Announcement!!

HI so I've been thinking about this for a while but ummm I'm tired of maintaining this blog rip!!! But don't fret I'm not disappearing, I will be moving all stex reblogs and posting to my main @tabooi, and as a reminder you can find my train art on my art blog @tabooiart. I won't be deactivating this blog so nothing will be lost :)

guys. i've um. i've been lying about rust repair the whole time. yeah sorry i never actually shipped them. they were just a coverup for my one true otp.........espressball.....

Megawatt 💚My Ko-fi & Commission Info💚 Do not edit, trace, or repost!

Ich selbst bin Starlight 💫✨️🌟

my friend invited me to see starlight express last week and we had just the most adorable swing rusty... i think i fell in love a little bit

If the london stex revival gives wrench a dykey little haircut I'll forgive them for literally anything

Once again shoving mullet/cropped hair Dinah in your faces because I love this design for her so much

They are gonna make suchhhh a cute prusty I just know it in my bones

Tassita!!

love him so much though we have nothing on him, sad no one else is talking ‘bout him.

(extra under cut)

design i made like a month ago, never posted it cuz i didnt like it very much :1

Messy train sketches from this week, still finding my style for these silly guys.

dinah’s skirt being floofy is so important to me

drew butch greaseball cuz apparently its an issue for her to be masc

New Ensemble Engines!

Golden Eagle - a british luxury train!

Blue Horizon - tour the Canadian Rockies!

Lovely! What's next? uhm.

Orange Flash - google is only giving me info about horrific train accidents...

Grey Wolf - Back to Nazis.

Electra remains being played by white men as Greaseball gets turned into the 500th evil butch lesbian trope...oh we lost

Thoughts on Female Greaseball

I just wanted to share my thoughts, my concerns about changing gender for Greaseball. Now we don't know the extent to which they're rewriting the show, and these concerns may well be addressed, we'll have to wait and see... but follow along with me here...

First off, to tell a story, you need conflict and resolution. You got to show the bad things, to then overcome the bad things. Greaseball is an antagonist in the show - he does bad things, we, the audience, don't support his decisions. Sure he's a lovable character but he's flawed.

Greaseball is the "Reigning Champion", he represents the present world (Electra represents the undefinable weirdness and possibilities of the future, Poppa is the cozy nostalgic past.) He's representing some of the bad things we want to learn to do better from through the course of the story.

"UNCOUPLED" is sung by Dinah at her lowest point. She's just been dumped and from what she tells us in that song, it suggests her partner has been borderline gaslighting her and emotionally abusive - she's blaming herself for her partner's choices. Her partner that she's singing about has been really shitty to her.

Now, with a masculine Greaseball, we all immediately recognise the Misogyny there, all familiar tropes of "he's left me for someone younger, prettier, thinner, less outspoken" fuelled by the toxic masculinity, objectifying women. This is showing the bad stuff that the characters overcome - this is the story arc. Masculine Greaseball is a recognisable trope, he's "Alpha Male" - all the privilege has led him to being able to take whatever he wants. But Feminine Greaseball, a queer woman as antagonist who's been abusing sweet Dinah, what trope does she fall into? Evil Lesbian.

This is a sung-through roller-skating musical about toy trains, there isn't room to tell complex character development for the average audience member - these characters rely on archetypes to be easily recognisable. There's so much room for the performers to add subtlety, context, subtext, sure, but the main picture is painted in broad strokes. And I'm not sure that replacing "Toxic Alpha Male" as a villain, with "Evil Lesbian", is actually progressive.

Maybe they've thought this through and already have solutions... maybe "Evil Lesbian" is the trope they want for one of their antagonists. It just feels to me that it would be more productive to be working with "this macho alpha male crap is a problem" than taking it out of the discussion.

Happy Thursday! ❤️

Sparkle on! It's Wednesday! Don't forget to be yourself!