#this is more accurate than ‘he was fighting demons the whole times it was bisexuality’

[pixiesnooze]

[cassandraclare]

Not too spoilery, but very long!

fieidofpoppies said: I was hoping to get some clarification about the LGBT situation in TLH’s background. 

What exactly is the Clave's position on homosexuality? Alec struggles with people's opinion in 2008, so I guess in 1900ish things are definitely not rosey, but to what extent? We know that being gay is considered a crime in mundane London at the time and I'm guessing that is not the case for the Shadowhunter world, so how seriously is it a problem? What does it/ would it mean for our characters to be out?

Okay, so I’ve gotten a few of this question, leading me to believe it is A Conversation that needs some addressing. It’s a complicated issue so I’m going to try to break it down in parts.

There is no “The Clave’s position on homosexuality” that is unchanging: it has changed, advanced and regressed through history just like you, know, regular human history. :) If you’re asking about the Clave’s position on LGBT Shadowhunters in 1903, we will get to that.

Just because Alec is struggling in 2007 doesn’t mean things were worse for Anna in 1903. The idea that culture moves inevitably forward towards tolerance and progressivism is an oversimplification. We see it assumed all around, so it’s easy to believe it, but actually it’s more of a two steps forward, one step back scenario. There are always periods of cultural progress, marked by periods of cultural regress. If someone had told me when I was a teenager that a woman’s right to choose would be more trammeled and in danger in 2020 America then in 1989 I wouldn’t have believed it; it is, however, the truth. We are in a more regressive period culturally now than we were ten years ago; LGBT rights are more under threat. This isn’t the first time in history this has happened and it won’t be the last: “During the golden years of the Weimar Republic [Germany's government from 1919 to 1933] Berlin was considered an LGBT+ haven, where gays and lesbians achieved an almost dizzying degree of visibility in popular culture” — but by 1934 LGBT+ Germans were being persecuted and eventually would be sent to death camps with Jews, communists, and other “undesirables.”

Alec is living in a time in which a regressive, conservative group that his own parents belonged to nearly toppled the more progressive aspects of the Clave. He already comes from a family in exile, during a time in which progressive and regressive aspects of the Clave are battling each other and the situation with Downworlders is explosive. Four years after Alec comes out, the fascist Cohort rises to power and splits the Clave in half. Nothing like that is happening in 1903: there is a progressive Consul in power, demon attacks are low, there is generally peace with Downworld.

It is reasonable that Alec would have concerns about how the Clave at large might treat him, and also have concerns about family and friends, given his parents’ past. And while Anna and Matthew etc. might have similar concerns about coming out to the whole Clave, which they haven��t, they are not concerned about their particular group of friends, and have mixed concerns about family. (Also, we have plenty of characters who have been just as worried about coming out as Alec was: Charles, Alastair, Ariadne. We don’t yet know Thomas’ attitude. Everyone who doesn’t consider themselves a “Bohemian” isn’t taking this very lightly, and even Matthew isn’t “out” to anyone except his friends. It’s not like the Wentworths know he’s bisexual.)

None of this is to say it was “easy” to be LGBT+ during the early 1900’s. It isn’t easy now. It’s to say that “Well, it sucked across the board then and now it’s great across the board!” isn’t true, and ignores the significance of context in the lives of characters — and people. There’s a great moment in the movie Colette (set in the 1890′s and early 1900′s) that focuses on Mathilde de Morny, Colette’s lover. Mathilde was assigned female at birth (academic scholars are widely divided on whether Mathile was transgender so I’m going to be gender-neutral here.) Mathilde dresses in men’s clothes, and openly romances women, but in this particular moment, Mathilde speaks about the fact that if Mathilde were not rich and titled, it might be a problem. But given Mathilde’s social status and power, and the Bohemian set of people Mathilde spends time with, it’s not. Colette herself also dresses in men’s clothes and is open about her same-sex romances, even kissing Mathilde onstage at the Moulin Rouge.

(Colette and Mathilde, 1907.)

The artist Romaine Brooks wore men’s clothes, even painting herself in them: according to the Smithsonian “By 1905, she had made a name for herself in Paris as a painter of women, some of whom were her lovers. Her most visible and lasting relationship was with the American poet Natalie Barney, who also lived in Paris.” (There’s a reason the characters are often talking about Paris or visiting Paris: being LGBT+  wasn’t illegal in France, and Paris was a gay and lesbian mecca, complete with LGBT+ cafes, high society, celebrities, and so on.)

People like Anna existed in the mundane world in 1903. It’s important to realize; this isn’t something I wrote because I’d have liked it to be true and historically accurate, it is true and historically accurate. It’s also true that even though male homosexuality was illegal in England in 1903, there were plenty of gay men who were out to their friends and community. Lytton Strachey (part of the Bloomsbury Group which included Virginia Woolf) “spoke openly about his homosexuality with his Bloomsbury friends, and had relationships with a variety of men.”  Which isn’t to say he spoke openly about it to everyone —  just that there have always been spaces within “mainstream” society where it was safe to be queer: Anna and Matthew, by going to the Hell Ruelle, by standing somewhat apart from their contemporaries save those they already trust, are inhabiting those spaces.

Now, if the question becomes: what happens if everyone in the Clave finds out the sexualities of the LGB+ characters in TLH? Well, first, they won’t be arrested; it’s not illegal. But that hardly covers the whole issue. We look at what happened to Oscar Wilde and think, horrors, as well we should — had he not sued the Marquess of Queensberry, though, he probably would have lived out his life with society turning a blind eye to his affairs with men. What happened to him is fucking terrible. Yet even today, there are celebrities who remain in the closet — though their queerness may well be an open secret to their friends, family and colleagues — not because they’re worried about being arrested, but because of the fear of what the damage to their career might be were it publicly known. And how is that so different from the situation Charles finds himself in? He’s pretty clear that if people knew he were gay, he couldn’t be Consul. He wouldn’t get the votes. In the same way, it’s likely that the other LGB+ characters would face societal disapproval and issues with their families. That’s not really about the “Clave’s official position” though, any more than a politician today not wanting to come out is worried about being arrested rather than losing their career. The official position is important, but it’s not the only indicator or generator of societal, systemic bigotry.  (” It turns out that one of the worst times to be a homosexual - that is, in terms of being at risk from the law - was in the run-up to and aftermath of the liberalisation of the 1960s [when homosexuality was decriminalized].” )

So if you made it this far: what I’m basically saying is three things: one, that any comparison to Alec has to take into account Alec’s specific family situation, the Uprising, and who the Clave and Inquisitor are in 2007. And that I can’t say what it means for the characters of TLH to be out because it’s going to mean different things, and have different repercussions, for all of them. I can say “They won’t be in trouble with the Law”, which is true, but in terms of their family situations, their personal goals and dreams, and where they are socially, it would be different for each one of them. 

And third, that we can’t assume that progress is one inevitable forward march. That things will always be more tolerant, less oppressive, in “the future” simply because it’s the future.  While we can believe that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” it’s important to remember that rights can be abridged, freedoms taken away, times of tolerance and harmony can end, bigotry and nationalism can rise. To assume progress is inevitable is, I worry, to forget to fight for it. And we can never forget to fight.

[Recommended reading: Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century, by Graham Robb.]

[dravenxivuk]

Can you please tell those of us who don't know much about Lily a little about her? I've always been curious from seeing her in your games!

Enthuse at length about my Witcher OC? sure xD 

Race: Demon Gender: Female Immediate family: None Sexuality: Bisexual disaster Occupation:  Witcheress, explorer 

Lily is thought to be around 400 years old, but she doesn’t actually know, and stopped paying attention at least three centuries ago. She shows no physical signs of aging.

Demeanour: Laid back and cheerful most of the time, but mess with those she cares about and she will hurt you. Maybe not now, but one day she will come back to you because she has all the time in the world. Less concerned about slights to herself, probably won’t even notice them. Will tease those she likes, but will tone it down if they’re getting uncomfortable. Does have a soft side but you have to earn her trust before she’ll show it.

Likes: Shiny things (especially if they’re sharp and pointy), learning, travelling & exploring, dancing, reading, red wine, having her head scratched at the base of her horns (very few people know this).

Languages: Can read and speak most languages of the Northern Realms fluently, has reasonable knowledge of other languages from her travels.

Preternaturally Strong: Lily’s strength is on par with a higher vampire.

Regeneration: Lily regenerates incredibly quickly – as fast, if not faster than, a higher vampire.

Always sober: Can’t get drunk due to how fast she heals, but keeps trying anyway!

Soul-free: Doesn’t have a soul.

Long Witcher 3 verse background under the cut (basically her about from the sideblog where I RP her @simplly-lilly ).  She has other verses - modern, Nioh 2 based, a couple of ‘old’ verses set 50-ish years after Witcher 3, but this is her main one.

Lily ended up in the Northern Realms because she investigated an interesting shiny disc she found in her own world. She appeared in an intricately drawn circle in a mage’s lab which was very pretty but she was far more interested in the shiny baubles he had hanging around so wandered over for a closer look. Master Bertrand, the mage, got quite upset that she just ambled out of his summoning circle, he wasn’t aiming for a horned woman but as she’d shown up she should at least have the decency to follow the rules.

Bertrand wrote a work, Master Bertrand’s Treatise on Summoning & Containing Demonic Entities, based on his summoning of Lily that made him infamous among goetia magic users, mostly because none were ever able to replicate his work and summon their own demon. Lily maintains this is because he only summoned her by accident because she went to look at the shiny disc.

Nonetheless it is possible to summon her, something that has so far been managed accidentally by one scholar in Oxenfurt and a group of witchers messing about in Kaer Morhen. Being summoned is disconcerting and makes her hungry, as such her standard advice for anyone trying to summon a demon is to dispense with the theatrics and make sure you have snacks on hand for when they get there because they’ll be grumpy. If she trusts someone enough she’ll give them her sigil so they can call her whenever they want.

Master Bertrand periodically subjected Lily to horrific experiments and she is heavily scarred as a result, but most people never notice as she heals so quickly her scars are barely visible. Those who do look closely might notice that a lot of them look medical, almost vivisection-like as the mage wanted to find out if demons were the same on the inside as people, among other things. Lily doesn’t like to talk about it and as those who do notice the scarring tend to put it down to fighting she generally doesn’t have to.

Lily ended up staying with Master Bertrand for about a century. He taught her various languages of the Northern Realms and how to read, which he regretted doing as soon as she found the library and started disappearing for weeks at a time. Lily stayed with the Bertrand as long as she did despite the hideous experiments he conducted on her, because it never occurred to her that she could leave.

There were protective wards around the house, and strong magical barriers controlling where she could go. The Mage experimented with magical implants for a while as a way to track and control her, but her accelerated healing powers just pushed them out almost immediately. When he needed to restrain her for an experiment he would have to use massive amounts of magic that would leave him drained for days. As she’s concerned dimeritium is just another shiny metal, it is no more or less effective at restraining her than anything else, and she’s very fond of silver.

Master Bertrand had an ongoing contract with a Cat witcher who brought him interesting bits of monsters for potions and occasional live specimens if requested. For one set of experiments Bertrand hired Cat to spar with Lily, he wanted to see how her speed and strength compared to a witcher having already established she was stronger than humans. Cat won easily and told Bertrand that if he wanted accurate measurements she would need to be trained otherwise the results would always be skewed, so Bertrand hired Cat to do just that.

Cat not only taught Lily hand-to-hand combat and sword play but how to use a whole range of blades, and how to hide them to pass the most thorough searches. Her witcher training would be obvious to any witcher who sparred or fought her, probably down to which school. She can fight very well, although she’s not quite as fast as most witchers, but she can also get reckless because it’s only pain and she heals. She’s very protective of her friends and while most of them are fast healing witchers, she regenerates faster so will put herself between them and peril if the need arises.

Cat also taught Lily how to make witcher potions and an exciting array of poisons, much to Master Bertrand’s annoyance as Cat (and later Lily) refused to share this knowledge with him. Cat tried to teach her to use witcher signs but abandoned it after she blew up half the lab trying to igni a candle.

Cat and Lily were a couple for almost 70 years. Cat made her promise that when he died she’d return his medallion to his school, however he didn’t set a time limit on doing it so she now wears it as her own. Cat also made her promise to look after his blades and put them to good use, most of the blades secreted around her person used to belong to Cat and they have all seen a lot of use. She’ll talk about Cat if pushed, but won’t bring him up voluntarily.

Cat died after being betrayed by Bertrand. Until Cat died she respected the magical barriers around the house, but the pain and fury over his death tapped into her demon nature more fully than any experiment and the barriers came apart as she forced through them. The ensuing fight with Bertrand was when they both discovered how distorted and warped magic can really get around her when she goes full demon. It was the last thing he ever discovered as shortly afterwards she ripped his heart out.

She also destroyed a lot of the darker corners of his lab, but she left the library and house intact. Much as she hates the place it’s always handy to have somewhere to go back to if absolutely necessary. She has an interesting collection of magical knickknacks courtesy of inheriting Bertrand’s collection, most she keeps because they’re shiny but a couple are actually useful.

She likes witchers and vastly prefers their company to humans, mostly because they’ve travelled a lot and seen a lot of shit so always have an interesting story to tell. They also know what it’s like to mostly pass as human until people get up close. When very bored she has been known to put up a contract on herself. Occasionally it works.

She will break her horns off herself if she’s travel through somewhere sensitive (looking at you Novigrad) but she doesn’t like doing it because they itch when they grow back, particularly when they’re going through the velvet shedding phase. Her horns usually grow a bit quicker than her hair, but if she takes a massive amount of damage they’ll grow back more quickly as her body kicks into healing mode.

Lily is a firm believer in hugs, and gets particular joy from hugging tetchy witchers as she’s sure they’d enjoy hugs too with a little practice. She just ignores it when they’re a bit awkward as it’s often been a while since whichever witcher she’s tackle hugged this time last had any friendly contact.

[uozlulu]

Black Clover chapter 229 reaction and spoilers

The first time I saw this cover I loled at Asta and his compact flexed abs. He’s like what? Sixteen-and-a-half or so now? I just can’t take it seriously

Some additional thoughts on this:

The only thing saving Midoriya from a chest bearing timeskip is he’s destined for superhero jumpsuit hell

When Asta decided just wearing a bolero and only a bolero was the way to go, Noelle was probably like, “What? No w -” but Mimosa shushed her. “It’ll be extra training,” Mimosa told Noelle. “If we can endure this, we can endure anything.” And Noelle surveyed Asta with his tight three quarter sleeves and muscles and turned so red she was not sure that could be true, but then she managed to fight the blush down and gave a small, royal cough. “Yes. Training,” Noelle agreed. “Extra training.”

Joking aside, I really like how Nero’s skirt looks like feathers and I like the use of color and the ambiance the colors and coloring style lends to the cover.

Anyway, on to the rest of the chapter~

On this round of my endless ability to mirror image things without even trying, I’ve spent this whole time thinking Heart was to the east of Clover Kingdom and Diamond was to the west, but it’s the other way around. I think part of it is that when I look at the basic descriptions and general impressions of the kingdoms, I think of them in terms of Earth locations which is a mistake, though the associations might be things the audience is meant to pick up on nonetheless

Loropechika mentioning Asta running off and how hard he’s worked to become so much stronger makes me think of two things 1) When my brother started watching the anime he said Asta was like if Vegeta had been sent to Earth instead of Goku and I think that’s still a pretty accurate assessment, and 2) I hadn’t really thought of Hogwarts houses in terms of this cast, but Asta really is a Hufflepuff, isn’t he?

I didn’t know Spade could get worse than promised, but here we are

All that lulzing I did earlier about Asta’s new look aside, I do like that instead of growing taller, he stayed short and just became more compact like Hinomaru

So we end on someone extremely beat up fainting in front of the church at Hage, whispering, “Master Yuno,” and I’m ready for this. It’s also interesting that this is going to coincide with Noelle’s Megicula arc. I wonder if possibly the two subplots could be related in some way or if perhaps Noelle and Yuno will get simultaneous subplots since both are meant to stand equal to Asta by the end of the story or something like that. Should be interesting to see how the subplots manage to share narration time

Edit:

bippity-boppity-bisexual replied to your post “Black Clover chapter 229 reaction and spoilersThe first time I saw...”

Asta did get taller. He’s the same height as the demon slayer now but before he was shorter than it. He’s just wide as shit

Ah yeah I see it now. Thanks for pointing that out. 

[arabhusband]

Sometimes I really feel like big name movie/shows/game writers just don’t realize what kind of characters they’re handling. However good a writer you are, no one can create a “new personality”, in the end all fictional characters are based off real people the writer knows, and their own personality traits (and on existing fictional characters, who, in turn... you guessed it).

And just like you can only know so many people through and through, really often, the personality traits you’ve picked up from existing people for your writing, they’re from people who, without your knowledge, could be lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender people; could be neurodivergent, could be autistic, could be a number of things they didn’t disclose to you for their own safety. And yes, people belonging to the same group of ANY kind end up sharing some behaviour/personality traits specific to that group. Not every single time, of course, but it’s undeniable that it’s a real phenomenon. Especially with neurodivergence for the obvious reasons, where some symptoms are mixed in with traits. Don’t try to fight me on this. But you’ve picked up those “interesting” character traits for your character. And you’re outraged that someone who has those personality traits recognizes them and goes “they’re just like me!” and people chime in saying “you can’t know the character better than the creator!”. Anyways, here’s 3K words about GTAV, Trevor Philips and Michael De Santa, the Trevor end, disappointing character writing, and how mainstream narrative keeps failing me. Warning for the use of lots of ableist words (in reference to the vocabulary used in canon).

I was just gonna vent about Trevor and Michael and how painfully, obviously gay they are for each other but I realized I had so much more to say, especially about Trevor. Get ready for this wild ride.

I) Trevor

First off, what breaks my heart very often is the portrayal of Cluster A personality disorders in mainstream media but that’s not news. Quoted from Rockstar themselves, “Trevor was considered to embody insanity”. A lot of writers still believe widely that it’s okay (or even interesting) to make a “crazy” character, by stating that their actual mental illness is irrelevant. That they appreciate the ~concept of insanity~ dismissing that it is a caricature of very real mental illness.

Very often in this case clinical terms are not mentioned, creating some fantasy mental illness that just makes the character violent, scary, unpredictable. It’s very convenient when you’re a lazy writer to just stick the word crazy on your character and not have to do any actual character writing, apparently.  The fact that the terms “mentally ill” are not used is because those writers feel better about it if they distance themself as much as possible from the reality of neurodivergence and mental illness. I’m not gonna explain the whole history of demonization of mental illness in media for the sake of a narrative... I think most of my mutuals here are aware of the reality of it, and how much it hurts and stigmatizes mentally ill and neurodivergent people. In the case of Trevor, clinical terms are used messily. Trevor is said interchangeably ingame to be a sociopath or a psychopath, and even if that is technically a word associated with an antisocial personality disorder it’s obvious that the words aren’t used in reference to it, but rather as a catch all for cr*zy, ins*ne.

A) Trevor is Not Like The Other Cr*zies :)... aka We Forgot People With Cluster A Are People Too

But here’s the irony with Trevor.

Steven Ogg, the voice actor and motion capture model said himself: [while Trevor embodies the violent, psychopathic GTA anti-hero archetype] he wanted players to sympathise with Trevor's story. "To elicit other emotions was tough, and it was the biggest challenge and it's something that meant a lot to me,"

It’s just baffling to me how...somehow, a step forward in writing a mentally ill person HUMANLY, at last, was pretty much inintentional. The focus was more on having the players root for Trevor for the sake of playabilty, since Trevor was to be a playable character, rather than just thinking, hey, mentally ill people are actually human and not entirely defined by their illness, so maybe we should give the character some relatability.

But the conflict shows, glaringly: From video game journalists only, you can tell that the two concepts (A dehumanizing first concept; A want for the character to be likable) clashed so much that a lot of people didn’t understand where the character was going. Let’s take a look at a few popular reviews.

“Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell, however, felt that Trevor undermined the other characters because he was a "shallow and unconvincing" sensationalised anti-hero, and that "his antics derail[ed] the narrative" and overshadowed the character development of Michael and Franklin.”

A lot (surprisingly, and believe me, not al!l) of Trevor’s “antics” are cringeworthy caricatural “cr*zy” behavior. It’s obvious that those scenes aren’t intentionally added for comedic relief: when you take the game as a whole, you can see that they’re there to establish Trevor’s character. But the thing is, Trevor’s character is understandable enough in the main storyline through his interactions with Michael and Trevor without all the stuff that felt superfluous. It felt superfluous because Steven Ogg’s performance, meant to humanize him in the main story line, is... well it’s good!! When you pick it apart, all the parts that “derailed from the narrative” were insulting portrayals of vague Cluster A symptomes. And I find it surprising that no thinkpieces on GTAV has mentioned that. It’s almost like people have a blind spot for ableism.

Not only that, but Trevor’s past establishes so much about his personality and behaviour... I’ll talk about this in a minute.

Lucas Sullivan of GamesRadar praised Trevor for being the first character in the series that "makes sense". He stated that, upon their first playthrough of a Grand Theft Auto game, most players "carjacked some poor schlub, then started doing 90mph on the sidewalk, mowing over civilians", as opposed to playing peacefully. "Trevor's existence isn't a commentary on any group of people–he's just the first logical fit to the way people have been playing GTA games for the past decade," he said. Sullivan concluded that Trevor is one of the few protagonists in the Grand Theft Auto that would willingly execute popular player actions, such as murder and violence.

God, this review kills me. Here’s why. This review, in my opinion, says everything that is wrong with mainstream character writing. No one has ever needed a character to be a “psycho/sociopath” to feel the need for inconsequencial fictional violence. “Most players” enjoy partaking in violence in video games simply because it’s cathartic, it doesn’t (directly) hurt anyone... I’m not gonna talk about the debate on whether violence in video games makes people violent etc. But the thing is, I’m pretty sure a majority of players do this, and I’m pretty sure the majority of them aren’t psycho/sociopaths either. Moreover, previous GTA characters all willingly exectuted mindless violence, without the whole violent mental illness trope!

So what does it say about people like Lucas Sullivan, and what does it say about the game? Unfortunately, Lucas Sullivan is right about one thing, in my opinion: “ Trevor's existence isn't a commentary on any group of people”.

He could be, but he isn’t, because of that conflict I mentioned earlier. Trevor, in the end, has a major character writing flaw: he’s torn between an accurate representation of a mentally ill character, and an ableist, empty psychopath archetype that neurotypical people love to, pardon my French, jack off to. Lucas Sullivan particularly enjoys this roleplay in which he’s this weird fantasm of what a psycho/sociopath is, because that’s what’s being served up to him.

B) Writing Good???? Not at Rockstar! Not On Their Watch!

The writing in GTAV (and most mainstream media) is held back and sabotaged by their own, real fear of seeming “politically correct” or “activism driven”. Just for being accurate. And they’re very aware of it. And I mean you’ll tell me, of course, Ziyed, it’s Rockstar!!! What did you expect!! Well, I expect nothing but I’m still disappointed. I’m very aware that all big video game corporations are Terrible and Awful but hey, sue me, it makes it all the more satisfying to pick apart.

Obviously I’m sure that people who follow this blog are already aware of that, which also applies to the lack of race diversity, lgbt representation and body diversity in mainstream media. The reason I’m talking about Trevor’s mental illness in particular here is because 1. There’s a cruel lack of writing on the subject of neurodivergence and mental illness ableism even in blogging spaces 2. His “insanity” (mental illness) is, according to the writers themselves, his defining trait.

And it is disappointing particularly since the premise for Trevor is so promising when you start out, or else I wouldn’t bother criticizing it. It’s not ALL BAD, and it frustrates. His environment and past all make sense, they’re all mentioned in canon plainly, but briefly: unstable, physically and mentally abusive family that normalizes his violent impulses early on; It’s implied his family is poor (hence the dream of big heists later and getting rich), so he has no access to mental health; a failing education system that pushes him out; The detail that all of society pushes him out because of his mental illness, when it is mentioned that Trevor’s dream was crushed when he fails his mental health test to enter the military to become a pilot.

When you put it all together, Trevor is the product of a society that hates the poor and the mentally ill and drives them to a life of crime. And it kills me that all of this is thrown at you in maybe two boring long conversations that throw Trevor’s story at you, the first one in the long car ride to meet Michael for the first time, and the second one in the long first plane ride. 1.It’s lazy writing. I don’t want the game to tell me, I want the game to SHOW ME. 2. You’re really gonna cram everything that made Trevor who he is in two tutorial scenes? Really...???

I said Rockstar is aware of their fear of being viewed as politically correct, and here’s why: With all of this, you’d think Trevor would be the perfect character for social commentary, but the game skirts around it with useless antics. But when Rockstar is accused of gratuitous violence for shock value in the waterboarding scene, suddenly it’s a “political commentary on the use of torture by the United States government”. So obviously Rockstar knows to pick its topical battles.

C) Gay and Crazy, Now Made Gamer-Friendly

The same way Trevor’s mental illness is diluted down to an archetype, his gayness is played in large part for laughs and shock value, and is made part of his overall outrageous, chaotic behaviour. Trevor is (almost) everything American society views as shocking: mentally ill, addicted to drugs, a criminal, and outrageously sexual. He is so sexually offensive to a point where he’s not just a crude flirty bisexual man but the overly sexual nightmare of a cishet man. Alright, for this part, I might be missing information, because overtime I’ve heard a lot of people call Trevor a rapist, and the only scene I know people have interpreted as rape is when you spawn as Trevor in the apartment, and Floyd is laying in bed sobbing next to him, fully clothed, apologizing to his girlfriend out loud. I personally didn’t interpret it as rape (because it’s not mentioned, explained, and also because they were spooning, I honestly believed that they just had sex and Floyd was just disgusted with himself because Trevor is generally unattractive, and I thought that was the “joke”) but it’s undeniable that it was in poor taste and implied it for whomever wanted to believe that. Either way, it proves my point which is: Rockstar just couldn’t make Trevor gay without making him a sex offender with rapey undertones because... it’s Rockstar, because Gay Panic, because Rockstar is homophobic and that’s not news. In such a strongly LGBTphobic mindset that is the GTA franchise and the culture surrounding it, the kind of gamers it targets, I was surprised when I started playing to see Trevor was implied to be bisexual. I was thinking, hey, he’s violent and kills people, but so do all the characters in this game, they’re all terrible people: but Trevor was interested in men??? Then the more I played, the more I was hit with all the rape jokes... But, since I wasn’t expecting anything half decent, I would sheepishly be grateful that there was no actual rape. I mean, we obviously deserve to have higher expectations than that, but it’s GTA we’re talking about. The thing is, all the cat calling and verbal sexual harassment is mostly from Trevor, out of the three playable characters, and it was obvious that it was trying to cover up Trevor’s gayness with something that would speak to GTA’s vile average cis het gamer dude audience: rape jokes, violence and misogyny. See, Gamers? Trevor’s kinda gay, but it’s funny, because he’s just generally gross :)

So, just like Trevor is fantasy cr*zy, he is fantasy gay, where it’s a whole lgbt-phobic mess of what a cis het man imagines a gay/bi man to be. What really reinforced that feeling to me was adding up the “Trisha and Michelle” story and the spawn scene where he wakes up in the middle of nowhere wearing a dress. ((Now the dress thing in itself didn’t even have any lines or remarks: As much as it is obvious that it’s originating from a Man In A Dress transphobic joke, I’ll have to admit, there’s no actual joke happening, since he doesn’t comment on it nor does anyone else ingame. But it is still transphobic and homophobic when you take it in the context of Trevor’s terrible writing)). His identity is not discussed further, but all in all it feels as though the writers were like well, he’s Kinda Gay or whatever, (I don’t believe they’ve said the B word ingame) gay guys wear like, dresses, right?? And they’re sexual offenders??? I Mean As A Cis Het Man I Definitely Feel Offended By Gay Men Existing So This Must Be Right... So it manages to be transmisogynistic and homophobic at once

Again, this dichotomy compromises Trevor’s credibility as a character, again because Rockstar is pissing themselves at the idea of writing a well rounded character because what if people think we’re Gay

But here’s the thing!!. This very problem, GTAV’s terrible fear of seeming Gay, resonates throughout the main character arc between Trevor and Michael (I don’t think I even have to explain this to fandom: Literally everyone read Trevor and Michael as having some glaring romantic tension) and makes both characters skirt around their sexuality and personnal conflict in numerous no homo jokes. And that’s... where Rockstar’s Gay Panic backfired.

II) Michael, or how GTAV’s Gay Panic played itself and turned the video game into a metaphor for the consequences of repressed homosexuality, or The Trevor End

A little search showed me it’s widely accepted in the GTAV fandom that the Trevor End (End C) is the canon end but if you haven’t heard, here’s why quickly:

-Everyone Lives End has several plotholes and didn’t resolve all conflicts -Trevor’s death resolves most conflicts -Franklin killing Michael is widely out of character, and if you don’t do anything, Michael literally just trips and falls. It’s not a gratifying or meaningful end. -The events featuring Trevor in GTAV Online happen before the game, making it possible for Trevor to be dead. -Generally, everyone felt that the final conversation between Franklin and Michael in the Trevor end resonated most than other ends.

So, Michael and Trevor originally were written to mirror each other. And they do in many ways: Trevor does everything openly, is sincere, and he is shameless. Michael, throughout the game, is ashamed of Trevor, is ashamed of most things in his life, and tries to do things discreetly, when he isn’t overcome with rage/emotion. That is when he hates himself the most: when he’s pushed to be open about things. And it’s almost funny how caricatural it is that Michael is afraid of Trevor’s qu**rness: how he drops their partnership for the perfect nuclear family, the big house on the hills, the skinny white blonde wife, two kids and tennis on the weekends. How utterly miserable he is living that life! Until Trevor finds him again, and he’s so torn and angry about how Trevor makes him feel alive again.

God, it’s right there. It’s so obvious it’d be funny if it wasn’t frustrating and sad and making me write 3K about it.

Xav de Matos of Joystiq found [...] "though each character has a valid motivation for his journey, it's difficult to want them to succeed." He also felt that the ambivalence between Trevor and Michael was a tired device by the conclusion of the story as it became a "seemingly endless cycle" of conflict between them.

Another popular review, and evidence of another dichotomy in the writing. It’s not made truly clear what Michael’s conflict with Trevor really is, which is what should be driving the end of the story, but ends up just being blurry and confusing in the two other ends. The “seemingly endless cycle” comment is what fascinates me here. Because it’s actually something that, for me, makes the Trevor end so spectacular at how it blindly hit the mark and remarkably played itself. Yes, the Michael/Trevor narrative must be very confusing for Xav de Matos. And honestly, I’m still really confused myself as to what Rockstar thought they were writing, if not a tragic gay romance.

I’ve considered that Michael grows tired of Trevor pulling him back into crime and wants to end the conflict but it does not add up: Michael was a criminal before meeting Trevor, so he’s not the bad influence here! But there is definitely the feeling of an “endless cycle”.

I truly have no other explanation: The overall aversion to gayness starts to become a pattern, and their entire character arc strikes like one big metaphore for repressed homosexuality on Michael’s part. He says that he’s almost afraid of Trevor, but the only times he seems to be having fun is when he’s with Trevor. He pushes him away constantly, and it all culminate to the Trevor end.

The whole scene is awfully dramatic. First, it’s by chance that Michael survives crashing into Trevor at full speed like that: you clearly see and hear him speed up. It seems like a deliberate choice and adds to the drama of the scene. It’s very desperate and self destructive. As Franklin, you’re given the choice to kill Trevor. But it is out of character, since a few seconds prior, he doesn’t have the courage to shoot Trevor, he definitely has sympathy for him, lets him go and tells him they can talk it out. Eventually, Michael takes the shot (not shooting Trevor directly) and sets him on FIRE. Talk about intense. His death is very violent and dramatic. Franklin is shocked that Michael would kill his “best friend” and that starts the final conversation. Michael’s speech is erratic, he’s panting, screaming, but he says two things that struck with me.

“I’m a bad piece of work, but that guy?”

“No boundaries. No sense of... when to back off. No Nothing! 24/7 insanity ”

These two lines spoke to me. As a gay man, growing up-- and though I know my experience of it is slightly different than cis men’s- I’ve had to deal with internalized homophobia. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say pushing away behaviour that seems too “extravagant”, too “qu**er” is a frequent sign of internalized homophobia: Trying to feel like somehow you’re better than The Other Gays. Or otherwise, when completely denying one’s homosexuality, pushing away other gay people to try to feel “normal”. “No boundaries/ No sense of when to back off” is his explanation to why he kills Trevor: He was got too close to him, and Michael couldn’t deal with those feelings.  That, especially in the world of GTA, like I explained earlier... added to it how both these men grew up in an especially violent environment, how they’ve both normalized murder in their lives. It all makes sense suddenly to culminate there? Michael ends the cycle, the only way he knows how to.

And it made me sad. One, because I knew that Rockstar would laugh in my face for interpreting their terrible game as anything meaningful to a gay person, and two because of, still, how much it hit home, and how that is a reality. Growing up hearing my brother saying he would beat up his friend if he had a crush on him, growing up hearing of stories of men actually killing other men rather than face their feelings. I was upset to think about how this game, filled with so many bad intentions, a game that probably hates me, still made me feel something like this.

And it’s like, sometimes I feel like writers forget that we exist, but we’re still there in the back of their minds, unknowingly? It’s like no matter how much they don’t want us to be there, we still exist.

Every ending in GTAV has a different song. The song for the Trevor End was specifically written for the game and for this end by Yeasayer. And I feel like the band understood the game better than the writers. You can give it a listen here and read the lyrics, which I feel, if you’ve managed to read all of this to the end, you won’t have trouble understanding. It’s pretty transparent.

Thanks for reading my thoughts on this terrible game!! I probably missed things, I didn’t backread much and didn’t make sense sometimes but I guess I had a lot on my mind. Hope you appreciated and didn’t feel like you wasted 20 minutes of your day.