maps

6. @psalm22-6 posts translations of old 19th century reviews of Les Mis, as well as vintage advertisements and other weird ephemera. It’s very fun and often deeply cursed stuff.

7. @thevagueambition also does a lot of historical research (especially into things like queer history) and writes really great intensely researched Grantaire fic!

8. @persefoneshalott does a lot of great translations of Spanish adaptations of Les Mis, and has recently been posting about what things were removed in censored editions of the novel.

9. @alicedrawslesmis is a great Les Mis art blog that also dives into jokes/analysis too!

10. @shitpostingfromthebarricade posts a lot of brick-focused stuff, and does a lot of clever clever and thoughtful modernizations (ex. Retelling an entire chapter with nearly the exact wording Hugo uses, but changing the setting/historical references to modern day ones)

11. @ueinra posts illustrations from old editions of Les Mis across the world and screenshots of/ information about obscure adaptations. :3

I might add more later because I know I’m missing people, but these are just the first currently active brick-focused somewhat research-heavy blogs that came to my head! :D

[justinefrischmanngf]

excerpts from Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity (chapter 4. gesture, ephemera and queer feeling) by José Esteban Muñoz

[ID: Four screenshots of text.

1: In this chapter I want to approach the idea of queerness and gesture. So much can be located in the gesture. Gesture, I argue throughout this book, signals a refusal of a certain kind of finitude. Dance is an especially valuable site for ruminations on queerness and gesture.

2: This proto-homophobic attack made me sit down and think about my movement, to figure out what it was about the way I moved that elicited such mockery and such palpable contempt from a room full of males. I wanted to, needed to know: what was it about my body and the way I moved it through the world that was so off, so different? I studied movement from then on, watching the way in which women walked and the way in which men walked. I looked at the ways in which men steered a sidewalk and tried to understand how women did it so differently. I noticed a stiffness in the men around me and a lack of stiffness in the women next to them. I studied all this and applied it to my own body. I began a project of butching up, even though that is not what I understood it to be back then.

3: That butching-up practice had a serious effect on me. Today I am not often accused of flaming. I am considered mildly butch for a gay man of my age. Yet the older I get, the more I enjoy camping it up with my nellier friends. And now I can only enjoy performing masculinity in the company of my butch female friends because something about being boys with them feels weirdly liberating. I take further pleasure in talking about being a guy with one of my friends, who is currently crossing and becoming a man. As I notice his voice deepen, his body bulk up, and his already butch mannerism continue to evolve, I feel some kind of sweet revenge on gender.

4: [...] the way in which one's queerness will always render one lost to a world of heterosexual imperatives, codes, and laws. To accept loss is to accept queerness — or more accurately, to accept the loss of heteronormativity, authorization, and entitlement. To be lost is not to hide in a closet or to perform a simple (ontological) disappearing act; it is to veer away from from heterosexuality's path. Freedmen escaping slavery got lost too, and this is a salient reverberation between queerness and racialization. At this historical moment, one that can be described as being characterized by encroaching assimilationist ideology in the mainstream gay and lesbian movement, some gays and lesbians want to be found on a normative map of the world. Being lost, in this particular queer sense, is to relinquish one's role (and subsequent privilege) in the heteronormative order. The dispossessed are appropriately adept at critiquing possession as illogical. To accept the way in which one is lost is to be also found and not found in a particularly queer fashion. /end ID]

[consistantly-changing]

[Image descriptions in order: screenshots of Queering the Map. In Tiberias, there is comment which says "Every know and then I open on this website to re-read the Palestinian stories, and everytime I cry. I wish I was able to share a lgbtq experience I had in Tiberias but I cant because I'm a refugee. The only thing I know about this place is what my grandparents went through in the 1948. Not love but misery. To any one reading this please dont support settler colonialism please dont support our ethnic cleansing".]

[A comment on the shoreline in the north of Gaza, between Jabalia and Wahsh, which says "I wish I could watch the sunset over Gaza sea with you. For one night I wish this occupation was no longer and that we could be free for once on our own land."]

[Another comment near the north of Gaza which says "The place where you died, even though we were only penpals, I love you to my core, 5 years of the best friendship. Ahmad died of the airstrike, you died of heartbreak. Khalid, I love you, I loved the way you came out to me, how I came out to you, how you introduced Ahmad as your boyfriend, I wanted to share your hurts with me, but we're seas apart, I'll free Palestine just for your eyes. I hope you rest well in heaven, kiss Ahmad all you want, and be very happy, in this life or another I'll follow you, and we can unite, I love you to Icarus and beyond💗".]

[A comment slightly east of Makabim-Re'ut which says "I existed all over here. Was subjected to checkpoints and segregation here. I yearn to return here. A queer Palestinian. Free Palestine and f*ck pinkwashing."]

[A comment in Tel Aviv, west of Ramat Gan near the ocean which says "My sitti died without ever seeing this city again. In 1948 she was sent into exile from her homeland, from Jaffa "the bride of the sea". Before she died, she told me about a woman she once loved here. After the Nakba, she never saw her again. She never even found out if she survived. She told me she still thinks about her. I still mourn the life my grandmother might have been able to live here, in this city, in her homeland. I still mourn the love she shared with this woman, only to be torn apart by 60 years of exile. This land was her birthright. This life was her birthright. They were stolen from her. This place will be liberated. I will return one day to a liberated Palestine. For her."]

[A comment between Jenin and Qabatiya which says "I hate this fucking unfair life because if my rights aren't debatable as a Palestinian in the Arab world it's debatable as a queer and if my rights aren't debatable as a queer in the west it's debatable as a Palestinian."]

[A comment in Rafah which says "I'm from rafah and she's from deir al balah, she got married later and i left gaza strip, to this day i think of you, to this day i wish to be back to sleep with you in the same bed, i want you to call for my name again, i wish if ii can be with you again my heart.

بحبك وبالرغم من الي صار دايما في بالي

]

End

Queering the Map in Gaza and the West Bank

[cryptid-moose]

Hi! I'm Forrest (or Shawn) I do art on the internet when im able to.

I use He/Him, Xe/Xem, and 🎭/🎭

Will post commission sheet when i make one lol

I dont rlly care much about who follows me, If i dislike you ill just block you. But i will make my personal beliefs very clear: - Im Pro Palistine - I dont tolerate racism or bigotry of any kind - I don’t care if someone ids as an mspec lesbian or other conflicting identities, how someone labels their sexuality or gender doesn’t effect me tbh - Maps arent part of the queer community and if you think otherwise I hope you get help. - While I wouldn’t consider myself a ship purist or whatever I don't support Comships (Minor/Adult Ships, Incest ships, Bestiality ships)

MY TAGS -----------

#forest draws - for all my drawing posts! #forest fumbles - for my non-drawing og posts! #reblogi - for when i reblog other ppls cool artz 💪 #Olive Edits - when i take screenshots from a show and draw over it to make it look different <3 I don't go by Olive anymore but i dont feel like editing the tag #queue 4 u - my queued post tag #psych zombie au - any of my psych zombie apocalypse content

Also if you see any art posts of mine featuring Luz Noceda and Hunter, i'd prefer you not to tag as siblings. I have no problem with Hunter/Luz sibling hc but my work doesn't portray them as siblings so it'd feel kinda weird for it to be tagged with that lol. Current Interests:

MLP: FIM Psych Harry Potter (I don’t support JK Rowling or buying her products my brain just chose the worst childhood hyper fixation to bring back lol) The Owl House Bones (2005) sharks Queer Vexillology Mouthwashing

[ID: gif of a hedgehog floating in a bathtub on its back. It is also spinning slowly :End ID]

hedgehog :3

[darkvveb]

[ID: a screenshot from the site "Queering the Map," with the marker located in Gaza. the text bubble reads, "I've always imagined you and me sitting out in the sun, hand in hand, free at last. We spoke of all the places we could go if we could. Yet you are gone now. If I had known that bombs raining down on us would take you from me, I would have gladly told the world how I adored you more than anything. I'm sorry I was a coward." end ID]

queerness under apartheid

[man-squared]

Boundaries*:

[Text reads "Boundaries"]

You should know that yes, I support all systems and queer identities that are in good faith.

I will only explain my identities if you are asking in good faith.

Hate won't be tolerated. Good faith discussion is encouraged.

I am white so I cannot talk on racial issues. However, I will boost posts from people of color.

I am uncomfortable with shipping discourse, but I do not care if you interact with my posts as long as it is not about shipping. Bring that shit here, and you will be blocked.

I will block anyone for any reason at my own discretion. I do not warn or explain blocks unless you nicely want to ask me about it.

I'm an adult (currently in my early 20s). I do not care if minors interact, but please be careful and filter out words. I try to tag things well, but I know I will ultimately mess up sometimes. You can block tags. I highly recommend that you do so, and here is a list of my tags.

Unless we have a prior relationship and you are an adult, do not flirt with me or sexualize me. So basically, none of you have permission.

Pedophiles and MAPS are not welcomed here. Racists and radfems/gender criticals aren't either.

I don't support harassing people, doxxing people, or sending threats. Misgendering or fake-claiming someone because of their beliefs or actions is not okay. So please, don't do it to me, nor anyone else (especially in my name, idc if someone hates me or does it to me, don't do it to them).

If you think about harassing me or misgendering me, you'll have to send me money. Hell, you can suicide bait me for the right price (your throws won't be published, but they will be screenshotted because freedom of speech does not absolve you from any consequences, especially by someone not affiliated with any government).

I do not post donation posts on this blog. From now on, if you send me a post about donation posts on this blog, I will not answer, but I might reblog to my main blog.

*These may change without notice. Additionally, I don't have a proper DNI, but I will block you if you make me uncomfortable, are an asshole, or for any other reason. You do not get a say in my boundaries. Thanks for reading.

[veemopusvulgaris]

We can pin posts now soo here’s a tempoary bio thing

(I’m probably gonna condense all of this into a caard later on so bear with me)

Octo (or Mari, or Biscuit)

21

They/them pls 🥺

Adhd/autistic

Im queer babey!!!

Black

TME

Ex anti anti!

I follow, like, & reply from @octodotcom!

My opinions/DNI list

anti pedo/map/ddlg/cgl

I am a Big Meanie Fandom Policing Anti and i’m gonna whack you with an octobrush. >:)

That said, please send me cute Agent 24 fanart 🥺

If you’re here to screenshot my DNI, take this on your way out: 🖕

inclusionist (meaning exclusies, TERFS, transmeds, etc. can screw off!)

BLM! ACAB!

Don’t tag my stuff as q slur (Q word is fine, but don't tag posts reblogged from or posted by me as q slur)

Please don't drag my into syscourse

Less kindly, if you try to drag me into mspec gay/lesbian discourse I'm blocking you on sight. Tired of this shit

Cancel culture ain’t real!

(something else i may be forgetting)

My tags:

Text posts: #oomi.txt

Artwork: #oomi.png

My Switch FC (please add me):

SW-4150-9328-5330

My interests (meaning i will HIGHLY appreciate you tagging me in anything involving these)

SPLATOON

Super Mario

Animal Crossing

Vocaloid

Magical girls

Sonic the Hedgehog stuff too!

Nutri Ventures 😳👉👈

Comfort characters 🥺💖

Luigi!

Marina

Pearl

Agent 8

Mario

Tails

Callie

Hideri

Thank you for reading all this shit, here’s a picture of my octoling as a gift

[mopeytropey]

Hi! How about F, B, and M from the Fanfic ask list? :)

F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

Chapter 2 of ‘when my heart is at war’ was so fun to write from start to end—the banter, the angst (oh, look! I do write angst!), the obstinate arguing, the adolescent ~feels. So much of that dialogue between them was pre-planned as I mapped out the framework of the Nightblood faith so to speak, but this excerpt happened organically. Their mutual recognition and simultaneous denial of wanting to be near each other is the entire basis of their relationship, and its summed up nicely here:

“I did not realize you desired friendship with me.”

Clarke stutters at this, and Lexa delights in having momentarily broken her sling of retorts almost as much as she enjoys the tinged color on her cheeks. “I … I don’t.” The light of the fire is low, but Lexa’s keen eyes still detect a crawling blush.

Adopting a response from Clarke’s vernacular, Lexa returns her attention to the yarrow, unbothered. “Okay.”

“Well, what about you? Are you trying to be friends with me now? Is that why you followed me?”

Lexa looks up sharply. “I did not—” but Clarke’s probing gaze and arms folded across her stomach have Lexa biting back the lie. She swallows, hands mindlessly fiddling a stalk that has already been pruned of its leaves and petals. She searches aimlessly for a response, finally stumbling uncharacteristically over her words. “I could not … I would not know how to be friends with you.”

B: Any of your stories inspired by personal experience?

I feel like it’s no secret that apu is heavily inspired by events that happened between my wife and I. But, more specifically ... 🤔 Clarke’s debatably unhealthy obsession with coffee is very much a reflection of my real life. Lexa’s wardrobe is essentially a screenshot of my closet. The tiny, coastal city in which they live is adjacent to the town in which I live. My wife will tell you that she doesn’t recognize herself in apu!Clarke at all, but she is hands down one of the funniest people I have ever met and much of Clarke’s humor (or rather, my attempts at writing humor) stem from my wife’s hilarious quips.

M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?

Ugh. I’ve got this friends-to-more-than premise that keeps nagging me, and of course NO time to develop anything beyond a few unwritten vignettes that play on loop in my head occasionally. I’m interested in exploring friendships that form between two queer women without a decidedly romantic end in plain sight. What happens when neither one of them makes their intentions and/or desires known at the offset, allowing a close friendship to develop without any intimate entanglements? Lines get blurred, affections abound, other intimacies arise, but they are left to sort out what it all means outside of forming a bond of friendship.

I think we were headed there in apu (aside from Clarke’s internal monologues of silent flailing over Lexa’s face), but then: Costia. So what happens to that sort of friendship without major and obvious obstacles in their way?

Apart from that potentially boring idea, I am about 500 words into framing out a second installation of a holiday fic I wrote last year. Hoping to post by New Years 🤞🏽

[hannah-writes]

The Semiotics of Roswell (aka why Malex is Endgame because the camera says so)

And we’re back with instalment #3 of The Semiotics of Roswell. 

Today’s focus is on episode 3 and, as always, screencaps are supposed to be in order but wonky upload is wonky. Considering this is such an epic episode, there’s so little Malex content that I’m wounded. So I’m likely going to ramble more to make up for it (edit: I did ramble to make up for it, I rambled so much over less than a minute of video that actually, I’m only including one video meta in this otherwise it’ll take you a week to scroll through it all. There’s less than five full minutes of Malex in this episode and I’ve written a dissertation about it, what is my life). I have, therefore, included the video meta within this one post! All the Malex, all in one place. You’re welcome :D. One video meta is included, the others are linked at the top, and at the bottom.

Image heavy, once again! Consider this your friendly neighbourhood warning! 

All my semiotic meta can be followed/tracked using the #Semiotics of Roswell tag, and is here on my Tumblr. This includes random other semiotic meta that comes at me when I see gif sets that isn’t directly related to this long-form meta essay I have made it my duty to write. Or something.

Part 1 / Reunion Kiss Video Meta / Part 2 / I Never Look Away Video Meta / Part 3 / Leaving so soon? Video Meta / This isn’t gonna work, Guerin Video Meta / 

So we all know that Liz and Max are not on the same page here, but their framing is increasingly romantic. They’re not only sharing a side of a screen here but they’re looking in mirroring directions. I think someone who has better photoshop skills than me could probably make the two of these images lay over one another and you’d find that their faces would likely almost meet in the middle because of how they’re framed here. Their eyelines are almost matching, too, though we know that Liz isn’t looking directly at Max.

The colour’s quite heavily saturated in yellow and we’ve touched briefly on colours before. Some of the emotions that are supposed to be stirred and signfied by the colour yellow are: obsession, insecurity and naivety. I’d argue that though obsession fits Max’s feelings towards Liz, the emotions that are at the fore of this saturated scene are insecurity and naivety, especially the latter considering he lets her experiment on him, test out the limits of his powers and gather data as a scientist. And, because it’s Liz, it doesn’t even cross his mind that she might be using this for something that isn’t curiosity, something that’s more nefarious. He’d never dream that she would use her science-y powers for anything that might hurt them! It’s Liz!

I want to touch a little on the below screenshot before going back to the side comparison. The framing here, the mis-en-scéne is so good. The set designers who pulled together Max’s home deserve very, very high praise.

In this one shot we see so much, and we learn so much about Max. He looks tiny in this shot which, for a guy like Nathan is impressive as he has a presence about him when he’s on screen. He looks small and uncertain and unsure, clutching at the back of his chair and using the chair and the desk and the couch as a defence, a barrier between him and Liz because she makes him vulnerable. 

But then if we look at the background, all those books? You can see first-editions of what look like old books (the brown-gold colouring), they’re haphazard, like he’s run out of shelving space and had to start stacking the ones he reads more often on top of others. He’s got some wooden figurines and artefacts, too, so he’s a collector of things, of knowledge. He’s a curator of stuff, we know that he’s smart, but in a different way to Michael and this glimpse into his world, we can see how differently. Michael is science and equations, Max is words, things. I’d kill to see a close up of the books that he’s got on the shelves; they won’t be there by accident. 

In the far right of the screen there’s a small square picture which looks like a lonely person, standing on the left-hand side of the image. A small picture of a lonely man - probably a lonely cowboy. The colours are relatively bland, there’s nothing there that truly draws the eye, even the small splashes of it (the leaves on the second shelf on the right, the green glass below, the newer colourful books underneath) aren’t quite enough to distract us from Max. Max’s desk is cluttered and busy with books, the lamp is pointed towards the desk and it’s easy to imagine him late at night on his laptop writing with just the desk light because he can’t move to turn the main light on, or reading with the pinprick light to help him focus on the words. Everything looks a little like disorganised chaos behind him and contributes to helping him look small and little under the weight of all the knowledge behind him - all the knowledge from the religious texts he’s read that tell him people like him die bloody - and the indomitable woman in front of him that made herself the centre of his universe the moment she came into his life and he’s helplessly orbited around her since then. 

So we can see that Max looks small, by contrast, the mid-shot of Liz (below) is relatively typical. They’re on either side of the screen again, she’s less well lit than Max, possibly a stylistic choice to reflect the fact that there’s definitely another agenda to what she’s doing, but Max won’t see it. He’s totally blinded by his feelings for Liz.  (Side note: I love how guilty he looks when Isobel catches them, like some part of him knows what he’s doing is stupid as all heck but It’s LIZ. He’s got about as much chance of saying no to her as the earth does of spontaneously yanking itself out of orbit)

In this scene, the wide shot of Max vs the mid shot of Liz shows us the power that Liz has right now; she takes up more of the frame. She’s confident and assured and hiding her own fear pretty well considering. (And the ‘your heart’s racing’ ‘it’s not beacuse I’m scared of you’ line makes my shipper heart sing you guys, it’s one of my favourite tropes)

Then we get introduced to one of the key Echo motifs (below), backlighting by the sun. The use of the sun beween them to lighten/darken a scene is a massive motif; we see the sun setting between their faces so many times and this motif is used here, too, but to a reverse effect. This is a moment of distance, Liz is going for cold, clinical detachment and Max - as always - is just focused on Liz because she’s his Person.

Malex time!

So, because there was both a lot and not enough Malex content in this episode I’ve combined the video metas into this one, and honestly, I am very pleased that I did. I shall never complain at the chance to watch Malex being cute and perfect.

Remember how we talked above about the yellow saturation highlighting Max’s naivety. Another emotion that can be created or encouraged by the use of the colour yellow is comfort, it can be used to create a sense of something being idyllic, and since it's slightly more into the pale orange of the spectrum I'd argue that this scene feels warm and happy and safe at the beginning, the wash of yellow-orange creating a visual haven that locks us in, it's close but it's not suffocating because it's soft. In contrast to the harsh, almost sepia colours of the first kiss in the trailer in the previous episode that became bright and washed out as they started stripping, this starts slow and intimate building and loving in a way that we don’t get to see from a queer storyline very often (as @chasingshhadows said in a meta).

The camera pans slowly and lovingly up Michael's body, the same way that Alex does for a full four seconds, a slow sweep that's close and intimate. We're not watching this happening at that moment: we're in it. We're in it with Michael and Alex and we're not an outsider. We don't see any facial expressions, but we don't need to, we come into the shot clearly mid-way through Alex having been mapping Michael's chest with his fingers and lips, since he's still moving and we don't see him stirring, so this is a mid-action shot. We're entering something private. What's also important here is the fact that it's a soft-focus on Michael's chest, a type of shot that's almost exclusively reserved for heterosexual sex scenes, where everything's slightly blurry around the edges.

0:04

We cut to a shot that allows us to see Michael's face. Instead of feeling voyeuristic, as previous shots have, this closeness - with Alex and Michael still technically on opposite sides of the frame - makes us feel part of it. Witnessing something special. The camera stays still and the soft, blurry focus of intimacy stays as Alex settles to the side.

Michael's more in focus, as much as ‘focus’ is a loosely defined term in this section. We're meant to be watching him, the play of emotions on his face, the way he brightens at the realisation that Alex stayed. We know from Word of God that this isn't the first time they've hooked up since the previous episode, but Michael's reaction at 0:11 You stayed tells us that this is the first time he's woken up with Alex beside him. It's important that we stay tightly focused on Michael there, so we can see his face (and Vlamis' best acting is done opposite Tyler, in my opinion, the subtleties that he can evoke are heartwrenching).

We get a good eleven seconds just getting to soak in the intimacy of this early morning shot before we start moving onto something more distant, though we're not broken out of the moment.

0:12 We cut to a mid-shot, looking down on the two of them but they're still framed tightly; the bed, the pillows, the weird ugly decor on the edge of the airstream (Michael, really) are all we can see. We can see here that Michael isn't used to sharing a bed because the airstream bunk is tiny and he's laying on his back. Alex's pillow is hanging half off the bed and he's on his side, and you can tell from where the cabinet above them ends, he's pretty much on the very *very* edge of the mattress.

0:15 that's why you stayed?

Again we swing back into what I'm calling 'heteroframing' here, which is tight, close, intimate shots of two men completely in love here. Michael's soft voice, the way Alex reaches for him, they don't shy away from the intimacy of the moment, the sexiness of it. The kind of lazy, early-morning, sleepy touches that would probably lead to something equally lazy and intimate if not for stupid Isobel interrupting the moment but I'm getting ahead of myself.

We move from a side shot - of Alex's back - to a hovering shot of their faces and arms. 0:22 has the shot that launched a thousand ships; Michael's mouth chasing Alex's thumb, breathing in the touch against his skin. (Non visual meta but, Michael's quite obviously affection starved; from having been in abusive home after abusive home and never finding somewhere that he felt safe, never having that comfort, a part of Michael will always melt like butter when someone touches him like he's worthy. The way his mouth opens, not necessarily to bite but just to feel, the way he breathes out softly, a puff of breath against Alex's skin. The way he just leans down like he's being pulled towards Alex... So SOFT)

This all happens in a matter of seconds, I might add, between 0:22 and 0:29 we get the thumb casing, the leg touching, Michael kissing his way up Alex's collarbone and then the beeping of a horn. Thirty seconds of intimacy, we get, thirty seconds, and it's packed with love and care and tenderness and power. The camera never wavers, but more on that in a second.

Over this particular section, from 0:21 - 0:26, the line "I know it's time to face my fears" is played. It's played over Alex reaching out to touch Michael (important, because Alex is the more reticent one of the two of them; he's never stayed before, we've had a hint of the antagonistic relationship and the aggressive-passionate kiss from the previous episode, the bite from the pilot followed by the desperate-passionate kiss at the reunion, we don't have a frame of reference right now that tells us this is anything more than sex until this scene. Until right here. Until this audio cue that tells us that Alex is afraid. That he has to face his fears because he’s the focus of that moment; it’s him reaching out to Michael, even though we’re looking at Michael, it’s Alex’s legs that Michael’s touching). This is followed by that shot of Alex's leg, neat suture marks and Michael's hand slowly trailing down it. We see Michael's scarring in line with Alex's, we see the tender way his hand slides down his skin in a lover's caress and the camera doesn't cut away from it. We get to see what this moment means by the fact that we're watching it, we're focused on it.

It leads us to believe that we're seeing Alex overcoming his fear of letting people touch his leg, the easy assumption to make when we see it so starkly laid out. It's also easy to draw - using knowledge from later - the parallel of Alex's scar and Michael's both having been as a byproduct of Jesse Manes, indirectly and directly. That moment of connection is something deeper on a rewatch because Michael's scars and Alex's are the same; they're both a permanent reminder of what lengths Jesse Manes went to. They're both a reminder of how dangerous it is for them, or how dangerous it was.

0:28 The camera is in tight, we're sweeping up and hovering just behind Michael as he kisses his way up Alex, clearly going in for a proper kiss when there's the sound of a horn beeping. The camera allows us to see the surprise on Alex's face just before it pulls out.

0:30 The moment's broken. Over the next four seconds, the camera pulls backwards quickly, breaking the spell of the moment. The lighting brightens up and we're snapped out of the intimacy and thrown into two rapidly differing emotions; Alex's panic is shown in the rapid way he throws himself forward but Michael sort of rocks up and then back, almost amused by the interruption and Alex's reaction "woah, relax man" we're focused on Alex again - fitting since the face my fears comment was also definitely about him "it's just Isobel". The camera's frenetic here, rocking in an unnerving way rather than in the same, steady, curious way that the camera had been moving literally ten seconds before.

Alex is sat on the edge of the bed, more centrally framed than we're used to seeing him in this context but there's nothing in the background that's in focus, so we still can't really look at anything other than him as he asks "wait, does she know about us?" allows the audience to see that actually, the fear wasn't at all about his leg, the fear is of other people. It's easy at this point - without the knowledge of later on even in this episode - to think that Alex is ashamed. Michael's dialogue could even support that.  We don't move away from Alex' s face or reactions for a good six seconds, watching the panic and discomfort play over his features, the reaction to Isobel's presence and how quickly he's drawn away is a sharp contrast to the sleepy intimacy of a few moments before. Alex is lit in a harsh, white-yellow which is contrasted with the shadowed, darker lighting of Michael. This is partly to do with the light coming in though the windows, and the natural formation of shadows within a confined area but it can also be read as another visual clue as to how contradictory their current positions are.

0:42-0:46 "Would it be so bad if she did?" (CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW HIS VOICE RIGHT THERE DOES THINGS TO MY GAY-ACE SELF?)

"Yeah."

We get a very quick back and forth between Alex and Michael's faces - Michael, Alex, Michael. The shots are framed similarly, though Michael's is slightly tighter, but that isn't unusual for quick-fire dialogue where the characters can't be in the frame. The speed at which it cuts, though, heightens the tension of the scene, a rapid cut-cut-cut keeps the audience on the back foot, switching rapidly in a visual back and forth, similar to the lines.

At 0:44, you can see Michael shutting down, the realisation that Alex doesn't want them to be 'out'. I mentioned earlier that it's easy for the audience to assume that Alex is ashamed, and as Michael looks out of the window you can see him making a decision to protect Alex, protect his privacy even though it physically hurts.

Whereas before, when Isobel's beeping horn ruptured their moment and the camera pulled backwards rapidly, at 0:48 we have a sharp cut to a wide shot, moments after Michael's made his decision to go outside without Alex, to protect their secret. The interior is very dark - something that could, or should, have been fixed by some interior lighting to help us but fuck this show and it's moody lighting so much - and once again we're shown Michael and Alex squashed together on one side of the frame. I wish the scene was brighter so we could get a chance to see the interior; Michael's airstream has probably been put together just as thoughtfully as Max's but we don't get to see it.

I read this - personally - as a way of differentiating between Max and Michael, another way anyway. Max is a damn open book. He has so few secrets, he wears his heart on his sleeve, he's open and honest and with Liz there's nothing held back. So as an audience we get to see his world, a proper, sustained glimpse into his world. We get to see the books and papers that are important to him, we get to see how he organises his space. The first proper shot we get of Michael's airstream where we're not focused on Malex is dark and unclear. We can see that he's got paper on the windows, that the whole thing is claustrophobic and tight and small (but what does he need space for, he's always alone, right?). I've only ever been inside one caravan before in my life so I have very little frame of reference to even guess what's on the right hand side of the image at 0:48, cupboards? A cooker? Microwave? God knows. Directly opposite them, a bathroom? (Ps. If anyone knows what the general inside of an airstream is like please message me. I need to know for ~reasons.) Michael’s world, though, remains largely a mystery to us.

Though there are arguments that could say that it's not as well represented later on, at 0:49 you can see Alex slipping his sock on over his stump, and just behind his foot you can see his prosthetic (I think, stupid moody lighting), a move that's highlighting, not hiding Alex's disability. It also normalises it, as the camera doesn't linger or focus on it, we're not drawn to staring at Alex as he struggles, it's a normal part of 'getting dressed'. If that is, indeed, his prosthetic lurking in the shadows of the shot, it also speaks to Michael as a partner, because even if Alex was the one to take it off, there's every chance that Michael was the one that leaned over and put down. Stood it up somewhere within reaching distance. Ahem. Headcanon of Michael as the Most Attentive Lover aside, the normalisation of Alex's disability in this shot is awesome.

We're also seeing them sharing the same side of the screen, whenever they are, they look small and close, their positions relative to each other highlighted against a larger backdrop. Here, however, the closeness of the airstream, the narrow and cluttered frame actually highlights their distance, not physical, not yet, but emotional. Michael's pulled away because he's been hurt and Alex is in panic mode. It's interesting watching it back with the benefit of having seen 1x06 and knowing that Alex's fear of discovery isn't because he's gay but because the last time someone caught them together, Michael was beaten with a hammer. At this point, though, all we have are conclusions to be drawn hastily from Alex's reaction and they aren't necessarily good ones.

0:50 "Guerin-" "Nah-"

We focus on Alex again here, the camera still rocks, the restless energy of the two men in the frame being echoed in the way that the camera moves. There's no lyrics undercutting this scene, just a really nice piece of original score but it's low pitched and has a subtle beat, a subtle pulse which lifts to a crescendo.

0:51 "-don't worry about it."

Moving to a shot that's focused on Michael, that pushes Alex almost out of it, we see him getting to his feet and physically creating distance and space between them, forced nonchalance as he tries to brush off just how much it hurts that Alex doesn't want his sister to know about them.

The final shot of this section comes at 0:54, where we're focused on watching Alex watching Michael leave. 

Interestingly, looking back at the interactions so far, it hasn't been just Alex that's walked away:

Pilot - Michael walks past into the trailer and shuts the door on Alex Pilot - Michael goes to move away from Alex, is stopped, they banter, Michael leaves (also comes back again for the Kiss but.) 1x02 - Alex leaves because the conversation is over ("we're not supposed to build on Santa's workshop either") 1x02 - Alex doesn't leave, he heads into the airstream and Michael follows

Then we have this here, where Michael walks out of the airstream to confront Isobel, the implication is that Alex has snuck out (the surprise in 'you stayed' being clear enough of an indicator for that), but we haven't physically seen Alex having a tendency to walk away. If anything, we've seen him have a tendency to seek Michael out, as only one of their interactions so far out of six has had Michael actively seeking Alex, which is at the party for that beautiful kiss scene we all could write songs about.

So the next two snippets of Malex from this episode have been put into new posts, to save your brains. 

Drive-In Video Meta 1

Drive-In Video Meta 2

[Tagging by request: @space-malex, @istilfeelicantrustyou, @ineverthoughtiwouldneedasideblog, @callieramics, @lire-casander, @i-never-look-away, @stydiaeverafter, @tasyfa, @lovecolibri, @saadiestuff, @signoraviolettavalery, @ubiestcaelum, @el-gilliath - if you want to be tagged in future semiotics posts, let me know!]

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