#they are all very on board with the sapphic agenda

[nerdishpursuits]

And this is one of the countless reasons I love chatting about Mafin with @midniteowlet: she's my very own toma a Tierra and grounds me, so I can approach things more rationally.

Upon concluding our debate of the current turn of events on the show, Mafin on the whole and their narrative? I've come to look at things as follows. The show very much reflects society as it is: a sad state of affairs where good people hurt and unsavory characters often prevail. The fact that we want everything good and wholesome to triumph at every turn? Idealistic, not realistic. Not to mention lofty expectations actually prevent one from truly appreciating the show, with all its ups and downs and winding roads. And personally, I'd like to keep enjoying it, without getting dragged down the utopian rabbit-hole.

For the most part, the representation we get is actually well crafted: Mafin feels organic, tried and true, and the chemistry between them is undeniable and thrilling. More so? Their story doesn't feel forced and thus, can be promoted to any viewership without it coming across as preachy and condescending, or having an agenda. If anything, Mafin is by far the best developed, healthiest relationship on the show. I, for one, much prefer the portrayal of good communication, heartfelt romance and overcoming obstacles together than a deluge of r-rated scenes. And honestly? We are being offered a damn good story here, even as it fails to satisfy everyone's hopes and demands (which in all honesty, it never could - at the end of the day, someone will always be disappointed)

I'm also reminded of Marta B. mentioning in a recent interview that the show is not aimed exclusively at the sapphic community. As such, it will not depict or cater to its particular needs. It's part of a larger ensemble and needs to appeal to a broad audience. And, when all is said and done, it actually manages to accomplish more with this kind of storytelling: one that's simpler, one that doesn't try to be pedantic. Ergo, they will not linger and preach to the audience. What they will do instead is allow the characters, their circumstances and actions, to speak for themselves. And they will trust they're doing a good enough job to let people draw their own conclusions. So far, I think they've achieved that: there’s heterosexual people watching the novela who love Mafin and think they’re the best couple on the show, there’s elderly people learning to be more open-minded, everyone loves Damian's character development, everyone hates Santiago and acknowledges he is a despicable lowlife etc. The show is moving the pieces along the board quite deftly and it makes for an interesting, if not always gratifying, game.

As for today's episode? There's no doubt that Marta and Fina only have eyes for each other. They're an established couple who will face anything thrown their way as they always have, as one. No mustachioed men will ever change that. Marta and Fina's narrative will never be whether they desperately adore each other. That they do couldn’t be more obvious. Their story? Ever has it been, and will continue to be, about their fight to attain freedom: freedom to live their love in a society that forbids it.

Therefore, I've reached the point where I'm not worried at all about either Santiago or Pelayo. Based on Pelayo's reaction upon learning Marta is a lesbian? I doubt he'll help Santiago in his attempt to sink Marta's ships. To me he comes across as a calculated businessman, but not a heartless one. He stands to profit more from a partnership with the de la Reina family than throwing Marta to the wolves. He also didn't bat an eye at Santiago's reveal, wasn't surprised or outraged. Which, I'll go out on a limb and say, is telling. He's either gay himself or simply plans on advancing his business / political career by securing a partner that won't demand his attention or affection. The first scenario ensures he remains socially upstanding while the second allows him to live as he pleases. To a man like Pelayo? It's a jackpot either way. Hopefully, the benefits outweigh the costs for Marta as well, should the plot move in that direction. And given all the signs? It's already halfway there.

That being said. It remains to be seen what happens to Santiago. I assume, and hope, his little ploy at denouncing Marta to the Civil Guard will cost him, dearly or otherwise. His own thirst for vengeance pushed him to make the wrong move which is, in my opinion, seeking out Pelayo. And while there's plenty of outraged cries that Marta & Fina don't need another man to save them? Let's not forget it's 1958. The likelihood of neither of them attracting a suitor, fake or otherwise unwelcome, is as doubtful as improbable. The fact they managed to successfully evade them so far? Quite the feat.

As for what awaits? Marta won't go to jail, I think, since that card has already been played. Or who knows? We might be surprised. The fear they need to instill in her requires new heights, in order for Marta to reluctantly accept another cage. Mind you, she's still trapped: as much freedom as she currently wields, Marta remains a woman whose very social status entraps her, singling her out as prime real estate. She's the proverbial golden goose, especially as dictated by the mores of society back then. Marta and Fina's shared dream of freedom remains, for now, a dream. One they've almost had at their fingertips, which makes their current circumstances all the more painful. I will say: it stings that Fina won't be the first to read Marta's journal. Undoubtedly, at some point, she will. After all, that journal is a mirror of Marta's very heart. It lays out her deepest fears, her innermost longings. It chronicles the fiercest battles Marta has had to wage with herself, her losses and triumphs, her meditations and hymns, the anguish and the deliverance of her love for Fina. To have it fall into the wrong hands? A violation of the utmost personal, a desecration of what is deemed sacred and untouchable. The diary symbolizes Marta having a safe space to call her own, one where she was allowed to embrace her true self, one that initiated her journey to freedom, her quest to rid herself of her shackles. Santiago has no honorable bone in his body and his hatred towards women, and Marta in particular, drives him to invade and vandalize her privacy, this blessed sanctuary she got to call her own. Let's see if Pelayo rises to the occasion and proves himself as a noble character. You can never have too many allies. Do I still take issue with how certain things are handled, with the inconsistencies and shoddy character work? Definitely. But I’m also able to simply sit back and enjoy. Let's see where all this goeth, shall we? Hello pain, let's go again.

[confused-beany]

Selling the Sapphic enemies with hateful benefits agenda to my friends one drawing at a time

[amageish]

Okay. So my "Mother Askani in X-Men 97" agenda worked out very well for me - I just hope we also see the younger Ray in the next season as well! Have her be friends with Bishop as a fellow time-traveller and join the main team in the present - or maybe she's been off in the UK doing Excalibur-like things with Brian, Megan, and Kitty all along?

Illyana, Kitty, and Sooraya being on the DoFP-style board in the end is also all very hype to me. Love all those gals; I reaaaaaaally hope we see them in-person next time. Dust's powers especially could look AMAZING in animation.

No sign of the other core New Mutants is very odd to me? Like we've been doing New X-Men cameos before New Mutants ones and that surprises me... I guess we'll see if they have plans for them?

I also hope next season does, uh, more gay things. Like subtext is well and good and Sunspot's story is super resonant... and I like Morph as a character and their chemistry with Logan is fun... but for a show so interested in exploring queer experience it felt oddly lacking in textual queers - especially when adapting, uh, the X-Men. Hopefully Rachel can do some Sapphic stuff, maybe Iceman can show up and be out this time, and maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe we can let Kitty out of the closet? Maybe? Please? Pretty please, Disney? Can 2025 be the year of Pryde in Pride? 🥺

[thankskenpenders]

What is it about Ian Flynn that some people don't like about him? I get that his writing isn't perfect, but they seem to go out of their way to interpret him in bad faith. He's not a weirdo like Penders, he's just a silly little guy

As much as I've complained about his rabid haters, on some level I do get being unsatisfied with the current state of the franchise (in a civil manner) if you aren't personally a fan of his writing. On top of writing for the comics for 16 years and helming their last two continuity reboots, he's also written for the cartoons, the web shorts, the Encyclo-speed-ia, and now he's even writing Sonic's big open world debut on current gen consoles. I love the guy's writing in the comics, so all of this makes me happy, but it's all subjective. If you aren't a fan, then I do get that it's starting to feel like his is the only voice that matters right now in Sonic. (Even if Evan has taken over as lead writer on the comics, and the movies have nothing to do with him.) Like, Ian's not above criticism. I've criticized some of his writing in the past, and he listens to it and tries to learn from his missteps

But... a relatively small number of very persistent people online have taken it so far beyond a simple difference in opinions, or fair criticism of his work, and turned it into an obsession. And it's been happening since the early years of his Archie run

A lot of it is typical culture war shit from far right reactionaries who think he's trying to infect Sonic with his liberal agenda. The kind of people who think he personally broke up Sonic and Sally just to make Sally sapphic for "woke points." (Some of the conspiracy boards these people make are truly fucking unhinged.) But you can also see some left wing Sonic fans on this very website writing aggressive, essay-length circlejerk discussions about how Sonic not wanting to personally execute Mr. Tinker is Nazi apologia or what the fuck ever, and how the zombie virus arc with no blood or gore where nobody actually dies and everyone throws a big party at the end is apparently the most inappropriately adult thing anyone has ever written for Sonic. (But Eggman's grandpa going insane in prison and getting executed by firing squad is hunky-dory.) I've had to block people for derailing my posts into that shit. People love to nitpick every little thing the guy does, to blow up small critiques into a matter of life or death, to blame him for random shit that isn't his fault like misplaced images in the Encyclo-speed-ia, to take things he's said wildly out of context, to straight up fabricate fake screenshots of things he's never said, to accuse him of lying about shit he has no reason to lie about, and much, much more. It just never fucking ends

To the loudest, most persistent detractors, it's not about the actual quality of his writing. It's all confirmation bias. They think he personally broke up their favorite ships, or that he didn't fight hard enough to get the Freedom Fighters into the IDW comics, or that he's an SJW, or that he just doesn't get Sonic the way they do and that his opinions are wrong. So they're constantly looking for any new ammo they can get against the guy that will confirm these beliefs and passing it around to each other, because hating him has been a hobby for them for years at this point

[triviareads]

ok so I have no one to pitch this idea to except your messages. sorry in advance. i’m a show only bridgerton fan so take this with a grain of salt probably. i’ve spent the past month kinda following the discourse around people (me included) wanting queer representation, specially considering how much eloise and benedict were queer coded in s1 (and still tbh), and some people bringing up that genderbending the sophie storyline would be kinda misogynistic. i see where the second group is coming from, and agree that the intersections of class, probably race AND gender are important to explore. but hear me out. what if instead of genderbending b and e’s stories, they switched them? make eloise meet a mysterious lady at a ball at the beginning of s3, a lady who she hangs out with now that penelope is out of the picture and that she has great conversation with, who has fascinating things to say about women’s lib, who is fierce and brave and interesting. have the lady disappear, and eloise not getting her out of her head, in a VERY different way than theo. i think it makes sense with the way eloise’s character has been developed so far that she keeps poking around outside of the ton either way, but specially if she’s intrigued by someone and wants to find them and thinks that that scene is where she might. maybe it’s even a way for penelope to start trying to mend their friendship, if she somehow finds out and wants to help eloise instead of discouraging her like with theo. and I feel like if eloise was having a crisis with her feelings and sexuality, she’d need a friend. benedict is there of course, but someone else as well. anyway, rebellious eloise seems like a great person to have a story with a working class woman that is not only a good romance but a good opportunity to tackle the issues people have been saying sophie’s story does. it’s even a good way to contrast privileged white liberal feminism with more complex struggles, a way for eloise to also grow and learn from someone as she falls in love with them. i also feel like the queen might be kinda lenient towarda eloise since she accused her of being lady whistledown and even without that, the queen is so much about love above all else that I don’t see why she wouldn’t be on board with a sapphic marriage. i guess this idea would mean changing the story orders but i’ve read that might happen anyway. and then s5 can be benedictxphillip crane (after s4 polin), hopefully without marina dying. maybe she even knows, and it’s part of their arrangement, phillip married her for honor but also because he wasn’t planning to marry anyway. then marina can get another chance at an actual happy and loving romantic relationship. i just think show!phillip’s nerdy sensibilities and love for nature would be a good match for benedict’s artist soul. so as a book fan who knows these characters much better than i do, how do you think this would work?

I don't see Benedict x Phillip happening, and I'm not the biggest fan. I'd much rather Benedict end up with a man we've yet to meet.

It would be interesting to see Eloise with another working class love interest, but this time, a woman. I'd be curious to see whether they handle the intersectionality of feminism and class better than they did in S2, esp. with Theo mansplaining feminism to Eloise, and Eloise (lowkey rightfully) being accused of just wanting to slum it for a bit.

But yeah, otherwise, I'm all for the queer!Bridgerton agenda, because quite frankly, in a family with 8 siblings, surely a few of them are queer, and more importantly, in a romance show in 2022, surely the writers realize that we deserve queer love stories that aren't sidelined, because they sure as hell existed in 1814.

[dandequill]

novel prep tag: blackbird

i was tagged for this by @magicalwriting! thank you so much!

in this tag, there are a lot of questions going in-depth about the wip in question (i’m choosing blackbird) and because of the detail i must warn that it’s rather long! also, because i’m still rather new here, i don’t really know many people to tag, so I’m just going to pick a few at random from my followers:

@three-seas-writes @the-moving-finger-writes @rewrit @anika-writes @spirit-of-helimire

and so we begin!

first look

describe your novel in 1-2 sentences (elevator pitch)

maria quintana (vain, moody, and a loser) and ingrid piuma (owner of one outfit, carefree, and also a loser) clash paths when on the run from a stuck-up aunt and stuck-up sister, respectively. they hit it off and have a lot in common, or so it seems; maria is yet to learn of the complex web of holy curses, familial trauma, and quest to halt an impending magical catastrophe which sets ingrid apart from her.

how long do you plan for your novel to be?

i don’t have much in the way of a length-goal for the novel in particular, but more generally i think the story could work well as a duology, with one story focused on maria and the other on ingrid.

what’s your novel’s aesthetic?

ooo, that’s a fun one. i have a pinterest board which does a decent job of encapsulating it, but think along the lines of gritty detective drama meets urban fantasy meets sweet sapphic romance.

what other stories inspired your novel?

the very earliest, basic idea of kids hunting a sleeping magical figure came from the raven cycle, but the story has spiralled drastically beyond that since then so the link has become very, very tenuous. other influences include fairy tales such as fitcher’s bird (+ a variety of other ‘rescued by the sister’ types).

share 3+ images that give a feel for the novel

as mentioned prior, there is a pinterest board with more images, but here are a few favourites i have selected:

main characters

who is your protagonist?

i consider maria and ingrid to be joint-protagonists, so here is a brief run down of both-

maria quintana:

- naive + sheltered; not much experience with the world beyond her hometown, so being forced to spend her summer in a big city in a foreign country isn’t exactly her idea of a good time

- daughter of two artists who rebelled against their families to be together; they want her to be better, she wants to be the same, and her cold-hearted aunt wants to warp her into something else entirely

- tall hipster lesbian gf

ingrid merlero piuma:

- laid-back + ‘eccentric’; changed entirely by the death of her mother a year before the events of the novel to become more aloof and self-focused, motivated by spite for her father

- middle of three sisters, all of whom have an agenda against their tyrannical father and rebel in different ways; she uses laziness as a weapon to diminish his control over her

- short punk bisexual gf

who is their closest ally?

maria and ingrid act as each other’s allies, plus a small gaggle of strange boys maria ends up living across the hall from (matei, evan, sal + dajuan) and ingrid’s sisters, sirena (elder) and jordana (younger)

who is their main enemy?

maria’s personal enemy is her aunt arabella, who drags her away to a highly academic summer school in a distant city in the hopes to mould maria in her own image (what maria actually gains from this trip is a quirky girlfriend and intimate experience with the darker strains of magic); ingrid’s primary enemy is her father, whom she suspects of being involved in dubious criminal activity as well as more generally being a control-obsessed patriarch; the sleeping sorcerer at the heart of said dubious criminal activity is the eventual enemy for both.

what do they want more than anything?

maria wishes to follow her own heart and desires unhindered, living a romanticised version of life in which she avoids all pitfalls and suffering; ingrid wishes to move into her own place and not have to worry about generational curses any more.

why can’t they have it?

maria, as one might guess, is more entrenched in fantasy than reality, and has yet to understand that reality is more complex than what she desires and therefore she can never live entirely free of hurt; ingrid’s father is into some dodgy stuff and she and her sisters feel an obligation to stop him from hurting anyone else before they get on with their own lives

what do they wrongly believe about themselves?

maria believes she is infallible and untouchable, beyond the touch of the harsh realities of life which affect everyone around her; ingrid feels obliged to act as a saviour and impede every one of her father’s schemes, as well as having a myriad of self-esteem and confidence issues stemming from the trauma of her father’s emotional abuse and manipulation

draw your protagonist! (or share a description)

whoops i may do digital art but i am yet to draw either of these babes-

maria: lanky lady (5”11), hispanic-coded (story set in a fantasy world, not real world), the fluffiest hair imaginable on a human being, eyes that she considers dull and pebble-y but which ingrid cornily compares to the pristine cuorren sea, freckles everywhere, makes and patchily mends her own clothes to imitate her parents’ messy artfulness

ingrid: short queen (5”4-5), hispanic-coded with a slightly darker complexion than maria, shoulder-length black hair (often twisted back into the smallest ponytail on the face of the earth), lighter green eyes, also peppered with freckles, wears the same plain jeans and shirt everywhere, every day, much to the chagrin of maria

plot points

what is the internal conflict?

maria must come to terms with the harsh realities of life and the flawed way in which she sees the world; ingrid must overcome family-related trauma and not project her pain onto maria

what is the external conflict?

maria’s family conflict with her aunt; ingrid’s struggle against her father; the eventual conflict with the (no longer) sleeping sorcerer

what is the worst thing that could happen to your protagonist?

maria could have her romanticised illusions of life shattered suddenly and horrifically as opposed to broken down gradually (ie a sudden tragedy befalling herself, ingrid, her parents); ingrid could be forever trapped by something or someone even after she escapes her father, cursed to never have her own personal freedom

what secret will be revealed that changes the course of the story?

i haven’t settled on the specifics yet, but it will be ingrid revealing one of her many personal secrets to maria in a way that completely changes maria’s view of her and, subsequently, their relationship; this could be the death of ingrid’s mother, the abuse from her father, her father’s madness and obsession with the sleeping sorcerer, or another, slightly smaller secret

do you know how it ends?

i have revised a few potential endings, but am yet to pick on the specifics; so far it is still a vague idea

what is the theme?

found family, fantasy vs reality, personal freedom vs duty to community, different types of love and relationship, death and mortality

what is a recurring symbol?

imagery of birds may be stereotypical, but it’s my favourite, and features heavily in a novel called ‘blackbird’ (this... should not be surprising) - different birds are associated with different characters and relationships, and are used to signal/foreshadow events attached to their respective characters. blackbirds themselves are attached to ingrid.

where is the story set? (share a description!)

the name of the city where it’s set is cuorren, which i once described to a friend as ‘seaside rome with a gang problem’ - here are a few images i assembled on the pinterest board which have inspired the setting:

do you have any images or scenes in your mind already?

i know the opening scenes more or less off by heart; i also have maria + ingrid’s first kiss, the first time maria visits ingrid’s troubled house, and a few other cutesy scenes of them together (i... should probably write more off this story beyond romantic escapades...)

what excites you about this story?

the themes are very important to me personally and i love that i get to express them through the medium of sapphic romance and dark fantasy, two of my greatest joys in life!

tell us about your usual writing method!

it doesn’t exist

uhhh... i have a planning document on the go and the first few scenes set out, but honestly every time i try to write beyond them, i panic and feel like i don’t know what i’m doing and go back to the plan. so i guess that makes me a planner over a pantser. which, believe me, has not always been true!

if you have made it this far into the post, thank you so much for reading! i hope this has been a good insight into my favourite of my three projects.

- m.b.