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#all allegories and queerness its just beautiful!!

indie-ttrpg-of-the-week · 2 months

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Trans made TTRPGs

Due to… recent events that I would rather not talk about, today's post is a highlight of different tabletop games made by trans peeps! These games are fantastic in their own right, of course, but you can also know that they were made by incredibly cool and attractive people

(Also, these are flyover descs of the game, they'll get more in-depth singular posts later, this is because I am lazy)

Perfect Draw is a phenomenal card game TTRPG that was funded in less than a day on backerkit, it's incredibly fun and has simple to learn hard to master rules for creating custom cards, go check it out!

Songs for the dusk is fucking good, pardon my language, but it's a damn good post apocalyptic game about building community in a post-capitalist-post-apocalypse-post-whatever world. do yourself a favor and if you only check out one game in this list, check this one out, its a beautiful game.

Flying Circus is set in a WW1 inspired fantasy setting full of witches, weird eldritch fish people (who are chill as hell), cults, dead nobility, and other such things. It's inspired by Porco Rosso primarily but it has other touchstones.

Wanderhome is a game about being cute little guys going on a silly adventure and growing as the seasons change, its GMless and very fun

https://weregazelle.itch.io/armour-astir Armour Astir has been featured in here before but its so damn good I had to post it twice. AA demonstrates a fundamental knowledge of the themes of mech shows in a way that very few other games show, its awesome

Kitchen Knightmares is… more of a LARP but its still really dang cool, its about being a knight serving people in a restaurant, its played using discord so its incredibly accessible

https://grimogre.itch.io/michtim Michtim is a game about being small critters protecting their forest from nasty people who wish to harm it, not via brutal violence (sadly) but via friendship and understanding (which is a good substitute to violence)

ok this technically doesn't count but I'm putting it here anyways cuz its like one of my favorite ttrpgs of all time TSL is a game about baring your heart and dueling away with people who you'll probably kiss 10 minutes later, its very very fanfic-ey and inspired by queer narratives. I put it here because its made by a team, and the expansion has a setting specifically meant to be a trans "allegory", so I'll say it counts, honestly just go check it out its good shit

https://willuhl.itch.io/mystic-lilies

Mystic Lillies is a game inspired by ZUN's Touhou Project about witches dueling powerful foes, each other, and themselves. Mystic Lillies features rapid character creation and a unique diceless form of rolling which instead uses a standard playing card deck.

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/141424/nobilis-the-game-of-sovereign-powers-2002-edition I… want to do a more general overview on Jenna K as an important figure in indie RPG design, but for now just know that Nobilis is good

https://temporalhiccup.itch.io/apocalypse-keys Apocalypse Keys is a game inspired by Doom Patrol, Hellboy, X-men, and other comics about monstrousness being an allegory for disenfranchisement. Apocalypse Keys is also here because its published by Evilhat so its very cleaned up and fancy but I love how the second you check out the dev's other stuff you can tell they are a lot more experimental with their stuff, this is not a critique, it is in fact a compliment

Fellowship! I've posted about this game before, but it is again here. Fellowship has a fun concept that it uses very well mostly, its a game about defining your character's culture, and I think that's really really cool

Voidheart Symphony is a really cool game about psychic rebellion in a city that really does not like you, the more you discover for yourself the better

Panic at the Dojo is a phenomenal ttrpg based on what the Brazilian would call "Pancadaria", which basically means, fucking other's people shit up. Character Creation is incredibly open and free, meaning that many character concepts are available

Legacy 2e is a game about controlling an entire faction's choices across time, its very fun

remember to be kind to a trans person today! oh also don't even try to be transphobic in the reblogs or replies, you will be blocked so fast your head will spin

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badass-queer-couples-battle · 6 months

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Sword gays showdown preliminaries

Propaganda:

For Kazuma Asogi:

ok so he’s not CANONICALLY queer but it’s ace attorney. so… he does, however, canonically have a katana! a sword so integral to the plot it gives me shivers just thinking about it. the sword also has a name, it’s karuma (translates roughly to karma) and it gets passed onto the main character, ryunosuke naruhodo (who he calls partner), after kazuma (spoiler alert) dies in case 1-2. except (SUPER spoiler alert!) he isn’t dead! he comes back in case 2-3 and would you look at that he has ANOTHER SWORD, a more european sword (cause he ended up in england after his amnesia brain said he REALLY had to go to england). once he gets his memories back, ryunosuke gives karuma back to him and proceeds to use it to destroy the wax figure of his dead presumed serial killer dad (long story), and now he has, you guessed it, TWO SWORDS! for the next two cases he wears both swords at his sides, and also he broke the tip off of karuma attempting to murder someone (he didn’t actually murder anyone but still) and then turns out karuma’s hilt has the REAL serial killer’s will in it. very VERY important sword. in the end, kazuma gives karuma back to ryunosuke which is really symbolic but that’s besides the point, and they cross swords and it’s a whole big thing. 10/10 gay sword guy.

For Raiden:

Man catches knives with his heels and uses a sword to cut through robots 20 times his size

He's such a tragic character! Raised to be a super soldier from birth and is constantly being exploited by the government. As for the lgbt part him and his rival in the latest game he's in have so much tension it's unreal (gay). I headcanon him as trans too because he has a feminine figure, his voice gets more masculine as the series goes on (testosterone) and his entire body gets replaced with cybernetics (trans allegory...)

For Claudine Saijou:

Fights with a longsword! Should be number 1 for this line alone: “For heroes, there are trials. For saints, there are temptations. For me, there is you”, said to def not her girl crush but rival btw (stream Revue of Soul) Vote for my disaster theatre kid its what she deserves!

Her gay levels are off the charts. She has a homoerotic rivalry with another classmate (Maya Tendo/Tendou Maya) that is integral to her character, as she was always first until she met Maya. She’s also half-French, but that’ll be important later. When she’s looking at pictures of Maya stretching (to study her form of course) and another character asks her what she’s looking at, she panics, blushes, and says none of your business. Her and Maya have a heartfelt conversation while stretching with Claudine’s face pressed into Maya’s chest (between her stomach and breasts). Some art from a magazine has Maya pushing Claudine into a deep stretch, but it looks like something a lot different (Claudine blushing doesn’t help. Also I realized that there’s a lot of gay stuff related to stretching with these two).

During a two on two duel (I know it’s not a duel), they fight together. Not only that, but at one point they hold hands and take a pose typical of romantic partners in dancing. For no reason. They just pause and do it to show off. They aren’t even fighting. Anyways, when they lose, Claudine starts crying, not because she lost, but because Maya lost. So, of course, Maya starts speaking to her in French, with one of the things she says being “You’re cute even when you cry, my Claudine.” All of this is stuff that’s happened in the series (except the magazine thing).

Now for the gay stuff in the movie. Their duel with each other is so dense with sapphic undertones they can hardly be called undertones. For starters, the song that accompanies this revue is called “A Beautiful Person, or Perhaps it is.” While this title is incomplete, the director states that he wanted the watcher to fill it in and this removed the end of the original title. That title is “A Beautiful Person, or Perhaps it is a Love Song.” The duel is framed as a fight between a hero (Maya) and a devil (Claudine). Maya is in an outfit reminiscent of Renaissance Italy and Claudine is in a suit. Thus, Maya signs a contract giving her soul over to Claudine, as is the case with marriage. With her own blood, in the shape of Position Zero (an important symbol in the show), which happens to look like a T, for Tendou. After a few minutes of fighting, Maya disappears and monologues, appearing in a white dress. This means that Maya has signed her soul over to Claudine, and they are now both wearing a white dress and suit. Not beating the gay marriage allegations. Maya finished her monologue with “For heroes, there are trials. For saints, there are temptations. For me, there is a devil.” They continue to fight, Maya proclaiming herself emotionless and empty. Maya then cuts the medallion from Claudine’s chest (they wear medallions and you lose the duel if it gets cut off).

Claudine falls. Maya attempts to claim victory by stabbing her sword into Position Zero, which is then covered by steel doors. Claudine sits up and reveals she has another medallion in her mouth, which she does by sticking out her tongue in a uhhhh. Anyways, after a bit of back and forth, Claudine tells Maya that she’s full of arrogance and pride and envy and longing. She then says that “No matter how many times I die, I will revive! Tendou Maya! To beat you, my rival, into submission!” She then makes her stage entrance, taking Maya’s usual entrance speech and mocking it. She also says “I fill myself with exploding passion, now, and bash it into your heart!” After some talking, Maya makes her stage entrance, taking Claudine’s usual entrance speech and mocking it. Up until now, they have been playing characters, but still letting their own emotions shine through. Now, they are entirely themselves.

They begin to fight again, running downs white aisle before clashing swords, with Maya saying “Such an ugly, emotion drenched appearance-“ and is cut off by Claudine, who says “Show me more, Tendou Maya! Right now, you’re the cutest you’ve ever been!” To which Maya responds “I’m always cute!” The song starts up again (duels are accompanied by songs), with Maya singing “With a grin of deception I’ll tear this piece of cloth.” Deception in Japanese is mayakashi, a reference to Maya’s name. Maya then sings “I want to show you my feelings becoming dyed in black.” Black is Kuro in Japanese. Claudine, in Katakana, is Kurodine, with her nickname being Kuro, so that line could also be interpreted “I want to show you my feelings becoming dyed in you.” Claudine then sings “Only me, always, forever,” before they sing in unison “You only need to look at me,” as they lock blades. Some fighting happens and they’re falling through the sky, holding onto each others clothes and Claudine says “Only I can make you lay everything bare!” To which Maya responds “I’ll expose my everything, on the stage!” Claudine shoots back with “There’s a partner you can expose everything to, on the stage!” At this point, there’s a short time with independent vocals for Maya and Claudine in addition to their talking. Maya has been singing “If I’m on the stage, if I’m in front of you,” for the last two lines of dialogue. Claudine sings “Be it ugly or beautiful,” as Maya sings “I will expose, anything and everything, all of me, all of me.” As this happens, Maya is saying “We love the stage,” which is continued by Claudine saying “And we can’t part from the stage!” Maya calls them both “Pathetic clowns!” To which Claudine corrects “No, rivals!” Maya says “If you’re there, I have to strive higher!” Claudine says “You make me even more beautiful! Maya!” Maya then yells “Claudine!” Claudine yells “For heroes, there are trials!” Maya continues “For saints, there are temptations!” Then, as one, their swords crossed, faces inches from each other, yell “For me, there is you!” Over top of this, their voices sing a line in unison: “Forever and ever, I’d like to cross swords with you.”

Claudine’s sword stabs through the contract, through the Position Zero in blood, which may be Maya’s family name, and Maya says as an aside “Saijou Claudine… You are beautiful.” Claudine cuts the medallion from Maya’s chest, finally beating her rival.

#sword gays showdown #claudine saijou #raiden #revue starlight #metal gear solid #kazuma asogi #the great ace attorney #shojo kageki revue starlight #mgs #ace attorney

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enduringmoth · 6 months

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thoughts on marvin's abuse, care's existence and paul's transness

taking a break from my usual bg3 posting to talk a little bit about my newer hyperfixation through the lens of queer allegory

necessary author's note: i am an afab transmasculine nonbinary person. obviously, while i do believe my transness does lend my opinion authenticity, at the same time, being trans myself does not mean i can't be transphobic -- so if any of the contents of this post set off alarm bells, please tell me.

trigger & content warnings: child abuse, kidnapping, torture, general petscop badness. obvious spoilers for petscop in its entirety, as well as references to the recent youtube deepdive by nexpo.

TL;DR -- perpetuating the idea that someone can force someone else to be a different gender than they are is harmful to trans people. however, all things involve considerable nuance. to pretend that marvin's actions could not have influenced paul's sense of self in the slightest discredits paul's lived experiences, and i believe a more trauma-informed dialogue about paul could be worth exploring as a community.

my preferred theory explaining petscop is that marvin tried to make care more like lina through abuse and "failed". after this, care would eventually end up in lina's home, and transition to paul.

(simply to make all of this less confusing, i'm going to call paul pretransition "care", though i will avoid pronouns. this is not me trying to invalidate paul, it's just so i don't have to keep saying "paul before he transitioned" or similar phrases.)

it is not a result of marvin's "failure" that care transitioned to paul. but i do believe there is a link between paul's perceptions of self and the trauma he endured pretransition -- and discussing these things gives us a deeper understanding of paul and his history.

obviously there is no "canon" answer to petscop. but im seeing this theory discussed a lot within the tags, and i personally agree with it -- i just feel some of those who are saying we cannot consider marvin's actions are not necessarily accurate, either.

what i am positing is that while marvin certainly did not make paul trans and i would never claim that he did, we understand that marvin's abuse of care -- his cruelty towards care, his warping of care's perception of appearance and self-worth -- is certainly a factor in how paul must see himself.

marvin's treatment of care was poor enough that paul struggles to recall that time of his life. he thinks they are different people -- and in a way, they certainly are (and i've seen DID theories for them which i also enjoy because of this) -- and has clearly repressed what it meant to be marvin's child.

marvin locked care in a basement for six months. that is no small amount of time, and it likely had no small amount of affect on paul. we can assume based on the implications of some school scenes that marvin was trying to convince care to be more like lina during this time. care escaped, and returned home -- though eventually, we know from belle's dialogue that paul would find his way to lina.

"do you remember the day you were born?"

paul's "birth" occurred after marvin's abuse, and though it was not a result of it, there is something almost poetic about following the thread of paul's life from care to his authentic self that plays as a foil to the heinous rebirthing practiced by marvin and rainer.

contrasted with what happened to belle (and seemingly others), paul chose (a form of) rebirth -- transition. marvin tried to make lina be reborn through care. instead, care resisted -- and he would eventually become paul, and that strikes me as so narratively compelling. it's not to spite marvin and please don't think i'm saying that, as care was naturally always paul -- it is simply self-discovery at its most raw and beautiful, and i love it.

the above is why i love petscop as a queer allegory. taking ownership of one's future and selfhood, even when others are trying to tell you who to be.

and that's why i think saying marvin made his afab child transition in rejection of martin's quest for lina -- or that marvin tried to make his amab child transition to care/lina, as nexpo posited -- is so wrong, and harmful.

yet, paul's trauma is real. it happened. and it's a part of him that should be able to be discussed for what it is.

as someone with extensive trauma history, i can tell you that my gender expression and personal identity are in some way connected to pieces of trauma, because those pieces are part of me. i am not trans because of my trauma, but my gender and my trauma are parts of me at the same time -- i am not each of my pieces, but a sum of my whole.

the point i'm trying to make here is that while i think nexpo genuinely missed the mark here with this whole "care never existed, marvin tried to make paul a girl" thing, i do think there needs to be room for a trauma-informed discussion around paul.

i hope that all made sense. if any of this is harmful/transphobic, please let me know. i genuinely love this game and i think it's so fascinating to discuss. /gen

#petscop #paul leskowitz #carrie mark #petscop paul #petscop care #paul is trans theory

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forgiveness-in-the-misery · 1 month

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…Does anybody else feel that What We Do in the Shadows has failed terribly at queer storytelling? Not even necessarily about character gender or sexuality but the like idea of it?

Like look at Our Flag Means Death even the romance aside Stede was a depressed man forced into an arranged marriage he wanted no part of, he lived a dull ordinary life that left him feeling empty. Then one day he buys a ship and becomes a pirate, we watch this man slowly fully become his true self. He dresses flamboyantly, he loves to read and write, he’s awkward and funny and bitchy, he’s romantic and violent and kind.

Look at Hannibal and specifically the journey of Will. Will is awkward, he can’t make eye contact in most conversations, he’s typically withdrawn and painfully awkward. Then through Hannibal and this complex horror Will becomes undone. He can stare you not just in the eye but deep into your soul, he stops fighting his darkness and instead embraces the beauty of it because he is no longer alone and judged. He can be violent, he can be artful and disturbed under the understanding gaze of Hannibal Lectar.

Look at Gotham and specifically Ed. Ed dresses in mute tones, he dotes and follows Harvey and Jim and Kristen mothering them in hopes of them becoming his friends only for all three to constantly find him irritating and unmanly “strange”. When he kills Tom he starts to change, he finally gets the girl and he becomes more social, more bold. After killing Kristen and befriending Oswald he changes more. Each time we see Ed he changes, he dresses in vibrant greens and is flamboyant and loud, he is no longer afraid of how others perceive him. The same goes for Oswald and his constant stages of reinvention as he learns through Ed and Fish Mooney to love himself.

These are stories while with queer stories and queer characters are also just in general stories about people who try desperately to play “normal” in order to be accepted by work and family and society to eventually end their stories covered in glitter and sometimes blood and free of the restraints of a world that shamed them.

….What We Do in the Shadows doesn’t do this.

Guillermo had two paths to bis truer self; become a vampire which was his allegory for freedom in his sexuality or embrace being a vampire slayer.

Becoming a vampire is shown as a horrible thing he instantly regrets and he retreats far into the fucking closet after one minute of it, but he also isn’t a slayer. Season four he dresses nice, he dresses in a way that seems free and more comfortable and confident but then immediately goes back to dressing like a grandfather and following Nandor and the others as their slave/pet. Guillermo does not have a story where he comes out the other end changed, freed, living his true self.

I know we still have one more season to go, but the show has fumbled for five seasons and has constantly been openly scared of allowing him to actually come out.

Which is frustrating because out of the shows listed here it is the one where everybody involved, Simms especially never shuts the fuck up about it being the most gay show to ever gay give us a trophy for being gay.

This isn’t about romance in Shadows or any of these shows either, this is solely about the allegory of the queer experience, of finding peace and freedom in who you really want to be and how Shadows keeps a firm chokehold on its characters refusing to let them change.

#what we do in the shadows #gotham #gotham fox #our flag means death #hannibal

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comesitintheclover · 2 months

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This is a love letter to being trans and to other trans people

this is for my t4t first kiss and being seen as a boy by those close to me before I cut my hair and the world started catching up.

this is for the first time a stranger called me a man unprompted being a day I was wearing earrings and bejewelled clips in my hair. For not having to change who I am to be a man.

this is for the trans masc lesbian who taught me how to break in my docs. the gemstones of community collected through time

this is for helping each other bind and songs by indie girl bands about wanting to be a boy, Kate bush singing about not being seen as a boy when she’s riding white horses and I don’t know what she means but I feel it in me and I’m sixteen and binding for the first time and everything feels magical.

this is for my trans brother putting trans stickers in public bathroom stalls and me seeing them at school and feeling less alone.

this is for me falling in love with the ways your voice and your body are changing with every T shot, falling more for you, and falling in love with what I will get to do one day.

this is for the YouTubers who I rewatch, those who show their bodies to the world and face the endless bs to help their trans siblings. The posts and forums that I have screenshotted. For the strangers who helped me find myself and will never know how comforted their words made me.

this is for the flamboyant album by Dorian Electra and splendor dysphoria by Superknova. For the trans musicians and artists and authors who inspire me forever and ever. Who create little infinities of bliss in their 3 minutes of song or few square inches of book pages.

this is for the overlap of identities and the love of body hair and all the butterfly themed stuff I have because they’re a transgender allegory. this is for waking up and touching my chest because it was just a nightmare and the surgery went well and this is my chest now (and it’s like it’s always been)

this is for feeling so proud that I didn’t back down when I could have stomached it because I’m so happy now I didn’t realise how much it hurt before.

this is for finding ourselves while governments uses us as its favourite chewtoy. for reading banned books. For seeing the world change. For the better and worse. For all the highs and lows. this is for you yelling back at that stranger “not a girl!” And me startled and anxious by your side and a bit starstruck. Falling a bit more in love. Writing 500 songs about it, maybe

this is for you telling me it’s okay to just try a new pronoun as we sat on the baseball benches that may. For us with our then-long hair in the sand that summer grinning about being boy-girl-girl-boy-girl-boy-girl-boy-boys. For wearing suits during spirit week. For the sopranos in suit and tie at the choir concert. For the beauty and joy of trans existence.

for the pronoun pins they made at the library. That my brother painted on a bottle cap for me. for getting to give my brother new nicknames from his new name.

this is for the trans people who have given me community and offered me a place to sleep and reignited my faith in humanity

this is for the queer youth group in the new town I lived in this summer. For seeing trans and queer people who were older than me. With white hair. For being cared for, for seeing a future that isn’t lonely. For the road trip we took and doodle the younger kid drew of us all. For spaces that our queer elders have created for us and and we will care for in turn 💗

this is for when you took me to the trans beach day for our third? last? date and I didn’t know what pronouns to put on my my-name-is sticker and I was scared I was an imposter but everyone was so kind and I saw life life life, joy joy joy. More people than the kind that get on a for you page or got cooked up in my feverish brain during lockdown. It was a new welcoming into the world and reality is always so much more beautiful than whatever one dimensional hope I could dream on my own.

this is for the binder I got that summer now neatly folded in the memory box at the top of my wardrobe with old poems and letters and that photo of us at pride when I finally decided I could go too 💗, too high up for me to reach this January with new scars across my chest.

it’s for the way we take care of each other. My friend who made me spaghetti and lent me his mastectomy pillow. For my bff crocheting me trans coloured flowers and a teddy bear. Telling me there’s no such thing as fish or men, helping me through post-surgical depression.

for how we change as time passes. For how we reconnect with new names. For how we may lose each other but still wish each other well with this journey. for poems about god and grapes and wine you collaged onto your bedroom wall. For the genderbendy collages I kept hidden in my closet.

for cutting off my tits to feel comfortable in skirts again. For being understood. For laying on the living room floor years ago telling you I see you as you even if they don’t. And you saying “what do you see though?”. For the hard bits. The times I’ve fucked up. For calling the help line. For your drag king/thing makeup. For the day I learned the word tomboy.

this is for us sitting on the summer sidewalk talking about missing T shots and microdosing and how it’s all gonna be okay.

this is for when you pointed at that statue of apollo and said you wished you looked like that and I bit my tongue because that was your journey to have not mine. This is for being mooned at a queer show. for being offered a cigarette in place of a kiss. for knowing I'll support you no matter what. for joking (kinda) about getting free the nipple tattooed of my post-surgery chest. for being both a woman and a man because I can.

this is for the beauty of the transgender experience, for not understanding gender but feeling it anyways. For becoming because you can, because the world is more open and joyful in a lot of ways now. It’s for coming back to school after quarantine and never being the only kid using multiple pronouns in each class. It’s for hope. It’s for life being more than death. It’s for the beauty of creation and the infinite shapes it takes. It’s for deciding the masculine is not alien. It’s for getting tipsy in the uni lounge and comparing how we think about our genders and feelings so cozy and there being no absolutes. this is for life being confusing but beautiful anyway. For not being able to decide wether to grow my hair back to my waist or to buzz it again. For the joy of waking up with hair short enough to stick up crazily. For you giving me an undercut with stationary scissors when I was 16 there was nothing better to use.

this is for gender being silly fun and profound all at once, all the time.

this is for the day I felt shit going into the woman’s bathroom and I saw this:

this is for @boy-gender happy birthday! Thank you for helping me out with my fears about top surgery and listening to me rant about gender. I hope you have a wonderful day!

#Confusing use of the pronoun “you” sorry #General you #you as in me #You as in 500 different people from my past #<3

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flootweed · 1 year

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Top 10 BL Shows of 2022

I posted a lil mini review of all of the 2022 BLs I watched this year but I wanted to infodump about my favorites more. I'm counting shows that started airing in 2021 but ended airing in 2022 as 2022 shows (sorry I need to talk about Not Me & Bad Buddy).

First, though, I wanted to highlight some (dis)honorable mentions, aka shows that are objectively mediocre but I love anyway. Love Mechanics has a wild soap opera plot, but YinWar really make you feel for their characters with their incredible acting and chemistry. Also, I'm in love with War sorry he's just too beautiful. Coffee Melody was watched by 7 people and those that did watch it tend to call it boring. I had no idea this show existed until my recent obsession with the actor Benz led me to watching every show he has starred in (speaking of which... Call It What You Want 😨). The main leads had zero sexual chemistry but the romantic chemistry was SO GOOD. Some of the best flirting I've seen in a BL. The side couple was also amazing. The script was great at one moment and mindboggling at another; I actually skipped most of the C plot stuff about the music company. It's not high art but it's cute and sometimes that is enough. Secret Crush On You was a mess but it was my mess okay. Cringe culture is dead and this show is fucking fun. The mere existence of Daisy as a character puts this show leagues ahead of many others in terms of queer rep. More femme queers in BL please !! The writing is... not the best but BillySeng did the best they could with what they were given. I'm glad they have been getting more work.

10: The Eclipse

I am very picky with shows set in high school but this is a high school set BL that acts as an allegory for political protest in Thailand as a whole. Obviously I fucking loved it. I'm honestly surprised its not higher on my list but I felt myself losing interest towards the end of the show. It just didn't stick with me like I thought it would. I still appreciate it what it had to say as a social commentary, though. It was interesting how it showed the different ways in which people cope with their marginalization. First and Kaotung did great in their roles I love them (though I feel bad because I will always prefer First as Yok).

9: My Only 12%

I have always loved Cooheart but Santa really impressed me in this show. The story itself was a bit slow but SantaEarth kept it from being boring because they really sold the relationship with their chemistry. Looking back on the show though it doesn't really feel like a romance but more of Eiw's coming of age story. The ending also had some issues; they decided to turn the show into an anti-smoking psa at the end so thats fun. Some story threads were dropped and some were completely unnecessary (the siblings). Overall, still very good though.

8: Ghost Host Ghost House

This show was tragic and heartwarming. Such a charming story about grief and love and the effect we have on one another. Seenam and her story fucking broke me. Like I was in pieces, tears and snot running down my face. On a lighter note, congrats to Pluem and Kawin for winning the award for best intimate scene of the year (yes better than cutie pie and lita and kp). They had absolutely fantastic chemistry. Also I wasn't mad at the time skip at the end, you could tell how much they had matured in their time apart.

This show was delightful and I loved it but it is lower on the list because there were so many filming issues. Also I got very annoyed with the script sometimes because very important scenes would happen off screen and the we would just be told about it. Most of the problems I had with it were probably due to budget issues which is really unfortunate.

7: To My Star 2

This. Show. I actually wasn't a super big fan of To My Star. I liked it but I wasn't obsessed with it like some people. It was just lacking a little something. And apparently the thing it was lacking was angst because I absolutely loved the second season. The emotions, the drama, the intimacy, the longing. UGH so good. The loneliness was so visceral I cried twice. Everything about it was just so well done and I felt like I finally understand these characters.

6: Bad Buddy

From here on every show is a 10/10.

The love story of the ages. There's really not much more I can say that basically sums it up. Ohm and Nanon are absolute legends. Also, I will always love this show for giving us milklove. This show occupied my every waking moment while it was airing, like it was an issue. I love how we can already see new shows taking influence from Bad Buddy, its what she deserves.

5: Blueming

Oh Blueming. Oh this darling show. Its so pretty and so painful. The mom scene makes me cry every time, it just hits too close to home. Siwon my darling child. Daun was at risk of being a manic pixie dream boy but the ending came in clutch and showed he actually had flaws and complex feelings we love that. The show itself had the same vibes of the queer indie films I would watch as a baby gay back in the day. The back-lit love scene was just gorgeous the way they just flowed back and forth from one another. Such a beautiful physicality.

4: 180 Degree Longitude Passes Through Us

This is not a romance. Yet it has some of the best romantic and sexual chemistry of the year. Between two people who never even allowed themselves to touch each other. LIKE WHAT !!!??!!! This show is a literal masterpiece. The way it is written and shot is breathtaking; it feels like more of a stage play than a tv show. I just had a constant stream of tears for the entirety of the last episode. I still get so mad when people misinterpret this show or get mad that they don't kiss or it doesn't have a "happy" ending. Wang's actor was absolutely phenomenal I can't wait to see what he does in the future. This could honestly be even higher on my list but its not a romance so I don't really classify it as a BL.

3: Semantic Error

Sometimes you watch an autistic person and a person with adhd fall in love and it is one of the best things you've ever seen.

This is the definition of a well crafted show. I noticed this especially on my second watch; the script is just so tight. Well written, well shot, well acted. It was such a moment, like it literally singlehandedly saved the music career of Jaechan and his bandmates. I prefer my shows with a bit more grit, which is why it doesn't get the top slot but it is just so well done that it just had to be in the top 3.

2: Not Me

In contrast, this show is not perfect but has the grit I love. You could tell there were story threads that were dropped in the middle of the show and narrative threads that weren't followed through with. Yet this show is still god tier. I'm sorry but a show about a gang of gay anti-capitalists deserves all of my praise, even if the script is shaky at times.

Yok is my one true love, the light of my life, my favorite character of all time. First was so good as this character but Gun was definitely the standout actor in this series. Gun is an absolute powerhouse and he really showed his chops in Not Me.

I doubt this is the first time gay marriage is brought up in a BL but I feel like Not Me is really a turning point in allowing BL to be more explicitly political and queer. This show literally changed the game.

1: Triage !!!

Its a medical drama, its a time travel sci-fi, its an (almost) tragic romance. What more could you want. I try not to expect much from BLs with high concepts like this but damn this show blew me away. It takes a lot for me to have a strong emotional reaction to a show and yet I violently sobbed at least three separate times while watching this. Never has a show destroyed me so much emotionally. And it pains me every day that more people have not seen this show, though its understandable bc its so hard to watch for international fans (god bless dramacool). I highly HIGHLY recommend everyone try to get their hands on this show.

#wow im really posting this at the last possible moment #love mechanics #coffee melody #secret crush on you #the eclipse #my only 12%#ghost host ghost house #to my star 2 #bad buddy #blueming #180 degree longitude passes through us #semantic error #not me the series #triage

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jammy-badger · 3 years

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Centaurworld Episodes Ranking

So I got bored and decided to rank all the Centaurworld episodes. They're all pretty good, especially towards the top, but I was just curious to see what other people thought. Pls interact and tell me what you think!

10. Episode 1 - Hello Rainbow Road

This is not to say this episode is awful, but as the debut episode it doesn't really put the show's best foot forward. The opening sequence is great and it has the title song as well as Rider's Lullaby, but other than that it's pretty dull, not to mention possibly the most grating in terms of overtly childish humour and irritating screaming.

9. Episode 4 - What You Need

This episode has some gorgeous imagery and interesting lore, as well as a really beautiful song from the Tree Shamans. Unfortunately, there are two extended fart-joke sequences, in which what is easily the worst song plays twice, so that immediately plunges the ranking.

8. Episode 5 - Holes (Part 1)

Episode 5 has some great moments, most notably Durpleton's food song which is easily one of my favourite musical numbers. The Beartaur is interesting and Wammawink's little anime sequences are cute, but inevitably the episode fails to be particularly meaningful in moving the plot forward (or at least as meaningful as some of the others). That's not to say filler episodes are necessarily a bad thing, but with only 10 episodes it would have been nice to see a little more.

7. Episode 7 - Johnny Teatime's Be Best Competition

There are some really funny moments in here, with the 'We Do This Every Day' song being incredibly catchy and funny, but being a not-so-subtle reference to RuPaul's Drag Race does bring this episode down a notch. It relies far too heavily on pandering to mainstream queer aesthetics and cat jokes, and frankly as a queer person it really lost me. There are some really nice visuals, however, and the animation is particularly nice in the ending sequence. Despite the 'Yass Queen' feel, a lot of the jokes landed very nicely.

6. Episode 3 - The Key

From here on out, the gaps between the episodes get pretty close. Episode 3 has one of the strongest songs in the whole show, and introduces a tonne of lore and backstory for Wammawink, as well as effectively spurring the rest of the show into action. The moments with Gebbrey managed to get an audible laugh out of me and Waterbaby is a delight to watch.

5. Episode 10 - The Rift (Part 2)

As far as finales go, this was a satisfying conclusion to the series. Visually stunning, excellent music, and an all-round good episode. Although it didn't reach the same tier as the remaining episodes, it's still up there as an excellent conclusion to the story with excellent animation and a hopeful promise for a second season. 'Nothing Good' is a criminally underrated song, and Mysterious Lady is a fascinating character to watch.

4. Episode 6 - Holes (Part 2)

This episode runs the risk of being pushed down by its puberty-allegory song, but absolutely redeems itself with the introduction of Comfortable Doug and three of the best songs in the show. A lot of people seem to dislike Tail as a character, but I actually really enjoyed his song and think he's an excellent foil to Horse. Of course, Santigold as Moletaur Shaman is a standout and absolutely nails her song, which is easily one of the best in the show. The moletaur designs are the perfect blend of disgusting and adorable, and their choreography and movement is gorgeous.

3. Episode 2 - Fragile Things

Honestly, my personal favourite episode. The opening song is really really good, and although the episode as a whole doesn't particularly drive the plot, this opening duet does a great job of setting up the tension between Horse and Wammawink, such that it can be resolved prior to the events of The Key. The Taurnado sequence is beautifully animated and without a doubt the most impressive moment in the show. What If I Forget Your Face is not the strongest song, but serves its purpose as a tearjerker and has some lovely moments.

2. Episode 9 - The Rift (Part 1)

It's not often that half of a two-parter manages to be an excellent episode in its own right, but Episode 9 really packs a punch. The gang's antics in front of the Rift are entertaining, Comfortable Doug's sudden reappearance and scene-stealing song are highlights of the whole show, and the fateful reunion between Horse and Rider is extremely satisfying. Wammawink's singing Before You Go is an immensely underrated moment and I wish people would comment on it more. Of course, the Nowhere King's appearance and subsequent song are fantastic, and his character design is awesome.

1. Episode 8 - Ride the Whaletaur Shaman! (Best)

Overall, this episode is the strongest in the series. Visually, it is the most consistent, and the bleak contrast with the rest of the season is really fitting. Sunfish Merguy's moments are funny, and the various sea creature/mertaur designs are gorgeous. The Whaletaur Shaman is probably my favourite character design in the whole show, and although she is partially animated via 3D model, you can barely even tell when this happens because it blends so nicely. Her song is beautiful and overall the episode deals with the dark subject matter incredibly well. Overall, this episode is a fitting end to the characters' journey, while also successfully setting up the show's endgame.

Well, that's my ranking! I mostly wrote this as a writing warmup, but let me know what you think!

#centaurworld #wammawink #zulius #durpleton #horse centaurworld #glendale #ched centaurworld #netflix

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mitskiesques · 3 years

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not to lucapost ten times in a row but i am literally not kidding when i say that you cannot fully understand luca if you don't watch it thru queer lens. it literally does not matter if there was authorial intent behind it or not because the allegories and themes are in the dialogue, in the plot, in the central conflict and the emotional impact of the movie.

you don’t even need to analyze it to see right through it. disney pixar leaves its themes plain and visible enough for children to understand them perfectly, and the core theme of luca doesn’t work as merely the duality of his personhood as a sea monster and human through an epic perspective, social commentary, or a fantastical thing. there are no furious mobs hunting sea monsters like in the beauty and the beast, there is no defined evil villain who brings death and destruction to the entire world. there are not any stakes that involve death, apocalypse or anything of the sort. the resolution of the film is not them getting the vespa, travelling the world, defeating the villan, those are all tangentially related things to the “coming out” scene and the relationship and dynamic between luca and alberto.

luca’s core themes only work through the emotional value of the stakes the characters put themselves through as the coming out to a homophobic town develops. when alberto is outed, luca can still win the race and buy a vespa which was like his initial dream, or he can go to school with giulia which was his most recent dream, or he can go with his family and forget this ever happened, but like no curse is going to be due like in the little mermaid, just a boy with a broken heart, and there’s no evil witch they need to defeat in the race, just a bully. you cannot understand why alberto was hurting the way he was hurting after he outed himself and luca betrayed him and giulia was afraid of him and he was literally attacked. the film also doesn’t sit and explain the lengths of the discrimination sea monsters suffer, because its entirely based on homophobia, and the people who understand how homophobia works will not need an explanation. and in the end, the resolution of the central conflict is not getting the vespa, luca going to school, or even winning the race — those are all collateral effects of the coming out. of the town’s acceptance of sea monsters, of luca’a family’s acceptance of who luca truly is (once again because of luca, and not because of some epic war between the sea monsters and the humans, but luca and his friendship with giulia and alberto specifically), and the final scene with luca and alberto is essentially romantic trope after romantic trope.

so while one can watch the film as merely a tale about sea monsters and their human friend entering a race and living a double life, the raw impact of the film cannot be throughoutly felt until one understands what it’s meant to represent beyond the fantastical elements. luca is a gay movie!!

#luca #analysis #this is probably incoherent but. i wanted 2 say this so badly #n

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absolutebl · 2 years

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HOLLY FUCKING SHITBALLS

Utsukushii Kare’s final ep was SO GOOD

I can’t cope right now.

I gotta go drink or something.

Flipping heck.

Talk about sticking a goddamn landing.

what? I mean to say, WHAT.

WHAT!!!????

i’m dead

that is all

(and now I gotta fix all my best of 2021 lists)

please consider this my official review of this series for now

can’t type, Utsukushii Kare slayed me

Alright fine, I started breathing again...

Man was that intense.

Here’s your actual proper civilized review:

Utsukushii Kare AKA My Beautiful Man (Nov-Dec 2021 - Japan), rating? 9/10

Foundational Romance Tropes: whipping boy, spoiled prince, obsessive crush

I love a sympathetic main character and Japan delivers introvert well (emo is their brand, after all). I got a bit of a Silhouette of Your Voice feel from Hira, although the premise of this show was completely different. This is a pretty classic whipping boy trope (it’s been a while my old friend).

Our POV is that weird kid who takes photos and thinks he wants to be invisible but actually just wants to be seen by one person (and belong to him). The beautiful boy who starts bossing him around is protective out the gate, having decided that this weirdo is HIS weirdo, no one ELSE can boss him around. This execution of whipping boy was a whole lot gentler than I expected, but it did pivot into attack dog half way through and I LOVED that. One of the things I like about Japanese BL is that it's not afraid of darkness, but more emo dark than Taiwan (if you I know what I mean?) Especially with their high school stuff.

Utsukushii Kare was harsh as all get up, angry with us and itself, reminding us of old tropes and archetypes long forgotten.

This is what a real entirely unreasonable tsundere looks like.

This is what a real weirdly obsessed stalker seme looks like.

This depicts the collateral that any relationship involving these archetypes causes to everyone around them.

It was exactly as weird and as messed-up as any origin manga and it was great to watch a no holds barred authentic Japanese yaoi adaptation once again. Sure this was an angsty af warped little BL, but it was entirely true to itself with no attempt made to modify its POV for modern sensibilities or international audiences. It was like seeing street fashion or modern art, no pandering, and I fucking loved it for that and for Japan (it’s one of the things Japanese cinema is best at, staying true to itself).

Clearly I have A LOT to say about this series.

Look, up until the last episode this was a solid 8/10, right there with Japan’s other 2021 offerings... and then the final ep BLEW MY MIND. I actually kinda lost it. I did not understand how they could possibly end this series well, I half expected tragedy, but this BL turned into a life lesson in how to stick a goddamn landing.

They went with Hira who just wants to be seen and Kiyoi wanting to be touched, and therefore Kiyoi desires - both literally and figuratively - to be tumbled off the pedestal Hira has placed him on. We are lead to think it’s Kiyoi who will have to change and grow, when in fact it’s Hira who has to realize his own worthiness and that his responsibility as a lover is, in part, understand the other’s needs and elevate his belief in himself in order to meet them.

There’s a grounding to this weird little BL around ideas of communication (including private couple languages) and consent and connection. It’s tackling positive ideas of sexuality meets dirtiness. There’s a reason Kiyoi keeps calling Hira disgusting as a love language. It’s because the narrative is going up against the idea that wanting, and kinkiness, and non-standard (perceived unnatural) desires are somehow less worthy or less important than other forms of love. And is that also an allegory for accepting gayness? Of course it is. (There’s a lot of reasons why there’s a strong core alliance, going back generations, between kink and queer advocacy, but that’s a different blog.)

Japan, why you gotta do us all so fantastically dirty like this?

I tend to put all my eggs in the endings basket, as a result, episode 6 alone bumped the whole thing up 9/10. I may not rewatch all of Utsukushii Kare but I have already rewatched the final ep 3x. So, yeah.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, JUST KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GETTING INTO

MOUNT A DEFENSE!

Someone who could not get past the first 3 episodes asked me to explain my love.

Challenge accepted!

ABL takes the podium, bang’s rainbow colored fist.

You have to get bully romances and the whipping boy dynamic and then make if far enough to realize this is a subversion of those tropes. For example, did you know Hira is the seme of this narrative? Oh yes.

It’s a harsh show, but that’s the point of it, it’s harsh on its characters, and it’s harsh on the viewers. Because it wants us to really think about what’s going on here, not the actions, but the emotions behind those actions. Why is Hira the way he is? Why is Kiyoi? And why does Hira never consider either?

It’s exploring different interpretations of love, kink, and power dynamics, but also loneliness, social ostracism, and isolation.

If you stopped half way through, you stopped right before the GOOD time jump.

After they part ways and Hira goes to university and grows up (away from the object of his obsession)... everything changes.

Also we get a penultimate episode entirely from Kiyoi’s perspective and after that our audience perspective also morphs.

We suddenly realize how oddly similar these two are, and how they have reacted to hostile society, queer desire, and the companion disenfranchisement in different but complementary ways.

We are suckered into thinking it's one kind of horrible narrative (stalker, obsession, advantage, and abuse). When in fact, once you're given perspective, it turns out to be something entirely different.

We’re left not thinking so much about bully versus worship, and similar tired old romance tropes, but about the emotions guiding human behavior:

What is the nature of true affection?

How can the wrong kind of love damage?

What is the meaning of the “right kind of love” when contrasted to the warped desires of an individual?

The narrative and personality twists are ALL based in character.

On a rewatch, after completely finishing it, this show will become a whole new story - you’ll never be able to unsee the inherent pain that Hira's own worship is causing him and everyone around him, particularly Kiyoi, who has been forced into a god-like celebrity role that he wanted, yes... but not from Hira. Not from a boyfriend.

It’s the ultimate emotional reveal. Like how if you know the twist of Crying Game or Flight Club or Sixth Sense it will never be the same movie it was the first time around, but Utsukushii Kare DOES THIS AS A ROMANCE.

It’s so fucking clever.

This scene the first time around: Oh, he’s an asshole.

This scene the second time around: Oh, he’s very scared and very gay.

Forcing us to understand Kiyoi’s bullying behavior, is not a shift to victim blaming. It's a dialogue around the nature of emotional responsibility and an examination of what it means to truly love someone as they are (and not as you idolize them or want them to be). In an odd way, this show is a pretty profound criticism of parasocial relationships.

The other thing about My Beautiful Man is that it’s for Japanese audiences and, somewhat accidentally I think... us. International BL & yaoi super fans. This is not a show that anyone outside the community would understand. This is not intro level BL. We don’t show this to our friends to get them intersted in the genre (unless those friends are heavily in the kink community) we show them Semantic Error.

This is the kind of BL that can ONLY come from Japan. No other BL producing country has the chops, depth, or talent to pull this off. Nor are they willing to push as hard or as dark. You have to walk the edge of the knife for this kind of story, and as a result it will cut.

It’s whether you like the pain or not.

There is a reason this show won awards, and it is ENTIRELY different from why, say, ITSAY or Semantic Error won awards. All of them are beautifully acted and filmed, but while ITSAY is about honesty in an ugly world, and Semantic Error is about perfection and ignoring all ugliness, Utsukushii Kare is about connection despite (or perhaps because of) our own ugliness.

“My Beautiful Man” is both subject and irony.

Utsukushii Kare is about embracing what is flawed, and examining that as something to be honored because it is flawed. Which means that ultimately, like all the best of the Japanese romances, it is about hope.

(source)

#spoilers #but seriously how could i be spoiling this for you?#get off tumblr and go watch this NOW #Utsukushii Kare #My Beautiful Man #japanese bl #live action yaoi #adapted from a manga #unbelievably good #best bl 2021 #i can't even

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spacerockband · 3 years

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i absolutely love the lightbringer comic! its so beautiful and well crafted in every way and i want to commend you on such a stunning work. are you going to continue it in any way or talk more about the story/characters in the future? id love to hear more from them and their story!

ah i do really want to! part of the reason i wanted to do this idea was because i had a clear story that had an ending and finishing something felt really nice, but the more i think about it the more this feels like a set up to something larger as well?

ok i hope you dont mind me going off about some of the stuff in the story rq because i am always dying to talk about it- originally i had planned for a few more pages at least! luce and B were going to meet the "serpent in the garden" (because that wasn't luce's role in this version of the myth) and the serpent was going to be the embodiment of original sin, the first angelic being that was cast out of heaven- but under wraps- where luce's banishment was much more theatrical! They were going to confront that being and their story, but it was too big and got too plot-y for this comic, and i really wanted to focus on luce, b, and their character dynamic.

I wanted to show the kiss and Luce's top surgery scars (and other trans experiences, like both of them choosing their own names) as really clear and non-subtextual queer representation, because i feel like a lot of religious allegories relies on subtext, and i didnt want to do that at all. i think it's important to show just straight up how religion impacts queer people as soon as they do something outside of what they "should" do.

there's also just a lot of anger in this comic, and taking the words straight out of homophobe's mouths and putting them into these really authoritarian angels' dialogues, and i enjoyed doing that a lot. juxtaposing the comedy of an angel that is essentially a christmas tree-topper, made of two eyes and a mouth, with some of the most insidious rhetoric christians have leveed against queer people was. very fun to do. (is that weird?) it felt powerful.

and michael is a fun villain, i loved adding him in, and i want to explore him more a lot- i have a lot of feelings about him as the kind of "rogue" agent- where the metatron can pretend to be perfect, reflected by his unmoving and holy pose, Literally perched above everyone else (are the cliffs are a part of him? maybe.) michael has no such delusions. he knows he is a bit evil, and he knows the institution is a bit evil, and i really want to see where that goes with him.

(love how im talking about these characters as if i have no control over them anymore, which is kind of true)

not to mention most stuff about lucifer has him falling with a whole cast of angels- i want to bring in maybe more of them some day, and why they fell too.

i wanna explore both luce and b so much more!! their baby relationship, their insecurities, how luce goes from this confident silly guy (oho! this comic is fun and silly! you think at first, lucifer is just a fun and silly guy!) to a terrified kid as soon as he doesn't have to put on the show anymore. how he blames himself for B getting cast out as well, how michael heavily implies that they're going to have to take on gods army together. i had a lot of fun with this story, but... yeah i have thoughts.

#OK did this. answer your question #i just like talking about them #why does michael support being evil if he knows the institution is evil #glad you asked #its a front. protect yourself by condemning others #i want to see that front crack #i want to see how luce and b handle the shitstorm #ahh #but that means i have to fucking draw it #yeah so #im working on a differnt short comic right now with a completely different spin #its in space #maybe after that i can do something?? who knows #answered ask #homophobia #christianity #cw christianity #cw homophobia

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cto10121 · 3 years

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Does R&J Play With Gender Stereotypes?

So I came across this piece of meta by @hamliet that rather intrigued me:

There’s also another layer here: the imagery Romeo uses for Juliet (the sun) and that Juliet uses for Romeo (the moon) is the inverse of how imagery was typically presented in those days. The moon was feminine; the sun, masculine. Even if we look at Romeo and Juliet’s respective character traits, Romeo is the flighty, impulsive, love-struck one who cries all the time, while Juliet is the decisive, bold, and loyal one. That’s the first thing Juliet declares to Romeo in the balcony scene: that she will always be loyal, and she shows this in every choice she makes in the story.

Let’s break this down.

“the imagery Romeo uses for Juliet (the sun) and that Juliet uses for Romeo (the moon) is the inverse of how imagery was typically presented in those days. The moon was feminine; the sun, masculine.”

Romeo does indeed call Juliet the sun, but Juliet never calls Romeo the moon—or likens him with anything symbolically feminine, come to think of it. The closest she or the play gets is a small but clear association with night: Romeo has “night’s cloak to hide me from their eyes” and Juliet implores “loving, black-browed” night to give her her Romeo. Even then it is so that he can “make the face of heaven so fine / That all the world will be in love with night / And pay no worship to the garish sun.”

Instead, Juliet consistently uses the same love language of authority as Romeo does with her, calling him her lord, husband, knight, “day-in-night,” “mansion of a love,” “god of my idolatry,” and, (my particular favorite), “tassel-gentle” or “falcon.” “Pilgrim” is the lowest social rank she uses, but of course she is following Romeo’s pilgrim-and-saints flirtation and its wink-wink bilingual allusion to his name. Romeo’s use of “sun,” then, could be viewed in the context of both lovers conferring cosmic/earthly authority, beauty, ownership, and sovereignty to each other—the Elizabethan equivalent of calling each other wife/husband. And of course they begin doing that immediately after they marry.

Even if we look at Romeo and Juliet’s respective character traits, Romeo is the flighty, impulsive, love-struck one who cries all the time, while Juliet is the decisive, bold, and loyal one.

Definitely not. Romeo is plenty decisive and bold—making the first move in wooing Juliet, climbing the orchard wall, showing himself to Juliet, immediately agreeing to marry her, nearly killing himself when he thinks Juliet might not take him back and, er, actually killing himself for her. I wouldn’t say he is impulsive, either—though he makes decisions fairly quickly, it is almost always with some deliberation beforehand (“Can I go forward when my heart is here?” “Shall I hear more or shall I speak at this?” and his monologue after Mercutio’s exit) and of course there are instances in which he restrains himself (“I am too bold” and his monologue after Mercutio’s death). The most accurate description of Romeo is that he is a risk taker—at least when he is well and truly motivated. And even then it does not rob his deliberation or even his wits.

He is also not flighty. In fact, he proves just as loyal as Juliet—as soon as he meets her, he forgets about Rosaline and leaves her clear behind. He doesn’t once waver in his conviction that Juliet is for him and makes plans to die with her (and does!). His love for Rosaline is clearly framed by the narrative as shallow, performative, and passive, and the verse bears this out. He was never in any kind of relationship with Rosaline—his love was an unrequited crush that he was at perfectly liberty to have ditched, frankly. After that, it’s Juliet, Juliet, Juliet until he dies.

Also, once more, Romeo is no crybaby. He explicitly cries a total of two times—one even before the events of the play, when he pines over Rosaline under a grove of sycamore, and another when he’s 1) seen Mercutio get mortally wounded, 2) killed Tybalt, 3) learned that he is banished from the city, and 4) mistakenly believed that Juliet no longer wants him (the Nurse’s reply is vague enough to be misinterpreted); at the very least he is devastated to have been the cause of her pain. Anyone would break down in those circumstances. Juliet herself breaks down on hearing the news and arguably is more verbally vehement than Romeo—namely, that even the words “Romeo is banishèd” are worse than if herself, Romeo, her parents, and Tybalt were dead. She ends that monologue with a passive suicide threat: “And Death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!” How anyone can argue Juliet isn’t as lovestruck as Romeo is beyond me.

What Shakespeare was most likely aiming for was showing the mutuality of R&J’s love with parallel scenes and even language. Both have chances to act strong, decisive, and bold, both show vulnerability and great emotion and passion, both are lovestruck. Both demonstrate so-called “masculine” and “feminine” traits, which is almost always culturally-and time-based, anyway. There are only a few key differences between the two—almost all of the above traits, however, they both share. It’s almost as if…Shakespeare understood that no man or woman had all masculine or all feminine traits.

Moving on to the conclusion:

In other words, Shakespeare was deliberately playing with gender and its stereotypes in the play, which gains an even more interesting layer to it when you consider that Shakespeare was himself almost certainly bisexual (his sonnets are preeeetty explicit). It’s not a patriarchal narrative; it can well be seen as a queer narrative in a patriarchal society. And it shouldn’t take two kids having to kill themselves to get society to realize how effed up it is. It isn’t an out-of-touch play, but instead one extremely relevant to our society 500+ years later.

You just opened up 200+ years of fandom wank, OP. I’ll just do a quick sum-up.

The Sonnets are a complete mess. They are contradictory as hell, there is clearly more than one persona speaking, there is evidence that Shakespeare edited and revised them, evidence they were published with his permission, quite a few sonnets are based on pre-existing sources, and, most damnably of all, none of the most likely candidates for the so-called Fair Youth and Dark Lady fit the narrative of the Sonnets perfectly or even satisfactorily—if there is even a clear narrative to these things to begin with. Sonnets were artificial works whose clichés and conventions were heavily satirized in Shakespeare’s own works—Berowne’s own rant-y sonnet swearing he would never believe in love sonnets comes most readily to mind. They were usually not meant to denote an actual real-life relationship, although there was a kind of “game” in trying to figure out which parts are true and which ones fiction. At least one sonnet sequence had a completely fictional addressee (Fulke Greville, I think).

Shakespeare’s sonnets do break a lot of these rules and conventions, and radically, and as they seem to have been compiled over many years, they lend themselves to autobiographical speculation. But, as a bit of a poet myself, I feel this: No one writes 154 sonnets—plus a whole narrative poem!—to one lover or even multiple lovers. Poetry is much less personal than laypeople think. Outside the sonnets, Shakespeare is not linked to any man romantically, and, besides his wife, only to two women (unnamed citizen’s wife and Jane Devanant).

Even if we assume Shakespeare’s bi, though, that doesn’t mean R&J is a queer narrative, which brings us to…

It’s not a patriarchal narrative; it can well be seen as a queer narrative in a patriarchal society.

A queer narrative that has its lovers express their love through the language of heterosexual marriage (husband, lord, wife, lady, pilgrim/saint), and commit suicide by a chalice-and-blade symbolism that mimics heterosexual sex (Romeo drinking a “cup” of poison and Juliet stabbing herself with Romeo’s dagger. Freud couldn’t have done it better). If Shakespeare was thinking “gay allegory!!!” he would have had to at least change or erase the symbolism (straight coding?) of the double suicide, or have Juliet attribute to Romeo explicitly feminine imagery. He would have to have done some major plot rejiggering. He would have had to, in short, change the whole story.

(Unless by “queer narrative” you mean “anything that has an emotionally constipated male lead who doesn’t growl sexily and a female lead who doesn’t cry/faint at the drop of a hat.” That’d be most every narrative, lol.)

Also, I’m hard-pressed to think of love romances that are 100% patriarchal narratives, and those that do (Casablanca, maybe?) are not really true ones, anyway. Patriarchy inherently opposes all romances of love and sex, including heterosexual. It demands that men be raised as soldiers to kill enemies, slaughtered, and discarded, and women as chattel and land to be bought and sold. Marriage was that transferral of property. Having children is necessary, not out of love and care for them, but to propagate the species and create even more future warriors and womb incubators. It grudgingly accepts only (mostly straight and like maybe 1 or 2 gay) love narratives that can be subsumed into this narrow paradigm, but the tension of interpretation is always present. Ideally, it prefers to ignore, diminish, scorn and mock, or even suppress them. I suspect most people’s problems and discomfort with R&J stem from this pathology, this deep-seated unease over anything that touches on human experience patriarchy can’t quite control or subsume.

Shakespeare was obviously no lover of patriarchy (in his personal life, though…well, it’s debatable). His plays resist it greatly to various degrees, and R&J is no exception. R&J hews much closer to the reality of heterosexual love and love in general, which are informed by, though are not inherently tied to, patriarchy (as are gay relationships, sadly). Shakespeare is just being a good writer in throwing most of that rotten apple away; it doesn’t apply to what he was trying to do, anyway. R&J’s challenge to patriarchy, though, is heterosexual in nature.

And it shouldn’t take two kids having to kill themselves to get society to realize how effed up it is. It isn’t an out-of-touch play, but instead one extremely relevant to our society 500+ years later.

True dat.

#romeo and juliet #shakespeare #cristina metas #rj meta #r&j meta #rj are just so boyxgirl op #accept it and you will find peace #repressive traditional gender roles are back in fashion it seems #the victorians couldn’t accept romeo as a man either and had him be played by an actress #but if we’re going to take our notions of gender from the victorians of all people well…

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shortnotsweet · 3 years

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The Allegory of the Tin Man, the Dictator, and the Knight: a Dissection of Ironqrow and a Character Arc of Failure

“There lived in the Land of Oz two queerly made men who were best of friends. They were so much happier when together that they were seldom apart.”

— L. Frank Baum

A brief Ironqrow meta and character analysis of James Ironwood, the ultimate screw up, in three parts.

I. Qrow and Ironwood’s Homoeroticism in Canon Source Material and its Translation

II. Ironwood’s Repressed Characterization and the Inherent Chivalry of the Dictatorship

III. Ironwood, Alone

Qrow and Ironwood’s Homoeroticism in Canon Source Material and its Translation

Within the Oz series, the Tin Man and the Scarecrow are layered within homoerotic subtext, even if it is included unintentionally. Tison Pugh’s analysis Queer Utopianism and Antisocial Eroticism in L. Frank Baum's Oz Series posits that the land of Oz as portrayed within the series is a largely asexual environment of suspended adolescence that involves the deviation of binary gender norms, and of performative heterosexuality. Pugh refers to it later as a “queer utopia”. Men are portrayed as a lesser military force to women, and heterosexuality is a flimsy presence at best; all signs of procreation within Oz are stifled. While this could be chalked down to Baum not wanting to get into the subject of sex and exploration in a children’s series, it does contribute to a particular tone with real-life critiques of capitalism and a particular deconstruction of gender norms. Ozma, who will become the ruler of Oz after the Wizard and the Scarecrow respectively, for example, is originally a boy named Tip (the name itself holds phallic implications) who is “transformed” into a girl. The strongest military force is one of all-women led by a rebellious female general. Pugh observes, “At the same time that Baum satirizes...women as leaders…he consistently depicts women as more successful soldiers than men, and female troops appear better capable of serving militarily than male troops…[the] male army comprises of twenty-six officers and one private, and they are all cowards…” and cites the Frogman’s declaration that “Girls are the fiercest soldiers of all...they are more brave than men, and they have better nerves”.

RWBY itself isn’t opposed to this kind of subversion, either in its characters or its relationships. There’s an obvious effort to include LGBTQ+ representation (albeit primarily in the background), strong female characters are prevalent and make up most of the main and supporting cast, a character’s gender is not strictly reliant on its source material, and BlackSun, while cute and a valid ship in its own right, is treated as a heterosexual red herring to Bumbleby. Additionally, there have been a lot of hints by the voice actors, writers, and creators on social media that Qrow himself is queer, the infamous Ironqrow embrace included.

Admittedly, if I wanted to write an essay about the likelihood of Qrow being LGBTQ+ or having some kind of queer identity, I would probably focus more on his relationship with Clover, which had a lot more overt and probably canonically intentional Gay Vibes, and despite having known Qrow nowhere near as long as Ironwood has, it has just as much, if not more, to extrapolate. Unfortunately, that’s not the main point of this essay, although it remains relevant. While I personally don’t doubt that Qrow has had sex with women or experiences valid sexual attraction to them, I get the feeling that it is, to a degree, a performative act and a masculine assertation of enjoyment intended as a coping mechanism. It plays into the trope of the handsome, tortured alcoholic (best exemplified, perhaps, in the MCU’s Tony Stark, Dean Winchester in Supernatural, and critiqued in the superhero episode of Rick and Morty) who sleeps around just to recall the feeling of intimacy, or because he associates sexual ‘degradation’ as a reflection of his worth. Real self-deprecating, slightly misogynistic stuff. Qrow’s recall of short skirts, as well as his brief exchange with the waitress in an earlier volume, reminds me of one specific interaction between the Scarecrow and his own love interest. Within the series, the Qrow’s source-material counterpart, the Scarecrow, has one canonical love interest, the Patchwork Girl:

“Forgive me for staring so rudely,” said the Scarecrow, “but you are the most beautiful sight my eyes have ever beheld.”

“That is a high compliment from one who is himself so beautiful,” murmured Scraps, casting down her suspender-button eyes by lowering her head.

Pugh points out that the two of them never develop this relationship further than flirtation, and heterosexuality is reduced to a “spectral presence” lacking the “erotic energy [driving] these queer narratives in their presence”. Specifically, Qrow never reveals a serious or long running heterosexual love interest - he is not the father! [of Ruby] (despite much speculation that he and Summer Rose were involved) and he and Winter never really moved past the stage of ‘hostility with just a hint of sexual tension’ - and there is no debunking of potential queerness. His interactions with Clover (deserving of an entire essay on its own) seem to support this interpretation, and is more or less a confirmation of some kind of queer inclination or identity. Again, the “queer utopia” of Oz comes at the cost of the expulsion of the sexual or the mere mention of reproduction - still, through this device, same-sex relationships gain a new kind of significance with the diminishing nature of heterosexuality. Speaking of queer narratives, the Scarecrow and the Tin Man have the most tender and prolonged relationship of perhaps all the characters in the series, exchanging a lifelong commitment:

“I shall return with my friend the Tin Woodman,” said the stuffed one seriously. “We have decided never to be parted in the future.”

Within the source material, the Tin Man and the Scarecrow voluntarily live together, and are life partners in nearly every sense of the word. The second book in the Oz series is The Tin Woodman of Oz. In summary, the Tin Woodman recalls that he had a fiancée before the events of the first book, forgot all about her, and now must search her out so that they can get married. Who does he ask to accompany him in this pursuit? None other than his no-homo life partner, the Scarecrow. Although this sounds like a stereotypical heteronormative storyline, “this utopian wonderland...rejects heterosexual procreation...First, the Tin Woodman does not desire...Nimmie Amee...” and even acknowledges that due to the ‘nature’ of the heart that the Wizard had given him, he is literally incapable of romantically or passionately loving or desiring Nimmie, and by extent, women in general - to me, that works perfectly as an allegory for a gay man who is literally incapable of experiencing legitimate heterosexual urges, but ‘soldiers on’ out of obligation and societally enforced chivalry. “The Tin Woodman excuses himself from the heteronormative imperative...Only his sense of masculine honor, rather than a heteronomratively masculine sex drive, impels the Tin Woodman on his quest to marry his long-lost fiancée.” Again, Ironwood’s character follows the lines of propriety within the sphere of the wealthy elite, and his persona as a high-ranking military man and politician, as well as the conservative values instilled within Atlas, prioritize duty and obligation. This kind of culture is stifling and in a lot of ways aloof, as the upper class deludes itself into believing that it is objectively better and more advanced than its neighboring territories. *ahem the myth of American exceptionalism ahem*

“There lived in the Land of Oz two queerly made men who were best of friends. They were so much happier when together that they were seldom apart.”

I think it’s funny that the characters that Ironwood and Qrow are based off of are canonically the closest of friends, who coexist almost as a unit. In contrast, the first introduction we get of Ironwood and Qrow is a hostile exchange where they’re at each other’s throats, never on the same page, and never in sync, not when it matters. Indeed, Qrow snaps at Ironwood for his lack of communication, which is a recurring issue between the two of them on notable occasions. If the source material is anything to go by, there should be a significant relationship between the two of them, or at least some kind of connection, even if it goes unspoken or unacknowledged. To be fair, in RWBY’s canon, I think there is.

I’ve seen this joke that while Qrow hates the Atlas military, the only people he really seems to flirt with is Atlas military personnel. “Ice Queen” is something I interpreted to be partially hostile, partially mocking, and partially flirtatious, in equal spades - the voice actors and creators have indicated that it was flirtatious, and there was a whole Chibi episode dedicated to the concept of Qrow and Winter’s extrapolated sexual tension, albeit in jest. I might argue that his use of abbreviates aren’t reserved for people he dislikes, but for people who bring out his playful side. “Brat”, “Pipsqueak”, “Firecracker”, and “Kiddos” are all drawn from a place of affection, however short or mocking it may seem, because that’s what crows do: they mock others.

Qrow has little nicknames for people; while it’s not exclusively a sign of affection, I do get the feeling that ‘Jimmy’ is an informality that irks Ironwood, but can also be interpreted as Qrow giving James what he needs, rather than what he wants.

Glynda is by no means a pushover, but in assuring him that while he does questionable things, he’s still a good person, she’s softening the blow and probably further enabling deeply rooted and pre-existing traits, many of which contribute to his problematic control complex. It is established early on that Qrow resents the military (as he should), and it is implied that he’s spent a fair amount of encounters harassing and provoking military personnel (Winter being the most evident example of this), and has insulted the military numerous times to Ironwood’s face. He lectures Ironwood about the way he conducts his operations, his inability to communicate, and basically what a complete, inconsiderate asshole he really is.

What Ironwood needs is someone who operates outside of the pretense that he works, breathes, and lives under, and just tells it like it is. Jimmy isn’t all that - he’s a person, just like the rest of us, and he can flaunt all the titles that he wants, but James stripped down is still just Jimmy.

Qrow also is the kind of person who pries, who is insistent, and not particularly sensitive. For someone like Ironwood who has a lot of (physical and emotional) barriers, logically, in order for him to receive genuine understanding, Qrow fits the profile of someone who is invasive but not exploitive, who sees past the cracks in his armor and takes him for what he is. What is just important is that whoever Ironwood is with is someone who makes him want to try not only to be better, but to be real; thematically, General Ironwood seems to have a great respect for but a deep struggle with authenticity. He clearly resents the ignorance and frivolity of Atlas’s wealthy elite, as evidenced by his support for Weiss at the dinner party in announcing that “she’s one of the only people making any sense around here”, while struggling to project the facade that he’s carefully created.

See, we don’t have evidence that there is something going on between Ironqood and Qrow so much as we have enough evidence to inconclusively say that there’s not not something going on. I think there’s enough evidence to support the idea that something could be going on, or was going on.

When Qrow saves Ironwood at the Battle of Beacon, who is under the false impression that Qrow believes him to be the culprit of the attacks, his eyes follow Qrow and we get a closer shot of his awed expression; we the viewer can only imagine what he sees as Qrow arcs through the air and slices down a Grimm from behind his back. The focus on Ironwood’s expression portrays something like shock (so Qrow wasn’t trying to attack me after all, but then what the hell is he doing?), maybe wonder (I can’t take my eyes off of him, I can’t look away), maybe respect (I know he’s a good Hunter, but I’ve rarely seen him in action), but it is unfiltered nonetheless. In a show where fight scenes are vital to the progression of the story itself, the dynamics of these fights are at their best when they are character driven, whether it is revealing or reinforcing something about the characters and their relationships, or it is deciding their fates. There’s something to be said about characters being given moments together in battles, and what that says about the significance of their relationship. The best example of this might be the battle between Blake and Yang vs Adam; it served to give Adam what he deserved, help Blake and Yang reach closure in certain aspects of their own trauma, and solidify the bond between the girls. Similarly, Qrow and Ironwood’s moment is meant to reveal a theme that will later be revisited in volume 7; trust. Ironwood is startled but not shocked when he believes that Qrow distrusts him to the degree of attacking him, and is ready to attack or defend as needed.

Qrow tells him what he needs to hear, more or less: YOU’RE A DUMBASS. Ironwood is, indeed, a dumbass. While he does extend the olive branch of trust and good will to CRWBY and co. this trust is highly conditional and proves to be, while from a place of desperation and sincerity, at least partially performative.

When Ironwood snaps, he snaps hard.

Amber’s voice actress tweeted early on, joking that Qrow has two Atlas boyfriends, and Arryn has made comments, too. It’s one of the older ships, and the crew is certainly aware of it (“...extended chest bump...”).

Kerry has stated that he finds the Ironqrow relationship interesting, and wishes it had been explored more (additionally, allegedly lobbying that Ironwood’s arm in the Ironqrow hug scene be slightly lower). I’m not saying that they’re going to both make it out alive, or canon, or even that romantic subtext was intentionally woven into the script. All I’m saying is that I think their relationship is interesting too, especially when the subtext of their source material relationship is taken into context, and the way their characters are positioned is suggestive of some sort of compatibility, even if it is a hit or miss kind of opportunity, and I have the sinking suspicion that it was missed on both accounts.

The Tin Woodman of Oz concludes,

“All this having been happily arranged, the Tin Woodman returned to his tin castle, and his chosen comrade, the Scarecrow, accompanied him on the way. The two friends were sure to pass many pleasant hours together in talking over their recent adventures, for as they neither ate nor slept they found their greatest amusement in conversation.”

Ironwood’s Repressed Characterization and the Inherent Chivalry of the Dictatorship

“I don’t give a damn about Jacque Schnee...what about the other two? Do not return to this office until you have Qrow Branwen in custody.”

“And that’s not all we’ve lost...I had Qrow in my hands, and I didn’t do what needed to be done.”

Observe: Ironwood, at this point, does not care about politics. I doubt he’s ever wanted to, or ever liked it (if his tired outburst at the dinner party is any indication) but his Knightly qualities (we’ll get to that) have, up till this point, prompted him to adhere to them for both power and etiquette. James surrounds himself in a world that he understands and despises; more than anything, he’d like to be a general, a commander, and the Knight in Shining Armor archetype, because warfare is something he understands. It is a testament to his (superhuman) willpower that he forces himself to become fluent in the language of politics, and to live and breathe in it. To clarify, Ironwood sees himself as a man who does what needs to be done; if he wants to change and control Atlas, he will have to involve himself in its politics.

Likely, his resilience has contributed to the way he views himself and what he deserves, as someone long-suffering and almost martyr-like, a silent hero doing what needs to be done. But at the moment, he’s lost his goddamn mind coming undone. He’s murdered and jailed his political dissent (and might have considered executing prisoners), but at this point, that’s all that Jacque and Robyn are to him. First he dismisses Jacque, narrows it down to the two escaped prisoners, and finally reveals what’s really on the forefront of his mind: Qrow, free and out of his hands.

[ When recalling this dialogue, please do so while imagining a bad recorder cover of the Titanic music playing over the background. Here is a sample. ]

In the most recent episode, Ironwood seems to have gone off the rails even further. The fact that Winter, his most faithful lieutenant, is losing her unshakable faith in him, says a lot about how hard he’s fallen off the deep end. In Winter’s mind, I think that she sees him almost as a surrogate father figure, or at least a patriarch who can be positively compared to Jacques in every way. The previous volumes go to lengths to compare the two as adversaries and showing James in a favorable light; Winter is in her own personal horror right now, because she is beginning to understand that Ironwood is a man who may not be her father but is just as susceptible to corruption, and may have been that kind of person all along. Skipping over the...ah, genocidal tendencies, and the fact that he’s proposing to kidnap Penny’s friends to force her to obey him and likely is starting to realize that Winter is the perfect bait (let’s just say that “Ironwood is not good with kids” is the understatement of the year) Ironwood wants Qrow back (in captivity), I think that it’s significant that while Ironwood registers that Robyn is gone as well, his first priority is Qrow, probably for two reasons. On one hand, he still refers to Qrow by his first name, instead of the formal Branwen. Of course, that doesn’t have to mean anything at all. They’re colleagues within the same age range, both members of the same secret brotherhood and similiar skill sets.

On the other hand, it reminds me of the moment when Qrow and the kids first fly into Atlas, and they see the heightened security, and Qrow mutters, “James...what have you been doing,” under his breath, sounding concerned, apprehensive. He’s not addressing the kids, he’s talking to himself; he regards James much more seriously both as a potential threat and a friend than he’d rather the other know, and I think that James’ focus on Qrow at this point is similiar, only not only is this a sign of them knowing each other well, but of Ironwood’s slipping control. He offered Qrow his trust and camaraderie, his last attempt to keep a handle on his humanity (or, his heart). Qrow, in return, withheld vital information, got close with another operative instead, then allegedly killed him and and escaped ‘rightful’ imprisonment.

The Tin Man is offering Qrow his heart, at least proof of it, and the Scarecrow [and co.] steps back to observe the situation, and assesses that no, what you are going to do is wrong, and I cannot agree with it.

Ironwood is not an objective person, as much as he wants to be. He’s angry, desperate, scared, and humiliated. Worst of all, he’s rebuffed, and he’s taking Qrow’s escape personally. First, he understands that Qrow is a threat. He’s Ozpin’s best agent, he has years of field experience, and he knows too much, probably more than James knows. Second, they have history.

My personal interpretation of Ironwood is something this:

He’s a sad, sad, lonely bitch. What Ironwood longs for, just like his source material counterpart, is a heart. He will go to any lengths to achieve this, because he believes that he has self awareness and therefore is able to check and balance himself. He treats his subordinates well, is diplomatic, skilled in a variety of trades, fighting the good fight, and longs for the affirmation that yes, he is a good person, and yes, he’s had a heart all along. He just strays from the path, and loses his way.

This is symbolically represented by his partially mechanic exoskeleton; we have no idea how far the cyborg extremities extend, or how deep, but we do get the visual notion of humanity in conflict, or a man’s soul deconstructed and split between the cold efficiency of machinery and the very real warmth of a human body. Ironwood wants to appear human, and benevolent, and genuine, and in return, loved; he is human, and he could be all of these things. If my reliance on the source material holds any merit (although I highly doubt it), then there is also a potential struggle with sexuality, (Glynda herself even explicitly and exasperatedly references a testosterone battle between Ironwood and Qrow, suggesting a regular overassertation of masculinity) and a further incentive to achieve love and subsequent acceptance.

To clarify, I do believe that there were less-than-subtle allusions to Ironwood and Glynda having a vaguely flirtatious history, taking their shared scenes and background dancing into account, but this, again, does not “debunk” the presence of queerness within a narrative; it could be an assumption of heterosexuality, or performative itself, or just not an exclusive interest. Besides, Ironwitch isn’t what this essay is about. I’m not trying to persuade or dissuade someone of the notion that Jimmy is gay, or straight, or something else, only that the potential ambiguity exists. What I do think is most important is that James doesn’t openly ward people away, not when those people aren’t under his command and are technically outside of his jurisdiction. He’s friendly with Glynda, tries to extend trust to Qrow, is kind to people in the aftermath of battle, and overall clings to diplomacy as his first weapon. He wants to be accepted, to be liked, and to be welcomed. This is not an outrageous want, nor is it uncommon. Unfortunately, Ironwood’s understanding of love and acceptance is entangled within the concept of control, and he associates unquestioned compliance with this Want.

Ironwood’s introduction into the series shows him being openly cordial, and very considerate, especially his interactions with Glynda and Ozpin. He’s a gentleman, he’s apologetic, and, as Glynda assures him, he’s a “good man”. She doesn’t really elaborate on what a “good man” is, exactly, but we might presume that a “good man” is a person with good intentions, who strives to do what’s right, regardless of his options.

Here’s the thing - one similarity between Ironwood and the Tin Man is that they both have the capacity to love, but they fool themselves into thinking that they don’t; before the Wizard gives him a ‘heart’, the Tin Man suggests that he is only kind and considerate to everyone in Oz because he believes he needs to overcompensate for what he lacks, and is therefore doubly aware of how he treats others. However, the Wizard knows no real magic, only tricks and illusions, and what he gives the Tin Man is essentially a placebo that enables the Tin Man to act towards and feel about others the exact same as he always had, only with the validation that what he feels is authentic. Similarly, Ironwood has always had the option to be empathetic and not fucking crazy open to collaboration, which he’s very aware of, until his own paranoia cuts into his rationality and compels him to cut himself off from all allies and alternative perspectives. He then uses his difficult position and responsibilities to justify unjustifiable actions, to rationalize irrational urges, and to gaslight and brainwash his subordinates into compliance.

The Tin Woodman knew very well he had no heart, and therefore he took great care never to be cruel or unkind to anything.

“You people with hearts,” he said, “have something to guide you, and need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so I must be very careful. When Oz gives me a heart of course I needn’t mind so much.”

Qrow sees through this, however, and not only seems incapable of following orders himself, but disrupts the decorum that Ironwood is used to. In return, I think we see a little more of James that he’d like to reveal.

“If you were one of my men, I’d have you shot!”

“If I was one of your men, I’d shoot myself!”

In case this entire ass essay doesn’t make it obvious, I do really ship Ironqrow. I’m open to other pairings, definitely, but this one in particular is just more interesting to me. It feels more revealing, more subtle. I have more questions.

In hindsight, maybe the dialogue example above ^ didn’t age well, considering where they’re at, but I do like how their professional animosity is flavored with a kind of camaraderie, and understanding. This exchange isn’t exactly playful, but they’re taking each other seriously - and, like repressed schoolboys, taking the piss at each other in a childish way, and isn’t that part of the fun of banter, when they’re so focused on each other that they forget to act their age? In a lot of ways, this is a really fun dynamic to watch. They’re opposite-kind-of-people, which I like, at least on a superficial level, and I can easily imagine them tempering each other in ways that would make them ultimately happier people.

They even look well-coordinated, with similar color schemes that lean on the opposite sides of the shared spectrum (white, grays, reds and black); I think the decorative design on Qrow’s new sleeves are supposed to be more ornate simply to communicate that Qrow is committed, and willing to be sentimental, but some viewers have suggested that it resembles the pattern on James’ weapon, Due Process (the revolver is based off of the Tin Man’s pistol, although, curiously, in The Wizard of Oz, the Scarecrow was the only character to carry a pistol, and the commentaries suggest that the 2007 Tin Man miniseries was the “basis of the allusion”. Does that mean anything? I don’t know. Probably not.). Still, it raises the questions: who was in charge of designing the team’s new clothes and gear? How much input did Atlas get, and was this intentional? Personally, I think that the vine-like pattern on Qrow’s sleeves also bear a resemblance to Ozpin’s staff, a subtle reaffirmation and foreshadowing of his allegiance in contrast to Ironwood, but I digress.

They can also deliver that UST kind of banter that takes up their attention, and get up really close to each other, in each other’s faces, and just be pissed, which I think is very sexy of them, mhm. Enemies to Colleagues to Reluctant Friends to Lovers is a trope that I very much appreciate. Gaining some sort of common ground at the Battle of Beacon only to reunite, tired and battered, after the shit has already hit the fan? Slow burn kinda vibes.

That hug between them was something genuinely vulnerable and a sign of Ironwood letting his guard down because he is tired as fuck. It also was uh...kinda fruity.

Ironwood approaches closer, and Qrow scratches the back of his head, a characteristically nervous gesture that he’s made before; it’s a nervous twitch, manufactured nonchalance. He has no idea what Ironwood wants, but he does know that Ironwood wants something. James is the one to initiate the hug, and Qrow startles and even freezes up before relaxing into it. He seems suprised, but gives the bisexual eye roll of grudging fondness. This is out of character for James - Jimmy - but Qrow doesn’t think that Ironwood is a bad person. He leans into the hug, and the camera cuts out before they separate, suggesting that they probably end up standing there for a long ass time. You can also see from the side shots that it’s a close hug; their torsos are pressed up against each other, front to front, and there’s not a lot of wiggle room. James must be really goddamn depressed. It’s a long, manly, intensley heterosexual hug. Like I said, kinda fruity.

Other people have analyzed the hug shot for shot, so I won’t get too into it, but I think that it was intentionally left as a double red herring; some people thought that maybe he bugged Qrow, and after finding out that he didn’t, we were forced to conclude that this is a genuine olive branch. To find out that Ironwood is sincere but was still susceptible to corruption is that second subversion that I didn’t really expect. I hadn’t prepared myself for it, at least, and neither did Qrow. I wouldn’t go as far to say that Ironwood’s descent into fucking craziness paranoia is triggered by Qrow not ‘reciprocating’ or something, but I do think it’s interesting how the volume opens up with a signifigant interaction between Ironwood and Qrow, only for Qrow to spend the rest of the volume homosexually bonding with Clover, while Ironwood basically has no one as emotional support (again, his subordinates do not have the power or the place to be viewed as equals and the veil of formality is one of isolation). Qrow initiates nothing further, and nothing further happens.

Ironwood’s downfall, in a thematic sense, is that what he Needs is a heart, and when he gets that chance to demonstrate tolerance and empathy, James ultimately rejects his Need (a heart) and his arc reverts into one of villainy. To be specific, Ironwood is essentially a fascist dick, and that is not very sexy. (Speaking of dicks, the thought of Ironwood’s dick makes me laugh. I bet in the RWBY universe, people have made memes about that. I do not accept criticism because I am correct. Anyway,).

Dictators are charming, charismatic, and one of the pillars of their method is absorbing potential political opponents into their own administration to reduce the threat of rebellion, to appear openly tolerant to their supporters, and to further consolidate power. A good example of this would be Mean Girls, which runs on a comedic commentary of dictatorships as a political structure of power. I hate to compare James Ironwood to Regina George, but Regina’s posse includes Karen and Gretchen, two of the only girls who might take away from the authority she holds over the rest of their school, both in their wealth and attractiveness, and Cady’s interesting backstory and conventional attractiveness is the main reason Regina draws her into her own sphere - because she detects a potential threat. Much in the same way, while Ironwood likely has good intentions, his efforts to win over team RWBY and co. - including Qrow himself - is a logical way to consolidate resources. His willingness, at first, to cooperate with political opponents (ie Robyn) is because he’s not inherently evil, and he has nothing to lose. It’s when he is openly opposed and diplomatic gestures no longer hold the necessary weight that he snaps.

In one really interesting meta about Ironqrow’s archetypes (that I reread occasionally just because I really love it), @onewomancitadel posits that Ironwood is framed within the archetype of the Knight in Shining Armor, which should inform us of the moral consistency of his character. The meta was written around the beginning of volume 7, I think, and obviously we have a lot more character development and information to go off of now, but I think she makes a really interesting point about the nature of parallels and how that might help drive Ironwood as a character. I love her analysis of the visual of Ironwood stepping out of an airship wreckage, onto the street, the smoke billowing around him to reveal his cyborg prosthetics, and of the intentional framing. Once his uniform is stripped back, we see a man who is literally half-armor, which could be indicative of a lot of things. He’s emotionally guarded, he’s used as a human weapon, and he wants to be a line of defense. In her words, “The symbolism is really obviously put into perspective of his actions in trying to do the right thing: in the flesh (his true physical self) he is literally a knight in shining armour. From the ground up. Even if it's unseen or distorted by his uniform, his nature is still true.”

While Ironwood clearly has gone down a darker path in the most recent volume, I think this analysis holds true in a crucial way. “Ironwood is working with different information, and he’s doing exactly what he knows: stick to his knightly virtues, even disgraced.” Disgraced, indeed. Ironwood is holding onto his knightly values, and doing what he believes is right. If not right, he believes that it is necessary. The problem is that these values are manifested within Atlas’s sociopolitical-military culture in an inherently toxic way - his response is, at this point, neither rational nor empathetic, but it can be explained partially due to his cultural (flawed) understanding of justice, and because of the extenuating circumstances. The harsher the conditions become, the more difficult it is for anyone to project a facade that is not sincere at its core. If James is to uphold his Knightly virtues, he needs to be a protector, a leader, and a servant all at once while operating under limited intel with dwindling trust. All he has left are the few key players still in his grasp, and the control of the people he is responsible for.

To digress: generally, knights take an oath. It could be to a King, or Lord, or some noble, but Knights are supposed to operate on a code of honor, and chivalry, and to uphold these values throughout the land as an extension of whoever they have pledged themselves to. The story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a really good example of the way that, back in the day, chivalry and honor was supposed to place knights on a moral high ground compared to the common people.

In the middle of a celebration in Camelot, an obligatory tradition that has since lost real value but is rehearsed because Camelot fears that failure to uphold traditions that once had meaning is disrespectful, a Green Knight interrupts the celebrations and offers a strange challenge that boils down to a fight to the death. Gawain volunteers because accepting this challenge is what is expected of him, and Arthur would be humiliated if his knights, supposedly the best in the world, would not rise to the challenge. Gawain - and to a certain extent, the rest of Arthur’s knights - are fickle, in a sense, because their adherence to this code is performative, and it allows them to delude themselves into moral superiority and lie both to the commoners and amongst themselves; their identity as knights is based on a falsehood. Gawain is offered the first blow, and after beheading the Green newcomer, is horrified to see him become reanimated and immune to mortal blows. He invites Gawain to receive his own - likely fatal - blow, and gives him a time in which to meet, before promptly leaving.

Throughout the story, Gawain is tested in a variety of ways - in his final test, he fails, and allows his greed for self preservation and the fear of death to lead him to lie to his hosts and proceed to his meeting with the Green Knight under dishonest pretenses. While he is spared at the last second and becomes a better person (after it is revealed that Morgan le Fay orchestrated the ordeal to spook Queen Guinevere) - and by extent, a truer Knight, by the end of the story, the superficial and hypocritical nature of Arthur’s court is still in question, and still unanswered.

See, the entirety of Gawain’s trials was a test, not necessarily for him, but for Arthur and his court as a whole. Morgan wanted to prove the fickle nature of Arthur’s knights. The Knights of the Round Table were considered the best in the land, and to discredit one was to discredit all. What use is tradition if the meaning is empty, what use is chivalry if it is performed for reward instead of merit, and what use is loyalty if it is blind and unearned? Returning to Oz, the Tin Woodman, or Tin Man, grew to be made of tin because his axe became enchanted by the Wicked Witch of the East to sever his own body parts instead of the lumber he tried to cut down. A nearby tinsmith replaced each amputated limb with one of metal, until his entire body became tin and his meat body had been entirely discarded. Something to note is that Nick Chopper’s, (General Ironwood’s) wounds are technically self-inflicted. Each time he swung his axe, he made the decision to continue, knowing of the end result each time. In losing his bodily functions, the Tin Man believed that he had lost his humanity and ability to love.

The tragedy of his origin story draws a pointed correlation to Ironwood’s current dilemma; his unwillingness to stop, his self-imposed isolation, playing into the hands of the witch, and finally, the decision to let go of his ability to love remain consistent throughout both stories.

Watts even refers to Ironwood as a “Tin Solider”; a reference to the Tin (Woods)Man, no doubt, but could also evoke a soldier clanking around in metal armor. Ironwood is a Knight in Shining Armor, through and through. He wants to save the world, but at the terrible cost of civilian autonomy and possibly life. The problem is that he’s pledged himself to a discriminatory and hypocritical system, and his code is something that can easily be misconstrued by fear ( @disregardcanon ), much as Gawain’s own values. The Tin Man is, after all, still a man, and if we’ve learned anything from real fairytales, it is that men are fallible, whether or not they are made of metal.

Ironwood, Alone

he’s a lonely bitch

I know I f- up, I'm just a loser

Shouldn't be with ya, guess I'm a quitter

While you're out there drinkin', I'm just here thinkin'

'Bout where I should've been

I've been lonely, mm, ah, yeah

— Benee, Supalonely (2019)

You do get the sense that Ironwood is riddled with self-loathing conflicting with pride, with self-doubt clashing with competence, and that he is the kind of person who longs for things without verbalizing. Maybe his dad never paid enough attention to him as a kid. Maybe he suffered some terrible physical and emotional trauma, which might as well be assumed, given the extensive nature of his cybernetic limbs. Maybe (probably) he’d be more well-adjusted and would’ve made better decisions if the people around him trusted him and were a little more open. To be fair, though, he is the one at the wheel, and he is making the calls; no one else is to blame for his mistakes, and to pretend otherwise is to deny him accountability. I think we do enough of that in everyday life, in excusing powerful men of their responsibilities. To his credit, I do think he wants to help people. I think James also wants to project the personality of a leader who is stoic, controlled, and measured. He is charming when he wants to be, sympathetic when it suits him, and influential in just the right areas. He is not a sociopath, but he is a politician, and in a lot of ways, those are the same thing. We see in his brief flashes of temper, often prompted by Qrow, or most notably by Oscar, that this is not a calm, stable person. This is someone is on the verge of exploding, who is so fucking angry that he is not in control that it’s killing him, and so he is going to lash out and kill the things that are not within his grip. If the people beneath him will not reciprocate the heart that he offers, then he has no real use of it. James Ironwood does not begin this story as a bad person. This is a tragedy, in however many parts it takes.

I read, in one very smart and very put-together analysis that I cannot find and properly credit at the moment, that part of Ironwood’s (many) failures can be seen in Winter, and how, like Ozpin, he has appointed a woman as his talented, no-nonsense, second chain in command at his right hand. In this way, Winter is an intentional parallel to Glynda, who is, without question, a bad bitch. In theory, surrounding yourself with strong individuals is a demonstration of self restraint, in implementing your own checks and balances. James wants to project that he is powerful, yes, but he is reasonable.

I take this to mean that, to some degree, even if it’s unintentional or subconscious, Winter serves to boost Ironwood’s ego.

The issue with this is that within the inherently hierarchical structure of the military, Winter cannot question, undermine, or challenge Ironwood in a way that is particularly meaningful and their relationship is one of commander and subordinate before colleagues or equals (link to a fantastic post about Winter’s role as the Good, Conscientious Soldier by @fishyfod). Whereas Glynda is free to argue with, converse, and be as combative as she needs to be with Ozpin (although their power dynamic is arguably one of commander and subordinate albeit informally), Winter cannot temper Ironwood effectively, and through the illusion of equality, Ironwood is further isolated.

His head and arms and legs were jointed upon his body, but he stood perfectly motionless, as if he could not stir at all.

Dorothy looked at him in amazement, and so did the Scarecrow, while Toto barked sharply and made a snap at the tin legs, which hurt his teeth.

“Did you groan?” asked Dorothy.

“Yes,” answered the tin man, “I did. I’ve been groaning for more than a year, and no one has ever heard me before or come to help me.”

The Tin Man needs oil to lubricate his joints; without it, he cannot move, and he is rendered helpless and inanimate. When Dorothy and the group find him, he is entirely isolated with no one in sight, and he has been there for such a long time that he has begun to rust. Similarly, Ironwood needs valued voices of dissent to keep him in check. His colleagues were able to serve that purpose in the beginning, and out of them, Qrow is the best example of someone who doesn't take his shit, openly questions him, and looks down on the performative decorum of the military culture that Ironwood is surrounded by. What Ironwood needs is to be flexible and adaptable; his Semblance, Mettle (heh, metal, very nice pun, RoosterTeeth), is a double edged sword in that it gives him supernatural focus and willpower - enough, perhaps, to flay/chop off your own limbs - but it blindsides him, and is only further prolonging his pain.

There is a lot of sympathy to Ironwood’s character, as much as I’ve ragged on him for being an authoritarian, kind of a dick, and bad with kids. There are moments, such as the previously mentioned dinner party, where he shows his colors a bit, and when he assures the students at the Vytal Festival that there’s no shame in leaving before the battle begins, and in giving Yang a prosthetic arm before her father even has to ask. As far as Generals go, it seems that he’s seen soldiers come and go and understands, at least in his best moments, that not everyone is the same, and not everyone has power of unflinching determination to rely on. Ironwood performs his best when he tempers himself because he understands himself, and others. It’s when he fails to self-reflect that his hypocrisy shows through. Glynda points it out, too, as does Qrow; Ironwood advocates for trust but often fails to give it himself, going behind Ozpin’s back, being absolutely shit at field communication, and now the whole fascist, borderline-genocidal keruffle he’s gotten himself into.

I think that Ironwood reaching out to Qrow was his ethical last stand, his last chance and conscious effort to choose the right path. Qrow is unequivocally an equal, not like how Ozpin is the Big Boss, the authority that James becomes disillusioned with and tries to overthrow. He wants someone to trust, desperately so, and Qrow wants that too, but narrative subversion has hands. The Scarecrow and the Tin Man have no brain and heart respectively, and are in need of them. As it turns out, Qrow is actually a pragmatic guy with solid principles angled against authoritarianism, and Ironwood is a dick who would rather enforce martial law than to empathize and tame his military-shaped boner for one second.

I might conclude that someone like Qrow might be best for Ironwood, but that does not mean that someone like Ironwood would be the best for Qrow. Qrow has a brain after all, but Ironwood does not choose his heart when it matters, case in point. Even the intro of the current season features Salem and Ironwood on a chessboard; his white pieces are disappearing, dissolving into dust, as hers transform into Grimm. Ironwood is isolating himself by depleting himself of allies. As this post by @hadesisqueer points out, Ironwood isn’t even positioned as King, the supposed commander, but the Queen, the most versatile player on the board that is so far underused, since he hasn’t moved from his spot. Ironwood’s refusal to unify against Salem is his failure to strategically utilize the best resources that were available to him; soon, the pieces will be swallowed by the dark.

James is guilty of something that a lot of us are guilty of: doing a Bad Thing for what we have convinced ourselves is a Good Reason, when in reality, it is actually a lot of Very Bad Reasons. James Ironwood is a Knight archetype, through and through, and he is charging forward to do the right thing. He is afraid, he is lying to himself, and he will never surrender.

“All the same,” said the Scarecrow, “I shall ask for brains instead of a heart; for a fool would not know what to do with a heart if he had one.”

“I shall take the heart,” returned the Tin Woodman; “for brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world.”

Dorothy did not say anything, for she was puzzled to know which of her two friends was right, and she decided if she could only get back to Kansas and Aunt Em, it did not matter so much whether the Woodman had no brains and the Scarecrow no heart, or each got what he wanted.

The lesson of James Ironwood is a lesson of failure, and of the way that we succumb to fear, because that is Salem’s agenda, really, in the end: fear. It’s the negative emotions, fear being first and foremost, that draw in and empower the Grimm, and it’s fear and uncertainty that causes chaos. It is when Dorothy’s friends give into their fear that they are truly defeated. FDR’s assertion that “The only thing to fear is fear itself” holds true here; it’s not so much that these characters are afraid of losing their lives, their loved ones, and of the dark, but that they do not have the love or the resources to be brave for themselves or for others.

Qrow as a character is introduced as one who is already defeated, in a sense. Half of his team is gone, dead or estranged, he’s forced into the shadows of espionage to protect a world he knows is darker than it should be, and he’s fighting a losing battle with alcoholism. As charismatic as he’s written, he’s referred to as a “dusty old crow”, a hunter of renowned skill but past the prime of his life.

Dorothy’s three titular companions are defined by what they lack; in the same vein of the Disney I Want song (a main character’s main monologue song in which their wants and desires that motivate them throughout the rest of the film is laid out in song; ie Part of Your World, Reflections, How Far I’ll Go), the Lion, Tin Man, and the Scarecrow want bravery, a heart, and a brain respectively. RWBY relies on flipping the script of its characters based on what the audience might expect from the source material; Ruby is not just a helpless little girl - her introduction is a badass with a scythe. The Scarecrow is a chronic alchoholic. Cinderella is a victim of abuse, and is also a villain who wants to set the world aflame. Subversion, subversion, subversion.

There are obviously parallels between the characters in RWBY and in their own fairytales to keep them in character, and part of the fun is spotting those clues and occasionally connecting the dots to anticipate the direction of the narrative and certain connections between characters and the significance of their arcs. While I’m not aware of Dorothy Gale’s RWBY counterpart, if she has already been established or is yet to be introduced, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that Ruby has adopted a Dorothy-eque persona and can act as a surrogate in a way. She begins as a sweet, naive child eager to join a world of color and excitement, who initially believes that she has “normal knees” and is thrust into a political scheme full of powerful and older players. She even has a small dog as a companion, Toto Zwei, who seems like an odd addition, since he’s usually sidelined and basically forgotten about except in a few spare moments, unless he’s there to draw further comparisons to Dorothy. She may not be from Kansas, but she is first helped by Glynda (the Good Witch), and later expects assistance from Ozpin, Qrow, and the later Ozian counterparts. I find it a peculiar detail that for Ruby to be Little Red Riding Hood alone, she is surrounded specifically by Dorothy’s companions. This, of course, only increases the importance of the relevance of the Oz series in particular and the characters that are borrowed.

In the case of Ozpin’s inner circle, Dorothy’s closest comrades (sans Toto) differ in crucial ways to their source material. (After finishing this essay, I found a much better, condensed explanation by @neopoliitan )

Disillusioned by the Ozpin, the Wizard (who has been projecting an illusion of a failsafe) and overwhelmed by the rise of the Wicked Witch of the West, Lionhart (the Lion), gives into his cowardice and ultimately forgoes the arc and redemption of his character from the source material; as such, he is by all definitions, a failure and a premonition, as Ironwood eventually follows. If RWBY is a dark take on classic fairytales, then it is only fitting that these characters are charred husks of their fairytale selves - these are people, and some people are selfish, scared, and cowardly, and they do not overcome these traits.

This is all opinion based, pure speculation. I have no idea what will happen in the next episode, and whatever goes down will be...shit will hit the fan. I’m under no delusions that Ironqrow is going to be canon in a healthy, tender, endgame sense. They’re both kind of losing their minds, and Ironwood is shitting absolute bricks. No, they’re going to try to kill each other, and I personally cannot wait for Qrow to cleave this man in two. (Not sexually, just, literally. Like, with a scythe.)

On that note, I think that the RWBY writers are good at callbacks, at drawing attention to their own connections, and if Ironwood and Qrow’s inevitable confrontation is scheduled, then it will include visual callbacks to Qrow saving James at Beacon, maybe shot for shot. Their visuals have only gotten better as time goes on, and I imagine Ironwood’s eyes widening as Qrow leaps through the air, scythe drawn, in recal of a moment so long ago when they weren’t on the same page, but they were at least on the same side. When Qrow brings the blade down, there will be no enemy behind him. Only Jimmy James. The difference between the two of them will be that Qrow isn’t fighting out of fear, but out of love, for what happened to Clover, and to what could happen to his girls.

Qrow’s reliance on alcohol, as well as his (mostly) feigned nonchalance is meant to fit with the motif that the Scarecrow has no brain, and, had he a mind to desire anything, would desire it most of all. His role is, also, notably, gathering intelligence for Ozpin (his character is also based on Munnin from Norse mythology). There is so much about Qrow that is an act and so much that is not, and I think that this act is born both from this motif and from his own cynicism, and the alcohol contributes to this act. However, he eventually gets sober after Ruby expresses legitimate frustration, and he understands that he’s putting their lives at risk. While one could say that he gave up drinking for the kids, I would argue that the kids - Ruby in particular - made him want to give up drinking for himself, to better himself.

While Lionhart and Ironwood betray the people depending on them, Qrow’s love for his nieces (and for the kids) allows him to deviate from this pattern. The answer to fear is perhaps not merely bravery - Qrow’s triumph is love.

Ironwood knows triumph in the context of a military state, but he’s backed himself into a corner. Soon he will find himself alone and friendless. Hopefully, his last stand will not be in vain.

#ironqrow #james ironwood #qrow branwen #rwby #rwby8 spoilers #rwby volume 8 #rwby meta #ok this is all just based on my opinion ok #like i ship ironqrow but ironwood is a dicktator if u know what i mean #he is probably gonna die but anyway #ironqrow meta #winter schnee #snowbird #also includes links and credit to other posts and metas #I just had to get this off of my chest ok

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meyhew · 4 years

Text

u know 10 months in and im still bitter about how stunningly hshq failed to utilize eroda to its full potential. we all know it was a unique idea but really.... they put SO Much Thought into the website and leaving clues for us to piece together, they set up everything so perfectly, attracted a ridiculous amount of attention to the whole thing before it was even confirmed like every corner of the internet was trying to figure it out and then they gave us such a beautiful allegory abt the queer experience that could also be applied to other aspects of life. put aside the fact that a lot of it was larry-centered — like yeah that was a fun lil plus but even without it the whole concept was so... good. the whole world and its bizarre superstitions were mesmerizing and they should have used it to campaign for the grammys somehow — just like they should’ve used lights up (the director’s cut). but no. i get to see eroda tweeting stupid meaningless shit and all i hear is a song abt watermelons that taste like strawberries 😐 i didnt even get good eroda merch like what was the POINT OF ALL THAT

#im mad im MAD im sick of hearing ws on the radio can it be OVERRRRRR #seedpost

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