#its only queer when its the /proper/ kind of queer lmao
Text
do the names Eric Kripke and Dark Incestuous Themes Between Two Brothers mean nothing to you
233 notes
·
View notes
Note
OMG FRUITS BASJET?!
Could you do a kyo x male reader?
I have had the fattest crush on him since elementary school LMAO
Anyways could it be like reader never knew kyo could turn into a cat, so when he sees kyo turn into a cat and just instantly feels his heartstrings tug. He starts cuddling with kyo's cat from till he turns back into his human form, but reader didn't know he becomes naked when he turns back so he starts freaking out about it lol.
I'm sorry if I butcher this shit up and if my English is bad and you don't understand my point. English is my first language but I get very nervous with sending in request so I feel like I butcher shit up lol.
Hi! I am so sorry for how long it took me to answer this!! I'll make it extra long just to make up for it. Thanks for being patient! ^^
Kyo Sohma x Male Reader
Okay, so, I actually love the thought of queer relationships between the zodiac. It's always been very cute to me, plus it would save them from turning into an animal when they want affection.
Also, for these headcanons, let's just say that trans men/transmascs don't have any effect so that it stays inclusive! (I know Fruits Basket isn't the most trans-inclusive, but we're ignoring that)
Anyway, this would most likely take place before you two start dating. I doubt he'd be the type to commit to a relationship before revealing this part of himself. He's not good at this sort of thing.
So, right now, y'all are just friends. Most likely, you met at school. You're in the same class, or you met through one of his cousins/Tohru.
At first, he avoided you. It had nothing to do with you in particular - he just hates being social. Eventually, you do manage to interact with him, and he decides you're chill enough to be around. So you two become friends.
One day, you, Kyo, Tohru, and Yuki are hanging out outside of school. This is the first time you've hung out with them outside of school, so this is new territory for you. Specifically, the four of you went to the library to study for an upcoming test.
You sat in a back corner, away from everyone else. Tohru had gotten up to go grab a book, but she tripped over the leg of the chair. Kyo was sitting next to her, and he's the one she falls into. Suddenly, there's a puff of smoke, and when it clears, you see Tohru holding an orange cat, and Kyo is nowhere to be seen.
Tohru and Yuki look panicked, and you're confused. The two of them scramble to come up with some kind of explanation, but all you can think about is how adorable the cat is. You assume it's Kyo, although you couldn't explain what happened.
Tohru had put Kyo down by this point, and he walks across the table to get to you. His eyes have the same deadpan look they usually do, which is funnier in his cat form. Sensing no hostility from you, Yuki and Tohru are able to calm down a little bit, and Yuki is able to get a proper explanation out. You process only some of his words, too focused on how cute Kyo looks.
Without much thought, you scoop him up in your arms, gently holding him close. Kyo makes a startled noise, but doesn't struggle too much. Yuki looks amused as he ushers Tohru away, intent on giving you two some alone time.
Kyo asks you what you think you're doing, and you're shocked he can still speak in this form. You shyly explain that you just thought he looked cute, and your body kind of just moved on its own. You go to put him down, but he doesn't budge from your arms. It's barely audible, but you swear you heard him say something about him enjoying the embrace. You chuckle at that as you hold him tighter. If you listen closely, you can almost hear him purring softly.
Then, another puff of smoke appears. When it dissipates, you see Kyo standing in front of you, back to his regular human form. Except for the fact that he's completely naked. You turn away, flustered that you saw him in such a state. Kyo also turns around, tripping over himself as he looks for his clothes. Neither of you speak a word, and it's around this time that Yuki and Tohru make their return.
Yuki still looks amused by the situation, choosing to tease Kyo. Tohru is immediately flustered, still not used to seeing the boys after they transform back. As the boys continue fighting, Tohru comes up to you, asking if you're okay. She knows from personal experience that this kind of situation can be startling, so she wants to make sure that you're feeling alright. When you respond in the affirmative, she smiles.
Kyo and Yuki stop bickering, and Kyo is fully dressed once again. He can't quite make eye contact with you, but he does apologize for what happened, if in his own tsundere way. You laugh a bit, explaining that you're fine, just a bit shocked at what just happened. The three nod, as they can all understand how you feel.
By this point, none of you are in the mood for studying anymore, so you decide to pack up for the night. As you walk out of the library, you turn away from them, as your home is in the opposite direction of where they live. However, you feel something grab your hand, and when you turn to look, you see Kyo. He's still not making eye contact, and his face is a little red, but his grip on your hand is strong.
Quietly, he asks if he can walk you home. You're shocked, and you can hear Tohru cheering in the background as Yuki tries to silence her. After a moment to recover from the shock, you smile and him and squeeze his hand, accepting his offer. He makes eye contact with you for the first time since the incident, and you can see a small smile appear on his face. He tells the others that he'll meet them at home, and you're on the way to your house.
As you walk, Kyo explains everything in as much detail as he can. He leaves out all of his family drama, as that's a story for another day, but he does bring up his curse and how it works. You jokingly remark that he wouldn't transform with you, since you're both boys, and he laughs a bit at that. He gestures to your hands, still interlocked, and states that even holding hands with a girl would cause him to transform. That makes you laugh as well.
Soon you're back home, and he drops you off at your door. He squeezes your hand one last time before letting it go, and he asks if you'd like to hang out again, to which your agree. You do make one more sly comment about wanting to see him as a cat again, telling him that he looked oh so adorable. He groans, but it's all in good humor. He leaves, already thinking of plans for next time.
The two of you don't start dating right away. It takes more time, but this is the first major step. Also, he's willing to be more affectionate with you because he knows he won't transform. It's nothing more than hand-holding on leaning against you for right now, but when you do start dating, he gets very clingy, especially in public.
You don't get to see him transform that often since you don't cause any of his transformations, but when you do get to see it, it's always a treat. He gets so flustered when he transforms, and it worsens when he transforms back to human. You've gotten used to the nakedness after the first few times, but he never quite does, especially when you're around. It's cute.
#fruits basket#kyo sohma#fruits basket x reader#fruits basket x male reader#kyo sohma x reader#kyo sohma x male reader#tohru honda#yuki sohma#headcanons#fruits basket headcanons#fluff#fruits basket fluff#x reader#x male reader
22 notes
·
View notes
Note
Hi Seth!! I finally found the time to write a proper message…
First off, all your recent works have been so good! Your art too, it’s all so well done. It’s been so long since I’ve seen anything sally face and it made me go watch some old playthroughs… brought me back to my childhood.
(Also, not sure how I never noticed your creepypasta work? Reignited a few of my childhood crushes.)
I don’t know why but I always get so giddy when I see song lyrics from the songs I recommended being used, I’m so glad you like them as much as I do.
I’m sorry anons are being rude in your messages, I fear they need to relearn the virtue of patience and that you don’t owe them work. I personally am willing to wait however long you need for one of your works (even if it isn’t in a fandom I’m from) because I know your works are always absolutely amazing and nothing short of a masterpiece. <3
Have you listened to Ariana’s new album and Hozier’s new EP? I loved ‘We can’t be friends’, ‘don’t wanna break up again’, ‘boy is mine’, and ‘I wish I hated you’ from Ari’s album specifically, although every song in that album was so good. ‘Too Sweet’ and ‘Fare Well’ were my favorite from Hozier’s album, the guitar in both is just so good.
My recommendation for this time (if you haven’t heard it already) is Luna Day’s ‘Obsessed’ and ‘Say it Back’. Unrequited love songs will always have a special place in my heart.
I hope you’ve been well! I missed being able to send messages but school has been kicking my ass… Rereading your works has reinspired me to finally go work on my wips tho lmao
Lots of love,
-Music anon! 🎶🎶🎶
Music nonnie! ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡
I’m so sorry it's taken me a while to respond, I always worry a bit about not replying with the same energy sometimes because every time you send an ask it makes me so excited 🥹 I just wanna sit down and give proper responses!
Hehehe, I’m happy to hear the fics have made you stroll down memory lane~! I scoured around online for Sal Fisher X Male!Reader works for so long, that I decided to just make my own at that point. Truly, a queer icon Sa is 😤 I’ve only ever watched Jacksepticeyes playthrough, although! I am peeking at the dubbed playthrough that I saw floating around 👀 Thank you so much for supporting my writings and my art 🥹
(Whenever I streamed myself playing Sally Face on Discord with my IRL friends, we always made silly voices so hearing real VAs do it instead sounds both fun and humbling, lmaooo)
Also! Yes! I’m a huge Creepypasta fan 😫 I may need to touch up on their new “fan-official” lore now but TBH, I tend to just make up my own little stories for them in my head. 💀Very happy to hear that you’ve returned to the trenches that is the creepypasta fandom ☝️😋
About the anons,,,yeah :/// Unfortunately, some people think just because writers are writing fanfiction, we’re not entitled to some respect and patience. I am so thankful for your kindness and understanding, Music nonnie 🥹 You have no idea how comforting your words are to me 🤍
I only listened to “We Can’t Be Friends” but I hopped on to listen to her entire album and my heart hurt 😭 The upbeat songs were so funky though! But “I Wish I Hated You,” made me wanna sob (instantly added to the Gojo YN playlist ☝️).
Hozier always slaps with his siren songs. Seducing me with his voice and lyricism and ARCK! “Too Sweet,” makes me wanna gnaw off my own arm because of how good it is, god...
I’ve listened to the two songs and you never miss 😭 The lyrics, the instrumentals, the vocals...They both sound so full of yearning but so different! Like, they both love someone but they way its expressed makes them angsty itch in my brain go stupid and crazy 😫 You always give me such a big boost in writing with your songs recommendations, ong.
I hope you’ve been doing well, too! School sucks but I know you’ll get through it, I believe in you! >:3 I’d love to read some of your works once they’re published! We can be mooties! 🥺
All my love to you, Music Nonnie! I’m terribly sorry that I suck at replies but I adore your messages and your music so much 🥹
#✩彡— music nonnie#mwahmwahmwah#giving you the tightet hugs and the sloppiest forehead kisses#music nonnie 🫶
3 notes
·
View notes
Note
I've read hilarious tags to a tweet (that was posted on tumblr):
Don't think Harry Styles likes dressing like that. Looks miserable in pics. Probably is like hey man can I wear a suit or something. maybe a big t-shirt Pete Davidson gets to wear big stinky shirts. And his handler is like nah you're a fake gay guy gotta wear fake gay guy clothes
The tags (and some replies):
-he exists so straight people can be allies without actually being allied to any queer people /hj
-Hey yeah the issue is not that he isn't wearing ""man clothes"" the issue is that he looks like shit and it feels incredibly performative to everyone except you fans.
-the issue is that his music is bad. if he was putting out bangers no one would gaf how he looks. You know who never got this kind of reaction for wearing a dress? kid cudi. cause man puts out bangers
-its what happens when you only achieve level of solo fame by being part of a wattpad ship
-I just saw you rb the diamond jumpsuit and he looks so
uncomfortable it gave me sympathetic dysphoria. Like legitimately he looks like he's desperately closeted, but like for cishet people. He looks like want transphobes think we do to people. Like those shitty alt right political cartoons of like 'in 2030 everyone will be forced to be queer at gunpoint'. Lazer sniper sight glinting off his diamanté encrusted extra nipple
-sure he's fighting gender norms but the gender norms are winning
-he looks like a very boring conservative man's idea of a gay man. Like whatever he's made some good music and he seems like an alright person. But I cannot find it in me to be happy for him. He looks manufactured
-Literally like you look at the photos of 70's glam rock stars and like. Not only are they rocking it but they seem to be beyond comfortable in it in that 'this is me' way. Styles looks as if he'd kill for a pair of khakis and a hoodie
-Dude the logic around Harry has fully switched. First it's 'oh no management isn't allowing him to be gay' and now it's 'omg he's acting gay only because his pr team told him to
-Why do Harry Style stans try to suck your eyes out of your skull if you criticize him? Celebrity culture makes me wanna self immolate lol
I am saying that's just him trying to be more special than his designated bland pop singer for straight girls niche
Said in a server last night he looked like he just came in straight from a cke binge. Then said he looked like that hairy pink dancing creature with that silver look 😭
He just always looks like sht man…you're rich. I know you can afford to challenge gender roles and dress well Wearing the ugliest rompers w his nips out just aint cutting it
LMAO he looks SO sad in the diamond jumpsuit people have been comparing it to their pre transition pics
-fake pretentious c*nt. *untalented
-he really is just some guy being forced to be a gay icon
mf showed up looking like a batman villain
-Nah i was directioner and harry biased then and he always dresses like that. But yeah i agree his stylists and producers say for him to exaggerate and pretend he is the modern david bowie when in fact he is just a boyband soloist lmao
hes in my top 5 on spotify for the past million years TWO THINGS CAN BE TRUE
-if 2021 target pride collection was personified.
-this is exactly how my 62 y/o mom talks abt him lmaoooo. Liike she HATES him she thinks he’s a total phony and finds him an insult to the lgbt community#best ally tbh gotta love her
-I've literally been saying this like he’s just doing this for the money but for how long 😭😭
-ite transtrender but for gay people
-ok. there was this huge ass paper thing full of his new cd in the middle of my favourite record shop. Making the already small store even more cramped. so fuck him#there you go i <3 being a hater
-he’s literally not gay. if he was i’d become homophobic
(Sorry if some of them are too rude, I have hard time discerning bc I don't speak to many people on the internet and don't know fully what's the proper etiquette)
.
11 notes
·
View notes
Note
here to talk about stranger things
i'm a sucker for cinematography and some shots were really well done. specifically the one where the kids are biking and it takes you to the upside down where the adults are biking too!
i'm so glad they're focusing on eleven's traumas because phew she has been through a lot. my mind's absolutely blown because of the parallels between how manipulative dr brenner is as a guardian figure vs how joyce (and hopper) emit this kindness and consent. i've talked about it a bit here.
i'm so mad because they did will SO dirty like my poor boy didn't go through so much shit for him to be brushed aside like that, especially when he's like head canonically queer.
also absolutely hate how one dimensional they've made jonathan.
also, eleven deserves someone better than mike. free her from him pls.
i really don't want the nancy/steve thing to happen again. if anything, in honour of pride month let nancy/robin be a thing instead
also wtf is up with suzie's family oh my god??
as always, steve gets 💋💋 one of the best character developments i've seen tbh
in relation to you talking about how will+jonathon+mike got so little screen time, i feel like the new characters, like the baseball captain dude the one who was dating chrissy got more screen time than the trio 😂
anyways this got long im sorry 🙈
SONIIII please hello. yes! there are always certain scenes when a new ST season drops that cause me drool with how much I love its cinematography. I was kinda let down by the CGI this season though. It was *yawn* how much of it they used instead of utilizing the hybrid of physical/digital effects. Like some scenes had great CGI while just five minutes later it is horrid. so weird to me because it takes me out of the immersion rip
i do like how they actually gave eleven a proper backstory! i found those scenes to be more interesting this season as the pacing felt off to me, and it dragged a bit in parts. so getting a more developed background was refreshing for her. and oooo i haven't had time to properly analyze parallels, but that was a great catch regarding the difference between Brenner and Joyce/Hop as guardian figures to El 👀
they've continuously pushed Will to the backburner since season 3 and I'm! sick of! it! i want to see more of him and he deserves better tbh (much better than mike but i digress lmao) pretty homophobic if you ask me 🔪😵💫
did jonathan even.... exist this season. he was so unmemorable it is hard to tell. what even was the point of will+mike+jonathan's C plot besides the duffer brothers having absolutely nothing going for their storyline so just. didn't really do anything with it lmao and YEAH?? honestly fuck mike he annoys me. both el and will deserve better 💅🏼
the hamfisted nancy/steve rekindling drives me NUTS. it is such lazy writing and is only building to steve getting his hopes up and having them crushed again when jonathan tumbles back into the actual plot and "gets the girl" again its so boring and expected. please give steve something else to focus on. give him MORE than being the mopey ex boyfriend. let him be happy please. nancy/robin??? i'd LOVE to see it actually 💕
Suzie's family is mormon!! that like. explains practically everything about that household's dynamics lol they just amplified the Mormon stereotype but its hilarious djrjrktk
steve continues to be one of the only characters to carry this show on his back for another season like thank you king as always 🌹💋
(and don’t be sorry!! i could ramble about stranger things all day 🫣)
8 notes
·
View notes
Text
Fascinated by some of the recent P4 discourse I’ve been seeing on twitter... I both agree and disagree with it I guess? I really recommend “Need’s More Gay”’s review of this game on Youtube, it talks about it in a really good way. Persona 4 is definitely not as actively progressive with it’s writing of queer coded characters as I’d like, but it’s also a game that came out in Japan in 2008. For a lot of people, this might have been the first time they saw a video game actually trying to tackle the idea of sexuality and gender, and how society views those who aren’t presenting in an acceptable way. The character dungeons are easily where the strongest parts of the arcs are, where the characters are dealing with these pressures at their most emotionally vulnerable. Unfortunately yeah, it does fumble a lot of these characters in the long game; it knows enough to ask the questions, but doesn’t really have an answer for them yet. While ostensibly the game encourages Kanji’s love of sewing, it still takes almost every opportunity available to belittle him for it; this is a well known, and heavily criticized flaw in the game’s storytelling. I think it is good to be critical of these older works, while not outright demonizing them as well. Sure, we can find better games talking about this stuff NOW but then? Options were a lot more limited, and none of them nearly to the same level of polish and popularity that P4 had.
I think Rent is also a good example of this. I don’t like Rent, but I know it’s very very important to a lot of young LGBT folks. With Persona 4, I kind of view it as growing pains, baby steps towards better writing and exploring REALLY interesting ideas for the first time even if it doesn’t have a proper conclusion for them.
That’s actually why I feel a little harsher towards Persona 5′s decisions honestly lmao, it doesn’t have nearly the same excuse while on top of that having way less even partially queer content. It does get FARTHER in it’s questions about society, breaking from conformity and distrusting authority, only to the drop the ball right after the big climactic boss fight and force its heroes to work within the system. To me a lot of Persona 5 has higher highs and lower lows; when it lets me down, it stings a lot more because of how good the good parts are.
Persona 5 good: the entire system is completely fucked besides a few lone holdouts (and even they need to be talked around initially and are hindered by how bad the system already is), the importance of Found Family, ALL of the characters being abused in different ways by the various social hierarchies they’ve been forced into, final boss is God aka the Ultimate Authority
Persona 5 bad: Even though the heroes have won all their major victories by fighting battles their own way, they are ultimately forced to play along with the rules in order to get even a bittersweet ending. It’s bad when male teachers try to date female students but totally fine for a female teacher to date one of her male students. Found Family Gets Unfamilied at the end of the game. Makoto STILL wants to be a cop for some dumbass reason. Persona 5 ultimately talks a big game about fighting the system but doesn’t seem to actually understand how to do so in real life.
I’m really interested to see where Persona 6 goes with its writing, since I believe the main director for the majority of the series is retiring/stepping down; ideally I’d like to see a continuation of their “pushing back against society’s expectations” themes, but REALLY dig into it and actually include more explicitly LGBT themes and characters without also being kinda horrified by them.
TL;DR: I have mixed feelings! And ultimately don’t disagree with anyone who comes away disliking P4 because of the character decisions they make. But I would also encourage everyone to try and not be so black and white with their viewing of things; stories doesn’t so easily fit into a “good” or a “bad” category.
#I'm still dealing with covid so idk how comprehensible this is#interesting discussions#bored badgering#mostly trying to get my own thoughts down in writing#don't throw the baby out with the bathwater kinda discussion etc etc#I also don't really like Persona 5 Royal's extended ending I don't think it adds to or helps Persona 5's themes
1 note
·
View note
Note
do you also ever feel like strangling capcom because they made miles opposed to marriage+gave phoenix a girlfriend in aa3 to tell narumitsu shippers to screw off?? but nothing against phoenix having a girlfriend because he can be bi (like me ayo), but it *was* a very conscious decision. it kind of backfired though lmao it's the most popular ship in the fandom (going based off of the number of search results on google)
well, to tell you the truth i don’t feel like strangling anyone really but its probably because i’m only 4 months old in this fandom, i understand how ppl who have waited for literal decades’d definitely feel irritated hhhh. 😅
the whole Miles opposed marriage thing, i don’t think he opposed to it, he kinda don’t (or can’t) see himself marrying anyone. its seen a bit odd in Japanese culture who expect ppl to marry before 25 and vaguely either signifies he’s “married to his work”, don’t have interest in marriage and/or asexual (valid headcanon of course), or as some fans (and i) come to terms with, “has slight interest, but highly doubt the person he wants to marry felt the same way” or perhaps even, he didn’t have intention because same-sex marriage is still frowned upon in Japan. 🤔 (he asked about how Phoenix feels about marriage, and Phoenix’s response right after hearing how Edgeworth feels about it) :
and about Iris and Dahlia thing, i don’t think thats their intention? to cockblock narumitsu? i mean, they literally fuel the game with narumitsu and (albeit, some very stereotypical but its the 2000′s in Japan, i’d give them the benefit of the doubt.) queer coded characters because they knew fangirls would like it, the dev (full of cis men and one woman) had to buy a box of BL manga to read for research and are aware of their BL loving crowd, heck even advertise AA to be a “game for young girls” in AA4 promo magazine AND commissioned a BL manga artist to draw Capcom Heroes calendar drawing of Miles and Phoenix.
if anything, even when i first got irritated with their decision, looking back, i think its a pretty interesting way to tell us more about Phoenix Wright and make him more like his own person rather than an empty slot for the player to fill in. he has history and character development on his own.
while yes, when Iris confessed she still felt the same way as she was years ago. Phoenix on the other hand who was traumatized by the whole Dahlia thing, can finally let that past go after that trial and we never see Iris ever again after that game and i hope to stay that way. because this is one of those rare moments in media where the character infact MOVED ON from their previous ex and the action is encouraged. Phoenix didn’t want and never did get back together with Iris, he’s just glad he never doubted himself and he can now sleep peacefully at night, top it all off Phoenix has developed as a character, he grew past his Feenie phase and has more control of himself and situation around him, he’s a proper adult now. (plus Iris’s a nun, most likely in jail because she assisted in her twin sister’s murderous plans, and has lied to Phoenix for 6 month straight when they’re in relationship so thats a triple no lol).
so in conclusion, i think this is all intended to be this way.
irritating as they may be, this is one of those things companies do. they lure us and then they don’t, and then they do, and the cycle repeats. thats why their relationship is always so vague, with hints that means little but we fill the gaps on our own and basically ask for more. a marketing strategy, albeit, a sneaky one. they knew their fanbase, they knew what we want but only give us bread crumbs and we pay for more. because they knew, if one were to become a thing that’d be the endgame and ppl would lose interest.
i hate to say it but this is how queerbaiting is on its top form. although i’m in too deep, i can never go back from hoping it will come true one day. :”)
sorry for the long post hhhh
347 notes
·
View notes
Note
do you know anything about like, the development of the purity rhetoric that now seems to be ubiquitous in fandom and how it got there? i used to be on tumblr in like, 2014 and only recently came back to fandom and i remember everyone being generally kind of cool with things like incest ships and morally grey characters (speaking specifically re the frozen fandom and elsa/anna here lmao) whereas now it seems like the conversation about those things has drastically shifted and i am..puzzled by it
this is what i imagine that experience was like for you:
according to fanlore, purity culture started in the homestuck fandom which. based on what i know of homestuck, that tracks. however i’ve never been in homestuck so i’m not sure what that transformation was like. all i know is my personal experience with the disk horse. afaik there’s no cohesive timeline of events across fandom, and i lack the time and resources to be able to make one myself. if anyone knows of one, or wants to make one, please let me know.
i do know that purity culture is a movement started by very young teenagers, who were maybe 13-15 in 2014 and are now 18-20. they were 8-10 when ao3 was founded, and therefore seem to have a limited knowledge of fan history, censorship, and critical thinking. i’m hoping that since they’re now entering college, they’ll get some insight and broader social awareness, and this movement will finally die out in the next few years.
on any other platform, at any other time, their toxic rhetoric would not have gained traction. but here and now, on tunglr dot com where anyone can gain a platform, where mob mentality thrives and inciting an anonymous dogpile is as easy as hitting Post, where the brokenness of this place makes it difficult to control the content you’re exposed to -- it’s the perfect storm. we live in an age of hopelessness. young people grow up with social media as an extension of their identities, tethered to devices that hold all the information in the world. i think it’s fair for them to be afraid of their futures, and i can understand the desire to control the online spaces where they have the most agency, where their voices are the loudest.
that may explain why, but not how. as in, where did they pick up this mentality at all? @freedom-of-fanfic (whose work is a necessity in understanding the disk horse) connected anti-shipping to TERF rhetoric. i’ve linked the fanlore page because it has all of the links and some of the responses. i honestly do believe that the language surrounding purity culture has its ugly roots in TERFdom. at its core, purity culture -- the policing of female and queer sexuality -- is misogyny.
when i started writing destiel circa 2014, fandom was as you described. wincest was a juggernaut on par with destiel. teen wolf was full of underage and noncon. a/b/o was on the rise. it seemed like fandom was a genre without restraint -- anything you wrote, if it found the right audience, would be celebrated unabashedly. people who have been following me for a long time know that i was addicted to adderall at the time and pounding out all sorts of manic nonsense. i remember living on the validation of comments (and at the time, there were lots of comments. not so much anymore, but that’s another story). i got critical comments only rarely, and they were the type that i admired -- readers without judgment thinking through the story, reacting to it earnestly. i made some of my best friends because they left long, critical comments on my work. sometimes they didn’t like it, sometimes they did, but ultimately, they were engaged, and that’s what counted.
i remember my first policing-type comment, i think at the start of all the purity nonsense. it was a destiel fic, and someone very angrily told me i should tag my bottom!cas because it was triggering. i’ve thought about that comment a lot over the years. top/bottom discourse is nothing new, but to say that bottom castiel is triggering? that was ridiculous. but then i realized -- there was a writer in fandom at the time i won’t name, who was known for being extremely sensitive (for bottom!cas especially, which they found triggering), and their very dedicated following offered fic that was safe for their fave to read. i have nothing against this person at all. they were not part of the purity discourse, they were up front about their sensitive nature, and as far as i knew (i believe i met them at a con once?) they were very kind.
but that commenter had been clearly influenced by this person and believed that a specific fictional character receiving anal sex from another specific fictional character was actual, real triggering content, and it was my obligation as a writer to tag for it. which i did, because i felt bad, and i was baffled by that request. at the time, i wanted more than anything to be liked, and conformed wherever i could. if i got such a request now, i would ignore it because it was rudely written and honestly kind of bonkers. i’d happily add a tag for something i may have missed, or even something i’d never considered before, but there’s no reason a person can’t make that request politely.
this situation isn’t about purity discourse proper (the commenter didn’t tell me not to write the fic, and it had nothing to do with morality), but it’s the earliest example i can think of where the process of policing had occurred: a person of influence on tumblr affected their follower’s thinking, and that follower felt entitled to command another writer to conform to that ideology.
i could be completely wrong about making these connections. maybe that commenter truly believed bottom!cas was a legitimate widespread trauma. they did not say the fic was triggering to them, but that it might be to some other people, in the same way purity police say “think of the CHILDREN” when in fact they don’t give a fuck about children at all.
after destiel i moved to stucky, which was, at the time, a juggernaut ship where anyone could write anything. this was also the time when the term “cinnamon roll” became incredibly popular, circa 2015. it was a fun and seemingly innocuous meme, but it positioned the ideas of “purity” and “wholesomeness” in sharp relief, and cemented these ideas by beginning to give it a distinct vocabulary. “trash” was pitched as its opposite. stucky is where i first came into contact with “antis.” in destiel, there had been ship wars, sure, but it was of a different flavor than antis. destiel vs wincest wasn’t about morality in 2014. it was about everything but.
in stucky in 2015, however, the disk horse was running rampant. the MCU had a sub-section of fandom called HTP (hydra trash party) in which steve and/or bucky have dubious or nonconsensual relations with various or many members of hydra. this is the first time i remember being aware of morality becoming a cornerstone of shipping. HTP was loathed by purity police. by the time i wrote a stucky bdsm au, i’d accumulated multiple nasty anons, rude comments from entitled readers, and other nonsense that all said the same thing: your filth is not welcome here in our space of purity. go away.
but the release of the force awakens is what really turned the tide. TFA offered three major ships: stormpilot (as it was called at the time, now finnpoe), reylo, and kylux. the fandom that developed around the sequels was firmly divided. franzeska wrote an amazing meta about this phenomenon which gives some insight into the seeds of purity policing. in short, stormpilot should have been the primary pairing of the sequels, but instead many of the badwrong writers from other fandoms (and HTP specifically, which was how i entered the fandom) flocked to the blank slate of kylux.
it took a long time for the ship to gain traction. a friend told me that kylux had started with angry star wars racists who hated that there was diversity in the sequel trilogy. and i told them no, i was there, there were twelve of us and a cornchip, and all we cared about was the dirty/darkly comedic potential of these two ridiculous villain characters in one of the biggest franchises of all time. it wasn’t that complicated. i don’t mean to dismiss the discussion of race in fandom; i think it’s important to acknowledge that racism, as franzeska describes far better than i can, plays a huge part in fandom, particularly in star wars, and it’s an important and ongoing discussion to be having, especially given what kelly marie tran has gone through, and how it affected (presumably) rose tico’s extremely limited presence in TROS.
the early fics of kylux weren’t particularly taboo. they were post-TFA hurt/comfort mostly, then slowly the bdsm and power dynamics crept in. those of us who wanted to get away from purity discourse had finally found a new home. for a while. 2016 was the golden era of kylux. we were all very happy.
i remember talking to a friend about how there were certain things i couldn’t write in certain ships. being from ye olden days of fandom, she was appalled by this idea, and told me i could write anything for any ship i wanted, wasn’t that was the whole point of transformative works? and i agreed! but i tried to explain, if you post badwrong for a fandom of purity police, you’re going to, at best, get dogpiled in your comments/inbox. at worse they will find you, call your employer, and try to ruin your life. people will tell you to kill yourself. they’ll report your tumblr and try to get your blog shut down. there are real-life, harrowing consequences to writing taboo fic, and many who write fic as a hobby don’t have the emotional energy to field these risks.
around this time, discord became popular, which offered a private space for badwrong writers to congregate. i had started grad school and didn’t have much time to write fic. metoo was happening. tromp got elected. kylux was slowly turning mainstream so a lot of us turned our attention to gradence in fantastic beasts. some went on to hannibal and other fandoms that hadn’t yet caught the attention of purity police (but it was, as it is now, just a matter of time). kylux, i feel, was specifically decimated by a single fan creator, who was like a police chief. they would get wind of someone writing underage or noncon and write a call-out post about them, and that writer/artist would get pitchforked. a few times, my comments or posts got screencapped, and posts were written urging people to stop reading my works because of how heinously immoral i was. this happened to several of my friends too.
the great tumblr tittyban of 2017 happened, which only added fuel to the fire and further legitimized the purity movement. i shifted hesitantly to the 100 fandom, which seemed small in comparison to supernatural, marvel, and star wars. i thought it was a chill place. i was wrong; it was just as toxic as other fandoms. but i also didn’t care anymore, and i appreciated that i was mostly left alone. more importantly, i found a lot of support from other people who were as tired of the purity as i was, and @the100kinkmeme was reborn.
the state of things is pretty abysmal. there are some really amazing writers out there writing under multiple sock accounts, keeping their fandom identities shattered so as not to call attention to themselves. as much as i understand why writers do that, and i respect that decision, i also think it’s sad. it deprives readers the chance to read that author’s other works. it limits the sense of community and our ability to make friends. it fractures the future of the genre.
what’s most important to acknowledge is that none of this is happening solely in fandom. i went to a writers’ conference where 2 of 3 panels were about the history of moral policing and censorship in art. it is worth noting that of the 40-ish visiting writers on faculty, only one (1) was a woman of color (jaimaica kincaid). naturally, older rich white people who have spent their life in the arts are all about death of the author, separation of art and artist. they’re on the total opposite side of purity police, and they won’t acknowledge at all that racism and sexism are a problem in the creative world. they don’t have any nuance on the discussion, or modern perspectives in light of metoo or popular culture.
this went on longer than i anticipated. i neglected to mention YFIP (your fave is problematic) an old blog that started the idea of call-out culture by pulling receipts on celebrities, and how call-out culture led to cancel culture, which also aided in the purity disk horse. i think a lot can be said about how some of this stuff is genuinely good (metoo and holding men accountable for their bullshit) while also being profoundly toxic (punishing criminals via mob mentality, ruining their careers and livelihoods through social media, rather than giving them their due process in court. i understand it -- the judicial system is built by the hands of the very predators we seek to condemn, but still. the jury of the internet is never a fair trial).
if you want to read more, my tag is tsatp (the sacred and the profane). i’m sure i’ve left out a lot, but i can only speak to my experience. i think it would be good if people would share their experience dealing with purity policing, too, so we might get a cohesive timeline in place. feel free to reblog and add your story.
510 notes
·
View notes
Note
hello aijee!! what are your thoughts on mingyu and wonwoo's bittersweet?
Oh anon. Oh anon, anon, anon. I have very many feelings about this remarkable intersection of ley lines. I’m sure the WWxMG spheres of the Internet are in some state of madness, and I felt like my meager offerings would be nothing in comparison. But you are now my excuse to write up a Pandora's box answer that I've done my best to organize below the cut. It’s honestly not that exhaustive, but I have to catch a flight soon.
The short of it is: I really liked it! It was nice to see WW/MG doing something distinctly not hip-hop, or eye candy-centric, or “let’s fight over this random girl for no reason other than to give (female) fans the feeling of being sandwiched between two hot guys.” The urban imagery was also wonderful. I’m a big, big sucker for Japanese films set in cities in the 80s/90s, so this video definitely hit a specific aesthetic nerve for me. ALSO LEEHI MY BAE!!
But, fair disclaimer, I do have some reservations. Nothing is perfect!
The song itself
It was refreshing to hear a softer song with WW and MG doing so much of the vocals. I’m so used to eleven other guys contributing (I’m personally a bigger fan of the group/non-solo tracks), it was almost jarring to hear only two male voices in something very much not hip-hop or rapping. And LeeHi? My ex-YG BABEE?? I honestly wished I heard more of her!! And saw her in the video! Her voice was a perfect addition to a song that sounds more, as its name suggests, bittersweet.
I feel like all three of the artists involved have a much more dynamic range that could have been utilized, even for a muted tone. The song overall doesn’t really stand out to me, especially within Seventeen’s wonderful discography and selection of ballads. The instrumental was kinda weak ngl. But I still very much enjoyed the song! The lyrics from an English-speaking standpoint were also very lovely and definitely struck the heart on my sleeve, as you can imagine from the types of themes I tend to write about. Kudos to MG and WW for participating in it! Always love seeing SVT showing off their creative chops.
The video/cinematography
Frankly, I wasn’t impressed by it. 3.5/5 stars. I’m personally not a big fan of the blurry type of slow motion. I get that, perhaps, it was meant to evoke a sense of reminiscing on old memories, which can be blurry and choppy. But I felt like those extra seconds could have been used for more evocative cinematography between the trio or combinations thereof. There was so much potential to have a more unified sense of “story.” I felt like the acting really carried it, but overall the visual artistry didn’t hold together in my opinion.
I also thought that the imagery paired with the lyrics was often too on-the-nose. (Take this with a grain of salt from someone who doesn’t know Korean, only the official English translations.) In other words, I thought that the shots could be too literal when paired with the lyrics.Yes, yes, eyes are are meeting but something still feels far apart because the girl ain’t lookin at WW. Yes, yes, the scent of a moment fills hands because we see a glass of alcohol in presumably WW’s hand. I do like that the lyrics actually match the video to some degree (since so many Kpop MVs are just dancing in a fancy room), but, again, it felt too one-to-one without much thought otherwise.
Also, those AirPods lmao. I don’t know why, but that took me out of the immersion. WW and MG had one each, and I’d be knocking furniture down at that observation if they both weren’t wearing right-side pods, thus eliminating the possibility of sharing. Imagine!! Turning the act of sharing AirPods into something symbolic! Remembering things when someone else “plays that old tune”, being disconnected and connected at the same time, etc. To think that I’d be yell-writing about the potential symbolism of AirPods...
The duo/trio
My first thought seeing this video was: Are Mingyu and Wonwoo okay with this? They clearly had a say in the lyrics, so I feel like they’re okay. Instinctually, I get concerned about how a company can push idols pairings in official content to the point of undermining the real-life relationship; I felt like WW, as a naturally shyer and introverted person, stepped back from the WonGyu pairing at some point. I think this was a bigger concern in the group’s earlier years, and I feel like they and the fandom have matured significantly over time. Fans reading this are certainly free to educate me on their takes regarding this, since I follow Seventeen’s official content more (as much as I am able to, at least) than fan content, like fancams, and I try not to make too many legit assumptions based on official content.
All this being said, I think they looked really comfortable with each other in the video! Which I loved the most, honestly. The premise didn’t didn’t feel like guys fighting over a girl (yawn). I’m not a fan of the overused K-Pop trope of “let’s have a random girl act as a stand-in for fans to feel like they’re being pursued by their oppars.” I felt like, while MG and WW expressed clear interest in the girl, there was interest expressed in each other as well—especially MG towards WW in my opinion, cont’d below. And the interest was never forced to be romantic, even though it could be! LOVE that for them. (I highly recommend reading up on “queer platonic relationships”, which a friend of mine taught me recently. Made the mistake of writing “romantic” instead of “platonic” so sorry 😬)
Motherfuckin Kim Mingyu AKA my interpretation of the story
*I did read the little summary in the description box about “three longtime friends”, but I’m choosing to ignore it because I don’t think the video portrays that well and I like my interpretation better haha!
That sequence of WW putting a hat on MG, with WW’s fond but exasperated face of a hyung (I’m okay, not okay).
The cut from that shot of WW and the girl breathing heavy and looking at MG, to MG staring vacantly behind a rained-on glass window (I close my eyes but thoughts of you...).
The way MG steps out first into the rain and smiles back at WW in that last sequence of shots (Eyes meeting but hearts apart); MG looks so content despite the sadness usually meant to be evoked by dramatic rain sequences.
As someone who normally connects with WW, I really connected to MG’s character this time around. I interpreted MG’s character as going through a really complex series of emotions towards both the girl and WW, platonic, romantic or otherwise. It’s hard to pin down, but the small age difference between him and WW felt so much more apparent in the MV. I almost got the impression that maybe MG’s character felt new, naive and lost in the city (he has a few shots of wandering or being in front of urban areas). Then he found stability with the girl and WW, the consequence being the whirlwind of feelings he must be experiencing because of them. I wish there was more exposition hinting at what happened to the girl, since she sorta just...blipped out of existence by the end.
At the start of the MV, WW’s character looked like he was at the end of his rope, drinking away his woes, maybe because of what seems like a nice job based on the suit. But then he found solace in the female bartender, who was kind and had open ears. The two of them became friends (maybe more, perhaps one-sided in WW’s disfavor). Then WW met MG through her. He saw MG’s character as a cute dongsaeng to be nice to, mostly on the whims of the girl, even dancing with them after closing time. But maybe WW’s character started having complicated feelings for MG’s character throughout it all. He started seeing MG more (more than the girl? Hard to say), based on how he was staring at MG at the end of the running sequence at around 2:08, not even looking back at the girl. He ended up liking MG so much, that he followed MG into the rain despite them both avoiding it, staying indoors, before the end sequence.
That’s sort of the dirty and quick of my initial thoughts. Honestly, I wish I had the energy and speed to throw out a proper written work because I LOVE stories that are basically just complicated feelings with relationship boundaries that are hard to define. Also, gotta say, that little sassy look the female actress gave at around 0:30 was real cute. 👀
3 notes
·
View notes
Note
I've noticed you make a lot of male characters that wear female clothing or are really effeminate without there being a trans edge. I'm not accusing you of anything, I really love it, but I'm curious why that is?
YOU KNOW I THINK ABOUT THIS A LOT ACTUALLY. you don’t know what can of worms you just opened up LMAO
i often look at my characters and go ‘huh this is kinda a trend, isn’t it?’ even when i was a wee youngin, i was just so thrilled with the idea of men being effeminate, even though it was usually played for jokes wherever i saw it. the short version is that something about effeminate men just make me really happy, and the long version...
well. it’s gonna be LONG. so please bear with me
and as a disclaimer, i don’t love gendered words like effeminate and masculine, or referring to clothes as specifically female and male, and i know ftm is an outdated term, but its just way easier to explain everything this way, so i apologize
anyways- long explanation under the cut!
looking back, i can see that a lot of that was because back in the day, male characters being super effeminate was kind of the big marker of that character being gay or trans (albeit not actual representation), and so it was 100% me exploring what sexuality and gender means to me, and i think a simple answer would be.. i’ve just clung onto it all the way into adulthood because it means something really special to me
i eventually grew older and realized that a lot of those characters i loved so much were harmful stereotypes made by cishet people so they can point and laugh, but no matter how harmful they were, characters like this still meant a lot to me because they were my first real lgbt experiences. my parents never told me anything, so these stereotypes were kind of.. all i had? so it was really hard not to latch on. like, i’ve always had male characters that dress feminine, for as long as i realized i could do that, and the idea of stopping just.. didn’t seem right, especially after i realized that i wasnt cis or straight. after that, it really clicked with me. it was self-exploration, self-expression
i didnt really get TOO many weird reactions from my friends, which i’m very thankful for, but a lot of people in my life either didnt get why i kept drawing characters like this and told me it was weird, or they very actively disliked it. it made me feel.. embarrassed i guess? ashamed? it made me only explore these things in my art, and never with myself
i’m a firm believer that your clothes don’t have gender, and that people can dress however they’d like, regardless of their gender and how they present, but as a trans man who’s been around people (including my parents) who scoff at the idea of a man in a dress... it’s just hard to give myself permission. it’s not hard to give my characters permission, though. my family still doesn’t get it, and that’s one of the reasons i don’t show them characters like.. mel, magpie, carrie, haru, estee, yoichi, or whoever else. but its safe to put them here. i can just say “heres my character” and people say “great! i love him!” without even MENTIONING that he’s wearing a dress or a crop top and it’s just such a validating experience
now, as for why the characters don’t really have a trans ‘edge’? that’s kind of tricky, because they do! along with some being nb and a few even being ftm, they’re pretty much ALL meant to be read as trans, regardless of if they’re actually trans or not
let me explain-- these characters are a piece of me, and thus, they reflect my experiences and desires. they’re meant to be seen through a trans lens without being trans. as in, despite my own desire to be physically indistinguishable from a cis man, i wouldn’t want to give up my experiences as a trans man mentally. and these characters sort of reflect that. i have a few characters who, in the contexts of their stories, are actually trans, as in being legitimately nonbinary or ftm, because those also have to do with my own experience and my pride, but for the most part? effectively ‘cis’ men with trans mentalities and experiences is just what feels the best for me to write and draw. that’s all there really is to it. it feels good to me
in my characters, i get to live out my dreams of looking cis, while maintaining trans narratives and including an important aspect of my childhood as a queer person who deeply loved characters like..... envy from fma, haku from naruto, hana from tokyo godfathers, him from ppg, jareth from labyrinth, frank-n-further from rocky horror, james from pokemon, grell from kuroshitsuji (im honest to god so fucking sorry for making you remember kuroshit), and so on so forth. no matter how harmful a lot of these characters may be as horrible gay/trans/queer stereotypes, as someone who didn’t really grow up with proper representation, they just meant a lot to me
this is all just a long-winded way of saying... it feels homey. this is what’s comfortable for me and makes me happy
13 notes
·
View notes
Text
I want to have them all on Tumblr, so. Here are my reaction posts, in order, for Resolution of the Daleks and season 12, part 1!
Resolution of the Daleks
Thoughts on Doctor Who - Resolution! Spoilers, obviously!
Okay, negative first, just to get it out of the way. Doctor Who, I really appreciate that you consistently have queer minor characters and queer couples. Just super casual and all, as it should be. Now can you please stop killing off half of said couples? Angstrom's wife, Frankie, now this young guy? It's really not cool.
Don't think the voiceover worked. I feel the prologue would have worked better with just visuals.
Again, Yaz didn't have much to do. The Doctor got a ton of action, Ryan and Graham both had significant interactions with Aaron, Yaz was... just kind of there. I'm hoping that when the show comes back in a year, now that Ryan has largely dealt with his issues, Yaz will get more attention?
UNIT was killed by Brexit?! Fuckin' rude!
Okay, on to the positive!
The Dalek was, frankly, fucking scary. Despite knowing that the Doctor would beat it, obviously, it caused huge swathes of damage and racked up a... rather high body count. Like it felt like a proper threat. Also, its ability to stop the TARDIS tracking it and stuff. Lin's terror felt extremely genuine and it was just nice and horrific overall, like - if it wasn't for the Doctor, it would feel like a genuine threat to the entire Earth.
(Also, it shut down the wifi. On New Years Day. What a monster!)
Oh man that Dalek laughter. Creepy as fuck. The Doctor dragging it in via hologram to dare it to laugh in her face? Fucking iconic.
"I've learned to think like a Dalek." Oof.
Doctor vs Dalek. Not just the physical aspect, but the mental part - the Doctor recognising the seriousness of it, but also having that element of cockiness ("Oh, mate") because, frankly, she's dealt with bigger threats. She's right when she points out that the biggest problem will be if regular humans try to engage it!
Elements of Dark!Doctor when she asks the team - almost desperately - if she gave it enough chances, if she was nice enough. Because the Doctor can get fucking scary around Daleks and she knows it. She's nice. She's friendly. But she's also the Doctor, and the Doctor has done some really damn questionable things to stop the Daleks, and she knows that. Fantastically done and I still desperately want some proper Dark!Doctor.
Really liked the parallels between the Doctor using scrap to make her sonic screwdriver, vs the Dalek using scrap to make its armour. The Doctor makes a tool, the Dalek makes items of war. Of course, well, the Doctor is probably more dangerous just with a swiss army sonic than a Dalek blaster...
I love how the whole, "Dads are complicated... so I've heard" bit could refer to either the loom thing or the Doctor having actual parents or the Doctor being a shitty dad themself XD
Graham was so excited to show off the TARDIS! Like he's just going, "How cool is this?!"
There were some legitimately funny moments! Graham's chair, "I suppose... we'll have to have a... conversation?", "Junkyard chic"... UNIT was killed by Brexit like that's so awful but. But in a kind of funny way.
Okay, now the unsure. Ryan, Graham, and Aaron. Ryan and Graham have sorted out their issues - but Aaron is still such a big overshadowing part of it that it's a bit of a shock when he comes back in. As someone with a similarly shit biological father, I was completely empathising with Ryan in the coffee shop conversation. And I do understand why they wanted reconciliation, so they showed Aaron as acknowledging his bullshit and Ryan ultimately choosing to forgive and save him.
But it's just... not that easy. It's not all going to be perfect just because they stopped a Dalek together. Aaron's neglect hurt Ryan really badly, and it just felt... too easy? Like it helped that Aaron was genuinely contrite, and that he had that good stepfather talk with Graham, but just... yeah, not sure how I feel about it, honestly.
The Doctor's first words to him being, "You weren't at Grace's funeral. Ryan waited for you, you let him down" were so, so good. Like the Doctor is just going "fuck you I'm his father now". Like tbh I think she was 100% prepared to yeet him off the TARDIS and be done with it. Like damn don't emotionally hurt one of her crew.
Some wonderfully savage lines, though. The Doctor's, "You're almost making up for your parenting deficit!"; Aaron and Ryan's, "Is that how you talk to your dad?" "I don't know, he's not been around"; Graham's fucking smirk when Ryan pointedly calls him 'Gramps'.
I did see a suggestion that would have made it much better - instead of the Dalek capturing Aaron, it captures Ryan. First, it ups the threat in the mind of the Doctor and Team TARDIS - this isn't some dickhead, this is one of them. And instead, it's Aaron who reaches out to Ryan, Aaron who risks his life, Aaron who has to come through for Ryan, instead of the other way around. Also would have tied in beautifully with, "Family isn't about DNA, or a name. It's about what you do, and you haven't done enough."
Also, 'srs tech skillz'. With a Z. Doctor why.
In conclusion, I am going to fight Nigel Farage for killing UNIT.
-
Spyfall part 1
Current response to Doctor Who: making a near-literal SDKFJHGSDASDKFH sound, grabbing a cushion, nearly throWING THE CUSHION.
More intelligent commentary when my brain comes back online.
-
Okay. Am calm. Am good! We're good.
MAJOR SPOILERS for Doctor Who: Spyfall, part 1!
So yeah I actually literally screamed (kind of... scream-laugh-holy-shit-yes). Like, even before Dhawan finished speaking the, "Or should I say spy... Master?" line because of the way he had said 'spymaster' in full in the line before and there's nothing that grabs my brain like that one word in that one context. It wasn't quite as mindblowing as the Utopia reveal, since, let's face it, it's only been a season since we last saw that magnificant arsehole, but still.
(Actually, since I didn't watch Twelve's run, the last time I saw them was exactly a decade ago in The End of Time, broadcast New Years Day 2010. And I still fucking cry over, "Get out of the way." So. That may have been why I literally screamed lmao)
I mean. It's the Master. I can't not. They're my favourite jerk. This is probably slightly concerning.
Anyway. Comments!
The good
Episode was just flat-out exciting. It reminded me both of the Three and Ten eras, a bit? Fun gadgets, fancy suits, and what ends up being a giant game! Did start wondering when they were talking about spies and codes and stuff. It's basically a puzzle that's been set up for the Doctor to solve. Plus, the way she was pretty much enlisted into it! Thirteen and Dhawan!Master might end up having a more Pertwee-Delgado-esque dynamic, maybe? I would be down for that!
(My introductory episode to the Master was The Mind of Evil. Let's just put it that way XD)
"I'm her best enemy." <3
I mean, in retrospect, isolated house full of high-tech stuff and a wall full of books about the Doctor... oh honey. Long, looong game of playing Spies and Conspiracies just for, apparently, the sheer funsies of it. Oh, honey. They're such a disaster and I love them.
The reveal scene, Jodie's acting. The way she just... freezes and hunches in on herself. She's been hiding her past more than other Doctors have in the past, and suddenly, here is her past!! Right here!! Laughing and joking and right there in front of her! And she's just like, "Ohhh shit, I was not ready to have this conversation again..."
Yasmin and Ryan's dynamic. I do like that they split up the usual combos of Thirteen-Yasmin and Graham-Ryan for once, because I do like seeing the way they play off each other! It makes them feel more cohesive as a group. I liked Ryan trying to comfort Yasmin after her experience.
Post-reveal, I'm now wondering if the weird zappy forest thing is the Master's TARDIS? Something to do with changing and processing DNA into something else? Something based around neurons, with the electric travelling system? Am also wondering what happened to Yasmin while in there, since she seemed to be processed in some way, and I'm wondering if she had part of her DNA rewritten as well - or maybe if she's been replaced entirely, like she's currently piloting an alien version of her own body while her actual self is still in there. They did already do that with Flesh!Amy, though.
Once this arc is over, I think Thirteen is definitely going to have to sit down and tell the Fam who the hell she actually is. Graham is having some serious questions, and the Master was definitely egging that on, pre-reveal.
How much do I love that even in a tux, the Doctor still has the culottes and boots? A lot, that is how much. Also, how much do I love the Doctor in a suit and on a motorbike? A lot, that is how much.
"I've had an upgrade." <3
Thirteen playing Snap. It's okay, Thirteen, you still win my heart <3
"Worst! Uber! Ever!!"
"Kisses!" Yes, we know ;) They've been texting! Someone write me a WhatsApp chat fic with plenty of subtext and double meaning, I require it. Also, memes. You know it's true. The Master isn't a Time Lord, they're a Meme Lord.
"Everything you think you know is a lie." Season hook? :o
The hmm
Main concern is how they're handling the Master's characterisation? Last we saw, they were so ready to jump the Doctor ship. Now it's back to games. Kind of wondering if that means the Master is just at the point of being resigned that they and the Doctor just don't work and so is going back to games because at least it makes them happy, but I'm happy to wait until next week to see how things play out!
Did see a suggestion that this is the Master from one of the alternate universes (or at least that seems to be the general consensus on why there were multiple maps), so not actually necessarily the same version as Missy. Alternatively, this could actually be a pre-Missy version! Maybe between Simm!Master and Missy, since we never actually see that regeneration?
Actually, if this is the one immediately before Missy and this two-parter ends with the Master regenerating and we actually do get Thirteen and Missy together on screen I may cry.
(Like I'm aro-ace and agender but I'm still so gay for both of them. There is no word other for this emotion other than 'I'm gay'.)
I kind of wish someone had double-checked the name of the company because VOR running the world is. Is. "Right now, VOR is more powerful than most nations." Just. *pinches bridge of nose* Like okay you know how we say 'oh yeah just google it' 'yeah I googled it' are they really gonna say 'yeah I just VO
'I'm going to V
I can't say it. I can't.
Apparently the Australia scenes were filmed in South Africa. Kind of assumed it wasn't really Australia as soon as I saw actually greenery in the background h e h.
Highkey wish I could have seen Missy and Thirteen together. Dhawan!Master is very fun so far but. Missy and Thirteen. See comment above about the Master's characterisation!
...ABC are you really going to keep to Thursday night broadcasts even after the UK switches their Sunday nights / our Monday mornings? Well that's a good way to guarantee I'll be watching them online first! I was happy to wait twelve hours or so so I could watch it with Mum, but like hell I'm going to wait three and a half days!
In conclusion, am dead, send help, is it Monday morning yet?
-
Spyfall part 2
Thoughts on Doctor Who: Spyfall, part 2!
GALLIFREY LOOOOORE.
Oh man I'm hyped. We got a teeny teaser to the Timeless Child way back last decade but now we may actually get to see what the fuck is going on. And hell, if nothing else, at least the discovery is being teased to be so devastating it did undo Missy's characterisation. If this incarnation of the Master is after her, at least. Still not necessarily anything to suggest that. The Master will likely be recurring over this season, so we'll find out more, at least!
God, the Master is so fucked up. Like. He's seen something apparently so massively traumatic that he had to destroy his own planet and legitimately does look broken by it? Unless he was acting, but I did not get that impression from the message at the end. And the only way he can think of to get the Doctor's attention is to start his old tricks? Not sure if it's better or worse for him to be pre-Missy tbh.
It's just... such an interesting dynamic. Also I really want to read into the whole... scene where the Master asks the Doctor to kneel and call him 'Master' in front of everyone - then, when she does (defiantly! Stubbornly!), he... kneels to be at the same level as her. Like, "I'm going to play these BDSM-esque power games with you but when it comes down to it, I still consider us equal."
Anyway the Master is def a service top.
This comment from Tumblr user upslapmeal:
"'why would it stop? I mean how else would I get your attention’ what did I say about the Master being like a cat knocking things off shelves"
I mean. Yeah.
"Contact." Old school.
The Companions! They get a capital C because they were rad as hell. I love them all deciding that what they do next is: carry on to save the world. Like they're all heroic af without the Doctor and it's so good.
"Don't make me do a soft-shoe shuffle!"
And questioning at the end, oooh man. There are some Implications there, yeah. They've found out some surface information, yes, but no real hint at the deeper trauma. And given what this coming season is hinting at, I strongly suspect we will indeed be getting that deeper trauma and maybe even Dark!Doctor. Gallifrey does tend to bring it out of them...
The whole on-the-run thing seemed to definitely be a callback to Sound of Drums. Uh, what's that going to do long-term? Send out a worldwide message saying, "Sorry, our bad, they're fine"? I mean, last time that happened... okay, Jack was already with Torchwood and so is used to Not Really Existing, but Martha definitely couldn't go back to fuckin' medical school. She ended up at UNIT and then went independent. They did not return to their normal lives.
Barton: needs a goddamn punch. He killed his mother what the fuck. On the plus side, at least he seems to have thoroughly destroyed his career? Be interesting to see if he reappears later, you don't go from the most powerful person on the planet to massive pariah overnight without Repercussions.
On to our guest characters! I hate to brag but I guessed who Ada was as soon as I heard her first name and saw her outfit. I mean the computers theme was already there, who else would she be? :D And I admittedly didn't know who Noor Inayat Khan was except in passing, but still. Little upset about the erased memories (Donna ;_; ), but I can see why the Doctor did it and like... this way, I'm glad they were able to avoid the implications of, "Ada only developed computing because she had already seen the future." Like people said that with Rosa Parks even though the Doctor said explicitly to only ensure there were enough seats filled and the act itself was all Rosa, so they may have wanted to play it safe.
I... really want to comment on how Ada definitely was crushing on the Doctor (and really, who wouldn't?), but she was a real person so I shall avoid those implications. (But really though!)
Doctor how many times have you been in someone's liver. This is some Magic School Bus Inside The Human Body bullshit and I love it.
Doctor's recording: "First of all, you're not gonna die! Second of all, don't talk back to the screens, obviously I'm a recording and I can't hear ya. Third, don't panic. Especially you, Graham."
Graham, panicking: "I'M NOT PANICKING!"
Doctor's recording: "Yes, you were! And I did just say, don't talk back to the screens!"
Graham: "????!?!!"
I want an entire series of the Master having a really infuriating seventy-seven years on Earth. Please.
Comments on continuity issues regarding that, "It's worse than Jodrell Bank!" "Did I ever apologise for that?" "No." "Good." exchange XD;; Like people are going, "Continuity error!! It was the Pharos Project, not Jodrell Bank!!" and like. Pharos was a project. Jodrell Bank is an observatory. You can do projects at observatories. Also, you can refer to projects by location, too. Am I referring to the Canberra Deep Space Communication Project or Tidbinbilla Station? Both! They refer to the same thing! In the Whoniverse, they likely did the Pharos Project at Jodrell Bank, and just had some lighthearted bantz about that time where the Master killed the Doctor, no biggie.
So, onwards to... an apparently unrelated episode for next week! Also, the Kassavin? Still there. Like. The Master only gave suggestions. They still have all those agents everywhere! They're still ready to act! And yeah, now they have the Master in their hands, so... I wonder if they'll make the Timeless Child a long, ongoing arc, and have the much more immediate threat of the Kassavin as the season finale?
-
Orphan 55
Thoughts on Doctor Who - Orphan 55!
...whew.
First thought: anvilicious, but some anvils need to be dropped, because, uh, have you seen the world lately.
It feels like quite a brittle episode? Even beyond the immediate tension of 'there are large angry creatures trying to kill everyone', there's just this sense of... like, tension. There's the tension between Benni and Vilma, which at first is kind of a sweet tension then becomes a life-threatening and sad tension. There's the tension between Roger Parslow Silas and his dad, with Silas not being taken seriously (although I do think him running out while they're in life-threatening danger is a bit much). The obvious and major tension between Bella and Kane that drives the whole episode, yes.
And there's also the tension amongst Team TARDIS! The episode starts with the Doctor still in Some Kinda Way about last week, and I felt a bit of tension between Yaz and Ryan? She seemed rather unimpressed by Bella, at any rate. I do like how organic the relationship between Ryan and Graham feels, at least. "It ain't the aliens that are gonna kill me, it’s worrying about you!"
Set and costume building, I felt, was kind of... eh? I liked how Tranquility itself looked, but the tunnels looked Very Generic, and some of the looks I felt didn't really work. Silas and his dad's green hair just looked very obviously fake, and I saw a description of Hyph3n-with-a-three looking like a cross between a Jellicle Cat and John Candy in Spaceballs (which... yeah, honestly). And I'm not sure about the Dregs, although I did initially have the thought that whatever the original inhabitants of the planet were, they must have been humanoid was amusingly accurate...
"I just pulled this out of a friend of mine! >:("
"Oh! ...We do not make any judgments on our guests and fully support any way you choose to enjoy yourself here at Tranquility Spa! ^_^;;"
"... ... ...It wasn't recreational! o.O"
God you could feel Hyph3n-with-a-three's embarrassment...
"If I had crayons and half a can of Spam, I could build you from scratch!" Excuse me I am at least Tofurky.
Also a logical issue on the whole journey to find Benni, because frankly, it just wasn't... sensible. Okay, bring a kid. Father of the year right there. Okay, bring an old woman. Granted, she could have insisted because it was her man-friend they were looking for, but surely she would have known she would slow them down? Her 'heroic sacrifice' felt very wasted, because dammit, she could have survived if she had stayed in the Dome where it was at least a bit safer!
"At least three eighths of a plan, right here! ...Two eights. I'll be honest, all I've got is the letter 'P'..."
So the Doctor is almost at the point of passing out from oxygen loss but hang on, let her first indulge her curiosity...
The sheer existence of orphan planets is very depressing. The sheer fact that there's at least fifty-five is very depressing.
There's an interesting comment about how straight after discussion of the reveal, the first shot of the preview is the Statue of Liberty. Very Planet of the Apes! (No apes next time, just Tesla vs Edison!) Also feeling a strong connection to Midnight (stunning resort on dangerous planet with a very personal enemy), and I saw a comment about Thirteen unintentionally The-End-Of-The-World-ing the Fam (and making a connection between 'very angry trees' and the Forests of Cheem). Bit of Ravolox. Bit of... fuck what was it... Curse of Fenric.
Although, we know that the Earth will eventually be consumed by the sun, and it was done in a way that was like... it was its time. This was not its time, was a colossal fuck-up on a planetary scale (and the Doctor continues to be 'eat the rich'), but it's also only one potential future. Which is good, because that got dark. Even more than The End of the World, even more than Utopia, even more than fuckin' Frontios, because this is the near-future. The shots we saw of the destruction were modern day! That was the Dome of the Rock you saw getting bombed!
"Be smarter than what made you." PAGING THE GOVERNMENT...
Going to put it on a solid... maybe 7/10? Some really good elements in there, but also some clunkers, and unfortunately not a patch on the same writer's It Takes You Away, which was one of the strongest of the last season.
-
Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror
Thoughts on Doctor Who - Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror!
Opinion before episode: man, Tesla's cool. Opinion after episode: man, Tesla is fuckin' cool! :D That was a well-done personality-based historical, absolutely - I think it's my second-favourite personality-based historical only to Rosa (there are other pseudo-historical based ones set in the past that I love, but they're not personality-based; the Human Nature duology is a good example).
But yeah, Tesla just came across as a really, really cool character. Genius and he knew it, yes, and the real Tesla did have some questionable views (sexism, mostly), but otherwise the archetypal Idealistic Genius who wants to change the world for the better. Contrast with Edison, who was... a businessman. With, like, a really punchable face. Still pretty intelligent, but... very, very punchable. I've read about the Tesla-Edison feud before and always sided with Tesla, and let's face it, so did the writer XD
Good mix of character combinations - with a lot of characters, it's easy for someone to get sidelined, but this managed to handle Thirteen and the Fam, and Tesla, Dorothy, and Edison, pretty well. There were some neat combinations, like Ryan and Dorothy bonding over the sense of adventure, and Graham and Edison's confrontation; I also really loved the whole conversation between Thirteen and Tesla on the joy of just... creating. There's actually a very nice overlap between arts and sciences.
Antagonists - not bad? I feel a lot of people were expecting the Racnoss, and there was such a similarity that I would have liked at least a throwaway line about how the Skithra were related or something. Ooh man she definitely brought out Dark!Doctor, though. Teleporting the queen back to the ship, specifically so she can be fried? I mean, she might have survived it. Might. And just that fantastic little change of expression when the queen asks the Doctor if she's ever seen a dead planet before! Whittaker pulled that one off.
There's a very interesting compare and contrast between the Skithra and Edison, I found. Thirteen has her speech about how once the Skithra are gone, they won't be remembered. Caput. Forgotten. They left nothing behind. Compare and contrast to Edison, who was openly accused of using other people's work, but who's able to learn from his mistakes, end on an even(ish) setting with Tesla, and who does get remembered. Which kind of stings, honestly, if you look at Tesla's actual history.
Like. Apparently that, "The man just didn't understand the American sense of humour," line was an actual historical line, according to Tesla's own records. The absolute main reason for the difference in fame and recognition is that Tesla was a genius who didn't know how to market. Edison was a marketer who could invent a bit. So in conclusion Edison is a dick and Tesla needs more respect, the end.
Favourite lines and scenes:
Tesla: "Is - is this your own design?"
Thirteen: "I made it! Mainly out of spoons! :D"
Tesla: "You're an inventor! :D"
Thirteen: "I have my moments."
Tesla: "I knew it! So you... so, you can understand how it feels, you know, when you have an idea, and - and to make it real. I don't think there's any greater thrill!"
Thirteen: "I couldn't agree more."
Tesla: "You... you spoke of aliens. People here laugh at the very idea."
Thirteen: "But not you."
Tesla: "Well, apparently I'm not like other people. It can be difficult, you know, to feel no one else sees the world the way you do. It's like you're, uh..."
Thirteen: "...out of place."
Graham: "Yeah, still. I bet you'd jump at the chance to have him back working for you, wouldn't ya?"
Edison: "Yeah?"
Graham: "Yeah!"
Edison: "How d'you figure that?"
Graham: "'Cause I had a supervisor like you at my old depot. And men like you don't pay a bloke that much attention unless you think there's a payout comin'."
Thirteen: "I wouldn't go killing me and Yaz. 'Cause Yaz... can tell you what this is."
Yaz: "It's a camera!"
Thirteen: "Bingo!" *FLASH!*
Edison: "I couldn't figure it out either."
Tesla: "The internal dimensions transcend the external."
Thirteen: *GRIN*
Edison: ._.
Thirteen: "You do realise, it's killing Edison that they want you and not him? ;D"
Graham: "Don't worry. This ain't our first rodeo!"
Ryan: "We've never been to a rodeo."
Graham: "...you're not helping, Ryan..."
Thirteen: "And what are you queen of, exactly? A stolen ship and second-hand guns? A queen of shreds and patches. You're not a ruler, you're a parasite."
Queen: "And what are you? So clever, stealing onto my ship, taking what I claim as mine. But where has it got you? No weapons. No armour. No escape. Just the desperate hope you might change my mind."
Thirteen: "No, we are way past that. I gave you your chance."
Queen: "A chance to be like you?"
Thirteen: "A chance to evolve. But you were too stupid to take it. When you die, there'll be nothing left behind - just a trail of blood and other people's brilliance. No one will even know you existed."
(Side note: I love that this speech was actually in front of the companions. They're starting to see that things are Not Okay.)
Thirteen: "Don't give up."
Yaz: "Whatever anyone says."
Tesla: "Well, let them talk. The present is theirs. I work for the future... and the future is mine."
Favourite incorrect lines:
Thirteen and Tesla, firing at the ship: "VIBE CHECK!"
-
Fugitive of the Judoon
I'M GONNA... NEED A HOT MOMENT TO PROCESS THAT...
-
WELL I. UH. OKAY.
lmao I'm serious I don't even know where to begin.
Uh, some very disorganised comments on Doctor Who - Fugitive of the Judoon!
I squealed when I heard Jack's voice then saw him in the flesh. I gasped audibly when 'Ruth' broke the glass. I yelped when we saw the buried TARDIS. I MAY HAVE SCREAMED A LITTLE WHEN 'RUTH' INTRODUCED HERSELF.
(Also can we talk about her outfit. That was on point.)
I'm getting a very... very early vibe? She didn't know what the sonic screwdriver was, and that was introduced with Troughton. Since we saw the Hartnell-Troughton regeneration, she must be pre-Hartnell? Maybe a Doctor whose memories were rewritten to the point that they thought the Hartnell incarnation was the earliest? Not to mention that was a pretty old-school-looking TARDIS!
Alternatively, maybe between Troughton and Pertwee? Either option has some inconsistency - if she's post Troughton, she should have known what the sonic was, although it admittedly did look very different. Plus, her TARDIS is already its police box shape, which was implied to have set in the junkyard. Also, we never actually do see the regeneration between Two and Three, and it could explain why Gallifrey was after her - she escaped after her trial after The War Games!
Definitely early, though.
Alternatively alternatively, Thirteen actually does say 'time is swirling around me'. Maybe an alternate timeline. Something to tie back to the Timeless Child?
"I've lived for thousands of years, so long I've lost count. I've had so many faces. How long have you known me? You don't know me. Not even a little bit."
That wasn't just aimed at the companions. I feel that was aimed at the Doctor themself.
(Related: the response from the fam was flat-out beautiful. Doesn't matter who she was or who she'll be. They know her now, and they love her.)
Just. Wow. Wow.
Really cool note from Twitter - disguised name was Ruth Clayton. Ruth = 'friend, companion'. Clayton = 'of the Earth'. She literally named herself 'friend of the Earth'.
"You're probably a bit confused right now."
I mean. Yeah. Confused and intrigued and what.
"Don't do points! I do points! Points are my thing!"
Jack. Jack. Smooching Graham, hitting on all the companions, getting into Shenanigans! The Lone Cyberman - I wonder if that's a totally different crisis that isn't even related to the current Gallifrey-Timeless Child one? The more important part is Jack's presence - the presence of another time traveller with a... unique relationship with the universe. The actual warning could be a red herring, but Jack showing up anywhere in the first place is a sign that something is happening with time?
Orphan 55 had a timeline that may or may not have been the 'real' one. Being only a potential future kind of doesn't work with what we know of established DW continuity, so I'm liking the 'alternate timeline' theory, maybe?
Ryan: "I liked him. Kind of cheesy."
Yaz: "But good cheesy."
Thirteen, smiling: "That's Jack."
Graham just standing there going, "He kissed me tho? ...Wasn't bad, actually."
"Is she safe?" Jack, honestly, is she ever safe?
"When she needs me... I'll be there." Oh yeah, he's so coming back later this season.
Also, Judoon, chameleon arch, the Master, Jack - getting big season 29 vibes here and that's a big thumbs up for me because that's my favourite season. We just need Martha to make an appearance now!
...hehe honestly, between Jodie's entire existence, and now, in the span of five episodes, introducing Dhawan!Master, Gat, and now Jo Martin as the first black female Doctor, and reintroducing Jack, one of the most overtly and openly queer characters on the series, the 'Doctor Who is too PC!' bunch are going to be so mad XD
"A platoon of Judoon... near the moon." / "Look at you, your platoon of Judoon near the... that lagoon..."
Man. The close-up in the very first shot of the watch. Nice tie-in.
"The Doctor never uses weapons!" "I know! Shut up! >.>"
Where do the Kasaavin come into play? Is this something they've done by integrating themselves throughout time and space? Maybe they're fraying the fabric?
My mind is blown. I can't wait for the rest of this season :D
-
[Part 2 - Praxeus to The Timeless Children]
1 note
·
View note
Note
hi i went through your ace tag and it was rlly comforting in a way. can i ask when u knew or how to deal (if its not to invasive!) thx
Hi anon! I’m glad you liked the posts - I know I can be pretty iffy at tagging so I’ll make sure to keep everything there if I can :)
It’s not invasive at all! The answer’s very long though, lol, because it’s me, so I put it under the read more.
I talked a bit about this in my post last year with the clumsy metaphor for my II denim jacket as sexuality, so if you read that then I might be repeating myself a bit, apologies.
The very short answer is that on some level I’ve always known, and I handled it Extremely Badly lmao. Don’t do what I did. Which was mostly nothing. XD
The longer, proper answer - I knew I was in some way Different when I found myself completely bewildered by the crushes my friends developed when we became tweens/teenagers. Like a lot of queer people, I selected my Pretend Crush and dutifully put up his poster in my locker (Noah Wyle from ER; I thought he had pretty eyes). I thought everyone else was just doing it to be cool, as well, in the same sort of way everyone pretended to love [insert name of popular band here] to save face at school.
But like, we got older, and people started making out and hooking up with Real Boys at parties, and still - I felt nothing. You’re a late bloomer, many people told me. I thought maybe I could be gay, if I had no attraction to men - but then I wasn’t attracted to women, either, so couldn’t be that. So what, then, I wondered? You can’t be nothing.
OR CAN YOU??? XD
I got to university-ish age, and around that time I went online and heard the term ‘asexual’ for the first time, and stumbled across AVEN; read the definition and thought, yep, that sounds very familiar. But the problem is, finding something out about yourself doesn’t mean you accept it, or like it, or even really believe it. I wondered then if it was actually a real thing, and not something someone on the internet had made up to make themselves feel better, because there was actually something wrong with them, and thus, with me?
I came home for Christmas during my first (only. lol whoops) year of college and brought up the subject with a small group of acquaintances at a New Years party (I’d had quite a bit to drink), and the reaction was - depressingly predictable.
That’s not a thing.
I can’t imagine that.
That sounds awful.
God, no sex? I’d rather be dead.
Have you even tried it? You need to try it.
That can’t be natural.
Okay, I get it, I thought, not bringing that up again.
And, the thing was, because I wasn’t in a relationship, or dating, or looking to, it was sort of - a non-subject. I had no prying family members asking about my love life. My true friends were unfazed by whatever I did or didn’t do (and still are, they’re good eggs), so it was just - something I never had to think about. In my mind, it was just another thing about me that made me weird and an outsider and that I didn’t belong anywhere or with anyone. (All not true! But that was then.)
And unfortunately it took me about 15 years to start to properly deal with it. Yikes. Such a long time - it’s not even about missed opportunities for dating because I’m still not looking to do that, but more about - accepting that it’s a real part of me and is okay and *good* actually and not just a peculiarity to avoid thinking about at all costs. Acceptance seemed unattainable, let alone the idea of being *proud* of it? Ha! Unthinkable. The best thing to do was just to - pretend it didn’t exist. Why poke that bruise, I thought?
I was always in this weird kind of limbo with the LGBT community - like, I felt on some level like I should be there? But at the same time, I felt like an outsider. (For many of the same reasons people to this day will tell you aces/aros don’t belong. All wrong.) I got really into queer films etc as a teen, I went to gay bars with friends and joined the uni LGBT society … and felt uncomfortable almost all the time. (I know *now* that’s because I was *still* trying to be something I wasn’t and wasn’t being honest with myself or anyone else, on any level. And a lot of the club nights we went to were basically about hooking up, which is fine and all but absolutely Not what I was looking for, and made me feel even more out of place. Why don’t I want to do that? What’s wrong with me?)
But fortunately, the world is quite a different place now, and I don’t think it’s quite so bad now for younger folks because people are talking about it *so* much more; there’s so much more help and support. And I know everyone bitches about social media but it didn’t exist when I was a teenager and there are so many ace/aro people and resources to connect with now!! We’re still made fun of almost constantly *at best* and excluded a ton and erased etc etc, but it *is* getting better. Even for us older folks still figuring it out. :)
I don’t mind admitting that Dan’s video was a huge help. (Albeit a very painful one. Part of why that video was so tough for me to watch, and still is, is that some of it hit a bit too close to home, you know? I didn’t experience the bullying he did, nor the fame, but many things were deeply recognisable.) That sort of tore the scab off (bit gross, sorry), whether I liked it or not, and made me look at it properly for the first time … well, ever, really. The period of time directly after that was - very raw, for me.
The phandom really helped, too; it’s a very accepting and welcoming community and there are actually lots of ace people! Which is awesome! Maybe I *am* a real person! ;)
So many little things helped too. I met a friend for lunch in January and she got me a glass ace flag pendant as a gift; I couldn’t believe it. I’ve felt able to bring it up with a few people outside my closest friends - eg. a couple of colleagues - and was heartened by their responses. I know they didn’t 100% get it, and that’s okay, but they were interested and open to listening and that meant a lot. I went to Pride last year and had a great time, and the first person who spoke to me there asked me where I got my ace pin. :_) (I’d been once before, in 2015, and I hated it; I felt uncomfortable and disingenuous and like I didn’t belong there, and yet I knew deep down I wasn’t technically just there as an ‘ally’.) Even Dan’s little tiny offhand mention in his mermaids stream! I was like, yeah, we do exist!
It’s all sort of had the fringe benefit of feeling happier and better about being open about it, like joining the LGBT network at work and - you know, just taking little steps. (anyone wanting to start with me that aces/aros don’t belong in LGBT spaces can catch my tiny hands) I saw an ace lanyard at Vidcon and thought ‘yay!’ rather than being uncomfortable to wear it, partly because I thought about how happy I would be to see someone else wearing one.
I don’t know what the rest of this ‘journey’s going to look like, I just know that over the last year I’ve gotten mostly to a place where I can say I *like* being ace, because it’s actually just what I am in the same way I have brown hair or am short, and not some weird deviance from Being Normal that I Must! Hide! At All Costs! That might sound simple but it was a hard place to get to. (thanks Mr Fire, I guess)
I hope this ramble made *some* sense and answered your question in some way! Feel free to send any more questions :)
#anon asks#ace tag#mad.txt#long post#this looks really whack on mobile but should still be readable :/#we love a functional website
15 notes
·
View notes
Text
Falsettos UK time
So I just went to see the UK production of Falsettos last night and kind of wanted to word vomit all my thoughts and key parts of it onto a post so that I can preserve the amazingness in my mind for as long as possible.
Basically, I’ve been obsessed with this show for a while now and it lived up to every expectation possible. The cast were incredible, the singing was outstanding and my mum sobbed solidly through the second act.
FYI - we had the male cover Matthew McKenna as Whizzer (I was a bit worried at first but he was incredible)
This is v v long so read at own risk ig. Also, spoilers!
Four Jews was portraying Jason’s birth (like, the ‘slavery’ was Trina going into labour). It worked really well actually, especially for people who had no idea what the show was about (ie 90% of the audience lmao)
It was also Trina in it more than Jason, but there was this hilarious bit when they did the ‘I’m Mendel!’ etc. section and Trina went ‘I’m-‘ and got cut off
Also Whizzer piggybacked Jason, my heart
Tight Knit Family - as you’d expect I guess, Daniel’s voice was 👌
Also Marvin did ‘friend’ in airquotes and Whizzer did this mega eye roll lmao
Love is Blind - I guess there wasn’t much else different, just that they all stood in the photo frames when Trina sung about them which was a v nice touch ¯\_(ツ)_/
Thrill of First Love - Whizzer was,, a lot more argumentative than I expected I guess? Like, almost a bit aggressive? But overall it was great, they were so snarky and less sexual than the revival (which my asexual ass didn’t mind) apart from one reaaaach. They also had v good chemistry to say it wasn’t Oliver performing.
Marvin At The Psychiatrist - the staging was pretty similar to revival. Whizzer was watching from the top and he made all these offended faces when Marvin and Mendel were talking about him (when they said he was ‘smarmy’ he did this Offended Gay expression it was great). Then Trina started unbuttoning her shirt in Pt. 2 and Mendel got really flustered, it was wild. Everyone was dying from laughter.
Also, ‘it’s queer Mr Marvin… sorry, it’s strange Mr Marvin’ deserves its own shoutout
My Father’s A Homo/Everyone Tells Jason to See A Psychiatrist - Elliot is a star, what more can I say. His voice is soo good as well. When Whizzer arrived Trina and him did this 😒 face at each other.
I’m Breaking Down - I thought no-one could come close to Stephanie’s iconic performance in the revival, but Laura rocked it. She was setting the table for Mendel coming, and it had this mega chaotic energy where she threw the bananas around and screamed ‘shIT’ when they fell onto the floor. For the ‘fulfill his needs’ bit she really aggressively ripped the top of the banana off and peeled it lmao. Also, she was drinking from the wine bottle for one of the choruses and humming, it was amazing.
Jason’s Therapy - Jason was definitely the most mature one in this scene haha. After Mendel did his first dance sequence, Jason just put a hand on his shoulder to stop him and sighed before he said the ‘is this therapy?’ bit.
Marvin and Trina sat drinking at the side of the stage the whole time lmao. When it was the second ‘is this therapy?’ line, they both held up their glasses for the ‘yES!’. Also, for the final bit Marvin, Trina and Whizzer all came on singing into glasses and slapping their legs with plates lmao.
Marriage proposal - I saw a few people saying that this was a bit ~creepy~ rather than cute, and I guess I see what they mean? But they didn’t do the weird vampire wrist grab like the revival, so I guess that’s a plus. Trina was very confused the whole time, bless her, and for the ‘start to cry’ she was like ‘I’m not??’ and then Mendel starting blubbering. Plus, Jason sang the ‘biblical times?’ first one rather than Trina, and Marvin did this Super Sassy ‘bIbLiCaL tImEs’ that was hilarious.
Trina’s Song/March of the Falsettos - This was staged as a nightmare sequence, which brought some sense to the madness of MoTF. Like, when she woke up she continued with the song, it worked really well. I also really liked that they reenacted the wedding scene from 4 Jews as part of it, it really showed Trina’s fear that something bad would happen again.
The Chess Game - Wow, this was... intense. Whizzer was super snarky, so Marvin got mad at him pretty quickly. It was so funny though, especially when it was Whizzer saying the ‘move a pawn’ bit and he sat in his chair like Marvin and acted all stern. Marvin was drinking solidly, so when Whizzer ‘won’ and knocked over a ton of pieces he lobbed the board off stage and hit a few things. Whizzer backed off pretty quick looking scared and Marvin was apologetic until the ‘Whizzer’s supposed to make the dinner’ bit, when he got Whizzer’s suitcase and packed it for him on stage before throwing it at him.
Also, the ‘this had better come to a stop’ was targeted at the liquor bottle.
Making a home – Mendel came on with only a house plant and it got kicked out of the house anyway lmao I relate. The dog bit Jason’s chessboard rip.
The Games I Play – this was performed so well my mum almost cried. It was much softer than any other version I’ve heard and more… spoken? But the notes at the end were belted and spot on, but he still had the slight tremor like he was tearing up. Your heart really went out for Whizzer, especially as the Motel projected on the screens on his side were mirrored by the homely ones on the other.
Marvin Hits Trina – Marvin didn’t tear up the invitation but he did hit a lot of stuff. Mendel also seemed a lot less angry at him when Marvin first came in then the revival – I guess Marvin was somewhat drunk in this. He also looked MAD at Whizzer whenever he sang his bits, apart from when Whizzer chokes up a bit when he says he doesn’t love him, and you see Marvin falter a bit then before he shouts at everyone. The lights went red when he hit Trina, which really added to the effect (although they were a bit late whoops)
I Never Wanted to Love You – Jason was crying and hugging Trina after Marvin hit her, and Mendel came and surrounded them in this big ~protective dad~ way. Marvin looked genuinely sorry as well, which was nice I guess.
Father to Son – The staging of this was really simple – they were just sat on the floor centre stage face-to-face. But it was so heartfelt, and Marvin looked like he was going to cry for most of it. And at first, Jason was a bit hesitant to hug him after what happened before, but you could see how relieved Marvin was when he did.
Falsettoland – Mendel pointed at the audience for the ‘homosexuals’ and ‘mother with children’ lmao. The tiny band was the wedding ring too. Whizzer was introduced back on with ‘homosexual’ and he did this offended ‘really’ gesture it was great. No Nancy Reagan punchbag unfortunately, but the lesbians came on holding signs saying Love Is Love <3. Marvin and Trina seemed a lot more friendly in this too, which was a nice touch!
Year of the Child – Mendel was Too Scared to really disrupt the arguments haha. Trina was fierce, Marvin suggested the caterers really sheepishly and she basically bit his head off it was hilarious. And when the lesbians arrived with the food, she literally said off-mic ‘you’ve got to be kidding me’ to Marvin. At the end, Jason ran off because they were all too ~excited~ and the last part of the song was spent looking for him lmao.
Miracle of Judaism – ‘Jo… what’s the name of that bitch?’ im dead
Baseball Game – Jason had a pretty good swing before Whizzer even arrived to be honest. The lesbians fully got up and yelled at the umpire it was great. Mendel got up to sing his bit, and Marvin and Trina just sort of led him to sit back down and apologised offstage. Whizzer kept teasing Marvin back about the hairline comments, and Marvin just mournfully rubbed his head like ‘I know.’ It was hilarious.
A Day in Falsettoland – Charlotte and Cordelia were the patients and they were both amazing. Mendel wasn’t even sorry about the name. Charlotte literally spat the food back onto Cordelia’s plate, she didn’t even hide it lmao.
‘Maybe in a mile I’ll be okay.’ ‘a mILE?’ Same Mendel. Also, Trina runs with weights?
Raquetball worked really well to say there was such little space on stage. It was nice to see the softer side to Marvin and Whizzer’s relationship, the occasional kisses throughout the game.
Everyone Hates His Parents – it was pretty similar to the revival, except Mendel and Jason both did a mega cartwheel?! I was shocked, it was perfect. Also, Trina cried ‘you’re killing me!’ to Jason after he said he didn’t want the bar mitzvah, which made the ‘kill you mother’ verse a bit more understandable lmao. Also, Trina kept giving Marvin these ‘seriously?’ looks during that whole song.
What More Can I Say - this was so sweet, so Domestic. Marvin was like this happy puppy. Whizzer basically fell asleep reading, and Marvin was taking his glasses off and putting the book aside, it was v sweet
Something Bad is Happening - lovely singing from the lesbians, extra runs! They were So Good together.
When Whizzer collapsed (it was a proper keel over too), Marvin lifted his head and shoulders into lap and sang it straight to him. It was v sweet and sad, Whizzer was crying and apologising to him :’(
Holding to the Ground - this is such a beautiful song, and Laura sounded incredible. They were setting up the set behind her, but there were sirens and a heart monitor came on when they helped Whizzer into the hospital bed.
Days like this - Marvin brought this awful cheesy card, and Whizzer just held it up to the audience like ‘what’. But he kept reading the on Trina and Mendel brought and showing it to Marvin.
The Whizzer/Trina solidarity was v sweet, he kissed her cheek and things when they arrived.
Cancelling the Bar Mitzvah - Jason started properly crying into Trina who cried as well. It was so raw and emotional, you really felt their fear for what is happening.
My only qualm was that they cut part out?? It’s one of my favourite lines, when Mendel sings the ‘becoming a man’ bit :s
Four Unlikely Lovers - now this was heartbreaking. Marvin went and cried at the end of the hospital bed at the beginning, and he sobbed at Whizzer’s ‘our bed’. They were really sweet though, always kissing foreheads or holding hands and things - I don’t think they let go all song. Cordelia and Charlotte also came in holding hands <3
Side note! Whizzer seemed in a lot more pain in this!! Which made me really sad
Something Bad (reprise) - Jason was watching Charlotte sing it instead of Marvin, I guess it was almost like her preparing him for what was going to happen to his Dad too?!
You Gotta Die Sometime - this was sooo well sung, it was pretty soft and then he started breaking down at end instead of belting the note :’’( Until Jason came in and he was like ‘um where’s your parents??’
Jason’s Bar Mitzvah - it had such a nice tight-knit ( ;) ) feeling to it which was really bittersweet. Mendel came in hiding balloons v unsuccessfully behind his back. The took the photo again, which was great (although not bitter they didn’t use the camera effect in that for the line in Everyone Tells Jason to See A Psychiatrist or anything). When Jason sung the prayer, he waved away the book and stood on table v proud. Then Jason sort of beckoned Whizzer over, which made him collapse onto the floor and Jason was taken off screaming for him. It was heartbreaking.
What Would I Do - the one that finally broke me. It was so so sad, Whizzer was still alive collapsed in bed so they sung it to each other and held held hands until he flatlined at end. On stage. My God.
At the end, the rest of the family all crowded around the bed and surrounded Marvin (who was properly sobbing). Mendel blew the candle that had been lit for the Bar Mitzvah out, and the photo they took came up on screen.
So, conclusion, see this show NOW before it ends its ridiculously short run. Honestly. You won’t regret a penny.
#will probably delete later#please excuse the cringy writing of this and the probable bad grammar#it's very late and i'm very very tires#*tired#*sigh*#falsettos#falsettos uk#west end#musical#musicals
28 notes
·
View notes
Note
this is apropos of nothing uve posted, i was just blog hopping and needed to share the utter hilarity of ppl trying to redefine the term QB so it applied to canon-gay they're not interested in: a show's gay ship isn't the central focus? QB. a show's gay rep is 'easy'? QB. a trashy show has gay rep? Omg don't you know that's WORSE than no rep at all?? QB. and the kicker? they're all the same st*cky/d*stiel ilk(with the occasional-
- h*nnigram bc that's Proper gay-rep) like it's painfully obvs they want to make themselves Look Better for shipping Basic white m/m, so they throw around words and terms to de-legitimize the rep we're seeing more of bc they're stuck in m/m 'subtext' fandom and instead of moving forwards: tear down out of bitterness instead(plus i just generally disagree with the notion that all gay-stories have to be Good, fuck that we can have trash-garbage fun too, it's Equality)-
- it's just funny to see these ppl writing long-winded posts about why x-Clearly Straight media is actually somehow some Perfect bastion of queerness bc they can't admit they've been kidding themselves for 10+ years, it's both funny and really, really sad. oh and s*n/m*u fans mocking other silly media? lmao, yeah like those are anything other than mid-tier trash-fun and in s*n's case: has only gotten worse over the years and is now ur bog-standard soap opera lvl of quality--
for me QB is a term that fandom in general has watered down too much and gets applied to any m/m ship that gets popular but isn't canon. like no, they're friends and you read too much into it, it IS in fact that simple(and ofc, as i've seen u post, characters/ships that actually would twig fandom's QB!! radar if they were two white guys are never included in these histrionics) but anyway, sorry to descend into ur inbox, i hope ur having a good day or evening :)
_________________________________________
Oh yeah for sure qbait has been watered down ? 110% and this is unrelated to anything I've said tonight but I constantly harangue of the fact tht fans never bring up instances of qbaiting (for humor !) Used in Scrubs,Common Law,Psych,Almost Human, iZombie, Community,Big Bang Theory . Where a man of color (three cases here its south asian men, but most listed here involve black men) is being presented as gay* and the joke is positioning the man as too close to his friend or others assuming their gay or him and his friend emulating a couple. And like occasionally bbt gets brought up as a footnote for those articles but like .. it doesnt deserve academic regur to the subject but it's kind of needed?
And yeah fans deluding them is so fucking true like I complain abt white man worship disease (Google's keyboards next suggested word was 'disease' btw) n thts truly wht it is and also wht causes lesbians to headcanon all these shitty white Canon cishet dudes as like trans women ....bc they feel guilty. When rlly like .... Diversify your pallet. And lol I haven't seen supanastyworld fans do nething bc like entirely different Spheres but the idea of them mocking ne1 is so... And yewh this all just reminds me of ppl praising Neilman bc thts the fandom tht I occasionally bump into now and putting transphobic and homophobic potrayals on like lists of lgbtq rep tht he's contributed to
And i agree w u Abt trashy tv too like I've watched many a websrs bc it had gays of color or just gays n most had subpar quality but that's Fine. Ppl don't appreciate the art of shitty corny trashy gay art nemore.(not to sound like john waters)* (which is different but connected than the trope of the effeminate asian/brown guy where the joke is him not adhering to Western masculinity ideals, bc I could add parks and rec to this along w a bunch of other shows).
1 note
·
View note
Text
A Woman’s Worth, According to “Game of Thrones”
The other day I thought to myself, is there a single female character on GoT who has not at some point been encouraged, both on a Watsonian and Doylist level, to resort to violence and/or sex in order to solve all her problems?
I’m honestly at a loss to think of a single female character, past or present, where this hasn’t been the case. Obviously the example frequently referenced around here is Sansa. Here is a young woman who, as written by George R.R. Martin, possesses a keen intellect but also a fair amount of naivete... because, like, both those aspects can exist at the same time. She is not a warrior like her sister, and she is not a seductress like Cersei, and yet she’s managed to survive through FIVE books without having to resort either to violence or sexual manipulation and has relied instead on her intellect and the traditionally feminine pursuits she has been brought up to cultivate. This is something D&D apparently cannot conceive of (even though it’s literally been written out for them in black and white). In their minds, a woman cannot be “strong” unless she’s got blood on her hands and/or a sexually available body. They literally cannot wrap their tiny brains around the concept of nuanced women. Even those who do possess martial prowess, like Brienne, Arya, and Asha, are reduced to shallow stereotypes and have had all their unique qualities stripped away in favor of this almost cartoonish thirst for blood.
D&D have made it quite clear over 7 seasons (yes, the first 4 included) that a woman in this universe is only “worthy” if she is willing to kill people and/or have sex. They cannot possibly serve any other purpose and still be of use to D&D’s narrative. Just look...
Sansa: Revenge Murder. She had been advised in the past, by both Cersei and Littlefinger, to use sex to get want she wants, but then she ended up getting raped. So maybe that “counts” in D&D’s eyes? After all, she did get her all-important “first kill” out of it... That, according to both D&D and Sophie, was what her “entire arc was leading to.”
Arya: Murder. She’s basically a homicidal maniac at this point, and it’s framed not only as a good thing, but “badass”. We’re supposed to be cheering as this lost, damaged child repeatedly stabs people with a cold smirk on her face.
Brienne: Murder. Absolutely no qualms about it either. Shanking dudes is just another day at the office for her! The epic moral dilemma that defines book-Brienne (”no chance, and no choice”) simply does not exist here.
Dany: Murder/Sex/Nudity. The Holy Trifecta! No wonder D&D love her so much! She’ll get naked and jump into bed AND murder entire cities all before Noon! We have seen Dany “struggle” at times with the dilemma of using violence in order to find peace, but in the end, the solution is always the same: YES OF COURSE YOU SHOULD USE VIOLENCE! Never once has she been like, “you know what, the loss is too much of a burden on my conscience, Imma sit this one out” without that being framed as a “wrong” decision. Because we need CGI dragons and massive casualties in order for her to be seen as “strong” and “competent”, dammit! We also need to see dem tittays!!!!
Cersei: Murder & Sex. Another D&D darling, obviously. In the books, Cersei is clearly off her rocker, makes bad decisions constantly, and literally no one likes her. (She’s basically show-Littlefinger.) And yet, on the show, her poor decisions and wisdom are treated as “correct”. When she tells Sansa that love is a sham or that she needs to use her vajayjay to get what she wants in this world, these things are framed as legitimately good advice. Cersei is basically this show’s moral compass. In D&D’s eyes, Cersei is the only character who is playing the game correctly. She is the only one who gets it right. “Kill or be killed, fuck or get fucked.” There is literally nothing else in between these two extremes.
Melisandre: Murder & Sex. Okay, so Mel hasn’t murdered anyone directly, but she’s had her hand in quite a few homicides. She’s utterly willing to see people die to get what she wants, and she’ll happily throw her titties at them along the way. Nevermind that book-Mel honestly believes that everything she’s doing is for the Greater Good, and nevermind that book-Mel doesn’t need to be nude every 5 seconds to get her point across... show-Mel is simply an evil enchantress, period. Oh, but then something horrible happened in Season 6 -- we found out that (a) she’s actually 3,000 years old ewwwwww!! and (b) she finally realized her “powers” aren’t all that reliable and came to regret all the murderin’ she’d done. She basically had her “worth” stripped from her twofold. Also, Carice Van Houten turned 40. And so guess who we BARELY saw in Season 7? Yeah, D&D literally made her LEAVE THE CONTINENT since she’s no longer of use to them.
Yara: Murder & Sex/Queer-Baiting. Yeah, another fun thing about D&D&Co is that they assume all female warriors are lesbians. They outright said as much about Brienne, and with Yara they just went ahead and showed it, and called it “representation” lmao. Even though Asha Greyjoy probably has the most healthy hetero sex life in ASOIAF. Sexuality in Yara’s case is even worse because she is also used in D&D’s massively disturbing depictions/endorsements of toxic masculinity. Her advice to her own brother, who was sexually mutilated, to either “get over it or kill yourself” (all while she’s groping a sex slave IN FRONT OF HIM) was actually framed as GOOD ADVICE. This was already apparent in the narrative but then D&D themselves confirmed it in the ITE!!!
Missandei: Nudity. Here’s a female character who is actually allowed to have a brain, but even then she is constantly undermined by the far superior intellect of Saint Tyrion. But it doesn’t really matter either way, because Missandei’s true purpose on the show is to look hot.
Olenna: Murder. Lady Tyrell is far too old to be sexy, so naturally she has to be out for blood at all times, and advising other people to murder as well (”Be a dragon!!!”).
Ellaria/Sand Snakes: Murder & Nudity/Sex. We can just go ahead and lump all these together. In addition to being the poster children for D&D’s insistence that all females, including sisters, must be catty to each other at all times, they are, of course, overly-sexualized and obsessed with Revenge™. It wasn’t enough that Ellaria was canonically bisexual, but D&D felt that her appeals for peace in the books were literally unworthy of proper adaptation. “We reconceived the role to make it worthy of the actor’s talents.” For them, Ellaria doesn’t deserve to even exist unless she’s vowing bloody vengeance on literally everyone for Oberyn’s death... including Oberyn’s own family(???). And the Sand Snakes? Well, one of y’all better get nekkid to keep it interesting! Who cares if the term “bad pussy” is apocryphal to this universe???
Margaery: Sex. From the moment Marg first popped up on screen, her titties popped out. She’s been a sexual character from the beginning and has repeatedly used sex as a tool for manipulation. She’s the protege that Cersei’s been looking for! Nevermind that, in the books, Marg, like Sansa, actually uses her wits to scheme and manipulate instead of her vagina. Luckily for D&D, they had room to age up Marg just enough that we could see her naked IMMEDIATELY, and once she traded in her low-cut dresses for Silent Sister gowns, guess what happened to her?
Myrcella: Neither, #RIP. Though, to be “fair”, they did re-cast the role with an older actress so that she could wear skimpier dresses and get groped by Trystane...
Gilly: ????? I mean, she’s just been reduced to Sam’s nagging girlfriend at this point. She did offer him sex (5 minutes after almost being raped) but she hasn’t threatened to murder anyone YET... But she’s also dumb as a post, so I guess D&D keep her around to make Sam look smarter?
Lyanna Mormont: Faux-Feminism! Lyanna is too young to be sexy or physically intimidating, so obviously the only other options for her are to re-affirm Sansa's idiocy (”Lyanna Mormont wouldn’t have been dumb enough to write that letter, so age is no excuse!”) and to further the faux-feminism agenda where crucial, life-preserving activities like knitting are ridiculed simply because they are “girl things”.
Meera: Murder. Honestly Meera was unusual in that she didn’t seem to possess the thirst for blood that the rest of the weapons-capable women on GoT did, nor any overt sexuality. But it’s okay, cuz D&D found other ways to undermine her! Like having her almost raped (a rite of passage for all true GoT Ladies I guess), and her constantly squabbling with Osha was a given according to the unwritten rule that if there’s more than one woman in the same scene at any time, they HAVE to be catty to each other, NO EXCEPTIONS!!! Anyway, without anyone left to kill or any way to be sexually available to Bran, she’s useless and no longer on the show. I’m sure we’ll find out next season that she was raped and murdered on her way back to the Neck (which Bran will have no reaction to).
The Waif: Murder. Just pure, unadulterated, completely incomprehensible murder. Did we ever really find out WHY she was so pathologically out to get Arya, other than the above-mentioned Rule of Cattiness?? Like, gods forbid she be an ACTUAL mentor to Arya...
Shireen: Neither, #RIP. Shireen was #tooprecioustoopure for this world, and that was entirely the point, wasn’t it? Nobody that sweet, kind, smart [shudder], and innocent [double-shudder] has any place in Weissteroff. She was only there for the maximum #feels when she was ruthlessly (and inexplicably) murdered and then immediately forgotten about once she served her purpose.
Selyse: Murder. She kind of suffered the same treatment as Lysa, in that her sexuality was used against her and she basically turned to murder to compensate for what she lacked.
Walda: Neither, #RIP. This one still infuriates me. In the books, Walda, although described to be rather overweight, still manages to enjoy a very healthy sex life with a husband not known for expressing more than a pointed stare. In fact, she’s so into it that even Roose Fucking Bolton finds it (and her) charming!! NONE of this made it into the show. No, instead, we have Ramsay making tasteless fat jokes (”OMG HOW DO YOU EVEN FIND HER VAGINA?!??!”) because lulz fat women enjoying sex don’t be ridiculous!! Ultimately she’s just there to be laughed at and then killed off for plot. Imagine if D&D were actually as progressive as they think they are and used this as an opportunity to depict and endorse body positivity on their Emmy Award-winning prestige drama watched by millions of people around the world..... NAAAAHHHH MORE FAT JOKES PLEASE!!!
Those are just some of the more recent crop of female characters, but this applies to past ones as well...
Catelyn: Murder. Poor Cat couldn’t even have a book-canon sex scene because no woman over the age of 40 is allowed to be naked on-screen (see: Melisandre) unless it’s for comedic effect or to deliberately make us cringe. So, that’s when D&D decided they had to amp up the Thirst for Vengeance quotient on her! Even though Cat was a POV character, and Robb’s entire war was seen through her eyes, they never allowed her any sort of meaningful introspection, either about the war or her family. Like Sansa, it was more important to highlight all the “mean” things she did to the Heroes of the story (”Maybe if I had loved Jon, this war wouldn’t have happened!!”) and retool the timeline so that she looks as dumb as possible (letting Jaime go before she ever found out about Bran & Rickon). The Red Wedding couldn’t have come sooner, amirite??
Lysa: Murder & Sex. Here’s an example of an “older” woman’s sex life being played for laughs. She was never meant to be taken seriously as a sexual being, so let’s make her wedding night with Littlefinger as outrageously ridiculous as possible. Yes, I know, it was presented this way in the books as well, but the difference is, we had way more backstory on Lysa and so it came off as more sad and pathetic than just outright comical. She was also the one who poisoned Jon Arryn, thereby kicking off the WoT5K, but that (extremely crucial mystery that hung in the air for 5 books and 4 seasons) has since been rendered meaningless because “Robert’s Rebellion was built on a lie”...
Shae: Sex/Nudity. And here’s a classic example of D&D seemingly making a GOOD decision to “improve” a character but having it ultimately blow up in their faces. Having Shae be a confidante/protector of sorts for Sansa ALMOST worked. It certainly gave her something to do than have sex with Tyrion constantly. But in the end, that just made Shae look all the more like a shitperson when she threw Sansa under the bus at Tyrion’s trial. It was an actual betrayal, as opposed to a calculated maneuver by someone who ultimately never gave a shit about Sansa OR Tyrion. It ultimately made Shae look even WORSE than her book-counterpart, imo. Book-Shae was just doing her job; show-Shae actively fucked over 2 people she seemed to genuinely care about. It was a more nuanced character, but at the end of the day, they did it to serve Tyrion. It probably never even occurred to them that someone couldn’t genuinely love him (and those who don’t pay for it dearly; see: Sansa), and it was out of the question to make Saint Tyrion look like a FOOL for deluding himself into thinking a prostitute loved him. So she had to be the real deal, and her murder by Tyrion had to be 100% justified.
Osha: Murder & Sex/Nudity. It wasn’t enough for Osha to become a surrogate mother to Bran and Rickon; mothers are SO BORING after all. And it wasn’t enough that she was a wildling woman capable of killing a man a hundred different ways. Best throw in some gratuitous nude scenes just because. As far as D&D are concerned, the only way she can kill a man is by fucking him first. It works the first time, but when she tries the same ruse with Ramsay, she is killed for it. I mean, OF COURSE. The Great Ramsay Sue would never fall for such a thing, pffft!
Ygritte: Murder & Sex. She was already a little firecracker in the books, but leave it to D&D to give her the Cersei treatment by basically blackmailing Jon into sleeping with her. Some could argue dub-con for the books, but the show was outright non-con. But because she’s a hot lady and he’s a dude, it’s not looked at or framed that way at all. Instead we’re made to think “JACKPOT, JON! woooot!”
Talisa: Sex. When the “not like the other girls” trope goes too far, you get Talisa. Yes, she was presented as a strong, smart, capable woman, but in the context that they put her in, it didn’t make sense. Because D&D don’t know how to write a female character like this within the context of ASOIAF. And the re-working of this arc in Robb’s plot went from “doing it for honor” to “doing it for dat bootay!!” So, of course, it wasn’t enough that she was “not like the other girls”; it was CRUCIAL that we got to see her naked too, lest she be taken TOO seriously...!
Ros: Sex/Nudity. Like, literally, that was her one and only function. There’s that well-known rumor that she was killed off in the show because the actress didn’t wanna do any more nude scenes, but she has denied this was the case, but who knows, really? Knowing D&D as we do, would we REALLY be surprised if the rumor was true? I mean, why else would they get rid of her? If she was still game to throw her rack around and perform pornologues, why would they willingly give that up??
Karsi: Murder. This gal has the distinction of proving D&D’s claim that no one would have cared about Jeyne Poole utterly wrong, null, and void. Karsi had a cumulative screen time of about 10 minutes total, and I remember watching the live-tweets come in during “Hardhome” and people, including myself, being really excited by her character almost immediately. But surely there had to be a catch -- ah yes, The Worst Crime In Westeros: being a mother. That was her ultimate undoing. Of course, we learned soon after the episode that the character was originally written to be a man, but it was changed to a woman because OBVIOUSLY only a woman -- only a mother -- would be THAT opposed to killing children, even undead ones.
Maggy The Frog: Sex. Well, kinda... Look, fact is, Maggy the Frog was supposed to be some old, gross witch, and D&D turned her into a Burning Man groupie.
That about covers it, I think, feel free to add more if I’ve forgotten anyone. But basically you can see the pattern here loud and clear. It amazes me that so-called feminists who watch the show religiously haven’t picked up on this... or, if they have, don’t seem to have a problem with it??
#game of thrones#got#got shit#anti-got#sansa stark#arya stark#cersei lannister#daenerys targaryen#brienne of tarth#melisandre#missandei#yara greyjoy#olenna tyrell#margaery tyrell#ellaria sand#sand snakes#myrcella baratheon#gilly#shireen baratheon#selyse baratheon#lyanna mormont#meera reed#the waif#walda frey#catelyn stark#lysa arryn#shae#osha#ygritte#talisa maegyr
164 notes
·
View notes
Note
What do you think about those who just started watching JTV because of the Petramos ship? Some fans, esp on twitter, are saying that theyre against it or something cos it's like watching just because of Petra and JR's sexuality. Cos tbh I disagree. I watched JTV because of Petramos all because just like every LGBT I wanted to feel represented. I see nothing wrong with watching a show just because of the queer characters is all I'm saying so I really dont get where the hate is coming from.
Okay. I mean. Let me try and explain this as well as I can. To clarify though, I’m not trying to dictate why people should be watching the show, or judging people for their reasons or hating anyone. This is just my take on the whole thing, since you asked, but people are free to do whatever they want lmao.
See, for the original fans of the show, and especially for the original fans of Petra on the show, she’s SO much more than her sexuality. She’s one of the most complex characters on this show. (I’d even go as far as saying she’s the most complex). She’s a character that we’ve journeyed with through so much, we struggled with her, cried with her, rooted for her, felt her losses, suffered when she did and we love her for the entirety that she is. We love her regardless of what her sexuality is. We loved her even when she wasn’t a canonically confirmed LGBTQ character and we love her now.
And I have to say, the fandom hasn’t exactly ever been kind to Petra (which is also understandable because of her history but I won’t get into that because it strays from the topic). And we suffered through that hate. Tbh? The reason why I made this blog in the first place was because gifs for Petra were always a bit scarce. The fandom was small, the people who loved Petra within that fandom was even smaller. Barely anyone appreciated her before she came out.
And then all of a sudden, there are people flocking in, suddenly loving Petra just because she’s in a relationship with a woman without even getting to know her and it does feel a little bit like she’s only being defined by her sexuality and it can be a bit disconcerting. Petra’s more than that. I’ve always wished more people loved Petra, but I wanted people to love her because they understand her. Not love her just because she’s bisexual, regardless of who the rest of Petra is. Because when people only like Petra because she’s bi ... then honestly they can find that on other shows. If it were entirely up to me, I’d want people to love Petra Solano, a well-developed character, not Petra Solano the bisexual. If that makes sense.
There’s also this whole other thing where, you know. Jane the Virgin is one of the very, very, very few shows that are led by strong, badass WOC. Which has always been one of the greatest things about it. More than that and I think, for me, the most important part, beyond appreciating Petra as a character, is that this show was made to celebrate the latinx culture. Like, at the end of the day, that’s what the show is about, that’s the heart of Jane the Virgin. And it’s supposed to welcome people who are unfamiliar with the culture into it. That’s the whole point of creating a telenovela-based show in the US. And it always kind of sucked that not a lot of people were interested in it. It always sucked that a lot of people never gave it a chance because of its title or its premise. The show is SO rich. But I’ve seen people shut it down so fast without giving it a proper chance. And like I said, it sucks. Because it’s really such a good show. It’s a good show outside of Petramos’ relationship. It’s always been a good show. Gina won a damn Golden Globe and that wasn’t for nothing. Petra is a freakin side character. She’s the one white girl in a show filled with WOC and now people are flocking in... for the white girl. In a show that celebrates the latinx culture/WOC as strong female leads. Can you see how that can feel a little insulting? Yes, Petramos is part of it, but that’s not what the show is about. And when there are people who just watch Petramos scenes and pretty much toss the rest of the show aside, it just... doesn’t feel nice. It feels like people aren’t appreciating JTV for what it was created for in the first place. Like, just personally if this were any other show and people started flocking in, I wouldn’t care. People can flock b99 for Bi Rosa or LOT for avalance, etc. and I wouldn’t feel the same way I do about the flocking for JTV. Because for JTV it matters because you know who else wants to be visible on TV in the same way that the LGBT community does? WOC. Latinx. And JTV was specifically created for that. JTV is first and foremost a latinx show. So it just doesn’t sit entirely well with me that it isn’t being appreciated for what it was made for and people come in but just focus on that one part and ignore the rest of something so beautiful and well crafted. For me, it feels like... if you’re gonna watch Petramos, if you’re gonna be here, if you’re gonna appreciate one part of it, why not watch the rest of the show? What’s stopping you from watching the show that produced the Petramos y’all love so much a chance? Because it’s actually pretty damn great.
And so that’s why I appreciate the people who have loved the show before Petramos was ever a thing. I also appreciate the people who have made the effort to start the show from the beginning after Petramos became a thing because that’s an effort made to appreciate the show for its entirety and what it represents. But I have to admit, I feel kind of iffy when people just watch Petramos scenes and nothing else.
Like I said though, people can do what they want, watch the show for whatever reason they want. My personal feelings for it, is just more that I wish people appreciated the show for all that it is and it sucks that there are so many people coming in now and still not bothering with it but I’m not gonna hate anyone for it.
#text: jane the virgin#text#idk there might be errors here or something but im lazy to proofread#Anonymous
31 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
erickawagner
Mystic Beauty & Beyond
naturalkings
The Natural Kings Stories
addxeve-headquarter
This Is Actually An EvexAdd Blog
miamigo12
Untitled