#but idk. things are still rough at times & being queer at all where i live is rough as it is. but sometimes i remember that i'm a dyke and

[avallachs]

not to be gay on main without prompting (+maybe it's the wine talking) but wow i love being a lesbian. so much. it's so comfortable. it's such a nice word. i love getting to apply it to myself. it makes me so happy

#ophelia.txt #idk. it's been a little over a year now since i realised i'm a lesbian and i have never felt more comfortable with myself #i've known since i was 11-12 that i liked women & it was hard to let go of the bi label even when i was ready to accept that i wasn't #but idk. things are still rough at times & being queer at all where i live is rough as it is. but sometimes i remember that i'm a dyke and #am just overcome w so much joy. i love being a lesbian!!!!!!!!

[saintjosie]

I'm gonna jump in the discourse lol, I don't pass as a trans woman and I don't think I'll care to. But demilypyro was advocating for living as your best self, she happens to be in a country that funded her transition? But other than that she's like poor too. Idk it feels like everyone's just looking for trouble because she was responding to hate with snark

okay people really don’t get this so i’m gonna tell y’all a story. my story.

i’m a trans woman with a fuckload of privilege. i’m pretty, i’m passing, and i have a platform, but most importantly, i had the privilege of starting my transition when i was financially stable on my own in largely supportive environments. and i recognize these things now but i didn’t always.

i started my transition in may of 2020, during the height of lockdown. and at that time, i was working a cushy corporate salaried desk job with full benefits which included both therapy and gender affirming care. i got on hrt quickly, and because of good genes, because masculine asian features are regarded as feminine in western beauty standards, because i’m really fucking good at makeup, and because i was working from home and there was no where to go, i was able to stop boymoding by october of 2020, about 6 months after i started hrt.

and then around that same time, i had another stroke of luck. i made a tiktok about coming out at work, which i did in the most extra way imaginable, and that tiktok went viral. it got 300k views and overnight i went from having 150 followers on tiktok to several thousand. and a less than a year later, that grew to 100k.

that year was rough as hell. i transitioned during a time where going out into the world to find community was impossible. and i lost my job. and i got divorced. and i cut out my family. and because of all of that, i felt like i was doing better than a lot of other trans people. cause i was facing hardships and still doing incredible.

but even so, i was longing for community that would validate and accept me the way that i was validated and accepted online. and so over the next year, i moved across the country three times, something i was able to do only because i was able to afford it

during that year i finally started to get out and meet queer people as the pandemic slowed down. and as i connected with queer and trans people in varying stages on their own journey, i realized the enormous privilege of being able to transition, afford therapy, afford my meds, afford moving to a place where i could find community. i wasn’t just “better at being trans”, i was just luckier than most.

being able to accept being trans is so dependent on having the support structure around you to process what you are feeling. being able to socially transition is dependent on having the people around you who will accept your identity and being in a place where you are able to do so safely. being able to medically transition is dependent on having the physical health and financial stability to do so.

privilege is something that needs to be constantly dismantled within our community because privilege is the main weapon that is used to oppress us.

the fact that this demily person made a snide sarcastic comment doesn’t change the fact that she sought out a person without a following to shit on someone without a following. the inherent privilege of saying something like, “i’m better at being trans” even if she didn’t mean it seriously, shows that she doesn’t recognize the privilege of being in a place where you can learn to accept yourself.

and on top of all that because she’s a person with a following and a platform, the danger of that kind of thinking compounds and is worth calling out.

i’m not misunderstanding her intentions or the context.

you are misunderstanding privilege.

[unbidden-yidden]

how are the Hanukkah preps going for u ?? do u feel safe enough to share what it’s like in the diaspora ?? (im super curious to see what it’s like outside of israel !!)

Hi there! An early chag sameach! 😊

So I can only really speak for my area, but so far so good on the "being visibly Jewish in my area" thing. My situation is weird, in that I live in a rather blue (liberal) big city that happens to be in a deep red (very conservative) state. As a queer/trans person and reproductive rights advocate, it's been rough and feels like a powder keg waiting to explode. My queer/trans spouse and I may need to flee the state if things get worse for somewhere more liberal overall (and hopefully not violently antisemitic) but we'll see what happens.

As a person who dresses visibly Jewish though, it's been reasonably fine so far? I haven't wandered onto the liberal campus area since 7/10 and I imagine that would be a lot different of an experience. We have all gathered as a community several times since 7/10 in order to express our grief and prayers and advocate for the US to help Israel recover the hostages. On 10/10, I gathered with the local frum community to daven tehillim and so far that has been my favorite gathering/the one I felt most comfortable at. It was very focused on our grief for our brothers and sisters and siblings in Israel who were killed and captured, and davening for a swift and just resolution. I also attended a much larger community-wide event some days later that was a lot more nationalistic, but at least it was still focused on the human concern. There was another community event I went to at the shloshim mark, and it was a lot more organized (for obvious reasons) but vibed a lot more like it was geared towards the kind of liberal Jew that actively wants the American flag and the Israeli flag on the bimah (idk if that makes sense to you, but it's a very specific Vibe™️ of Jew here.) I could not go to the march in D.C. but people in my community were strongly encouraged to go if they were able.

There have been several talking groups, Peace-oriented Shabbatot, and pro-Palestinian protests happening as well. The first two seem to be going well, but I have no idea about the last one, as the rhetoric from that leadership has become very antisemitic so I have not engaged them at all. I have been able to avoid them in public. Most recently, there was a pro-Israel protest that was supposed to be focused on the captives, but enough people couldn't stay on message that I considered leaving and am still a little conflicted about if I should have. That was the first time I've seen counter-protesting, and it was just one guy yelling a lot of offensive and antisemitic things. There's another rally coming up that I suspect will result in some kind of confrontation or violence because it's right near campus and it's organized by the same people who couldn't stay on message. It's also in an area where there are a lot of cops and has historically been used to kettle protesters. I am more worried about the counter-protesters to be honest, but I also think that if it turns violent it would likely be started by them. I really hope I'm wrong and everything remains peaceful in its protest.

I have yet to find a local group that is analogous to Standing Together, which is unfortunate, because that's effectively my position. I am hopeful I will find the other people that are deeply invested in the safety and freedom of the people of Gaza as well as Israelis.

So in light of that backdrop, it's shocking normal. Chanukah is going forward as usual - if anything with even more vigor than normal. Large, public, annual events are still happening and so far seem well-attended and there has not been harassment. We will see if that continues. I am planning on eating latkes with many a creative topping and proudly displaying my menorah in the window. I plan on going to some of the large public events (Chabad does several of them, but so does the broader community) dressed as I normally do and I refuse to be intimidated. So far I have thankfully not been given a reason to be.

B'ezrat Hashem that continues, and that we all see a just and peaceful resolution to the war soon.

[distant--shadow]

I don’t know how to reconcile my love for Imodna and my fear that they’re going to not be end game… which is causing me a fear of purchasing artworks. Do you have any advice?

I’m afraid I’ll do it, hang it, love it and be completely heartbroken and want/need to take it down. OR, they do end up together, I don’t buy the art and then the art won’t be available that long down the line. I have stress and fear..

Sorry if this is dumb

hey there! first off, it ain't dumb. I know I freak out a little bit at the reality of when this campaign will be over, and I was the same with c2, jester was my character of all time and I had been watching live since the first episode aired, it's a lot of time to spend with a character/characters and real understandable to feel that way. it's always bittersweet, but life moves on

and I guess that's it, you have to enjoy what you enjoy whilst you have it. this is a show that's a lot like life, in that your favourite character could easily die one week without much rhyme or reason, no scripted foreshadowed build up. so give yourself to enjoying that thing whilst its here, share that enjoyment with others, and know that in the future there won't be an empty void - there will be something else.

speaking from the point of view of an artist, yeah, of course I think any of us would really appreciate the support, it's rough times, and once again, i can say from experience it's real nice to have that artwork there to see whilst you care about it. enriched environment and all that. and it's hard to say who's enthusiasm will stay, whether the couple is still together in canon or not, or once the show is over. I'm not someone who dabbles in more than one fandom at a time and this is the most I've committed myself to one, personally, but also personally, I'm a slutty aromantic so like whilst I do really care for imodna as a ship and all of that, it's kinda always been Imogen first for me. a whole lot of us were invested in them as a couple before it happened, I'm sure a lot of us would have been invested in it regardless, and we can still love what we were given either way. I love the story of it, I think for me the bump in the road makes it even more interesting, and something we haven't really been given by a CR romance during the campaign before (maybe we had in c1 idk I didn't watch it)

also, getting personal again, I'm also old enough to be of a generation where there wasn't a lot of queer rep. there was a lot of settling for subtle glances and heavy subtext. what we've had already has been so good, I really enjoy it, I love that we're already passed a time of like, well we don't have a lot of queer rep so everything we do has to be all lawful good alligned flowers and smiles and basically rebranded heteronormative fairytale romance but with coming-out grief, it's so far from beauyasha baybeeeee endgame and honestly for me that's perfect. these two have always had great charisma acting together and I love the layers and complexities we get from these two particular characters working out being in a romantic relationship with the burdens they carry, those years they had together before the campaign started and all of that ground we can play with, how they saved eachother...

have fun, try not to stress about being legitimised by others, enjoy your corners of fandom and fic and art and meta and interactions and your own conclusions and attractions and relations. take all the joy you can from the little things in life. make them as big as you want them to be.

[macarensesangles]

rant about het shit under the cut ig

part of me wants to stop being SUCH a hater about these fics ive read btw like. im beginning to realize a lot of this is ocd, but when something gets me irritated or angry it's difficult for me to leave it alone in that like, if i don't continue to engage with it (effectively doomscroll 90% of the time) i experience this mounting anxiety until i satisfy the compulsion to Continue Looking At It. i could not really tell you why i feel this way. but it sucks. bc i get stuck in these loops of like staring at writing that makes me mad or authors' social media that makes me mad and it's like, Why am i doing this this is deranged and weird (the compulsions is why).

i think part of why it gets to me so much is like. maybe this sounds silly but bc so many of the people i interact with are also queer and very conscious about heteronormativity i am very comfortable a lot of the time. and i've had decent luck in being involved in hobby activities and fandoms that are similar; selfshippers are overwhelmingly lgbt, FL as a source material is very queer-positive and thus so are many fans, etc etc.

so like. getting back into ffxiv and encountering this kind of very very intense heteronormativity and like, implicit homophobia, i was kind of shocked? it's not that i'm not conscious it doesn't exist, like, i grew up in the fucking midwest, of course i've had to deal with homophobia. more that like, it was such a big thing in a space where i'd kind of expected to feel safe on that front, especially in terms of fandom for emet specifically given that as i've said he's very obviously gender-nonconforming in appearance and mannerism and dress beyond the dictates of genre convention (even if part of that is homophobic queercoding).

like it's one thing to encounter homophobia in your workplace when everyone there is a 40+ year old conservative from a town where there are frequent commercials for agricultural pesticides on television. like yeah, of course you're homophobic, you live here in this cornfield-blasted hellhole, so i get it. but like. From a bunch of fellow video game dorks who like the same flamer as i do? that one kind of stings. and especially when you feel like because you're gay your input is kind of unwanted or regarded as sort of a damper on all the fun within that space. idk. it just is rough. i've never fit in in Real Life and have long made my peace with it because i just don't live in the right location for someone like me, but it sucks to seek out like-minded people and still get left out, i guess.

and for a long time i'd never really thought about how homophobia has affected me. like with a lot of things i just kind of ignored it or bottled it up or minimized it because i thought "well that's just the price of entry! haha it doesn't get to me! fuck those losers!" and like. idk. being in this space all of a sudden where such a high value is put on like, how much more legitimate it is to be straight, it hurts. like that's how i feel when people make emet more masculine or when they import these really highly gendered narratives and ideas into the story and create these characters who are so effortlessly and perfectly feminine and then acting like the value and legitimacy of the relationship rests on how well emet and wol perform cishet ideas of manhood and womanhood respectively, and that anything otherwise is just unconscionable and gross, like. man! it really opened the floodgates and made me realize i've been dealing with a lifetime of fucking baggage about all this and it actually does hurt a lot to be viewed as disgusting and less than legitimate and this shit is 100% why i grew up ashamed of liking boys and thinking it was something wrong that i'd done.

so like it's hard for me to look away from it and put it down and not keep picking at the scab bc like. idk. i'm at the point with all this where i feel like if i just keep picking this stuff up and turning it all around one day something will click in my head and i'll stop wanting people like this to make provisions for me or stop being disgusted by me. like i am very frustrated that i still want this sort of approval, to be seen as legitimate by society or even just by the subsection of ffxiv fandom that writes like this. i know i'll never get it and that people this married to such conceptions of gender are never in their lives going to stop being grossed out by me or my interest in other men. it's just like, fuck! idk!

i think sometimes about how like, when i was a kid my dad used to think it was funny to insult people by saying they were gay or just outright calling them fags and faggots, and like, how uncomfortable and scared it used to make me when i was figuring out i wasn't cis and straight (there were a lot of labels, the specifics aren't important). it really sucked, it was awful and scary because he was such a violent capricious jerk. i think about having to grow up seeing the wbc protests and "GOD HATES FAGS" on tv all the time, and other kids talking about how if they found out their friend was gay they'd beat the shit out of him in high school. actively, "i am demeaning gay people in front of you in class" level homophobic teachers. i used to cringe at fag and faggot every time i read them and feel my stomach drop like i was being punched. emet being so like, loudly and admirably GNC and out there and me feeling like he would use those words as a point of pride helped me overcome all that and make it way less painful and make me feel way more comfortable with myself.

people in this fandom only like emet if they can make him as conventionally masculine as possible. all that stuff that helped me feel better about myself is so ugly and gross to them that they have to erase it entirely in order to enjoy him. it really feels like the worst kind of slap in the face, to me. so i guess that's part of why i can't let it go, too.

#tag for complaining

[gooferdusted]

hypothetically, if I were to write a fix-it/rewrite au fic, (thinking of starting at s5 but debating starting earlier) what are some storylines you’d take out/change, characters you’d save/kill, and specifically changes to sam’s character/arcs you’d like bc i need ideas

ok. ok. I'm gonna try to not go completely off the fucking rails while I write this up but I gotchu (also these r all just my own hot n spicy takes so like. pick what u like, it's all goodie goodie)

• no time passing differently in hell. literally four months is ~Enough!~ a year is enougghh!!!!!! like I get that they wanted to make hell this horrible unreachable thing but u can still like... get that across without having it be this unfathomable chunk of time out of a persons life. like sam was down there with TWO very pissed off angel's for 180 years??? how can he still speak english??? how does dean remember ANYTHING about his old life when mentally more than half of it was spent being endlessly tortured until he finally cracked??? its just.... Too Much...

• ON that note, I feel like later on they never rlly had sam and dean bond over the fact that like... they are genuinely the ONLY two people on earth who have survived actual hell. I mean we got that one off line from dean at some point but??

• no chuck as god. just a greasy greasy rat man getting insane stories projected into his brain. and on the topic of that.... I dont like the reflection of the real life fanbase in the spn universe??? they're pulp fiction novels, it should be all like 50 year old + ladies who picked them up at the local bargain bin, not b*cky r*sen

• I like... WANNA say smth abt s4..... bc I think the way that they handled things were a little out of character BUT I also think that was lind of the point??? like the angels and demons were manipulating them to say/do things they would normally never say/do to eachother to drive a big enough wedge between then that they would eventually say yes to being the vessels. like it hurts to watch sooo much but it did drive the plot forward in a very particular way that probably couldnt have happened otherwise. that being said, when the levee breaks makes me sad, and I dont want to see sam crying for his dead mother alone in a basement! cest la vie.

• sam and dean.... are Friends...,, why did we all forget that..... watch hell house and maybe I'll calm down.....

• PSYCHIC SAM!!!!!! you all know me. you know how I feel about psychic sam... robbed. s4 finale rlly had sam like "drinking that much demon blood has truly changed me forever..... theres no going back now...... 😔😔" like ok. ok. where are your superpowers. where are they.

• I wish some of the other special children had made it out :(( I really liked andy and ava (also sam finding other friend who are like him??? queer allegory??? spare queer allegory?????)

• I also dont think the roadhouse shouldve burned down!!! that shouldve been a Staple Location like Bobby's house. same w Missouri's, literally why did we only visit her once.

• ur sending an ask to my blog so I assume this is just a given for u but!!! we're takin away the misogyny. we're takin away the fetishization! anything that would be given the greenlight by joss whedon we are putting straight in the trash. <3

• this is mostly a thing in later seasons like. idk 9-15, but no ppl knowing who the winchesters are. they are NOBODIES. they pop up like little meerkats and fuck everything up beyond repair.

• also no fancy tech. no iphone 76z or whatever the fuck. sam has an ipod 1. the wheel is so stuck he can barely press play anymore. remember when he literally just tore off the top casing off his laptop and threw it away? more of that.

• no nice clothes. NO nice clothes we fuckin hate that. everything sam and dean own was purchased pre 1995 and dean is an expert at removing blood stains and sewing up jackets. dean will walk into a laundromat with a tide pen and just start goin for it like that scene in deadpool.

• tbh.... I feel like the issues in later seasons are really this massive horrible domino effect. like I could say heres how to fix s7-10 but the fact is if shit hadnt gone down lile it had in s7 s10 would be a different story entirely.

• I am gonna do it tho bc I suck <3

• s6: soulless sam was funney but did that really go anywhere? no. tbh I dont remember what happened w cas and I'm just not going to look it up. it's just not in the cards for tonight. dean w lisa.... ehh.... I've discussed this at wayy too much length w mushroom and we both agreed that dean would probably keep hunting to keep his mind off things and to try and honor sams sacrifice. I guess theres an argument to be made for the fact that it kind of was Sam's dying wish that dean just go fin her and live a normal life but... idk. purgatory was. . indeed a Concept..... that could have maybe gone somewhere if it didnt rapidly spiral into....

• s7!!! I mean. jesus christ. I know some people like this one but jesus christ. the way they literally couldnt commit to having sam have genuine mental health problems after centuries in hell or to just magically wipe them away..... bobby dying halfway thru.... charlie was a bright spot I suppose, but her intro is not my fave episode w her.... idk what the fuck happened w cas, I guess he was god. the leviathan designs were kinda neat but like oh my fucking god it wasnt worth it.

• s8: uh. rough start. idk why the turn tables so suddenly and dean's like "why didnt u look for me >:((" bc??? yall agreed not to???? at the VERY least they couldve had sam been like "I legitimately had no reason to think u werent dead and in heaven and tha wouldve been a little rude of me to pull u out of that." but we went for ~drama~ to make it spicy I guess. ouygh. bunkers there!!! that was cool!!! MoL is a cool concept!!! altho... it doesn kinda contradict the whole sam and dean are nobodies thing... idk. trials of hell was like... cool in theory but bad in practice unless they were planning on ending the show for realskies. and they did not.

• s9: uhh... hated gadreel! hated that shit! wish they had spun that whole storyline to be more "hey sam I noticed u were s*icidal should we maybe address that??" or even like.... I mean dean probably couldve just TOLD sam abt his plan, he had already convinced him to stay alive by that point??? there was no reason to lie!!! plus the betrayal of gadreel not being who he said he was wouldve been like. literally enough drama, we didnt need to fracture the team again. and cas was??? where exactly??? be was human for at least half of that season but hey didnt know what to do w him so they chucked him in a convenience store??? good lord.

• s10: got no suggestions for that one, just toss it

• s11: ok... shes cute.... we can forgive her.... the lore is shaky at best but the episodes SLAP and the characterization is *chefs kiss*. it's been a hot minute since I've seen it so if smth sucked I dont remember and I plan to keep it that way!!!!

• s12: n.. no. no mary. no mary unless we're doing it right. and I promise u doing it right was not poorly ripping off kingsman. couldve brought back bobby!!! if they desperately wanted some drama couldve brought back john!!! actually fuck that, no way

• s13-15: no thoughts, only jack kline <3

#holy fuck im so sorry <3 #shut up cereal #asks #long post #spn critical #hate tagging my posts as that bc i dont wanna b one of ~Those~ but i dont want ppl coming after me 4 this #theres probably like 100000 things i forgot!!! feel free to add ur own!!!! #there are some seasons i only ever watched once very very long ago.... #and tbh classic spn is the freshest in my mind so im focusing on her #spn #supernatural

[f0rm0nsters]

For the ask game thingy if you're still doing it 👉👈

17. 10 of your biggest turn ons?

Sure!

These aren't necessarily going to constantly be in the same order or even always be my top ten bc I kinda cycle through kinks but the #1 is always the same and the top 5 are always somewhere on the list.

1. Monsters. Monsters and all that come with it. Like there's just so much potential in getting weird and finding solace in monsters is just Queer Culture. C'mon. It's in my username. The more monsterous the better (so long as it's like, y'know, able to consent) , but even something slightly different from a human like a vampire or w/e counts. You can see that a lot of my kinks just hold hands with monsters. Like you look at them and go 'yeah that checks out'.

2. On the same vein as monsters, tentacles/vines. Controversial opinion 1, we've evolved past the need for tentacle r*pe porn, we enthusiastically throw ourselves at the squirmy masses and lose ourselves in many limbed hug-fucks, and controversial opinion 2) vines are just better tentacles. Next.

3. Not sure if this counts but I'm like really really into oral. I want to eat cunt and suck cock so bad. I'm starving. Feed me your cum. I've also got this weird fixation on balls that I'm only half convinced is just a sex thing and am half convinced is a weird manifestation of dysphoria but it's there.

4. Bondage. Rope bunny here. Let's move on.

5. Petplay! Love me some petplay. Usually lean lighter on it but it's still one of my absolute favourites. Dunno how well I could handle wearing most collars though bc I'm sensitive about my neck + sensory issues but oh y'know >///>

6. Frot, especially junk-to-junk frot. Rarely feel super bottom dysphoric about not having a penis (I do get dysphoric about not having a prostate oddly enough, call that bottom dysphoria) but thinking about frot will do that to me. Then again it's not always bad bc there's this one image of a T4T m/f couple where the guy's tcock is pressed up against the trans girl's junk and that image makes me so weak it's burned into my fucking soul it HAUNTS me how much I want. Frot between transguys also very good. I've also seen frot between trans guys and cis guys and it also hits but personally I lean T4T so I got my preferences it does not Hit The Same as the aforementioned image burned into my soul.

7. Size difference. What can I say. I'm tiny (would probably feel more dysphoric about it if people in my ethnic group weren't already like, tiny by comparison to most in the west). Almost everyone around me is bigger than I am. Also maybe falls into a manhandling kink. Definitely overlaps into the monster kink. I also like the idea of tiny doms as well. Size difference just good.

8. Clothed or semi clothed sex. Bonus points if the sub is entirely naked and the dom has like, idk, their panties pushed aside or their fly open. Or even completely clothed and is just playing with their fingers or smth. Good shit.

9. Toys and toy games! I want toys so bad it's unreal but my living condition doesn't allow for it, and I want toys used during sex and between partners and not just alone time! Whether that's the classic old vibe controller, the Dildo Line, or just having to play in front of someone. Also straps are sexy as fuck, whether I'm wearing one or being fucked by someone wearing one. Multicolored dick that doesn't even have to look like a normal dick that I can detach at will? Epic and sexy. Bonus points if it's enby or transmasc strap, again cis girls are fine but I Have My preference.

10. Biting. Weird thing about me, I have a strong aversion to kisses (there is something Wrong With Me). But bites? Bites are fine. Teeth barely brushing against the skin good. Gentle nibbles good. Bite-suckling good. Rough bites good. Bites are just good. Please do not kiss me. Also goes into rough sex but oh y'know this list is long enough as is.

#mine #ask

[adamarks]

Penny’s relationship  troubles and how that relates to Simon and Baz

aka my Baz and Penny mirror post

I said I’d do this and god what a fucking emotional ride we’re about to go on. Strap in, my dudes.

In Carry On, it’s well-established that Penelope is Baz’s mirror character. She’s mostly static in the book (because it’s almost completely focused on Baz and Simon) and she’s used mainly as a literary device. Her mirroring Baz in particular is established very plainly. Both of them being top of the class; both of them geeking out over spells; both of them geeking out over marriage spells; their mothers both being headmasters; both of them getting out chalkboards and making the exact same types of lists. It’s very much in-your-face screaming in Carry On. 

It’s not so obvious in Wayward Son. 

The main reason for this is that Penny was upgraded from static to rounded in this book. She has an entire arc of doubting herself, which will most likely be completed in the next book. However, just because it’s not banging pots and pans in your face doesn’t mean the mirroring isn’t there. 

Let’s dig in.

Rainbow did something I really, really loved with this book: she made sure we know that happy endings aren’t what we’re told. The story doesn’t end because the Prince and Princess kissed-- how did they hang on? How did they make it to the hundredth kiss? Did they even make it to the hundredth kiss?

This book tells us that sometimes they don’t make it to the hundredth kiss.

This lesson is what’s got a lot of people’s panties in a knot. Here’s the thing though: it’s not a bleak lesson; it’s a warning. It’s a reminder that we have to keep trying; we have to want that hundredth kiss.

Simon and Baz want that hundredth kiss. They just don’t know how to get there. 

Wow guys I’m gonna have to struggle to not cry while writing this. Wish me luck.

Yes, the boys are morons that can’t communicate. How does Penny fit in?

She didn’t get to that hundredth kiss.

Micah and Penny are what happen when you just expect happily ever after to take care of getting you to the next kiss. 

Micah declares what the lesson Penny (assumedly with Shepherd Tornado Chaser Supreme) is going to learn about relationships is in Chapter twelve:

“A relationship isn’t about the end. It’s about being together every step of the way.”

This may be Penny’s lesson, but this is also a sort of (in my opinion) apology from Rainbow. Because, what was Baz and Simon getting together if not just a nice little tie up as part of a happy ending. What are queer consumers of media usually fed? Our representation usually dies, breaks up, or ends up together all happy go lucky right at the end. We don’t get to see characters we relate to struggle. We don’t get to see them still be miserably in love but unsure how to make it work when shit gets rough. 

Wayward Son is what happens when you don’t know how to keep going, but god do you want to. 

“I told you that I thought we’d grown apart--” 

“And I said that was natural!”

(also taken from Chapter 12 of Wayward)

Simon and Baz growing apart when Simon is so severely depressed and unable to communicate is natural. It’s natural, but it doesn’t mean that he’s going about it the right way. Simon is fucked up. He’s fucked up in a lot of ways, but (and this is coming from someone that’s struggled with the same kinds of thoughts Simon’s suffering from) that’s no excuse for him to hurt Baz in the process. 

Simon even realizes that this is a terrible way to go about this. It’s why he’s thinking about breaking up with Baz. 

i almost cried typing that just now rainbow why simon why i’m dying i-

BREAKING UP WITH BAZ IS NOT THE ANSWER, SIMON!!

Simon needs to learn how to communicate. How to talk about what he’s feeling and what he needs.

Here’s the thing though: Baz does too.

This is where Penny’s mirroring comes into play. Micah and Penny apparently didn’t talk for two whole months and she didn’t notice. They didn’t talk. They didn’t communicate. This is what killed their relationship.

This is what’s killing Simon and Baz’s.

In Chapter Fifteen we see Simon mulling over Penny and Micah breaking up:

“Penelope and Micah were going to get married. 

And now... Merlin, what now?”

I’ll come back to the concept of “endgames” throughout this series, but for now, apply that to Baz and Simon.

Baz and Simon were supposed to live happily ever after, but ever afters don’t work like that. So, now what?

Everything sucks. We are all in Pain. The dumbasses won’t talk. What do we DO, JAY? 

god, what do we do. suffer i guess idk. 

Okay but for real, we don’t have to worry. Rainbow knows what their issue is. And! She’ll make sure it’s resolved! How do I know? 

Well, I’ll tell ya.

Shepard.

We were introduced to a brand new, absolutely batshit, completely delightful character in Wayward. He’s spunky, he’s fun, but what does he do best?

Fucking. Talk.

He doesn’t shut the fuck up!! He’s completely honest and he just talks. Bitch will tell you his entire life story without batting an eye! This is what Penny needs. 

This is where Simon and Baz are going to end up. 

Perhaps not exactly, that doesn’t suit their personalities. This is what they’ll end up being, though: completely honest with each other. 

These fuckers are constantly thinking about each other throughout the book. 

“Oh he’s so beautiful.” “Oh he’s so charming.” “Oh he’s so funny and smart.” “Oh he’s so heroic and brave.” “Oh, i’d give him my whole being.” “Oh I wish he’d let me in” “Oh I love him so much.” “I love him.” 

They’d both feel so, so, so much better if they just said shit out loud. Good god. 

But neither of them are a) in a place where they can say it and b) in a place where they’ll believe it. 

This brings us to our next biggie:

Baz still doesn’t like himself.

Simon’s obviously having troubles with self loathing. That’s not even a question in anyone’s mind. Simon’s depression and lack of self worth is one of (if not the) main vocal points of the book. 

The issue with Simon’s sadness getting the spotlight is that we overlook Baz’s a bit. It’s thrown in so that we don’t notice immediately, because we’re not supposed to. Baz’s self-hatred isn’t as loud as Simon’s and he’s been dealing with it a lot longer. It’s a self-loathing he’s learned to live with-- he’s used to it by now. 

Sometimes the demons we learn to live with are the most vicious of all. 

I think it’s very clever that the most overt time we see Baz disliking himself is in his Things I Hate List in Chapter Fourteen.

“11. The wind in my hair.

 12. Convertible automobiles.

 13. Myself, most of all.

 14. My soft heart. 

 15. My foolish optimism.

 16. The words “road” and “trip,” when said together with any enthusiasm.”

It’s slipped in there awful sneaky! You’re giggling and going “oh thank god maybe I won’t be sad through the whole book” then BANG! there it is. But, right after we have “my soft heart” and you’re going “oh my poor baby he’s so sweet I love him” before you really had time to process number 13 as anything aside from an “lol i’m hot and icky and i hate myself” joke. 

Baz is used to hating himself. It’s everyday whatever. Simon’s is only louder because he’s not used to being allowed time to think about the bad stuff. Everyday before the end of Carry On for Simon was just struggling to get to the next day-- whether that was at Watford or a home. Simon’s happy when he doesn’t have to think; Baz can’t just not think. 

Penny’s just learned what doubting herself entails; Baz has been doubting himself for the last decade. 

No matter how much they coo at each other, it won’t fix the underlying issue: Baz and Simon don’t like themselves. 

This is the main internal conflict of the series for all of the characters: loving yourself for what you are. 

This brings us to Agatha. 

If you haven’t read my meta on simon being a dragon hell yes then you might want to. I discuss Agatha being a mirror for Simon fairly thoroughly in it. 

Remember how I told you to put a pin in the concept of  “endgames” earlier? Well, here we are. Agatha was supposed to be the “endgame.” 

Endgames! Are! Bullshit! 

Human beings are not our consolation prizes for getting through shit. Becoming stronger as people and loving ourselves more is our prize. Realizing how much you can withstand, how hard you can fight, how amazing you are for surviving is your prize for getting through it. 

None of these guys realize this yet. Agatha and Simon just think there’s nothing good that’s going to come out of their lives and Baz and Penelope just think that maybe their “prizes” weren’t what they thought they were. 

Maybe the rewards for our efforts were really just inside us the whole time. uwu.

Penny is just starting to think of plans again by the end of the book, but this time they’re looser, wilder, even more hairbrained than before and she really only has one plan at best! She’s learning that she can be strong and capable even when she doesn’t have all the facts and doesn’t have all the details thought through. Penny’s learning to loosen up. 

Baz is in a better place by the end of Wayward too. He’s learned so much about vampires and even himself. Like sure I fuckin’ hate Lamb but he helped Baz to realize that... maybe he isn’t a monster. Maybe magical creatures aren’t lesser. Maybe he’s not any less human just because he can drink their blood. 

They’re the only two that really, really develop in this book. Simon and Agatha change but mostly stay the same mentality-wise. Agatha still thinks she’s doomed to be a damsel in distress and Simon still thinks he’s just The Boy That Was. Baz and Penny are the most dynamic characters in Wayward Son.

I’m putting my money on next book being Agatha and Simon’s big development book. And at this point I’m convinced it’s going to be more than a trilogy. 

Now! Let’s talk about Agatha and Penny. 

@stressedidiot pointed out to me that Penny and Agatha holding hands and burning shit down in the last scene was supposed to call back to Baz and Simon. They’re absolutely right. I think the most important thing that was calling back to was Simon giving Baz his magic in Carry On. 

This parallel confused me at first: why would Rainbow need to remind us of that scene? I know I personally have the Ladybird and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star scenes permanently ingrained in my head forever. Obviously we didn’t forget that Simon could pour his magic. 

Here’s the thing. 

Baz and Simon don’t stay together during any of the fight scenes in this book. They always get separated or one of them gets hurt or they’re scrambling trying to find or catch the other one. 

They’ve forgotten that they work best when they’re together.

That was one of the main takeaways from Carry On. Simon and Baz work best when they’re together. 

“A relationship isn’t about the end. It’s about being together every step of the way.” 

Every! Step! Of! The! Way!

This is where my dragon Simon theory really comes into play. If Simon does end up with some sort of dragonesque powers, somehow Baz and him are going to share it. 

When Baz figures out how to drink from humans without killing them, Simon’s going to be right there, ready to open up a vein.

This is the true beauty of their relationship. Simon wants to be the one to lead the dance of kisses and intimacy and communication, and Baz wants to be there to give him anything he wants. Baz has received Simon’s magic; he’s gonna drink Simon’s blood; and he’s somehow going to receive something from Simon regarding this dragon business.

“I’d give him all that I am. 

I’d give him all that I was.

I’d open up a vein.”

They give and take and equal measures. They love each other wholly. I’m gesturing to my computer screen out of stress right now. They literally love each other that much!

Agatha and Penny sharing a magic conduit at the end of Wayward Son is a reminder of what happened between Simon and Baz and also foreshadowing of where they’ll be again.

Imagine how powerful they’ll be once they remember how to work together. 

They were practically unstoppable before when they worked together-- they turned back a dragon. 

But now their love for each other is stronger than ever. It’ll only grow once they finally talk. Once they communicate.

Two people, so strong separately coming together with only love and understanding for each other. 

With their hearts beating together, they could do more than turn back a dragon.

They could change the world.

check my meta about simon’s wings being The Gay

And also my one about the scarf

Thank you for reading this word vomit. Just wanted to tag a few people that might be interested in seeing this shitstorm of a meta:

@goodie-giving-gecko-gets-gatos @singerofsimplesongs @wisest-girl @watfordwallflower @slaying-fictional-dragons @carrybits

#simon snow #baz pitch #tyrannus basilton grimm pitch #basilton pitch #penelope bunce #carry on #wayward son #wayward son spoilers #meta #agatha wellbelove #shepherd wayward son #i can't remember shepherd's last name #did they tell us? #rainbow rowell #snowbaz #dragon simon #Simon and Baz #baz and simon

[nerdygaymormon]

Sorry, this is a super long ask, but I had some thoughts I wanted to articulate at a person, not just in a post 😅 I had this thought about the article from Elder & Sister Renlund. It was then reinforced when my mom (who I'm not out to) sent me some quotes about God loving his children after she had talked to a family friend who's teen daughter is bi and very angry at the church (And I will admit, the quotes my mom sent we're a lot more loving than anything from the Renlunds). 1

I'm tired of the only reference queer members get about God loving them is that he loves them inspite of their queerness. It's not presented that straight forward always. It's usually presented as "God loves all his children, whether they're following his commandments or not" which isn't a bad sentiment within itself (And maybe that's helpful for some queer people sometimes, idk). 2

I also understand how it can seem a helpful message to share with queer members as a cis straight member. But one of the biggest things that has held me back from exploring my sexuality and gender identity is this idea. By identifying and living openly queer, sentiments like these tell me I am actively rebelling against God. 3

And if I'm actively rebelling just simply by being myself, then why should I keep any other commandments? Sure, maybe if it's just that one commandment I don't follow and I follow everything else perfectly I can still be saved, but I'm still human! The rest of those commandments are still often hard to follow! And if I spend all this time figuring out my queer identity, only to reach heaven and have that taken away... then I don't wanna go to heaven anyway. 4

So maybe our fellow members, when talking to queer members, can stop with the "God still loves you, despite your queerness!" & can instead say "God loves you, queerness very much included!" (Any higher up leadership doesn't get to say this until they get their lives in order & stop being homophobic/transphobic. You can't tell me God loves me if you're out here telling me he doesn't through your policies.) Anyway, this has been bubbling for a little bit and I wanted to get it out of my head 5

————————————————————

My sense of it is that our top church leaders talk to the members about us. For many years there’s been at least one, often more than one, talk at General Conference that mentions queer people, with gay people getting the most attention. 

The leaders tell the members what they believe the Lord thinks and lament that the world is becoming more welcoming. It can sound harsh. They soften it by saying that God still loves us, we’re still God’s children, but it does feel like an after thought. 

————————— 

It’s very rare to hear a message directly aimed at LGBTQIA+ people. Because of my calling, I’ve gotten to meet several General Authorities, which means I’ve had the unique opportunity to hear how they speak directly to a queer person. 

The first one I met is Elder Joaquin Costa, I told him that I’m gay and he was extra caring and kind to me. He hugged me and told me he loves me. It surprised me. 

The blog post I wrote went viral and someone asked he and his wife about it, and they wept and he said everyone is deserving of Jesus’ love.  

I met Elder Costa again last summer and brought a friend with me. He stayed after hours at the office in order to see us. He hugged me and he’s smiling so big and he keeps mentioning one thing or another from when we met, and my friend leans over and says, “he likes you, like for real, he likes you.” The conversation didn’t go as I’d hoped, but I give Elder Costa credit for listening to us, and it seemed he learned and adjusted. And he kept reaching over and patting my arm, and we’d lean towards each other and bump shoulders, you know, like friends do when you’re telling a joke or something to show you feel friendly towards each other. 

—————————

The second General Authority, we got off to a rough start as he spoke for two hours about the importance of marriage between a man and woman and how necessary that is. The next day he went out of his way to befriend me, even asking that we drop titles and just call each other by our first names. He calls me David and I call him Claudio. By the time he left, it felt like we were friends, although I didn’t know if that’s just how he makes everyone feel.

I took him up on his offer for lunch when I visited Utah in 2018. When we got to his office, he was so excited to tell me that he and my dad have the same birthday, but 2 year apart. Had he been snooping on me, how did he know that? Well, he wondered how many people in the Church had his birthday and he did a search on the churchwide membership list. None had the exact birthday, so he dropped the year, and there was my dad’s name. He knew my last name, so he clicked on my dad to see if we’re related. He had waited eagerly several days for me to arrive so he could tell me. Anyway, he and I had a very real conversation, you know, we got beyond just the niceties. He never contradicted the Church teachings, but did admit there’s a lot we don’t know, there’s many questions for people like me for which we have no answers. He listened and understood where I was coming from and that we have significant gaps in our teachings and our church needs to do better in showing love to LGBTQ people. We ended with a lot of laughs and hugs and I left with a good feeling. 

I met Claudio again last year and brought a friend with me. I didn’t share this in the blog post I wrote, but Claudio was so eager to see me because he wanted to share how knowing me had helped him respond to a father who was worried his daughter had come out as a lesbian. He shared the advice he gave the father and wanted my reaction. It was very good and focused on accepting the situation, loving his daughter as he always had, and she’s got to make some big decisions but to stand by her and always include her no matter what path she chooses. Those are her decisions, his responsibility is to be her loving dad that she can count on. I was stunned that he shared knowing me had caused him to think about the situation of queer members and the choices we face. My friend that I brought is also gay and Claudio pronounced a beautiful blessing on him. And he invited me to his home next time I come to Utah (which due to the pandemic, has been postponed). As we drove away, my friend remarked, “you don’t just invite acquaintances to your home, you guys are officially friends.”

—————————

I also met an apostle. Upon telling him I’m gay his very first comment was that same sex attraction isn’t a sin but bullying people over it is. We were sitting at a table of 8, so our conversation on this subject was brief. My feeling is he tried to give me a sense of hope, although it was all about what wonderful things await me when I’m dead. I wanted to reply that I needed hope in this life, but the whole table had started listening in on our conversation at that point and we moved on and discovered that his wife and I are related. 

—————————

I wish every queer member had these sorts of opportunities to feel love and concern from church leadership. I also wish the Seventy & apostles had more encounters with queer members, I think it’s good for them to process we’re real people with concerns & feelings that aren’t being satisfied and we need to feel the Savior’s love as much as anyone else. 

In the meantime, I will be meeting another general authority at the end of the month and will share how it goes.

#David gets personal

[tonyglowheart]

This entire thing is a rant, feel free to ignore it, but I saw your post about how destiel fans can’t win in this context, and yeah. So have some rambles.

I’ve been thinking about the fact we (current spn/destiel fans) can’t win all night... I’ve seen so many people talking about how homophobic it is - and while I would very much like to argue, as every point I’ve seen made by a non-spn fan has been wrong so far, if I did everyone inside the fandom would agree and everyone outside would either call me straight or pity me for believing it’s okay.

(Cas wasn’t even sent to hell lmao. He was sent to angel death (the empty), a place he has escaped in the past. Other points, like that meta about spn has been predicting exactly this for months, that Dean ended up sobbing on the floor because he was so upset, like that death means next to nothing on spn, like that there is two episodes left, etc etc. you feel me right? I just don’t want to post wank to other spn blogs atm, we’re getting enough frustration as it is, no need to add to it.

It’s also worth pointing out that the bar is very, very low. Spn is a prominent TV show - not a Netflix show, or indie, or whatever - and it just said “main character in gay love saved the world”. [insert gif of ghostfacers dude saying that gay love can pierce through the veil of death and save the day here]

I just saw someone saying that spn having Naomi try to brainwash Cas out of loving dean makes spn homophobic (it is a conversion therapy parallel). My first response to that is that Naomi was the villain lmao? I guess we can’t write villains doing anything homophobic because having villains do homophobic things makes, uh - checks notes - villains look homophobic, and clearly we can’t have that.

There certainly are legitimate things to criticise spn about, but this isn’t it lol.

Also now some people are unironically trying to cancel Jensen because “his acting was homophobic, and so he’s clearly homophobic”, nevermind that he’s an actor and his character struggles with understanding his emotions (which I think he played excellently, myself. That scene had a very Dean delayed emotional response), nevermind the support he’s given to us queers in the past. Like. Idek man.

We would have been laughed at if we got no destiel, too.

It would have been worse, had the writers pulled a dumbledore. At this point I also trust the writers not to pull a GoT - they have explicitly criticised that ending in spn’s canon.

Spn’s writers did that by making the main villain of this season, Chuck / God, say GoT had a good ending. To reiterate a previous point I had: villains do bad things because they’re bad. And the bad things they do make them bad. For the people out there not still following, if someone does something in a story and it makes them a villain, that is explicitly telling you the story (and probably the writers) thinks that thing is bad. In this case, Chuck likes to write things for him, and we the audience have been shown and told that is bad.

Apparently thinking a gay confession is good in 2020 makes me straight. Seems unlikely, but whatever. Sorry for the length, I guess I went overboard, I’ve been holding it in lol. Anyway, DESTIEL IS CANON 💚💙 hope you have a good night

Helloo supernatural anon I hope you are living your best life right now. Yeah I’m like..... skeptical and leery myself but having lived through some absolute garbage discourse that is general purity wank, as well as the C/QL greater fandom here and on Twitter I find myself... much more wanting to question the “general wisdom” of things esp in terms of negativity, bc a lot of the time I find.... it’s wrong? Like so wrong. Or at least presents such an incomplete picture of the whole situation and also presents it in such a removed context that words that have meaning and are operationalized in a certain way for a reason, no longer have meaningful usage.

Anyway I don’t... know too much about the specifics of Spn but someone I follow is into it and talks a lot about the Gnostic stuff and that all was very fascinating to me, and I also have been grappling a lot with cultural Christianity bc of cmedia and the way ppl just *clenches fist* unthinkingly or uncritically slap some Christian norms on it and call it a day 😩 help I’m Tired. My thing here being... I actually got tired of the uncritical “superhell”s at some pt bc I am, in fact, incredibly exhausted with cultural Christianity, and because it does seem like, even possibly(?) without the Gnostic stuff it’s different from a “hell” or other Protestant-derived afterlife concept, and also yeah that it wasn’t seeded out of nowhere, it was set up to happen, which then... lends credence to the idea that whatever the current era of Spn is doing, the current showrunners are doing it with purpose.

And idk I just... refuse to believe the concept that ALL of the fans of Spn - esp the ones who have been following it still, or got back into it and are following it currently, are acting under delusion or are fooling themselves into liking it or thinking it’s good or whatever. I personally find that kinda infantilizing and patronizing and playing into issues of dismissing things women and/or other marginalized identities like.

Plus I find the concept that (from what I think I’ve been seeing Spn fans say) that the current era of the show is quite actively grappling with itself, its past, its legacy. to be very interesting and compelling; it hearkens back to like an old lore kind of feeling, of a thing that has grown into a nigh undefeatable monster and realizing that, also realizing that the only way to defeat itself is through grappling with its own nature and transforming and transmuting itself into something else. I personally find that more plausible and compelling than “Supernatural has been actively and continuously queerbaiting for 15 homophobic homophobic years., so right now we’re all very sorry for you because this maybe is no longer queerbaiting but it’s still homophobic and it can never be anything different ever.” I’ve been sort of tangentially aware of Spn thru the years and didn’t we agree, around the time of that in-universe play about Spn and with the lil Destiel shoutout, that Spn has come a ways as far as coming to terms with its fandom and working to treat its fans better? Why the sudden regression into “oh no, Supernatural is and forever will be homophobic and a hate crime”? 🤔 

The rest under a cut bc the ask is already long and then my rambling will get longer-

But yeah I mean..... I get that the legacy of Supernatural has been certifiably Rough, but I think people also forget how different of a time 2005 was? Hell, how different of a time 2015 was, even, prior to, say, Obergefell v. Hodges. Now I’m not saying that to blanket-excuse Supernatural, but like, you look at mainstream shows from the era and... there’s a lot of shit lmao. The fact that Supernatural has existed this long seems to me like.... maybe we CAN look at how it’s developed through the years vs just insisting it is what it was 15, 10, hell, 5 years ago. Especially since, to my knowledge, there’s been showrunner changes? Which seems to me like it would... affect things? I mean honestly, I remember back when I got into Spn for a hot second because of Castiel, I remember watching panel, Q&A, etc vids thru the years, and like... I thought we agreed that... it was the fans who were going a bit far pushing the shipping question like literally ALL the time to the actors, who are not in control of the show and.... like at the time.... that could have had personal implications for them? And yes homophobia bad, and people can still be allies despite that, but again like.... I do feel like - from what I’ve seen - that these guys were NOT ready to deal with a lot of that but they’ve (okay Jensen I’m talking about Jensen here) genuinely grown and learned? Also how many years ago was the essay autograph thing that people keep trotting out, like what year was it in and what year of spn was it, and what were the prevailing opinions on LGBT issues and bisexuality then.

I’ve been seeing some murmurings of identity politicsing surrounding ppl who enjoy Supernatural, and I’m sorry that that’s happening to you, it really fucking sucks and it’s also the dumbest way to “make” or “win” an argument because it shouldn’t ever be a final determiner, just factors to consider when considering what life experiences might have informed someone else’s PoV and views as well as maybe how you can better communicate with them. Instead of it being a “weapon” or “tool” to either dismiss someone or de facto validate an argument.

Also yeah I get it that you don’t want to send discourse to spn blogs bc I imagine you guys ARE actively grappling with all the bs rn and it’s a lot. Even just from like, the stuff I see around, I’m like tired of it. I’m genuinely having more fun with ppl who are having a good time with Supernatural than the ppl who are hating on it, even in this sort of backhanded “oh we’re not clowning YOU we’re clowning the writers and showrunners who think you should be satisfied with this,” when... yeah? the people who HAVE been watching the show and therefore... know what’s up.. DO seem to be? And all this based on *fake gasp* context. And that’s where the backhandedness becomes kind of poisonous to me, because it implies that it IS bad, and that you SHOULDN’T be satisfied, but poor little you are but don’t worry, we’re not making fun of YOU for liking garbage, you’re just the hapless victim who is consuming the garbage bc... idk, whatever reasons ppl are coming up with ig.

idk man it’s 2020. Fandom isn’t activism, performative or otherwise, it’s okay to let people enjoy things even if you think they’re “objectively” bad, and like... I don’t know if people can call something bad when they’re not even working with the whole context and instead are dealing with rumor and reputation. 

#supernatural cw #I tag this for ppl who I know want nothing to do with spn rn and are blacklisting and so it doesn't end up in main tag #Anonymous #asks answered #long post

[cviperfan]

Okay so partially motivated by how many references there were in SPoP and largely bc it's been in my backlog for years and I remembered the whole thing got uploaded to youtube a while ago, I finally got around to watching Revolutionary Girl Utena for the first time so time for some hot takes

2 clarify I did see the movie about around 2000 which was my introduction to the series, and I did see like 1 episode back in anime club (over a decade ago now tbh) but for the most part I went into this with only a vague sense of the ending and offhand knowledge of a few of the weird comedy episodes so this was mostly a blind watch

Before getting into #spoilers I will say that this ended up being an easy Top 5 and that it's definitely still worth watching (fair warning for the very frequent rape and incest (and sometimes both)), especially if you've somehow also avoided most of the context of this show like me, and it really is one of the rare Nothing Else Like It kind of show (though it has roots in older shoujo like Rose of Versailles and modern stuff like Revue Starlight have picked up its lede)

Okay spoilers from here on

I really only kinda have vague memories of the more knightly take on Utena from the movie so Series!Utena having this powerful Dumb Jock Energy threw me

Like she's out here invoking the Air Bud Rule from minute one

This bit where Akio is going on about some Important Life Lesson thing and she's just fuckin

crab walking im

what a hero i love her

I have always kinda been more partial to shoujo than shounen bc the sense of like emotional urgency and the heightened exaggerated feelings are just more compelling to me narratively and what Utena does spectacularly is really drive that to fucking 11 and it permeates every aspect of the show

Like the melodrama of it all is so shameless and it's so committed to letting its visuals and music drive the mood and emotional intensity of its stakes that they kind of speak for themselves and demand to be taken on their own terms rather than having clear or rigid interpretations

Like it's kind of a situation of "yes most of what you're seeing ties into the show's bigger themes and characterization but also you can just vibe to the spectacle as well" like even when it's not on the Dueling Arena there's a theatricality underlying everything that pairs perfectly with the spirit of shoujo even as it... not necessarily contradicts it, but challenges it in some ways and also wants to coexist with it?

And I think that's the interesting thing how it wants to tackle some of these arch concepts tied into the genre while also being deeply intertwined with it.  Like it really is a Product Of Its Time in so many ways but it also feels somehow timeless and transgressive in others even now?

Like part of me would be interested to see a remake that took into account 23 years of conversation about how much perceptions of gender and sexuality have changed but at the same time would it lose some essential part of itself in that transition?  idk potentially

Also lbr a hypothetical remake wouldn't even attempt to revise anything it would just redo it thus making it pointless

So I know this has been a thing that's been brought up before but seeing it play out dang RGU and NGE really are just companion pieces to each other huh

Subverting the themes and narrative arcs of their respective genres, mysterious quiet girl who's directly the key to everything, the ritual of action setpieces rendered as Actual Ritual in the story, banger OP, comphet ruining everyone's lives

Also they really don't have much in common comparatively but I'm definitely seeing pieces of Utena in Kill la Kill too?  Particularly how Mako's arc feels like a fleshing out and expansion from the archetype divergence Wakaba got in that one ep (I can't believe klk was the utena/wakaba au fanfic)

Speaking of which damn he is a sleazy bastard and a gross predator but ngl Akio can Get It he and Ragyo are basically the same character and I guess this is just my type apparently???? oops

Like I'm recognizing how like really awful he is but also you really can't blame Utena for crushing on him he is super hot and charming

aside i lost it at the audacity of "well even tho i am a man like twice your age (AT LEAST) and took advantage of the situation and also i am clearly not the type to take no for an answer since you didn't reject me you're basically just as bad as me" bruh

The Black Rose Arc is... interesting bc like it borders on superfluous with how it resolves and yet the introduction of a "monster of the week" type power rangers element specifically built to expand on the secondary cast is a pretty inspired choice

again my primary point of introduction to the series was the movie which is basically a remix of the Student Council arc so when I got to 12 I was like wth are they gonna fill the rest of this with? WELP

What I really like about it is that usually this kind of setup-- the 'character is faced with their dark inner thoughts they shy away from and they become a short-term enemy' deal-- ends with the char in question coming to terms with this and overcoming it to become a better person

but here it's just like... they lose and then they just gotta... sit with that, forever.  Like it doesn't really change the status quo of their relationships w/ utena or the others but it does just stick around for them and now the audience knows that about them too.  like sometimes you just can't take that shit back.

Utena's relationship to queerness, having heard about it tangentially for years but seeing it play out now is also interesting bc while in the grand scheme it doesn't feel necessarily any more ahead of its time than something like Cardcaptor Sakura there is a casualness to it that's distinct

Like for the most part it's either kind of the tangential fluff that even then was part of shoujo as a standard but then there's also stuff like the Akio/Touga or Touga/Saionji hinting or Kozue's casual pass at Anthy in addition to the maintext Juri/Shiori push-pull and ofc the subtext-but-maintext Utena/Anthy threads

I wanna take a moment to talk about Juri bc of how kind of in the spirit of the show itself it plays things both with and against the grain with her

Like she's a Tragic Lesbian which is nothing new but usually this character type (and Distinctively Lesbian characters in general) in anime/manga tend to be portrayed as being very predatory, invasive and either played for laughs or to repulse the audience, so the degree of empathy RGU shows her in 97 is rare to see even now.  

Like there is a "safeness" to her bc of how unattainable Shiori is (though their arc ends in a decidedly ambiguious way), but it doesn't really feel like she's getting the short end of the stick over the more straight-leaning characters bc arguably all of the relationships here are defined by an aspect of chasing the unattainable, echoing Utena's own quixotic search for her Prince, and her choosing to remain closeted feels realistic *especially because* of the surrounding context of how heteronormative the world she exists in is.  Like the character is aware of that and is navigating it in a way that feels honest

Speaking of which it's interesting how the reveal of Juri's pining for Shiori in Ep 7 echoes the bigger reveal of Utena/Anthy bc of how it plays up this heterocentric love triangle or at least it seems to be but then the cards are on the table and no that's really not what it is at all, and it feels significant that after spending most of the series naively oblivious to Juri’s feelings and what she wants out of a relationship with Shiori that Utena finally Gets It in Ep 37

Is it a coincidence Juri actually gets to be the one to point it out? No

Speaking of triangles big ups to the Ruka/Juri/Shiori one honestly bc of how hard it commits to the unknown third result of a LT where absolutely no one comes out happy and it actually works even with the handicap of Ruka basically coming out of nowhere just for these two episodes

Like all three of them want the one person who's absolutely never gonna love them back and that's just rough buddy and isn't that kinda the show in a nutshell

So the thing that struck me about Utena/Anthy and how it plays out is how subtle it really is.  And that does make sense bc while f/f teasing/subtext again was part of shoujo before it's quite a different thing for the heroine to ultimately reject her 2 male love interests and choose a life with her female best friend, esp in nineteen ninety seven

Like I think you can argue that Ep 12 feels like The Moment where What Their Relationship Is, Definitely shifts and that possibility is suddenly there, and then it doesn't come back in a big way until the ending but there are tiny glimpses throughout where you can see that working in the background if you’re really paying attention

Small things like Anthy's flashes of unspoken jealousy, Utena fretting over her even when she's in bed with Akio, and part of that is coming from going in with a knowledge of what the endgame is and keeping an eye out for it.  I can hardly imagine being a viewer during the og broadcast and then ep 34 comes and suddenly the intent is made clear and our understanding of the inciting incident gets all flipped turned upside down

And to a modern viewer I can get coming into this for the first time and being frustrated at just how close to the chest it gets played, but that's also kind of the only way it gets to happen at that point in time?  But I think it ultimately is effective and vital to their individual arcs and dovetails nicely with the themes of the show

Like I remember hearing that original manga creator Chiho Saito was pretty against their paired ending, but with a lot of convincing from Ikuhara ultimately came around to it, and it's hard to imagine the anime's ending working any other way and being nearly as impactful

And there is something really beautiful about the bucking against the established idea of yuri relationships being a childish concept that gets left behind in order to 'grow up' actually becoming the impetus of their own journeys into adulthood and eventually back to each other, and it’s hard not to feel a little disappointed that for this Bold Step and declaration for the future that RGU takes that while yuri is more common than ever it largely continues to exist within the realm of schoolgirls and something to be left behind in adolescence like for RGU’s faults and shortcomings it saw this world of possibility in moving forward, while the genre largely elected to stand still

And it really speaks to either the timelessness of the show or how much the queer experience has remained constant that even with a tragic ending, that hope, or rather the promise of their reunion, feels bold and defiant and genuinely uplifting even now

Like the moment where just before they reach out to each other one final time, and their voices as children speak out to each other, as if finally fulfilling a promise they barely remember, I really did just start ugly crying

Lastly some assorted closing thoughts--

-Touga?  Punk.  Guy really takes advantage of Utena's whole prince thing to manipulate her, ends up losing to her in the rematch and then fucks off to mope for like AN ENTIRE SEASON then pops back up "oh yea im in love with her literally nothing else about my behavior has changed tho" like lmao you tried i guess

-Also i know Touga's design is p stock standard bishounen ojou-sama type but god this is all i can think about when I see him

- Green Touga Saionji is a bitch-ass motherfucker but like he at least tried more than anyone else so uh that's something I guess?????

Like the guy clearly has some unresolved feelings about Touga so i'm inclined to be sympathetic bc wow poor choice my dude but also... bitch-ass motherfucker

-Nanami really went through this thing for me where it's like... she's a brat and a shitty person but it's also hard to really dislike her bc she does get what she deserves most of the time and also she gets kinkshamed more than most of the cast despite none of them really having a high ground over her lol

-Miki did nothing wrong (aside from like the implied incest but that's also like... half the relationships in this show uh)

sidenote I can completely see the notable excess of Incest Subtext/Maintext being intended as like... A Thing to comment on how common it is within shoujo and also tying in to like the bigger themes of Growing Up bc the idea that you’re chasing after your own damn siblings betrays some freudian inability to mature or whatever but tbqh it doesn’t always feel like the show knows the line between commenting on this and indulging in it and RGU is very indulgent by its own nature so I really can’t blame people put off by the show as a whole bc this is an area where RGU is largely indistinguishable from its genre peers

-Juri really did nothing wrong tho also props for having the best duels

-FUCK SHIORI THO for eel 

so obviously i have not seen the show up to now but I've been in yuri circles for a long time so I knew about Juri/Shiori and my perception of it had always been "oh it's one of those kinda messy with complicated feelings" kinda ships where the drama is a big part of the appeal and that's true but like

the actual nature of it I did not realize up to now and OH SHIORI'S REALLY THAT BITCH HUH

So not only does she date that one anonymous guy specifically to spite Juri unaware she doesn't actually like him BUT THEN WHEN THEY GET REUNITED SHE'S JUST LIKE LOL IT DIDNT MATTER BUT HEY WE COOL RIGHT *AND THEN* when she finds out about Juri's feelings she's like HELL YEA I CAN HANG THIS OVER HER HEAD FOREVER FUCK HER

***AND THEN*** when she gets some karma after Ruka dumps her ass she airs her dirty laundry out in front of EVERYBODY like Juri hasn't been dealing with this shit like an absolute champ the whole time like?????

Like ok i get that there's the sad longing drama there and usually that's my jam and the show itself seems to end on kind of an ambiguous note and the follow-up manga from this year seems to leave it as kind of a "maybe" but I'm sorry get Juri a better GF 2020 she deserves better

I saw some Juri/Wakaba going through the tumblr tag for the show and honestly that's some big brain shit I'm here for it

Also now knowing exactly how this dynamic operates it really makes that Jasper/Lapis reference pic one of the SU crew drew of them read very.... interestingly???????? (tho Lapis' design reads a lot closer to Kozue and that's probably a closer personality analogue too)

-I love that thing in ep 37 where the whole SC is just very casually like hey utena if the whole revolutionizing the world thing with anthy doesn't work out uhhh call me im free haha just kidding unless...? lmao

-I'm pretty uninclined to try to pin precise sexuality HCs to characters for series this old where the ambiguity is part of how its danced around like partly coming from my own experience I'm inclined to read Utena as bi but that really is just coming from me?

But on the other hand literally every time a guy is like "i love you utena come be happy with me and we can love each other forever" she's like "k" after having left them on read for a day and disconnects from them entirely so lesbian going through comphet is a pretty valid read i think lol

-Lastly I think it’s pretty interesting but validly frustrating how fast and loose the show’s relationship with dream logic and non-traditional storytelling really is like when the shadow girls show up I was like “oh this is a greek chorus thing and it’s meant to reflect on the themes of the episode” (or uh in the case of exactly Ep 29 to break from tradition and explicitly tell us what a characters deal is lmao) but then no actually turns out they’re actually real characters who exist within the show too fuck you

ANYWAY I really did love this show and felt like I got a lot out of it despite it being pretty infamously hard to decipher but the ways it's inscrutable appeal to me specifically so very happy with this I'm gonna be thinking about it for a while

#revolutionary girl utena #cw: rape mention #cw: incest mention #might follow up with some thoughts about the movie later

[duckseamail]

Queer Analysis of Frances Ha (2012--dir. Noah Baumbach)

Ok, so I just finished watching Frances Ha. It wasn’t my favorite movie of all time, but I liked it! And it also made me think of that one time in English class when I learned a bit about analyzing stuff from an lgbtq+ lens, and so I want to write that all down. (spoilers ahead) (also this is basically a summary of the parts I found important and then a couple paragraphs of analysis. it is definitely not organized like an essay i would write for school lol.)

So. This movie starts off with a montage of two women (late 20′s) just having fun together. They play fight, and walk around together, and it shows scenes of them living together, and it’s very domestic-y feeling. So my first impression was, oh they’re dating.

It turns out they aren’t they’re roommates and each of them has a boyfriend. But, the second scene is Frances having a conversation with her boyfriend, and he asks her to move in with him. She says no, she can’t. She promised Sophie (her roommate) that she would live with her until their lease is up. SO, Frances and her boyfriend break up. Frances goes home and she and Sophie talk about it as they get ready for bed, and they go to sleep in the same bed.

In my mind this is all pretty textbook romantic stuff, but we will get to why I don’t think Frances and Sophie’s relationship is romantic later. First I gotta go through the movie and explain how it works.

The movie is split into segments based on the place Frances is living. So it starts with an address, and that is her apartment with Sophie. Eventually, they stop living together and the movie cuts to black and a new address appears. Frances ends up living with these two guys she met through Sophie while she tries to move up in her career as a dancer. 

With these two guys, one of the -Benji- starts a joke of calling Frances undateable, because Frances is very awkward and very much a fun loving free spirit kind of gal. This becomes a running joke between the two, and I’ll come back to this so don’t forget!

This is basically the pattern of the movie. Frances moves to different places and in each place, her relationship with Sophie grows a little further apart. Sophie and her boyfriend move to Japan, they get engaged and Frances finds out when they are in New York for a funeral. They reconnect, and we see that they still care about each other so so much (although there is never a reason to doubt this - they both say they love one another). Sophie confides that she doesn’t want to marry Patch (her boyfriend) and the two talk about living in New York again. It’s kind of reminiscing and kind of suggesting that they go back to living together - or at least near each other. But, Sophie is drunk and in the morning she forgets their conversation and leaves before Frances is up.

The final scene of the movie is after a dance performance that Frances choreographed. She is talking with her old boss at the dance company she was with and sees Sophie. She overhears that Sophie and Patch are married now, and as she watches them, she and Sophie make eye contact. They start making faces at each other, the way you can with someone you are so close with and completely understand what the other person is trying to say.

Her former boss is still trying to have a conversation with Frances, and she asks “Who are you making eyes at?” Now, I think someone would use that phrase as sort of a way of asking like, who is that person you have a crush on, or something. For me, if someone asked that while I was looking at someone I had a crush on, I would deny that I was looking at anyone because there wouldn’t be any confirmed relationship between me and the crush which kind of makes things awkward when you’re caught staring. But, Frances just says that’s Sophie, she’s my best friend. She’s confident in their relationship and how much they care about each other, so she has no problem saying who Sophie is to her, but the way that they were looking at each other caused a third party to ask a question that implies romance.

Basically what I’m trying to say is that Frances Ha is a movie about a queer platonic relationship. What makes me think this isn’t just the bit at the end. Most definitions that I’ve seen of queer platonic relationships are that it is a committed relationship that has no romantic attraction between the people involved. 

So 1) commitment: Frances does not move in with her boyfriend, and instead ends up breaking up with him because she is more committed to living with Sophie. (Also I forgot to mention this but when Sophie moves out she says she’ll stay if Frances doesn’t want her to leave, but Frances doesn’t say anything). She and Sophie say “I love you” multiple times throughout this movie, and I’d say that is a commitment to caring about another person. Also, even when they are apart or are having a rough patch, they contact each other. I know that is pushing it, but keeping in touch when you don’t have a reason in daily life to see someone is pretty darn hard, and idk about you all, but if I keep in touch with someone outside of school, that is a relationship I am committed to doing the work for.

2) no romantic attraction. I know that sometimes in movies, it can be considered a little queerbait-y to have two people act romantic and then say they are “just friends”, but for these two, I really think they just care about each other in a deeply platonic way. Frances’ tone of voice when she tells her boss “she’s my best friend” is so sincere and full of love, that I honestly don’t think that Frances would ignore or try to hide any romantic attraction to Sophie. Also, this is only sort of connected but I feel like it fits; when I was questioning my sexuality, I was doing a lot of reading about what it meant to be asexual, and so I also ended up looking at some people talking about their experience being aromantic. Something I noticed was that people would sometimes feel like they were “undateable” or would never end up in a relationship (because they didn’t want to but felt like that was expected). The joke between Frances and Benji about her being undateable made me think of this, and that maybe she is aromantic. (I am not aro myself though, so let me know if this is actually wildly incorrect).

And Last but not least, there’s this line before Sophie and Frances talk about living together in New York again: “It’s just if something funny happens, on the way to the deli, you’ll only tell one person and that’ll be Patch, and I’ll never hear about it.” Frances wants to be the first person Sophie tells funny inconsequential things to. She wants to have the importance Patch (as Sophie’s boyfriend in a world where romantic relationships are often prioritized) has in her best friend’s life. 

#frances ha #frances ha (2012) #noah baumbach #essay #film review #film recs #my writing #greta gerwig #qpr #queer platonic relationship #queer analysis #queer theory #kinda? i just think ppl looking at that tag might like reading this

[halfemptygirlrps-archive]

Feelings about the most recent episode of Siren and the SS Polymarine update:

So I am late on this but I had a lot of feelings to articulate and sort through. These posts are not important to anyone but me but they make me feel good so I will keep making them.

Maddie. 

SIGH. I know Fola has no say in the writers room but she’s really feeling more and more ooc. It’s not about not listening to Ben it’s about not thinking about the secret she is meant to protect. Even Xander has risked a lot to keep it safe and for Maddie to bring Robb to the warehouse was really careless. People are gonna be like HOBOY MORE MADDIE HATE I BET SHE’S A RYN/BEN SHIPPER and not that I need to justify myself to anyone but I care so much because since episode one Maddie and her amazing smile that makes my heart explode and her melodious laugh has been my favorite character and they opened up more of her personality and history in season two only to kinda undo it now. You wanna see a new guy? Fine, explore even though it breaks my effing heart and my ship but dont trust him so easily. Also a few episodes you said you still love Ben and Ryn but now you’re acting like she’s just your friend which I hate cause those idiots who have been saying they’re like sisters are getting what they want now. I hate seeing just Ben and Ryn together and it’s like... I know you kissed her on the lips but are we going to see Ryn spending the night with just you at your place any time soon or are they really legit phasing you out? They’ve always given Ryn equal time with Maddie but now it’s like they hired the writers from Supergirl and much like Kara “forgot” she told James she loved him and fought for him so hard and was like lol we’re better as friends and I wanna date a white slave owner they’re making Maddie act really strange considering she outed them as in love. I also don’t like that she’s yet to tell Robb that she kinda has a gf which is unfair to him. Even if I dont care about him it’s just the rules of being poly to disclose that. It’s not “private information”if you’re getting involved with someone because that this point they’re dating and she knows he likes her and is setting up shop to be closer to her so she owes it to him to say something about Ryn unless she really is ending with Ryn too and only being her friend which again MAKES ME SO ANGRY. I said it from the beginning that Ben didn’t need to have a gf if the goal was Ryn , and they also didn’t need to do a while season about them being in love and making people get attached and feel seen and heard only to rip it away from us. I wish they wouldn’t be so cheap about drama like this but I hope the three of them find their way back to each other as a unit and not whatever the hell they are now because it was the core of the show.

Ben. 

Boo if you can’t see that you have a problem idk what. He’s acting like a straight up junkie and people are like noooo but you clearly haven’t seen junkies in movies cause this is it. Shoot up mermaid cells and running tests on yourself alone? Are you insane? You don’t know the side effects and you already experimented on your own mother and yet none of this is setting off any alarms. We already see that Ben has obsessive tendencies and rather than seek help he’s doing whatever to himself instead of trying to focus on Ryn and Maddie and his father about to start a massacre. I get that he’s a scientist but there’s a time and a way for that and he should no better. Maddie’s been helping Ryn 10 times more lately while he’s turning himself into the merman Mr. Hyde and he’s the one getting all of Ryn to himself while side eyeing Maddie when he should be trying to help them deal with this crisis called Tiamat and not trying to become a hybrid. I’m just so over him at this point and it’s just like in season 2 where he jumped to try to save Ryn in the tank while she fought Katrina. She’s a powerful creature who doesn’t need you to save her like she’s a dainty princess, she needs you to be a rock and emotional support which you cannot do sitting in a bathtub. Everything that the people in your life need you to be, you aren’t being. You aren’t helping your mom like you think you are, you aren’t helping your dad cope and understand and not become a murderer, you aren’t helping Maddie understand why you did what you did and you aren’t helping Ryn by taking the corpse of her family and treating it like an animal the way Kyle did. Just because you didn’t know *that one* doesn’t mean it’s okay. It wasn’t okay for Donna and if Ryn died and the military excavated her body to run tests and used the “well, wel didn’t know her personally and it’s for science” excuse you’re using would you go “oh damn you right “? No you’d lose what little of your mind you had left. Boy if you don’t get your shit together...

Xander. 

Ugh I hated him the first 2 seasons and he’s redeeming himself. I get that he was upset his dad died and had every right to be but to come back from that and not only forgive and befriend Levi but help the mermaids and lie for them and cover up bodies? He’s a better man than Ben is right now. I also love(d) that he made a new lady friend and didn’t pounce on her like a douche. Honestly for a moment I thought “damn a new love interest already?” even though my gaydar was like WEEWOO WEEWOO THERE’S ONE WE GOT ANOTHER ONE, GIRLS and she’s cute af like top me you soft butch stud you  but the moment she saw Katrina I was like I WAS RIGHT AGAIN JUST LIKE I WAS ABOUT MADDIE’S SIDE SHAVE IN SEASON 1 so I was like this is great, another black queer girl and Xander is being chill af with her and them broing out was gold, I loved it but I didn’t see her seeing Levi coming, which shook me cause I didn’t know what was gonna happen and Xander really stepped up and I loved that he risked his future career and a friendship for this as well as her career. When he saw Ryn in the library (and that was such a pretty library) I honestly wish she leaned up to kiss him even if it was just on the cheek cause he did so much for Ryn and the rest and really deserves more credit. Plus I lowkey live for the little moment between them like her holding his hand at Donna’s grave or when she sat with him at the wake because it just shows so much character growth for both of them and I love the trust that they built and that he treasures even though they have had so little interactions. It’s one of those moments that shows bad actions can be redeemed and restores faith in humanity while so many people are out to harm them.

Helen.

Honorable mention for you being the coolest lady. You should have been treated better with Sarge but the fact that you know so much in spite being 1/8 and not in that hybrid colony just makes you so cool. And now you’re out here trying to edumacate daddy Pownall even though he’s crazy as shit and probably gonna try to kill you. You a real one, Helen. 

Ryn.

You poor thing, having to give up your baby. It’s been a rough go for you lately or....the whole series, I guess, and now your colony was attacked and shit. Again she’s done no wrong and is trying so hard to learn and can’t catch a break. The one thing I do fault her for is not knowing that she shouldn’t have said the bit about her baby being eaten and whatnot because she’s been on land a year and change no and should know human habits better LOL. It was still classic Siren humor tho.

This post is long enough so I wont address anyone else and doubt anyone got to the end but UGH.... I just want Polymarine back. I miss them watching movies in bed and being secure and cute and fluffy and I just need that so much right now.

#siren #siren freeform #ben pownall #maddie bishop #ryn #ryn fisher #polymarine

[assless-chapstick]

Ever considered Charles and Trans Arthur 👀

I HAVE NOW, FELLER

mAn oh man.... this could slot into the 90s au but.... I like it as its own like, present-day au...

let's make Charles... a masters student or like ... he's OH he's going to law school and idk they have meet-cute at uuuh idk the hardware store

yeah the hardware store, Charles's toilet is leaking and he doesn't have the money for a plumber so he Googles some shit and goes to Home Depot to pick up a tool and picks up a tool is looking all cute and confused like "....crescent wrench?" and the Really Cute Guy He Totally Didn't Check Out is like "PFFFT" and helps him find the tool and they get to talking and the Handsome Buff Dude Who Is Totally Charles's Type (Charles is Tilly's like, GBF, and she's heard him complain AT LENGTH about twinks, "they're great, they're fine, I just want someone I don't have to worry about snapping in half, you know?)

and they get to talking and Arthur gives Charles his card like, "I'll give you a discount for being letting me mansplain plumbing to u ;)" and Charles wasn't gonna hire someone bUT HE IS NOW

so that's how they start dating and it's super cute (Arthur fixed his toilet for free and also installed new kitchen cabinets and made it so Charles's car doesn't make that weird chunka-chunka-chunka noise when he goes over 40)

AND THEN (and here's where it gets interesting) they're finally, FINALLY getting serious, s e x u a l l y, they're making out on Charles's shitty old Ikea couch while some movie ("You've never seen 21 Jump Street?? Jesus Charles, you uncultured swine... Channing Tatum is like, Major Goals") plays in the background and it's getting heavy...

they're making out and grinding and it's so good and Arthur is totally feeling him up thru his pants and Charles goes to do the same and Arthur is like

"wait you should probably know I'm uh trans."

And he totally expects it to kill the mood and for them to have to have A Conversation but Charles is dumb horny and like, he really likes, maybe loves Arthur, so it shouldn't matter, right, and he's so fucking hard so he just says like

"you can still suck dick though right???"

and yeah he can

and I bet it's some of the best head Charles has ever gotten in his life cuz Arthur is a champion... Charles is used to holding back and being gentle cuz he's got kind of a Huge Dick, but when Arthur goes down on him, he starts like, encouraging Charles to move and thrust and hold his head and fuck his face n make him gag...

n it's the best nut of Charles's life and he's pretty sure he's gonna marry this guy

it's not until like, the morning after where he realizes like "oh maybe that was.... not the best response...." and he texts Arthur this like, really long heartfelt apology like "I'm sorry if my response came across as callous or unconcerned, I really like you and want to be respectful to you and your identity, thank you for trusting me with this, I want to continue a relationship with you and I'm sorry my response wasn't appropriate"

and he waits and waits and waits all day for a reply and he's sure that Arthur is never gonna speak to him again, he screwed up royally, he thinks he might really love this guy and he scared him away...

and at like 11pm hes trying to study and not think about Arthur and he FINALLY gets a text and it's like "lol cool babe, dinner 2moro?"

and they end up talking about it and Arthur is like "it was kind of nice to have it not be a big deal or a boner killer" and they talk a little bit abt it and have a Nice Night...

and Charles is like, kinda nervous - he's been gay since he was 15, he has experience with exactly one (1) type of genitalia and he doesn't wanna screw anything up or make Arthur uncomfortable in any way...

so for a couple weeks they do mostly like, over-the-pants stuff, like they're teenagers and it's kind of exciting, dryhumping and making out... but Charles doesn't want to make Arthur think he's Afraid so he vows that he's gonna Give His Boyfriend Some Head

so I think probably they're just hanging out; Arthur's watching football while Charles works on some paper, they order a pizza and drink a couple beers and then they're making out and Charles is deliberate in the way he pushes his hand under Arthur's waistband, looking at him to make sure it's ok and he'll yeah, it's ok

and I'm uh gonna go off abt sex now and I don't want to cause anyone Dysphoria feels, so I'm gonna be talking about uh Arthur having uh, genitals that are typical ascribed to female people.... idk I'm talking T-dick, bro... so if ur ok with that great

so yeah, they do it right there in Charles's living room... With just the glow of the tv backlight Charles as he gets on his knees, with Arthur still sitting on that ratty couch...

and he yanks down Arthur's sweats and his cute red bandana-print briefs that remind Charles of a cowboy n Arthur is really hairy, minimal manscaping but his dick is there n he's like... juicy wet.... Charles maybe didn't realize how fuckin wet he'd get...

and it's like, Arthur's never been with someone who didn't know how to go down on him - he dated a couple straight dudes when he was young, spent some time as a lesbian (having a rough on-again-off-again thing with Eliza), was even engaged to a queer woman (Mary, who broke it off because she "couldn't stand the thought of not being able to give her dad a grandchild" like transphobia.....) - so he's never really had someone who... isn't experienced with his junk arrangement

so he's laughing and blushing as Charles goes down on him, because it's cute and Charles is trying so hard and he's doing a good job, even if he moves his head too much and needs to use more tongue, and Charles's hair is so soft under his fingers and they're both groaning and making these happy little noises as Charles sucks him.... and it's just pure and wholesome and euphoric and they're both flushed and hot and sweaty and turned on when Charles pushes two big, thick fingers up inside him....

god and Arthur is loud, groaning deep as he cums with Charles's mouth on him and his fingers inside him and Charles can feel it and he's been jerking himself off and the feel of it makes him cum too.... cuz Charles is GAY and getting off his man is SEXY AS HELL

and oh man, when Arthur mentions offhandedly about strap on and Charles realizes he gets to pick the dick he's gonna ride hes sO FUCKIN EXCITED and Arthur just laughs...

wholesome....

thank you, mister, for this truly good food...... problems forgotten.....

#the couch au

[phonaesthemes]

a list of asks

@padawanyugi tagged me in this, but Tumblr decided to eat any notification that I got tagged, so I’m glad I saw it on my dash because I like filling these things out. Thanks for tagging me! I may have typed A Lot.

Favorites: What types of books do you enjoy? Tell about what you’ve read recently (Or maybe about a book you hated recently!)I like spec-fic and sci-fi, although less “hard” science fiction, and I also enjoy fantasy. I read a lot of YA even though I’m in my 30s just because it seems easy to find a story I want to read and I’m not usually in the mood for dense prose.

I’ve been rereading the Wheel of Time series since it’s getting an Amazon TV show; it was my first non-LOTR fantasy series and I love it to death, warts and all, although I love joking about the weak points with other people who’ve read it. I think the last other thing I read was A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, which was a queer YA historical fiction, and it was a lot of fun. I wish I’d had access to all these queer stories when I was an actual teenager, but better late than never.

What types of music do you like to listen to? Share five songs from your music library. I really do like a bit of everything, although I gravitate towards certain genres more often depending on the season or time of day, so I’m going to cheat and pick 5 per season. Summer for me is lots of peppy pop (pride playlists!), punk and rock and punk-adjacent stuff, just upbeat stuff in general. -Weekender, by The Royal They -Break My Heart, by Dua Lipa -Toutes les femmes savent danser, by Loud -Ruby Soho, by Rancid -Womanarchist, by Bad Cop, Bad Cop

In the fall, my inner goth kid craves darkwave, goth rock, dramatic folk, roots rock, and also anything that reminds me of Halloween. -Iuka, by the Secret Sisters -Bela Lugosi’s Dead, by Bauhaus -How’s It Gonna End, by Tom Waits -Under the Milky Way, by The Church -I Put a Spell on You, by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins I could go on about the Christmas music I like at length (Boney M’s Christmas album slaps, ngl) but I’ll just skip that and say that I listen to more classical and piano pieces in the winter. I’m terrible at remembering names, so artists only: -Ludovico Einaudi -Chopin -Debussy -Saint-Saëns -Dvořák And in spring I’m usually just depressed af and listen to whatever. -FML, by K.Flay -Weird Part of the Night, by Louis Cole -Juodaan Viinaa, by Korpiklaani -P.O.H.U.I., by Carla’s Dreams -Marryuna, by Baker Boy

Do you have a show or movie that you can just put on anytime and it’s your comfort? Definitely Star Trek. I’ve rewatched the various iterations (except TOS) so many times. Also Mean Girls and Bring It On, idk why.

Do you have a favorite dessert? Tiramisu or creme brulée! Or macarons. I don’t eat dessert really unless I’m at a restaurant.

Do you have a favorite cold drink? Sparkling water, hands down.

Do you have a favorite game? The hours I have put into the SIms in my lifetime is probably shameful, although I haven’t played in a while. Don’t Starve is another contender for hours played, but I am also really fond everything by Amanita Design

Do you have a favorite part of your self care/beauty/health routine? I haven’t been doing it much lately since I’ve been dealing with some uncertain health issues with my joints (actually have a rheumatologist appointment later today), but savasana after a long yoga workout is borderline ecstasy.

Do you have a favorite type of take-out food? Indian for sure.

What’s your favorite type of exercise/physical activity? I have a love-hate relationship with running. I don’t actually love it but I love how I feel after. I really enjoy yoga. I love playing in the water at the beach, bodyboarding and swimming.

Pick between: (you choose the context)

Cook or bake? (I love cooking A Lot)

Space or ocean? (Hard to pick, but I grew up by the ocean and it’s 100% my happy place)

Chocolate or vanilla?

City or suburb or rural? (I grew up in an isolated rural village and I miss the quiet and the slower pace of life, but I do not miss the lack of amenities and opportunities, or the smalltown gossip. I also don’t drive bc of epilepsy, so I’m fucked as far as transport in rural settings.)

Past or future?

Shower in the morning or evening?

Mac/Apple or PC/Android? (Linux in general!)

Sing or dance?  (I don’t have an amazing voice but I can carry a tune without it being painful, and I love singing along with songs.)

Get up early or sleep in? (I actually love sleeping in but with two kids, early morning is my only time to myself, so I wake up before 6 most days AGGH.)

Shoes, socks, or bare feet? (Hate socks. I’m barefoot at home all year round.)

Marker, crayon, or pencil? Pen!

Tea, coffee, or hot chocolate? (Coffee in the morning, tea later on.)

Random questions:

Have you ever had any pets? (Had dogs and a cat as a kid, and as an adult I’ve had betta fish and cats, and I have a cat currently.)

What is your academic background/job field? I did my undergrad in linguistics, and I am currently a stay-at-home dad lol. I do freelance editing and transcription on the side. I don’t think I’ll ever work in my field bc I really don’t have the energy to go to grad school.

What’s something random that you’re into (even if you aren’t good at it)? I signed up for a Cape Breton step dancing class in university and I loved it.

Are you good at putting away your clean laundry right away? It depends on the day, but generally yes. Mine and everyone else’s. When I lived alone? Absolutely not.

What’s one of your pet peeves? Someone trying to have a conversation with me when they have the radio or TV on. I can’t follow what you’re saying if someone else is speaking! I hate having that stuff on as background noise in general.

What’s something you’re pretty good at? I’m a great cook.

What’s the most recent nice thing you bought for yourself? A new conditioner ig? lol

Can you sew? I can mend a small tear or sew on a button, but it’s been years since I did more than that.

What’s a chore you hate (or a chore you enjoy)? I hate vacuuming so much. So much. Maybe if I had a better vaccuum cleaner I wouldn’t mind it, but I just feel like I’m fighting with the stupid thing, getting caught up on its own cords, caught on furniture, can’t quiiiite reach a spot... HATE IT. I like shoveling snow sometimes, though.

Tell us a fun fact about yourself. I am 20 years older than my youngest sibling, and five minutes younger than my “oldest” sibling.

Never have I ever... Gone fishing, even though I’m from a fishing community.

What extracurriculars did/do you do in school? In high school, I played trumpet in band until the band got dissolved from lack of funding. I played soccer one year, was in a play another year. We had an art club for like a semester that I was in. In university the first time round, I did step dancing and intramural hide and seek  Second time around, I was in the linguistics club to help with assignments. (We were very much encouraged to work in pairs or groups for a lot of different classes. The only thing was that you did need to list your group members on the assignment so the prof knew who you worked with. My first morphology class in particular, we had a whole homework club where a huge portion of the class got together to work through assignments and help each other understand, and the prof would quite often show up. </tangent>

Deeper questions:

How’s your quarantine/last few months been? The cabin fever was really bad before the weather warmed up. I struggle with seasonal depression every spring, and it’s gotten much worse since we moved to Edmonton because of how long the winters are. (Snow from September to May/June? Fucccck.) It’s frankly horrifying to look at what’s going on in the US, but even though we have far fewer cases here, I’m really anxious that we’ll see another wave soon. Otherwise, I think I’ve adjusted. Home-schooling, hand-sanitizing, social distancing, masks...All feels kind of normal now, which should maybe concern me.

What do you think of human nature/society/etc.? I am like the least philosophical person you will meet so I don’t think I really have many thoughts.

What’s something you are insecure about? Writing my L2 if a native speaker is gonna read it.

What do you think is the meaning of life/reason that humans exist in the universe? I don’t think there is one, and that doesn’t bother me.

Do you think you’re better (whatever that means to you) than you used to be? Definitely. My adolescence and early adulthood was rough. I was dealing with a lot of trauma, untreated bipolar disorder, and I self-harmed for a very long time. I could not imagine making it to 30, let alone being stable and happy. I actively avoided thinking about the future because it made me spiral. But I was lucky enough to get help, consistent help from a doctor I clicked with, and it made a world of difference. I think younger me would be disappointed at how mundane my life is, but I’m thrilled to be boring because boring means no life-upending mood episodes. I have a happy partnership and two delightful kids and I couldn’t ask for more.

What are your thoughts on religion? I’m not religious and my own experience being raised in the Catholic church was frankly traumatic, but I know that it’s a source of comfort and community for many others and I think that’s awesome for them.

Do you think that there are aliens out there? I think so, although I think that we may not even know what other kinds of life to look for and may not recognize it even if we find it.

What’s something that’s been on your mind recently? We’re moving cross-country in less than a month (driving, no less, nearly 5000 km) and I still have so much to do to get ready aosjdoajdoasijdoaijsd

#personal #long post #in which i ramble about myself a great deal #@padawanyugi

[ladyloveandjustice]

Fall 2018 Anime Overview: Continuing Series- Golden Kamuy Season 2 and Banana Fish

Golden Kamuy Season 2

If you enjoyed the first season, this is pretty much more of the same, so check out my review of season one to know what to expect.

Though I guess you could say this portion of the season DOES lean even harder into weirdness than the first one did. There’s not many anime where you’ll see two dudes having the time of their lives modeling fashionable outfits made out of human skin, which include...crotch appendages...only in Golden Kamuy y’all.

Interestingly bizarreness tends to overlap with queerness a lot in this season and its hard to know how to feel about it. For instance, it’s definitely an unexpected revelation that dudes are attracted to Lieutenant Tsurumi like whoa. 

IDK apparently he’s a catch. Half of his subordinates are in love with him. It’s handled as comical and of course the dudes are mentally unbalanced weirdos (as is everyone in Golden Kamuy except Asirpa and Sugimoto only sometimes) and one of them dies, but the show is never overtly mean to them either. Nobody acts disgusted about it and when one character observes the attraction, he basically shrugs about it.

 Satoru Noda apparently also REALLY loose with his fixation with dudes muscles with this part of the story, to the point we got the beef-cakiest hotsprings episode I’ve ever seen, which includes an extended fight scene where the male characters were naked throughout. There’s also an entire scene where apparently otter meat is an aphrodisiac that causes the dudes to be really into each other, so they engage in nearly naked sumo wrestling.

This is all clearly supposed to be wacky and funny, but at the same time it’s pretty clear the mangaka must REALLY LIKE drawing these scenes of muscular, naked men, and I support him following his dreams. Also I won’t deny it’s refreshing to see a hot springs episode where not a single woman got objectified, but there was dude oglin’ a plenty. It healed me a little.

I guess while we’re talking about this show and its weird relationship with queerness I should reporting that my prediction was right and the trans woman I mentioned in the previous review did become an ally. Her transness hasn’t been bought up again (though for some reason the subs decided to switch to “he” despite sticking with “she” before) and her role is pretty minor, she does reveal she’s skilled in both cooking and surgery (because she likes dismembering people) and talks about how great it would be to see people murdered every so often, so pretty much more of the same.

And that’s really all there is to say. Golden Kamuy has only gotten weirder and the plot only more convoluted (I’m starting to have a hard time keeping track of the characters tbh), but it’s an entertaining story and there’s still characters with resonance and heart underneath it all (the scene where Sugimoto discusses his trauma from being in the war with Asirpa genuinely tugged a heartstring. These two are still great and have really settled into a kinda of adorable dad-daughter dynamic at this point) and the historical and cultural research that went into this story is still amazing. 

I can tell the anime’s still skipping a lot of the manga (most of volume 7 was completely skipped), but since the English release of the manga is so slow, I’m happy to watch it in the meantime. It helps that the show has a bangin’ soundtrack and and it managed to pull its ginormous cast together for some truly exciting and action packed final episodes that left me eager for more. 

Banana Fish (13-24)

Again, if you read my review for the first half of the show, you can basically expect more of the same, both with the good and especially the bad parts. We do get more downtime with Ash and Eiji’s relationship, and they continued to make me think this show would be so much better if it focused more on these quiet scenes rather than on piling as much trauma on Ash as it possibly can. 

I think this second half did allow me to see what was compelling about Ash and Eiji’s relationship and why it’s stayed with so many people. When Ash explained that he’s finally found someone who will love him without expecting anything in return, so of course he’s willing to do anything for that person, that got me in the heart. Ash is someone who has either been viewed as a threat or someone to exploit- he’s especially used to being treated like he’s nothing more than a body, a receptacle for desires. Eiji isn’t afraid of Ash, or in awe of him, and never asks anything of him other than for him to be okay and by his side. Ash genuinely can just be a dumb teenager with him while he can’t with anyone else. Eiji is an outsider, to Ash’s gang-bangin’ world, to his culture in general, and that allows him to see Ash as he truly is, just a kid who needs to get out of this mess.

The romantic in me really loves that concept, and as an ace person, I especially connect to the underlying implication that Eiji is a romantic partner who isn’t going to demand sex from Ash or try to force him into it. Though Ash’s implied desire to avoid sex almost certainly stems from trauma, I know how he feels in a broad sense. And I think it’s a thing a lot of women can relate to even if they aren’t ace, wanting to find a relationship where they aren’t used or objectified, so it goes back around to how Ash acts as kind of a representation for the anxieties and desires of (likely) the mangaka and many women despite being a male character, and I still find that very interesting. The scene where Ash has a complete breakdown and screams at his rapist while laughing hysterically was really affecting.

So there’s moments of real resonance here, but is it worth the bullshit surrounding it, which includes every single gay man being represented as a rapist, to the point a gay bar is connected to a child porn ring? The nasty implication that gay sex is inherently evil and non-consensual, and Ash and Eiji’s relationship is only okay because they’re not doing it is very strong, and as much as this ace appreciates a romance that doesn’t require sex, I don’t want it THIS way.

There’s also some SERIOUS anti-Semitic bullshit that I can’t believe MAPPA didn’t edit out in a couple episodes. Like it would have been so easy to cut. Also some more pretty rough scenes of black men being murdered (they’re extras this time at least, and the main black dude for this part of the anime miraculously manages to both survive and not be an offensive caricature. Also his name is Cain Blood which is the best name in this story, and possibly ever). 

The second half of the anime also involved some of the more absurd elements worsening. I got REALLY tired of every character commenting on how hot and amazing Ash is like. I GET IT.  Also Ash’s life of being sexually exploited somehow gives him the ability to seduce any man holding him captive, and every bad guy is down for raping a teenage boy, I guess. It’s actually again, a little surreal to see these tropes with a male character. I’m used to seeing hot female characters who’ve been through sexual trauma and have magic seduction powers and are endlessly drooled over...I almost want guys to watch these segments so they can see how uncomfortable it feels when the tables are turned. 

There’s also some really good examples of ACTUAL jarring tone shifts, where the anime really fails to land some of its attempts at a funny, light moment in the midst of really tense and tragic situations. I think it’s possible the manga managed this better, but I can’t imagine the “joke” where Ash has to crossdress and a male doctor gropes him and Ash punches him out cold and his friends chortle and tell him he’s not a gentle woman could ever be done in a non jarring way. Like, I don’t like sexual harassment humor in anime at the best of times, but it’s especially bad when the person who is harassed has been raped more times than he can count.  We’re expected to take that seriously, but not this, because Ash is in a dress? It’s also like, appalling that his friends who are fully aware of his history would laugh about him getting assaulted again. It’s a moment that feels like it comes from a completely different anime. 

So um, yeah. My conclusion is those resonant moments are not worth the bullshit. The ending really cemented this for me. I had an (admittedly overly flippant) reaction that kind of sums my feelings up. Let’s just say I HATE meaningless cruel tragedy for the sake of tragedy, and I especially hate the implication abuse victims can never find happiness. 

I can’t say Banana Fish is an anime I’ll think fondly of or recommend. I do still find the discussion about it interesting, much more interesting than the actual story (as presented in the anime, again, haven’t read the manga), tbh. And I can see the seeds of a good story there, and I can understand why fans would want to see a reboot that truly modernized the story, cutting out the worst stuff and giving it a better ending, while keeping the resonance of the main relationship and the good characters (I really did like Sing, and Yut Lung was interesting. Shorter and Skip both deserved way better. Also Jessica, who at least got to do something besides be victimized at the last minute. One whole female character got a few moments of agency. Hallelujah.) Maybe someday it will happen. 

In the meantime, there’s a bunch of cool articles on Banana Fish that are worth a read. All of the pieces published on animefeminist as well as this post on Otaku, She Wrote are really informative, illuminating, and break down a lot of the issues I found here.

#golden kamuy #banana fish #anime overview #anime #my reviews #body horror cw #fall 2018 anime