betsybugaboo

[betsybugaboo]

Is The Untamed actually gay or is it just like... Subtext gay?

Before I answer that, I want to draw a fine distinction between “subtext” and “queerbaiting”. One of those is okay (subtext). One of those is infuriating and lame (queerbaiting). 

Is there queerbaiting in The Untamed? Not a speck of it to be seen anywhere. There is no long drawn out UST between the two main characters that ends in “haha WOMP WOMP actually they’re both straight, here’s some gratuitous naked women to prove it to you”

Is there queer subtext in The Untamed? oh. oh honey. oh my darling. okay, how long do you have? a couple hours? We’re gonna need a couple hours to talk about the queer barely-BARELY-subtext, but also WHY IT IS LIKE THAT.

Basically, “is the Untamed actually gay” is a complicated question, because of the Chinese censorship laws.

The original novel (that the live action show, the graphic novel, and the animated version are all adapted from) is Actually gay. They kiss, they have some very kinky sex, they are canonically married, they have a son together.

In China, this is not something that a person can currently write lightly.  In 2018, one author was arrested for writing gay erotic novels and sentenced to TEN YEARS IN PRISON. (From Wikipedia: “Although the 1982 constitution guarantees freedom of speech, the Chinese government often uses the “subversion of state power” and “protection of state secrets” clauses in their law system to imprison those who criticize the government.”) 

Because of that difficult political climate, authors who want to write queer content do so anonymously under pseudonyms. And when their books become popular, and adaptations are made, the showrunners have to make adjustments – for the sake of everyone’s careers, physical safety, and actual lives. So in shows like The Untamed or Guardian (another good good show based on a canonically-gay original novel), the showrunners make it JUUUUUUUUST not-gay enough to get past the censors. JUUUUUUUUST BARELY “not gay”. Plausible deniability. Yes, they’re holding hands. But, like, as bros. Totally a bromance, guys, nothing to see here. They’re going right up to the line demarcating “gay” from “not gay” and playing Gay Chicken with it.

Except that, as you know, hours and hours of Silent Yearning Glances are actually MORE GAY than two dudes kissing. Silent Yearning Glances are the peak queer experience.

The Untamed keeps as much of the gay as they possibly can get away with. You can SEE how hard they worked to keep it there–the actors, the showrunners, the director, the scriptwriters, the SOUNDTRACK COMPOSER… 

Do the two main characters say about each other “that’s my soulmate”? Yes.

Does one of them write a love song for the other when they’re teenagers and then pine after him for years and silently mourn his death for a decade and a half until he comes back from the dead and they find each other again BECAUSE OF THAT LOVE SONG? Yes

Do they still adopt a son together? Yes, and he’s the cutest thing that has ever existed.

Does the show set up a thing where it’s like “Only your parents, your spouse, and your children are allowed to touch the sacred forehead ribbon” and then have the other character REPEATEDLY TOUCH THE SACRED FOREHEAD RIBBON? yes.

Do they kiss on screen? No. But will you be Emotionally Nourished by their obvious love? One thousand percent, yes. 

It is the difference between hearing “I love you” out loud and having someone who makes you a packed lunch every day with a post-it note inside that says “please pick up some milk on your way home ^^” , you know? The Untamed never says “They’re in love” with words, but i mean…. C’mon.

C’mon. Does it really need to?

#to watch

[betsybugaboo]

The "Luffy's fruit is a Zoan" reveal/retcon was extremely controversial when 1044 was first released; do you think Oda did a good job foreshadowing it?

yes!! it addresses a lot of idle questions i had about luffy's powers for quite some time (while also raising a ton more, of course, but that's the nature of one piece).

(all of my thoughts here and on gear 5 in general owe some credit to @grainjew, who has been my main discussion partner on this topic)

luffy's fruit has always been, from what we've seen, kind of weird for a paramecia? obviously since the categorization of 'paramecia' is sort of a grab bag and a lot less well-defined than logias or zoans, that's kind of a hard claim to make, but generally speaking, most of the paramecia users we see throughout the series do not have their powers always on. (the strongest counter-example i could think of to this trend is brook, and even that is one i think you can argue.) luffy's power is way more passive, in the sense that he doesn't have to activate it- it's just there, always. even seastone and seawater do not make luffy not rubber, they just sap his energy and stop him from stretching himself, as we see as early as arlong park.

that is weird! what we see of most other paramecias is that they have to use their powers intentionally, even when those powers do involve transforming their body in some way, like with mr. 1 or alvida. there's a whole plot in dressrosa about knocking a specific paramecia user unconscious so she'll lose her grip on her power and it'll disappear. luffy will stretch when he is asleep, when he is underwater, and without knowing he's doing it. he's always rubber.

so luffy is weird for a paramecia, though not completely unprecedented. his power has always seemed to me to be... almost logia adjacent, in the sense that he's made from a specific material and all his powers are based on being that material, but that doesn't quite track either. aside from the fact that the thing he's composed of is tangible and, again, he can't turn it off, he clearly has access to a greater level of complexity in his transformations than logias do (whose devil fruit powers seem to be basically a binary system).

which actually leads me to compare him to chopper, who is the zoan we know the best, and who, conveniently, also ate a version of the hito hito no mi.

i think the way luffy and chopper interact with their powers is actually very similar. much like luffy, chopper was fundamentally altered by his consumption of a devil fruit in a way he cannot return from. he can still look like a normal reindeer, but he can never actually be one, because the most important trait his devil fruit gave him was human sentience. and he would still have that if you put him in seastone, he just wouldn't be able to transform. similarly, luffy had his body fundamentally altered by his fruit in a manner he does not seem to be capable of even temporarily reversing. he can't make himself not rubber any more than chopper can return himself to being a normal reindeer.

like chopper, luffy's power progression has been based around finding new ways to transform his body and force it into new and more powerful forms. his gears are roughly comparable to chopper's points. that is zoan stuff! chopper is the main other person we see interact with his fruit in that specific way. so, yeah, i actually do think it does make sense for luffy's power to have actually always been a zoan. at the very least, it makes more sense than him being a paramecia, to me.

however, having said that, i also don't think it's as straightforward as luffy just being a zoan instead of a paramecia. we see that the awakening of his fruit definitely has both paramecia and zoan qualities, since he's transforming both himself and the environment around him, as well as other people. (the wiki puts this down to him being a mythical zoan but i just don't think that's true. kaidou is also a mythical zoan and he is completely baffled by what he's seeing.)

i made a bunch of jokes in discord about luffy being devil fruit nonbinary while i was reading this chapter- there's three genders and you have to pick one, and you can't just go switching it up, etc- and i do think that what luffy's fruit indicates is that the sorting system of devil fruits itself is imperfect. outliers do exist that don't fit cleanly between the lines- which we already knew! just look at katakuri.

#one piece

[betsybugaboo]

Spike Spiegel by Mindy Lee for the Cowboy Bebop 25th Anniversary Art Exhibition

#cowboy bebop

[betsybugaboo]

Karim Aïnouz

- Mariner of the Mountains

2021

[betsybugaboo]

I appreciate the sound effects they added in.

[betsybugaboo]

the garry (2022)

#ib

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#video

[betsybugaboo]

#x-men #hell yeah

[betsybugaboo]

Houseki no Kuni - Final Chapter cover for Monthly Afternoon Magazine

#land of the lustrous #:')

[betsybugaboo]

I really loved this mushroom Anne design and couldn’t resist 

original design by Inbal Breda

and some Sasha 

#amphibia

[betsybugaboo]

Surreal Wood Folk Art Prints by DobieDraws

#art

[betsybugaboo]

museum curator, watching steve waltz into the smithsonian, the memory of having the stolen cap america authentic howling commando era uniform returned dirty and ridden with bullet holes still fresh in their mind: hide the VALUABLES

steve, reaching over the rope to poke at something on display: it’s my goddamn stuff???

#marvel

[betsybugaboo]

history of scots affairs, from mdcxxxvii to mdcxli (1841) - spalding club

"mmmm macking cheese"

#poetry

[betsybugaboo]

Simple mutual aid ideas

Many people are demotivated from providing mutual aid to their community because they assume it’ll be expensive, complicated, and/or illegal. Not so! You can make a big difference in your neighbors’ lives just by sharing what you have and building solidarity with them (Note: Your local public library, community garden, or makerspace may be happy to host one or more of these if you get in touch with them!)

Connect on social media: A good first step is to start a group message, Facebook group, Discord server, email list, or anything else that allows people to talk to each other consistently. From here you can start to build solidarity and discuss what unmet needs your community has and how to address them

Bartering, time banking, and free stores: From there it’s easy enough to start the conversation about how to provide each other with material aid. Poor communities often have needs and the ability to meet those needs right next to each other, but they are never matched together just because people don’t have enough pieces of paper to give each other. A way around that is to start trading with each other - a jar of jam for an old unused bike, car repairs for fresh honey, 2 hours of guitar lessons for 2 hours helping repaint your deck, etc. This doesn’t have to be formalized and kept precise track of - “I’ll owe you one”s or just a general culture of “homies help homies, always” are a great way to build up trust and a sense of community

Buying coop: Buying wholesale can save a lot of money, but a lot of people never have enough money at one time to take advantage of that (besides not needing an entire pallet of dish soap). A buying coop lets a group of people pool their money to buy wholesale instead, saving everyone money in the process

Food sharing: Food waste/excess and food insecurity are a perfect match, and as such there have been plenty of ideas for bringing them together. Community pantries can pool and hold nonperishables inside something like an apartment building; a simple veggie share can be built and set up outside for communities with a lot of gardeners/farmers; a people’s fridge can hold perishable items if you can get a hold of the appliance itself and space/power for it; a setup like MIT’s FoodCam can connect hungry people to unwanted leftovers; and Food Not Bombs collects commercial food waste to share with communities all across the world (your city might very well have one already - look it up!)

Tool share/library of things: There are a lot of things that you use once or twice a year at most and then let sit in your attic the rest of the time. Post hole diggers, Batman-shaped cake molds, 3D printers, turkey basters, etc. Not only do these sit around unused for a majority of the time, but worse, if someone in your community needs one, they’ll likely go out and buy a whole new one. Instead, try finding a community area where you can put a lending library. That way, everyone in your community can pool their scarcely-used resources, and rather than owning 20 hammers altogether, everyone can share 2

Little free seed library: Little free libraries are a fairly well-known way to informally share resources with your neighbors, but if you live in an area with a lot of gardeners, or hopeful gardeners, saving seeds can be another way to use the same design. Just set aside the seeds from your harvest, or your groceries, then put them in reused envelopes from your junk mail and leave them in the box to be picked up by your neighbors. You can also share cuttings and clones from your garden!

Community composting: Composting is a dead simple process for turning food scraps and other organic waste into rich fertilizer - saving any gardeners in your neighborhood money (and keeping harmful pollutants out of the environment) with no ongoing investment needed. Personal setups require specific inputs in specific quantities for best results, but in large enough piles those rules can be largely ignored and still give great compost. If you get enough people involved, then, your composter can be as simple as a large box on the side of the road. ShareWaste can connect you to people with food scraps, whether you have a personal or community composter

Bike/car sharing: People aren’t moving around at all hours, meaning a majority of the time their transportation is sitting in garages or driveways unused. Starting a bike share can be a fairly easy, low-cost way to address this and improve people’s mobility. A car share can be a lot more involved, but worth it for all the money and carbon it can save (especially for areas with little or no public transit)

Feel free to share other ideas below!

#useful

[betsybugaboo]

Avavav always has the most interesting concepts

#fashion

[betsybugaboo]

Look at them being mischievous

#jojo's bizarre adventure #the jojolands #fave

[betsybugaboo]

I've just noticed I've never posted this one so here I am, come back from hibernation, to share with you my piece for the @fmatriozine

#Fullmetal Alchemist