#i love how this scene is immediately followed by a gay romance reveal scene of two other characters

[sailorblossoms]

i would love to hear your meta thoughts on how simon was able to easily say “i love you” to agatha (when he clearly didn’t) but it took him years to (verbally) tell baz

This is a funny coincidence because just a couple of days ago, I was looking for something in CO and ended up re-reading some stuff like the breakup scene (I even took notes lol). There are definitely a lot of interesting things in there (that might not be apparent on first read)

The short answer is: Simon was just saying shit with Agatha because up to that point, he survived with structure.

For the long (so long) (but necessarily so) (or maybe not, but i'm inspired,) answer, let's unpack a bit of comphet and how Simon functioned:

Worth mentioning is that they do have genuine love for each other. They grew up together, and Agatha's line sounds like heteronormativity made them reframe the platonic love they felt as "romance". One of the biggest signs of how much comphet fucked with them is that at end of CO, both make it clear they're not talking to each other, and have no immediate plans to change that (it takes at least a year before they break down and have a good cry together, with Simon's little gay wings on display and Niahm–Agatha's true love interest–present. That's when they can be friends again! When they're ready to start embracing their queerness!) Also: Baz is so very present when they break up. Simon isn't wearing his anti-vampire (anti-gay) cross when Agatha is breaking them out of comphet, and Simon snatches Baz's handkerchief (associated with lovers/courtship/romantic intentions and the like) from Agatha and keeps it for himself, telling us that rather than Simon not wanting Baz to "have Agatha" because of some silly rivalry between the boys, he doesn't want Agatha to have Baz. He doesn't want anyone to have him, but him. (And how he can't help but go back to his actual, biggest worry: Baz isn't here). (Simon has Baz's handkerchief in his pocket when Baz comes back)

An absolutely key part to understand Simon in CO isn't just that he avoids thinking (a consequence of trauma and neglect: it hurts to think when you can't have it, or can't do anything about it) but what this entails. Simon doesn't process the things he notices, the things that enter his mind. He hides them away even. As a consequence, Simon doesn't know what he wants, he doesn't understand his feelings. He truly doesn't. Simon's wants, needs, and desires: none of these things are even up for consideration for him. When he gets to Watford, he arrives with a role someone else assigned to him, alongside expectations (of an entire community) that will shape his entire adolescence. He gets a structure, and he latches on to it like his life depends on it.

Simon needs directions, he needs "a map" to follow. To survive, he grabbed the map, and he attempted to repress everything about himself that would make him more than just a "mindless", "heartless" soldier, more than the "traditional" hero. This isn't to say Simon isn't smart (he is) or that he doesn't feel shit (he feels so much, and he could never control himself around Baz). But if you are purposedly eliminating "your heart" and your "mind", what else is left, other than performing a role blindly? He purposely operated in ways that would make it very hard for him to answer "Who is Simon, if you remove roles and expectations? What does he want? What is romantic love? How does sexual attraction feel like?" (last 2 questions are particularly hard for someone who isn't straight, likely doesn't experience attraction like the "norm", and is doing everything to avoid figuring himself out)

This is how Simon could spend years genuinely not knowing he's in love with Baz, that the need to jump on him comes from genuine (sexual) attraction–even though those feelings were already there, even though his actions, the way he thought about him and just keeps thinking about him all the time, even when Simon wants to avoid thinking, reveal his true feelings.

Part of this is also why, once he no longer has a role and the structure he has been relying on for so long falls apart, Simon is left feeling so lost and broken. Too much of himself has been shaped by trauma for too long. Once he's out, he doesn't know how to live–he's only ever been surviving.

So much to unpack here. First of all, this makes it clear that for Simon, what's really distressing isn't not dating Agatha, but part of his structure falling apart. It's the going off script. At no point does he think about "feelings for Agatha", about wanting to be with her, specifically, because "he's sure she's the one" or whatever. Nope, he's thinking about his structure. He's thinking about potentially having a family–while noting how there's no emotional connection to her parents; they are polite, but they aren't close! He's thinking about "killing Baz" (we're getting back here in a minute). Most notably, he's thinking about how right now, he isn't happy.

That's the thing with Simon. As much as he wants to avoid it, he's still a boy with hopes and wants and feelings. He doesn't actually want to die in battle, like he was convinced he would (with the way he was living, it wasn't an unlikely scenario). He wants to live. He wouldn't fight the way he does, he wouldn't have such a developed instinct for danger if surviving wasn't his #1 priority. And why does he want to survive? Because he wants to be happy. The future terrifies him, but it doesn't mean he wants no future at all. He has friendship, but he also wants family, he wants romantic love. Dating Agatha and being "welcomed" into her family never fulfilled those needs.

Here, he's telling us that right now, he's unhappy, but he believes that if he continues blindly (and erroneously) holding on to those things (Agatha, her family) he will be. In the future. Because he's thinking about "happy endings": heteronormativity is trapping him. And here's the thing: Simon might not know about "the old stories" in the WoM, but he absolutely knows Normal media ("everyone knows vampires are sexy" he tells Baz in a futile attempt to tell him he thinks Baz is sexy) (you just know he knows about Twilight).

When he's talking about happy endings, he's talking about traditional fairy tales and romances that have no room for anyone who isn't a cis straight person. The kind that assumes straight as the default, and since Simon doesn't know what he wants, he tries to find happiness by following these conventions: the kind that would never even consider that romance and happiness can be found between two boys (or two girls, Agatha was sharing a braincell with Simon here, but that's for another post). The kind that tells you that heroes must rescue damsels, win them over as prizes, and ride into the sunset.

Happy endings for heroes are having "a girl in his arms"–a girl who must conform to very rigid (European) beauty standards–there is a point to even Baz noticing Agatha's "great beauty", it's not just beauty for the sake of it–and she must be completely helpless without "her strong man"–Agatha was likely a target all the time because she's a low powered magician and isn't one for combat, unlike Penny. And this is why Simon latches on to an idea of Agatha, despite not feeling attracted to her, despite not being in love, and not to Penny (who could never fit inside the traditional image of the "damsel", the "fair maiden", the "princess that rides into the sunset" with her frizzy hair, big glasses, and brown skin, who is indispensable in "solving problems and winning", and was likely often rescuing Simon)

This follows this line of thought, and it's very interesting because Simon presents this as proof of "romantic love and attraction", but it's not that at all. This isn't a little boy with a crush. These are the thoughts of a neglected boy, fresh out of care, looking at beauty as strength, as a way to be special. As a tool to make you feel loved and wanted. He has always felt ugly, and he has never felt loved before. It's a very queer moment to me, actually, because this is a boy who will be confined by very rigid gender norms and heteronormativity, thinking "I want to be just like that beautiful girl" and seeking to be (superficially) closer to her to "bask in her light" so maybe, he could be beautiful too. But he didn't have the tools to truly understand his feelings, and so this was reframed inside of heteronormativity, which could only see a boy noticing a girl's beauty as a sign of attraction. (Worth noting that Agatha also fell into comphet because she felt unwanted! obviously, it didn't work out for either of them)

That's also part of why Simon can tell her he loves her, like it's nothing. Because it is nothing. Holding on to this image of her, and to the conventions that tell him that happiness will follow when "they reach" the destination, the happy ending (and not now) is part of the structure. Going along with everything he thinks Agatha would want is also for the sake of keeping the structure intact. When she breaks up with him, she fractures this part of the structure (it's perhaps the first crack after Baz not showing up, that alone guarantees certain "shock") and this also "activates" Simon's abandonment issues. And still, it's not really "Agatha is leaving me" but rather, the idea of the happy ending that Simon has been using to hold on to that is abandoning him.

Also relevant is that in awtwb he tells Baz he isn't sure he even felt anything: it's so much easier to make yourself say things when there's no emotional attachment. And it's also worth mentioning that Simon isn't one to voice his love, that's how you can tell he doesn't mean it either. Simon's love languages are about protecting and providing, it's more about actions. You know Agatha is a loved one because when the three of them are sitting together, and he notes her disassociating and looking tired, despite his complicated relationship with touch, he squeezes her leg to get her attention, and then he does it again to reassure her (not unlike Penny and Simon squeezing each other's hand when in danger, or slowly putting his arms around Penny when she throws herself at him in tears, or even Agatha holding his hands while they cry together).

And then there's Baz. There "killing Baz, so he's not an option". It's not literal, of course, this is the same boy who went out of his goddamn mind when he went missing, who couldn't sleep, eat, or even function properly because he wasn't there. Who stopped eating (food=love and connection) just because Penny casually said "dead vampire".

For Simon to go on like that, blindly and unfeelingly inside of "the structure", then Baz must "be killed". He mustn't be an option for him. Because with Baz, there's no script to follow, there are no roles, there aren't traditional conventions. Choosing to love Baz, for Simon, it's about choosing what Simon wants. It's about himself, and not what others want of him. It's about making himself process his shit, it's about asking questions about his sexuality, about figuring out how romantic love and sexual attraction actually feel like for him. It's about considering his wants, his desires, his needs. He has no guide for that! There's really a before and after for Simon, when he kisses Baz for the first time.

Simon can't help but think about how much he loves Baz. It's so completely different from the kind of thoughts he has during the breakup in CO, where he's thinking about everything (structure, family, mistaken ideas of a person, Baz) but his actual feelings and the actual person who dumped him. But he hasn't managed to say it to Baz because, first of all, Baz and Simon weren't communicating at this point in their relationship. It's also because Simon struggles to voice his actual feelings. It's so different when there's emotional investment: it matters, so much.

This isn't about Simon pulling shit out of his ass with ease because he's not feeling shit. "You can't leave because I love you" he tells Agatha, and it doesn't work because it isn't true. Simon says it easily, because he's not speaking from the heart, he's just parroting conventions (those words are practically magic) in a way that's more akin to "strategy" to defeat an enemy (the enemy being anything that threatened the structure) than actually voicing feelings.

When he tells Baz "I love you", it's so hard because this is coming from the heart, this matters. This is about Simon struggling to voice his true feelings, both because he struggles with verbalizing his thoughts, and because he is so unpracticed in knowing what he actually wants and then saying it. Simon wants. Simon needs. This is Simon answering "why is it so important for him to be with Baz? why should it matter that he wants to try now?". "Because I love you" works now, because it's true. And there's nothing else on his mind other than Baz: how important Baz is to him, and how much he needs Baz to understand what's on his heart.

This is about them starting to communicate too, and realizing how vital it is for them to truly understand each other, instead of just "guessing" and letting their insecurities get the worst of them. It's Simon realizing that Baz can't know for sure he loves him if he doesn't say it (a big part of the problem in the relationship was that they weren't really saying what's in their hearts!) Baz needs to hear it, especially when he has never heard it before. Baz needs Simon to use his words. And it becomes so much easier for Simon to say it (and to say it constantly!) once he's sure that Baz wants him and loves him too, both because it becomes easier for him to voice his wants and needs to Baz, and because it's part of Simon providing, part of Simon taking care of Baz. (He wants to be the one to take care of all of Baz's needs). It's also Baz starting to understand that (killing) to protect and provide is part of how Simon expresses his love (he later compares Simon catching a rat and offering it to him to being gifted a rose, which is an obvious symbol of romance).

#snowbaz #simon snow #baz pitch #agatha wellbelove #baz x simon #carry on #awtwb #wayward son #simon snow trilogy #would u believe it if i told u i had to force myself to keep some thoughts out of this so it wouldnt be so LONG haha

[5-pp-man]

Tomodachi game halfway point thoughts

Aside from making a post abt my ep1 thoughts for all the things I’m watching, I also want to make a post talking about the halfway point and the final episode (and maybe a bonus for the second to last ep? we’ll see) My initial thoughts on this show were that it was just ok, and boy has that changed!  It took a while for it to pick up (it starts off pretty generic), but the switch from Yuuichi to Tenji as our mc worked really, really well. Besides that, the second game was much more interesting than the first, and characters scheming is always a blast to see. And lastly I just really love seeing Manabu’s reactions and little background appearances, he’s so fun :) silly guy I do think the monitor girls show up a bit too much though, it’s fine if they explain stuff sometimes but some scenes should really just speak for themselves.

Having the traitor reveal early on and having us then follow him as the protag was so good, and then Yuuichi explaining exactly how they found him out, with little hints sprinkled throughout the episodes? *chefs kiss* Also let the records show that ever since ep1 I kept (jokingly) thinking “Man. this show’s romance drama is a bit generic. maybe if one of them was gay it would’ve been more interesting, haha.” and lo and behold. the power of prophecy. So yeah. that ending huh. they dropped one bombshell after another in this episode, so I’m super interested to see where this is going Also, I was waaaaay behind on this one. I watched ep1 when it aired, then i started catching up when ep5 was already out. I watched ep2 & 3 two days ago and watched the rest today, so yeah I eventually got pretty invested, haha I like the op’s song (wasn’t a fan at first but it grew on me) the visuals are cool, the ending as well (I liked the song immediately) Mal score; 7.29 My score; 8 (more of a 7.5) Ranking; Tiger & Bunny 2 -Tomodachi Game- Gunjou no Fanfare Love After World Domination Tomodachi Game Ya Boy Kongming!

#tompost #tomtalks #spring 2022 #halfway point thoughts

[yurimother]

LGBTQ Light Novel Review — I'm in Love with the Villainess

A stunningly profound, entertaining, and queer title that eclipses other isekai and Yuri series

There are few titles the general public seems to be as excited about as Inori and Hanagata's I'm in Love with the Villainess, as it has been sitting at or near the top of Amazon's LGBT Manga list for months and Twitter is consistently abuzz with the latest news on this isekai Yuri series. I was somewhat more skeptical, as I have had relatively poor experiences with isekai and fantasy Yuri. Still, my excitement went through the room, and I eagerly boarded the "hype train" upon the cover reveal for the third volume. Yuri families, where two women raise children together, are one of my greatest desires and something I rarely see portrayed in the genre. However, I still had mostly low expectations for the series going into the first volume. I looked forward to some light meandering comedy and typical boring trope-filled isekai shenanigans. However, I'm in Love with the Villainess more than exceeded my expectations. No, even this statement is far too moderate to describe how utterly stunned and blown away I was by Inori's creation. I'm in Love with the Villainess is completely shattering and easily one of the greatest light novels I have ever read. Thus, I have no choice to award a perfect 10/10 score, my first ever for a light novel.

After waking up in the world of her favorite otome game, Revolution, protagonist Rae is ecstatic to be faced to face with Claire Francois, the game's villainous rival. However, Rae never played Revolution for the thrill of romancing any of the three attractive young princes. She was always in love with Claire. She attends the academy and studies magic in the fantasy world alongside Claire, the princes, and various other supporting characters. Using her skills from the modern world and her encyclopedic knowledge of Revolution, Rae manipulates the situation to be close to Claire, becoming her maid, and garnering status and money along the way. As an inevitable conflict looms closer, Rea begins to enact plans to protect herself and Claire, many of which are not fully understood or explained until the finale fantastically reveals the reasons for her actions. There is a natural and steady pace to the narrative that awards readers’  predictions and attention to detail.

I'm in Love with the Villainess has some excellent supporting characters, all of whom have unique personalities, histories, and abilities, some of which are revealed by Rae's exposition and others naturally throughout the novel. However, the stars of the show are the central couple, Rae and Claire. Claire is an elite aristocrat and extremely bratty. She often sneers at commoners and makes her disdain of Rae very clear from early on. On paper, she sounds like the perfect villain and someone all readers would despise. However, Rae's utter devotion and infatuation with Claire is so sincere that we cannot help but be pulled in and adore Claire and all her tantrums. Rae is a delight herself, continually flirting and poking fun at Claire, which gets her verbally berated, much to her masochistic pleasure. However, she is also exceptionally cunning and intelligent, and some of the light novel's greatest joys are listening to her analyze a situation or watching one of her plans fall into place.

“Ah, I’m… Well, it doesn’t matter. I mean, it’s irrelevant to cuteness—because, Miss Claire, you are cute.” “Huh?!” She pulled away. It was perfect—such a pure reaction. “Miss Claire, you hate me, right?” “Of course!” “That’s fine. Please keep teasing me. I love it.”

The beginning of the book does not immediately clue one into its brilliance. Sure, Claire and Rea get some great one-liners as they bully each other, and the scenarios are authentic and fun, but it is nothing shattering. I was feeling pretty relaxed and having a lot of fun with the characters, their relationship, and the various slice-of-life style scenarios they encountered until one section, I remember the exact page, 81, as it stopped me dead in my tracks. I was flabbergasted and briefly frozen before shooting up out of bed, shouting expletives as I ran to my office to immediately record what I had just experienced. It all begins with the line, "Hey, Rae. Are you what they call gay?" What followed was one of the most thoughtful, condensed, informative, and nuanced discussions of gay and queer identity (both terms used in this scene) I have ever seen in Yuri. Everything from representation in media, the perceptions of and prejudices against gay people, and the role gender plays in romance for bisexual and gay people are analyzed. Its commentary is succinct yet so respectful and forthright that it could have only come from genuine experience, thus selling the book and its characters so much more.

"Queer people were still overwhelmingly closeted in this world, which was rife with prejudice and nurtured little understanding. As I noted, the queer people depicted in the story were either the sex fiends Claire imagined or the free-loving sort Lene had in mind. Diversity and acceptance were a long way off.”

Thus, Inori's writing's beauty exposed itself, and the book opened itself up to a delightful cycle. The narrative masterfully integrates isekai slice-of-life hijinks, like running a cross-dressing café or battling a giant slime with nuanced and challenging moments that dissect complicated topics. The latter mainly consists of a growing rift between the aristocracy and common people, mirroring real-world wealth gap issues, but the novel also touch on matters such as unequal prison sentencing and segregation. Every scene helped further the complexity of the characters and their relationships or else built onto the world of Revolution. Speaking of which, I'm in Love with the Villainess has some of the best worldbuilding ever seen in a light novel.

Initially, brief exposition establishes much of the world, which is adequate if not exciting. I will mark up to a casualty of the light novel's serialized nature, as it must present readers its setting immediately. However, Inori does not stop here. Through the narrative, new elements are established, such as a magic system and the kingdom's politics. Rea notes and describes how the world, while clearly based on medieval Europe, has many modern Japanese attributes, as Japanese game developers created it. Her pointing out the intersection of the two is fascinating. Furthermore, A great deal of time is spent establishing characters and organizations all have their own wants, agendas, and methods, many of which are not even directly involved with the story. Instead, they act as a background and help further contextualize others. For example, the Church publicly appears to lean towards supporting the commoners in their efforts for equality but has its own agenda of superseding the nobility. While they play little role in Rea and Claire’s adventure, they are one of numerous factors contributing to the unrest of the lower class. All these additions are interesting, and it never feels like the story or characters suffer for their inclusion, quite the opposite.

“The Bauer Kingdom had started a step behind other countries when it came to magical research. They dominated the surrounding countries in military strength, and this had made them complacent, leading them to underestimate the value of new magic technology until the best researchers had all been enticed to other countries. Even after the king came up with his magic-focused meritocratic policy, Bauer lagged behind.”

I can only make complaints by scraping the very bottom of the barrel. Hanagata's beautiful art is too infrequent to add much to the light novel, and many scenes crying for illustrations are left to the readers' imagination. However, Inori so wonderful writes the story that one hardly cares and can easily picture every moment with delight. Besides, the manga adaption will nullify this issue. Where I cannot complain at all is the spectacular translation by Jenn Yamazaki and Nibedita Sen, one of Seven Seas best (which is high praise considering the competition). Sure, I was slightly disappointed at first to see the adaptation left off honorifics, but the more I thought about the setting, the more sense it made. I am sure people much smarter than I gave the issue much more consideration, and I am happy with their decisions.

I'm in Love with the Villainess left me reeling with how pleasurable and powerful it was. The story and characters are such a joy, and I cannot wait to see Rea and Claire bully each other again in the next volume. Astounding worldbuilding and powerful, thought-provoking politics surround their antics and the high stakes plot. Every moment of their journey will enthrall readers as they squeal with glee at its hilarious set pieces or are shocked by its commentary of society's most significant challenges. Inori has created one of the most delightful, heartfelt, complex, profound, and genuinely queer light novel series ever. If you only read one thing I recommend this year, let it be I'm in Love with the Villainess.

Ratings: Story — 9 Characters — 10 Art — 5 LGBTQ — 10 Sexual Content — 2 Final — 10

Review copy provided by Seven Seas Entertainment

Purchase I’m in Love with the Villainess in digitally (9/23) and in print (11/10) today: https://amzn.to/32NEyG1

Supports creators by purchasing official releases.

#yuri #lgbt #lgbtq #reviews #lgbtq+ #i favor the villainess #i'm in love with the villainess #girls love #gay #queer #light novel #manga #gl #politics #feminism

[therefugeofbooks]

How was everyone's Pride Month? I did read some really good queer books and I have so many authors to look forward in the future! I also read some genres I don't usually pick up, but they were all great! In the end of the month, I started reading horror books and I think I'll continue to do so now in July.

Talking about all the books I read in June under the cut (´｡• ᵕ •｡`)

In reading order:

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me by Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O'Connell (x)

I loved it so much! When I started to read this graphic novel, I couldn't put it down! I think this is also a case of perfect timing because I connected to the story immediately! I love Freddie's journey to break the toxic relationship with Laura Dean and cherish the people who love her. The side characters are great, and friendship is such a key point of the story! Also, the art is so pretty!

Read it if you want: a story about overcoming toxic relationships, friendship wins!

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman (x)

Ugh, this book made me so emotional too. The character's feelings and struggles seemed so realistic! It made me think a lot about my own experiences in my last year of school and dealing with pressure and mental health. I loved all the characters, and I ended the novel wanted to keep following their lives. I also love podcasts so reading a story with a podcast being an important plot point was so cool! And I need more books with friendship being the focus <3

Read it if you want: queer books focusing on friendship, realistic ya stories, mental health, school system commentary.

Jay's Gay Agenda by Jason June

This story is the perfect rom-com! I could perfectly picture it as a Netflix movie! One tiny lie becomes a bigger and uglier one, so the mc has to a grand gesture to redeem himself. It's funny, it's lighthearted, and I loved the side characters! Lots of teenager drama as expected but in the most movie way possible. Loved it!

Read it if you want: queer rom-coms!

Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee

I started this book knowing that it wouldn't be a fluffy as the synopsis suggests because of this review. And it sums up a lot of my thoughts about the book. The mc is more annoying than the average teen mc, and he's angry all the time. He keeps expecting things to be handed out to him. There are many plotlines, and some of them end abruptly and lack some sense of closure. Devin and Noah's friendship was one of the best parts of this novel. And Devin is an angel and deserves more! I also liked Noah celebrating his heritages, the navigating of neo pronouns, and the super supportive brother.

Read it if you want: fake dating with a plot twist!

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

I completely fell in love with this book. I loved Jane and August together! I love time travel books, and I was so invested in the investigation story! The fantasy element is entertaining, and I enjoyed the coincidences and conveniences of it. The progress of their relationship is so wholesome! I loved every second of it. And then, the book still got time to reveal plot twists! And a heist scene!! I was afraid that this book would end badly, but the ending was so sweet! This list is full of books with great side characters, and One Last Stop is no exception. August's friends are so cool, and I'd read any story with them!

Read it if you want: na queer romance, fantasy kind of time travel.

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin (x)

I loved James Baldwin's writing style, but I didn't like the narrator, and I ended up not enjoying reading the story from his point of view.

Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto

I needed a change of genre because I had read three romance books in a row at this point. And I saw this book somewhere, and I was thrilled! It's funny, and the characters are so captivating! The family dynamic is awesome to read about, and at the same time, there's murder! and a wedding! The story takes place within a day and a half! But there are many plot twists and things that go unexpectedly wrong! There's so much in the story, but it all fits so well together. And Meddelling shockingly! discovering! that her aunties! love her! is the best. I can't recommend this book enough. And it seems that this one is getting a Netflix adaptation! I can't wait!

Read it if you want: a good laugh, interesting family dynamics, how not to get rid of a body, fluffy ending.

The Rust Maidens by Gwendolyn Kiste

This one was super tense and mysterious! I love these books that explore the dynamics of small towns. This story explores more specifically how this society treats young girls and the lack of prospects they have. I loved the body horror, and my only complaint is that I wanted more gory descriptions!!

Read it if you want: body horror, small town drama

Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delaney (x) (x)

I got so excited reading Babel-17! From the beginning, I loved the plot dealing with language and translation. Also, there are many action and mystery moments, that put together made an engaging story. The world is so intriguing! There are many aspects of it, like the body modifications, that I wanted to know more about it. Also, it'd be a pretty movie or tv show to watch!

Read it if you want: sci-fi, space exploration, analysis of alien languages.

Darker than Night by Owl Goingback

I loved the monsters in this book and the story behind them! I thought it was scary, but I wanted it a little bit more? I read somewhere that Crota is pretty scary, so I'll probably read it soon.

Read it if you want: haunted houses, paranoia, small town settings.

Rereads:

The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell (x)

Livros disponíveis em Português:

Dá para ver meus reviews lá no skoob clicando no X.

Redemoinho em Dia Quente de Jarid Arraes (x) (x)

O 224° dia em terra firme de Mary Abade (x)

Quando Eu Puder Te Abraçar de Vários Autores (x)

Um Novo Começo de Zé Henrique (x)

And feel free to talk to me about the books of this list :)

Read in: Feb | Mar | Apr | May

☆Book Photography ☆ Storygraph ☆ Scribd ☆

#booklr #monthly wrap-up #mine: original posts #the refuge of books

[rwbyconversations]

The Scarlet Letter: Let’s talk about RWBY’s male LGBT rep

I have been sitting on this post for nearly four weeks waiting until the 15th due to the Before the Dawn spoiler rules.

So let's start with a blunt statement: RWBY's male LGBT representation has not been good. If the series' handling of female LGBT rep is good (which... well there's worse shows) and the general standard for how you write LGBT characters in a show like this, its handling of male rep has been... how not to. And Before the Dawn kinda solidified the idea in my head that the show's handling of its male LGBT cast just isn't good enough, either by the standards of when RWBY began in 2013, or today in 2020 when compatively massive steps have been taken over the past decade to show a more diverse list of characters... or at least a more diverse list of female characters.

I don't wanna make this a pissing match over how over-or-under-represented male or female LGBT characters are, but I feel like it's safe to say that the majority of the trend-setters for modern romances, especially in western animation, have been between women. Korra and Asami from Korra, Chloe and Max from Life is Strange, Marceline and Bubblegum in Adventure Time, (insert the relevant Steven Universe characters here, never watched it), and more recently, Adora and Catra in She-Ra and Luz in Owl House.

Compatively, while studies have shown that in general male LGBT characters get more appearances on a purely numerical level, in general they're more one-off characters there to pad a roster, or played more for comedy (see Josh Gad in the Beauty and the Beast remake or the gay guy in Avengers Endgame that was more notable for how hard China and Russia snapped him out of existance). The only big male-LGBT focused media I can think of from the last decade would be Yuri On Ice, Moonlight, IDW's Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye (Chromedome/Rewind best pairing fuck you Roberts for issue 16) Love Simon, and the anime adaptation of Banana Fish.

So it's no surprise that RWBY basically follows these ideas. It's big romance is (unless the writers are very stupid) going to be between Blake and Yang, their first out character was Ilia, Coco got sent to the Book Dimension where she confirmed "I use my sunglasses to perv on women without their knowledge" which uh... yeah you can definitely tell RWBY is written by men... and Volume 6 had Saph and Terra being a good example of an LGBT couple without any real drama. In the last three years alone, the show has drastically increased its lesbian and bisexual characters, alongside even including its first out trans character in May Marigold (albeit only revealed on Twitter). In general, these depictions of sexuality have been pretty OK. Would have liked it if Ilia wasn't immediately written out of the show after Volume 5 as it made her feel a bit more disposable than intended but whatever, subject for another day.

RWBY's male rep though is a bit spottier. There's the plant bois in Volume 5's premiere, we nearly had Pilot Boi until some last-minute revisions, and... Scarlet.

Why Scarlet's a bad launchpad for male LGBT rep

I don't like Scarlet or how his sexuality has been handled. Scarlet's homosexuality wasn't revealed in the show, or by the writers, or even in anything that's actually canon. He's confirmed gay in his sole of dialogue in a non-canon fan anthology, where the manga's Twitter team had to say that Miles suggested the idea and approved of it.

In short, Scarlet is Dumbledore'd, where his sexuality is revealed in out-of-show material and in a way that doesn't make it supremely obvious (Miles himself never commented to confirm this so this news was limited in how far it could spread. I'm genuinely curious how many people still don't know Scarlet's gay), and Scarlet himself is a nothing character who was written out of the show after Volume 3 and only reappeared in Before The Dawn, half a decade after he vanished. Compared to Ilia, as this came out after Ilia's entire arc in Volume 5, it's not a great starting point for mlm rep. But things would have been forgiven if it had gotten better, if the show did have more male LGBT characters introduced, even just on the Saphron/Terra level of just being around for a few episodes before leaving. Then it would have been a misfire but then we could all say "Things got better."

It... didn't. Which is why when Before the Dawn released in 2020, a full two years after Scarlet was first confirmed gay, while the franchise had more than doubled its wlw rep, Scarlet remained the one male character in the entire franchise who had a name and liked men. I remember vividly a fake leak for After The Fall which claimed Yatsuhashi would come out to Velvet and admit to having a crush on Fox. And I remember as well how many people were disappointed when it was said to be false, because it would have been nice for Yatsuhashi's character, especially after the fleshing out he gets in the CFVY books. If Yatsu had come out as gay in the books I'd like his writing enough to say he's a good case for rep, albeit with the caveat of "This is all in side material." But in reality, the leak was fake and Coco was confirmed gay instead.

Unfortunately, Before the Dawn proceeded to ruin Scarlet and made me at times feel genuinely uncomfortable as a queer man! Let's talk about that.

Before The Dawn is crap and Scarlet's writing is borderline offensive

I hate Before the Dawn. It's... bad. I read it while on a vacation and the only solace I had about the entire thing was that I'd bought an M&M chocolate bar. The bar was finished before the book. That bummed me out. It's not a very well written book, the prose is very Early 2010s YA Writer, none of the characters are memorable and there's various Fun Incidents like "NGDO using children as bait for Grimm," and "Neptune's hydrophpobia being used as a threat to torture him and the scene is played for comedy."

Theo was cool. I can't wait to see him as written by good writers, he should be a highlight of the Vacuo arc.

I had two hopes for Before the Dawn- "Don't be bad," and "Let Scarlet and Sage be well written." I'd liked how After The Fall had handled some of its characters (barring, y'know, Coco perving on women), especially Fox and Yatsu who were surprising in how much I liked them. I was looking forward to seeing Myers give Sage and Scarlet similar treatment- two relatively nothing characters meant he'd have a blank slate to write them however he wanted, he could give them unique personalties and if nothing else it could be cool to see their Semblances.

And then I read the book. (Sage fans I am so sorry for you, you got baited harder than Johnlock fans)

Scarlet's a giant dickhead in the book. It's his sole character trait and his inner monologues go on, and on, and on about how much he hates Sun, how he revels in mocking him. Most of his dialogue is sarcastic put-downs about Sun and how lame he is, and Sun is never properly allowed to defend himself or point out how going with Blake meant he was able to help save Haven Academy.

(hey remember when Sun in Volume 6 expressly says to Blake "I was a bad leader for ditching Neptune and the others, and I need to work on that" only for Before the Dawn to have him staunchly refuse to accept that he let the team down? I don't think Myers did but I do)

Scarlet being a ratty bitch would be one thing if, again, the franchise had done more rep. He'd still be a badly written character, but it wouldn't sting as much. But because Scarlet is still the only expressly confirmed male LGBT character in canon (the book teases that Nolan is gay but there's never confirmation either way beyond him smiling at Scarlet), it means that he has to represent that entire ideal. So when the one gay man in Remnant is being an asshole and a snide loser, that means that by extension, this is how the franchise sees gay men. And that fucking sucks! I wanted to come out of Before The Dawn singing its praises, I wanted to like the book, but it was a massive letdown, especially coming off of the other big 2020 RWBY controversy involving gay characters.

Yeah. We're doing this.

Clover and Fair Game: Technically not queerbaiting. BUT:

Let's pre-empt this: Clover wasn't queerbaiting, and Fair Game, while cool and I dig it, kudos to them for becoming one of the top 5 RWBY pairings on AO3 in one year that's fucking impressive (I say with mild malice as an IronQrow main), never had a chance. The writing never seriously boosted it barring one interaction which was flirty (them talking in the lobby of the Schnee Manor), and everything else was out of show boosting through the social media teams and CRWBY hyping it themselves by saying they liked it. If you wanna blame people, blame the animators who went off-script with stuff like Kim Newman adding the wink as a deliberate nod to the Volume 4 waitress, or the social media team deliberately using the same policies for Fair Game as they do for Renora and Bumblebee.

It wasn't Eddy's fault that things escalated, and he himself has said that in retrospect, he should have warned people that this never had a shot.

But I can't blame the Fair Game fanbase. Because Fair Game took off like wildfire. It came right as the fanbase began seriously asking for more male rep, Qrow's pretty hot, and the Clover wink came right after the Great IronQrow Reawakening of November 9th, 2019. The rocket was primed, and they rode it to the moon. Finally, to these people, after seven years RWBY seemed to be doing something with mlm rep in show. People started getting into RWBY just for Clover and Qrow's interactions. And if heroes were boring, Watts and Tyrian also had a fantastic dynamic that made Nuts and Volts one of the more popular villain ships overnight. Things seemed to be turning around! RWBY was remembering that gay men existed! You could hear the choir sing!

... And for those people, that meant that episode 12 hit like Truck-Kun.

People got pissed. People were horrified. And it didn't help that some members of CRWBY had said in the build-up that episode 12 would have some shots that made them nauseous (probably the Tyrian thumb thing) Out of context, it looked to these fans like CRWBY were basically laughing at their suffering, like they were saying "Lol, you thought you had a chance, get fucked, I hope your vomit burns on the way up."

Yeah, Fair Game was never gonna be canon, and I think some people ran too far with it. But in the wider context of how desperate RWBY's mlm community had gotten for basic crumbs of content? I can see why they'd run with what they had. The writers aren't at fault for what happened, but CRWBY didn't help matters. And that desperate mix of what felt like official backing from the crew, jokes about how cute the ship was, and the hope that finally the show would have onscreen rep? I can see why people ran with it.

So why is the show more lackluster in depicting mlm characters?

Money. Let's be honest, most RWBY fans don't care if the show doesn't have good male rep. I'm willing to bet some of you reading this won't care and just dismiss it as not being that big a problem. I don't think the writers care if the show doesn't have good mlm rep because they're not poaching that market. They're after what they see as a bigger, more lucrative market, which in this case is female LGBT rep. That gets people buying games, watching shows, raising awareness and boosting awareness of your property, which means you make more money. In short: Two women kissing hits more markets and generates more attention than two men.

Am I saying that Miles, Monty and Kerry deliberately sat down seven years ago and said "We're not doing gay men because it won't generate enough ad revenue and traffic to be worth the loss in revenue from homophobes?" No, that's silly. But I'm saying that it's less important for them, and it shows in the things that are small and add up. Things like Miles not verifying Scarlet's sexuality or retweeting the manga account's confirmation to spread the message (compared to how he enthusiastically confirmed Ilia being a lesbian himself during the Reddit AMA). It shows in how Pilot Boi would have been the first mlm character only to die in his second full episode until M&K were told about the Bury Your Gays trope. It shows in how Shannon believes that Ozma is "megaqueer" and Miles jokingly laughs it off instead of confirming it, leaving it to just be Shannon's headcanon. It shows in how actor shipping is compared between the mlm and wlw ships, where Arryn and Barbara's frequent pushes for Bumblebee are seen as "official confirmation that it's endgame" while Michael and Kerry saying they enjoy Seamonkeys is treated as "well it would be cute if they did it, but they're never going to."

I'm not gonna say anything like "CRWBY are gonna have Qrow end up with a woman like Robyn out of spite against the bad apples of the Fair Game crowd." I'm not gonna say that I don't think CRWBY cares about male representation in the series. It is, however, definitely a low priority for them, and because that leads to gaffes like Scarlet's writing in Before The Dawn being offensive in his depiction, it only makes the contrast between the sexes all the more painfully apparent.

I'm kinda tired of waiting for Rooster Teeth to show that they do care about mlm. I'm kinda tired of RWBY's male rep being written like it came from a 1993 time capsule where I have to enhance the screen to see a guy holding a sign of Sun's abs or be content with the only onscreen rep still being the plant bois in Volume 5. I'm tired of how often the crew dances around answering basic questions about sexuality (and age, and birthdays, and heights, and so on) by treating it as a spoiler question, as if just wanting to know what way people swing would ever be a spoiler. I'm just... tired of all this. When the best mlm rep in Rooster Teeth's history remains the two dads in Camp Camp who show up in a few episodes, that should say something really bad about your company and your biases (To say nothing of the recent Red vs Blue seasons and their blatant queerbaiting for Grif and Simmons and the whole can of worms that is Donut).

I'd like to not feel like I'm borderline unwelcome because I'd like to see two men in this show kiss, and that the sole thing that represents people like me in this show is some British twat who complains about sand.

I'd just like to feel like my sexuality isn't a joke to Rooster Teeth (or at the very least, be like Donut and have it be a funny one). But at this point after the last few years? I feel like a very uncomfortable punchline to them. And it just sucks.

#rwby #rwde #fair game #queerbaiting #rwby before the dawn #mlm #lgbt #rwby analysis #Rooster Teeth #clover ebi #scarlet david

[into-control]

🌹 camren recap of 2019: part 4 (october - december)

(1) (2) (3) (4)

october 3rd:

camila wore a shirt called ‘undercover lovers’:

lauren liked a post that included a different version of the same shirt:

october 5th:

conclusion: mariposa = gay

exposed:

october 11th:

besides the fact that is was world mental health day, easy, as song about camila’s lover causing her to find ways to love herself, was released as well and with it lauren posted a list of things she loves about herself:

(note: october 11th was also national coming out day in 2019.)

october 16th:

on the official anniversary of lauren’s ‘it’s camren yo’ tweet, the fish kiss was deleted from shawn’s IG page. this caused a lot of attention to be put onto him, and sparked many breakup rumours over the next couple of days:

unfortunately, none of them were true, because it was just a ploy to gain attention.. as the video reappeared again on october 19th, which is also when ‘camila’ posted this on her story:

october 21st:

nicki minaj posted a few videos of other artists singing/lip syncing her songs, and one of them was camila. dinah liked this post:

october 24th:

on my blog, we talked about how what makes camila obviously gay is that she is always giving lesbians dating advice and gay people in general coming out advice while she always dodges boy advice. three days later on october 27th, camila gave a bunch of boy advice on twitter.

october 26th:

shawn said that him and camila started dating on july 4th, the first time they were photographed, because he is stupid. no celebrities start dating the first time they’re papped.

november 3rd:

camila posted a poem from yet another lesbian poet:

camila created this playlist on spotify:

it included the song ‘you don’t own me’, which lauren sang a few days earlier at jammjam on october 31st.

camila added more peculiar songs to this playlist:

november 9th:

camila made a playlist called ‘latin lover’. a few days later, lauren attended the latin grammys.

november 14th:

at the latin grammys, lauren sat in the very front row. apparently, her attending was a surprise to many. at the ceremony, mi persona favorita won two grammys, and alejandro performed the song alone. since the front row is always reserved for performers and artists accepting awards, the conclusion was that she was there in camila’s place.

november 15th:

camila released living proof. the second verse contains these lyrics:

instead of actual freckles, what if she was talking about a tattoo?

in the song, camila talks about how there is god in her lover’s moves and that they came to save her. 

lauren’s spine tattoo says “i am that i am”, a quote from the bible:

november 17th:

on this day, camila was filming the living proof music video, as revealed when she joined john mayer’s IG live.

on this day, lauren liked a picture of a sculpture of two people in a position identical to that of one in the living proof music video, which didn’t come out until november 24th.

also in the living proof music video, there is a scene where a female hand (lightly) grabs camila’s throat.

on november 26th, camila posted this post on her IG story and commented on it:

at the AMAs, lauren and camila both wore snake rings:

camila wore a nude colour dress and lauren wore a snake scale dress, representing eve and the snake temping eve. their AMAs outfits were a play on temptation.

lauren also witnessed camila perform just like last year, as she posted a video on her story acknowledging taylor swift’s performance, which camila was a part of.

november 26th:

camila posted about kissing on mountains with faily nymphs:

nymphs are generaly female.

november 27th:

the media tried to make first man about shawn even though the song was written over a year ago:

november 30th:

lauren posted a baby photo, and then camila followed suit on december 3rd:

december 1st:

camila posted a warning tweet:

and then immediately had a very weird ass social media interaction with shawn:

december 2nd:

camila liked sam smith’s post with normani in it:

december 6th:

the lyrics from my oh my parallel the lyrics from make you made by fifth harmony:

the lyrics from feel it twice parallel the lyrics from no way by fifth harmony, a song that meant a lot to lauren:

shawn literally doesn’t give a shit about camila so cez, on of his managers, had to publicly support her for him:

december 7th:

roger mixed up his and camila’s public personalities while commenting on finneas’ post from both accounts:

the day after the release of romance, lauren posted about dababy:

fifteen minutes later, camila posted about my oh my:

december 13th:

camila liked rosalia’s post with lauren in it:

in november, my blog received a visitor that likely had inside information about camila’s career and signed off with a dove emoji. shortly after they left, doves started to appear:

on december 15th:

sometime around december 24th:

december 15th:

lauren started a q&a on her twitter, and camila started one on her story on december 17th:

lauren lowkey exposed tara for using her twitter in 2017 (this also means camren was never muted on her account):

december 25th:

ally reposted a camren account:

that’s all folks! it’s been a rough year but i still think it was great and that camren is going strong.

#2019 #recap

[quarantineandchillthings]

THE ORIGINALS

After finishing The Vampire Diaries I felt completely lost. The last episode left me wanting more even though I had just finished 8 whole seasons. Some of my favourite characters were the original vampires, and I was left wishing that they were in the final episode of TVD. So of course I was gonna watch The Originals immediately. The Originals follow Klaus, Elijah and Rebekah Mikealson of the original vampire family, as they move back to New Orleans, which is where they stayed for centuries before. The reason for their move is the pregnancy of Hayley, a werewolf who had a one night stand with Klaus in a Vampire Diaries episode.

What I love most about this show is that it is less of a teen drama than The Vampire Diaries is (although I am a sucker for a good teen drama). The storyline of Klaus having a child was absolutely shocking, which I loved, as we thought that him being half a Vampire would not allow him to procreate. However because he is a hybrid (vampire/werewolf) his werewolf gene allowed it to happen. I especially loved this storyline because it meant that Klaus would probably be forced to show more of his humanity (which he did), which we see little of in Vampire Diaries, only really showing it when he’s with Caroline. I also love seeing more of the backstory of how the original vampires were made, as well as how they figured out what their powers were. It was interesting to see the family as kids. The cutest scene is seeing Klaus make a little wooden toy for Rebekah as children, showing how sweet their relationship used to be. It was heartbreaking seeing the backstory of their father with Klaus and how damaged their relationship left him. You see a large amount of Elijah's past as well, I liked seeing him with the doppleganger Tatia, and how becoming a vampire ruined their relationship. A shocking twist was when it was revealed that Freya, their oldest sister, was still alive. I thought bringing her back into the family was great and changed the dynamic. She was such a great character, always helping with every problem that came their way. They would most definitely have died much earlier than they did if it wasn’t for her. Marcel’s dynamic with the family was also one of my favourites. I loved that he really was like a son to Klaus and I enjoyed watching the flashbacks of their relationship as well as with Rebekah, Elijah and Kol. Plus Marcel as a child is adorable.  Finding out about their sire lines and Lucien, Tristan and Aurora was one of my favourite parts in the show. You see these characters be the first humans that the original family turn, and what their life became after that. It is so interesting to me to see the history of vampirism in the TVD world. 

This show quickly became one of my favourite shows. I truly don’t know which show I enjoyed more, Vampire Diaries or The Originals. However I would’ve loved to see more of Rebekah, Kol and Finn, especially Rebekah. In saying that, I know her absence from the show was for personal reasons which I most definitely respect, and the parts we did get with her were awesome. We got to see quite a bit of Kol’s character but I still would've liked to see a little more considering it is called ‘The Originals’ not ‘Klaus and Elijah’. Although Finn is most definitely my least favourite Mikealson sibling and probably the most boring, I wanted to see why he was like that, and although we saw that a little more than we did in The Vampire Diaries, he died before we could see more. I also wish that the ending did not have to have Hayley, Klaus and Elijah die. I definitely thought it was a full circle moment when Klaus and Elijah took each other's lives and also proved that they both were not villains and showed their love and care for their family (always and forever 😭). However I am so sad that they will never appear in Legacies and that Hope has had to live with so much of her family dead. Although you never know who can come back to life in these shows. 

This show really stepped it up in terms of diversity. As I discussed in my Vampire Diaries post, I wanted to see more people of colour in the main cast. This show definitely did that, having two African American characters, Marcel and Vincent, become part of the main cast. Both of them quickly became favourite characters of mine. Adding Keelin as a featured character as well was amazing as her character was part of an interracial and lesbian couple with Freya, which was awesome to see. Speaking of which, this show was good at representing couples from the LGBTQI+ community. Two of my favourite couples on the show were gay couples, one being Josh and Aiden, and of course Freya and Keelin. I also loved that it wasn't a big deal Freya starting having a relationship with a woman, and the family hardly even reacted which was nice. I’m seeing more of this in many tv shows and it’s great to see. 

FUN FACTS: 

- The show came through Vampire Diaries fans making videos of what a show based on the original family would look like. Joseph Morgan (Klaus) and Claire Holt (Rebekah) saw these videos and started talking about making a series. 

- Charles Michael Davis (Marcel), auditioned for The Vampire Diaries many times but never landed a part. He was very glad when he got the call to be a part of The Originals

- The Originals received better ratings than The Vampire Diaries 

- Phoebe Tonkin (Hayley) and Claire Holt (Rebekah) starred in H2O just add water, an Australian kids tv show together before their roles on The Vampire Diaries and The Originals

- The show was first meant to be set in Chicago, but was later decided to be set in New Orleans

For more fun facts go to https://thegameofnerds.com/2018/02/23/12-facts-about-the-originals-we-bet-you-didnt-know/ 

and

  https://www.uselessdaily.com/news/13-amazing-facts-about-the-originals/ 

Other projects the incredible actors have been apart of:

Joseph Morgan (Klaus)  - Brave New World - Sci-fi series 

Daniel Gillies (Elijah)  - Saving Hope - Drama/fantasy series 

Claire Holt Rebekah) - 47 Meters Down - Horror/thriller movie 

Phoebe Tonkin (Hayley) - Bloom - Drama series 

Charles Michael Davis (Marcel)  - Younger - Comedy/romance series 

Danielle Campbell (Davina) - Tell Me A Story - Psychological thriller series 

Riley Voelkel (Freya) - Roswell, New Mexico - Drama/sci fi series

Leah Pipes (Camille) - Life Is Wild - Drama series 

Yusaf Gatewood (Vincent) - Umbrella Academy (S2) - Action series 

Nathaniel Buzolic (Kol) - Saving Zoe - Crime film 

And where to find them: 

Joseph Morgan -

https://www.instagram.com/therealjosephmorgan/?hl=en

https://twitter.com/JosephMorgan

Daniel Gillies - 

https://www.instagram.com/mr.danielgillies/?hl=en

https://twitter.com/danieljgillies

Claire Holt - 

https://www.instagram.com/claireholt/?hl=en

https://twitter.com/claireholt

Phoebe Tonkin - 

https://www.instagram.com/phoebejtonkin/?hl=en

https://twitter.com/1PhoebeJTonkin

Charles Michael Davis - 

https://www.instagram.com/charlesdavis2020/?hl=en

Danielle Campbell - 

https://www.instagram.com/thedaniellecampbell/?hl=en

Riley Voelkel - 

https://www.instagram.com/lifeofrileyv/?hl=en

https://twitter.com/Lifeofrileyv

Leah Pipes - 

https://www.instagram.com/leahmariepipes10/?hl=en

https://twitter.com/leahmariepipes

Yusaf Gatewood - 

https://www.instagram.com/yusufgatewood/?hl=en

Nathaniel Buzolic - 

https://www.instagram.com/natebuzz/?hl=en

https://twitter.com/natebuzz

#the originals #klaus #klaus mikaelson #elijah #elijah mikaelson #rebekah #rebekah mikaelson #freya mikaelson #freya x keelin #marcel gerard #neworleans #kol mikaelson #finn mikaelson #davina claire #kol x davina #vincent #camille o'connell #hybrid #mikealson #originals #the vampire diaries

[somegirlsnerdywords2]

Anime i’ve Watched

That begin with a D (Part 1)!

Yep this is how i’m going to bring over all the anime and manga i’ve watched and posted about on the old blog. It’s not so detailed but it will have to do. Anything new I watch or read from this point on will have their own posts.

Dance with Devils:

Genres: reverse harem, demons, supernatural, romance, vampire, shoujo

Synopsis: Ritsuka Tachibana has always been a good student, so she is completely shocked when she is suddenly summoned by the student council. Even more, they seem to think of Ritsuka as a troublemaker. Led by the handsome Rem Kaginuki, the student council—also consisting of Urie Sogami, Shiki Natsumizaka and Mage Nanashiro—tries to question her, but it soon becomes clear that they have ulterior motives.However, this is only the beginning. When her mother gets kidnapped, her life is turned upside down, and Ritsuka gets drawn into a world of vampires and devils. Both groups are searching for the "Grimoire," a forbidden item allowing its owner to rule the world. The return of her brother Lindo from overseas gives her hope, but even he appears to be hiding something. In a world filled with secrets, Ritsuka questions whom she can trust in this dark musical tale, while the handsome and dangerous members of the student council compete for her attention.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 8/10

Finished airing in 2015 with a total of 12 episodes. 

My Thoughts: One of the better animes in the reverse harem genre. Little bit of fantasy, drama, romance. This one was actually a musical... or at the very least had a notable amount of musical numbers throughout the series. I do love me a good musical. To be fair this anime had some big issues, though if you’re just looking for a bit of halfway decent reverse harem fun this should suit you just fine!

Darling in the FranXX:

Genres: action, drama, mecha, romance, sci-fi

Synopsis:  In the distant future, humanity has been driven to near-extinction by giant beasts known as Klaxosaurs, forcing the surviving humans to take refuge in massive fortress cities called Plantations. Children raised here are trained to pilot giant mechas known as FranXX—the only weapons known to be effective against the Klaxosaurs—in boy-girl pairs. Bred for the sole purpose of piloting these machines, these children know nothing of the outside world and are only able to prove their existence by defending their race.

Hiro, an aspiring FranXX pilot, has lost his motivation and self-confidence after failing an aptitude test. Skipping out on his class' graduation ceremony, Hiro retreats to a forest lake, where he encounters a mysterious girl with two horns growing out of her head. She introduces herself by her codename Zero Two, which is known to belong to an infamous FranXX pilot known as the "Partner Killer." Before Hiro can digest the encounter, the Plantation is rocked by a sudden Klaxosaur attack. Zero Two engages the creature in her FranXX, but it is heavily damaged in the skirmish and crashes near Hiro. Finding her partner dead, Zero Two invites Hiro to pilot the mecha with her, and the duo easily defeats the Klaxosaur in the ensuing fight. With a new partner by his side, Hiro has been given a chance at redemption for his past failures, but at what cost? [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 6/10

Finished airing in 2018 with a total of 24 episodes. 

My Thoughts: Ohhhh how I wanted to love this one. After Kill la Kill I have the highest of hopes for anything Trigger releases but unfortunately they tend to fall short of my expectations... such a shame. The art, animation and themes were fantastic but that’s about where the good times end in all honesty. I will never forgot just HOW they operate the mechs.... those images will forever be burned into my memories.... so thanks for that I guess?? This series had it’s moments and wasn’t a complete dumpster fire but overall it just wasn’t anywhere near the masterpiece I hoped it would be. The disappointment factor probably took a few points off in the end. 

Deadman Wonderland:

Genres: action, sci-fi, shounen, horror

Synopsis: It looked like it would be a normal day for Ganta Igarashi and his classmates—they were preparing to go on a class field trip to a certain prison amusement park called Deadman Wonderland, where the convicts perform dangerous acts for the onlookers' amusement. However, Ganta's life is quickly turned upside down when his whole class gets massacred by a mysterious man in red. Framed for the incident and sentenced to death, Ganta is sent to the very jail he was supposed to visit.But Ganta's nightmare is only just beginning.The young protagonist is thrown into a world of sadistic inmates and enigmatic powers, to live in constant fear of the lethal collar placed around his neck that is slowed only by winning in the prison's deathly games. Ganta must bet his life to survive in a ruthless place where it isn't always easy to tell friend from foe, all while trying to find the mysterious "Red Man" and clear his name, in Deadman Wonderland.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 6/10

Finished airing in 2011 with a total of 12 episodes. 

My Thoughts: Just go check out the completed manga is you’re interested in this series and watch the anime for more content. Pretty cool premise with decent art and music but is incomplete and very unlikely to receive another season.

Death Note:

Genres: mystery, police, psychological, supernatural, thriller, shounen

Synopsis: A shinigami, as a god of death, can kill any person—provided they see their victim's face and write their victim's name in a notebook called a Death Note. One day, Ryuk, bored by the shinigami lifestyle and interested in seeing how a human would use a Death Note, drops one into the human realm. High school student and prodigy Light Yagami stumbles upon the Death Note and—since he deplores the state of the world—tests the deadly notebook by writing a criminal's name in it. When the criminal dies immediately following his experiment with the Death Note, Light is greatly surprised and quickly recognizes how devastating the power that has fallen into his hands could be. With this divine capability, Light decides to extinguish all criminals in order to build a new world where crime does not exist and people worship him as a god. Police, however, quickly discover that a serial killer is targeting criminals and, consequently, try to apprehend the culprit. To do this, the Japanese investigators count on the assistance of the best detective in the world: a young and eccentric man known only by the name of L. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 9/10

Finished airing in 2007 with a total of 37 episodes. 

My Thoughts: If you’re an anime fan and haven’t at least heard of Death Note you may have been living under a rock. Or maybe the only reason you know this title is because of that dumpster fire of a live action western remake... if so I am so so sorry. Strong beginning with an alright end. A great psychological series overall though. Unique and iconic. 

Death Parade: 

Genres: game, mystery, psychological, drama, thriller

Synopsis:  After death, there is no heaven or hell, only a bar that stands between reincarnation and oblivion. There the attendant will, one after another, challenge pairs of the recently deceased to a random game in which their fate of either ascending into reincarnation or falling into the void will be wagered. Whether it's bowling, darts, air hockey, or anything in between, each person's true nature will be revealed in a ghastly parade of death and memories, dancing to the whims of the bar's master. Welcome to Quindecim, where Decim, arbiter of the afterlife, awaits! Death Parade expands upon the original one-shot intended to train young animators. It follows yet more people receiving judgment—until a strange, black-haired guest causes Decim to begin questioning his own rulings. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 9/10

Finished airing in 2015 with a total of 12 episodes. 

My Thoughts: Now this was an interesting one! Here we have the concept of death in game form. Each episode a new player is introduced and our leading pair takes them through their chosen game. Morality, mystery and a dynamic leading pair are what drive this character driven series. You’re sure to experience a wide range of emotions while watching this anime and the opening theme was pretty good as well. Why not give it a go if it sounds like your kind of thing!?

Denki-gai no Honya-san:

Genres: comedy, seinen, slice of life

Synopsis:  Umio is a shy kid who just started his part time job at a manga store smack dab in the middle of the city. But his lifestyle isn't as glamorous as the neon lights that illuminate the city. Umio's closest friends are his co-workers who are all unique characters, to say the least, and although they're nice people, they have their quirks. They are a tight knit group of friends, have nicknames for each other and spend their weekends inside, sheltered from the extravagant scene happening on the outside. (Source: MU)

My Rating: 10/10

Finished airing in 2014 with a total of 12 episodes. 

My Thoughts: Something light after this unusually heavy themed list. A lovable cast of characters drive this situational comedy and it’s an abosulte joy to watch each and every one of the antics they manage to get up to. A great series to bang out on a day when you aren’t feeling so great and need a little something to lighten your mood. You’re unlikely to find any deep life lessons here but it’s sure to tickle your funny bone. 

Devilman: Crybaby:

Genres: action, demons, horror, supernatural, ONA

Synopsis:  Devils cannot take form without a living host. However, if the will of an individual is strong enough, they can overcome the demon and make its power their own, becoming a Devilman. Weak and unassuming, Akira Fudou has always had a bleeding heart. So when his childhood friend Ryou Asuka asks for his help in uncovering devils, Akira accepts without hesitation. However, to Akira's surprise, the place they go to is Sabbath: an immoral party of debauchery and degeneracy. Amidst bloodshed and death, demons possess the partiers, turning their bodies into grotesque monsters, and begin wreaking havoc. In a reckless attempt to save his best friend, Akira unwittingly merges with the devil Amon and becomes a Devilman, gaining the power to defeat the remaining demons. Though it grants him great power, this new partnership awakens an insatiable and primeval part of Akira. Having the body of a devil but the same crybaby heart, Akira works alongside Ryou, destroying those that harm humanity and his loved ones. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 4/10

A 10 episode ONA that finished airing in 2018

My Thoughts: And we’re back at it with the dark stuff... I was not a fan. The art.animation had some real cool moments as did the music but it was just a bit much in my opinion. Rushed and nonsensical with characters I couldn’t care less about. Gratuitous violence and nudity. To be fair there are plenty who enjoyed this anime, unfortunately for all of you I was not one of them.

#dance with devils #anime #darling in the franxx #deadman wonderland #death note #death parade #denki-gai no honya-san #devilman: crybaby

[itsclydebitches]

3 topics this time!

1.) I was watching Sarcastic Chorus’ video on Star Vs The Forces of Evil, and near the end there was a comment that stuck with me. “These ideas are present, but not fully explored. I like to call them the window shopping of ideas.”

And that was just such a perfect way of describing it. When I first heard it, I immediately thought of My Hero Academia and RWBY. And while both have this problem in spades, RWBY is much more obvious about it. Every single time RWBY introduces a concept they’ll look at it, try it on for a bit, and then dump it on the floor for other people to deal with, and then leave without buying into anything.

Raven? Dumped. Beacon? Dumped. Has anyone seen Tai? Glynda? Sun? Are the grimm still roaming around? Are we sure that Salem hasn’t yet retrieved the relic from Beacon? Wasn’t Nora supposed to get development? Are she and Ren still having problems? Shouldn’t Jaune be learning how to control his semblance better? Especially since it’s something so helpful? Didn’t Robyn need immediate medical attention? But she somehow survived? And is perfectly okay? How? Wasn’t she in a serious medical condition? Is Haven still in chaos? Where is Watts? Is he locked up? Or did he escape while the mains were throwing their temper tantrums? Where’s Tyrian? Where are all of the other students? All dumped. Little to no explanation, and off to the next shop.

2.) I disappeared for a bit after your recap because I was so purely infuriated with the last two episodes. Ironwood shooting Oscar feels ignorable to me in a way because it’s such an out of left field, ooc moment, that my brain is just refusing to acknowledge it. It’s horrible, terrible writing. And it feels a lot like shark jumping.

But as someone who started writing fanfiction in middle school, I get where they were coming from. They wanted a fall from grace story. Cool. Got it. But that takes time. If they wanted to do this properly, it should have been given much more time. Hit the topic episode 1 of the season and devote little time to anything else. The election? Scrap it. Overall it was barely relevant. Robyn. Skip it. Again, barely relevant. Don’t have Ruby&Co hiding info. That takes up time and attention. Have them put all of their cards on the table immediately. (It also serves to not make them hypocrites.) Give the teams another solution to save everyone. (At least a reasonably feasible one.)

Have the kids argue it out. Have Ironwood refuse to budge because they’ve already put too much time into the plan before Ruby and friends came along. Have Weiss go to her mother ask her to set up a meeting with the council to protest what Ironwood is doing. And have her gain their trust by revealing what her father has been doing. If you really want to do this in such little time, it’s possible, but you have to dedicate the time that you do have to it. If you don’t want to do that, and you don’t want to pace it out for another season, then scrap it. In the overall story for the show Ironwood being evil is wholly unnecessary. It adds nothing  to the show. Especially since they’ve already done this twist.

You could also make it so that the Ace Ops were going behind Ironwood’s back to betray him to Salem. Have the ace ops getting along with the mains to gather information. You could also have had Ironwood going down a dark path since his reintroduction. Have him plant spyware on them. Have him in shadows. Have him looking menacing in scenes. Alluding to terrible things that he might be doing. Looking at secret files. Messing with the relic. But for the love of god, don’t do what you’ve done. It was messy and lazy. If you can’t (or don’t want to) devote the time and effort to make this work, then remove it from your story.

3.) There was an article about the fan backlash regarding Clover’s death. In it, it talked about how anyone upset was just a whiny woman who was upset that she can’t fantasize about two gay men. And that it wasn’t queerbaiting or burying your gays because Clover wasn’t officially canonized as such. And that the show has Bumblebee, so it can’t be doing either of those things. And I was so disgusted by it and the comments that followed that I had to get off the internet for awhile. There’s just so much wrong with that.

No, Clover was not said to be anything other than straight in canon. (He wasn’t said to be straight either, so…) However, if we are only going with what has explicitly been stated in the show; then I will not be accepting Bumblebee as a legitimate point for the show from the same people any longer.

Do they seem to be headed into a relationship? Sure. And I hope that it gets proper time and follow through. But if we’re only accepting relationships and sexualities by being told in universe, then you can’t use that as a shield. Because nothing has been said. The writers could change their minds, place them in relationships with male characters, say that they’re straight (you better not RT, do not take this as a legitimate idea to do) and act like nothing ever happened. But it wouldn’t matter, according to this logic, because they never technically canonized it. And I know that it’s a little different, given that we’re shown Blake and Yang having signs of romance feelings for each other, but by this argument, nothing matters unless we’re spoon fed information. And  that brings me to my next point.

In the history of media wlw pairings have always been more ‘acceptable’ than mlm ones. Because there’s a history of denial and fetishizing them. It it’s women, then of course they’re all over each other! They’re women! With all those emotions and need for physical contact! If they’re in a relationship with another woman? That’s fine! It’s not a real relationship! They’re just playing! They need a man! And just imagine! Two attractive women being attracted to you, good sir! And imagine being such a studly man that these women change their sexualities just for you! Women are fickle after all! They change their minds all the time! 

A man in a relationship with another man? Is seen as unnatural. Because straight men can’t fantasize about it. They can’t fetishize it. And therefore, there’s no need for it in media. They don’t want it there. And I don’t want to accuse the writers at RWBY of specifically thinking this way, but it is the way media tends to go. And while the lead characters are women, and a good amount of the fandom are women, there’s still room to question if this is what’s happening. The main leads are all young, thin, and conventionally attractive. Even when in a place that marked by how cold it is, the clothes are more for style and having the girls look attractive over function. The only one of them that looks even remotely clothed appropriately for the weather is Weiss. And when you get to the male characters, they’re either evil, dead, or given so little character that half the time they’re easy to forget. Because the story nor the writing is interested in men.

Also, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend of the writing suddenly getting rid of characters that fans pair with Qrow. First Ozpin, then Ironwood, then Clover. You could probably make an argument for Tai being shunted off once that started to gain traction in fandom as well. It’s creepy. 

(Sorry if anything is phrased badly. One of the problems I have with social things is that I never know if I’ve phrased something well enough to get my point across without being offensive. Still working on it, so let me know!)

***

Response under the cut! 

1. absolutely love that phrase: “Window shopping ideas.” I feel like I may have heard it before, but not enough for it to stick. It really is perfect though. The story looks at something, seems to consider it seriously, maybe even tries it on… but in the end doesn’t commit. We move onto the next piece of clothing—or even the next store—without, ultimately, having achieved anything other than introducing the possibility of buying a new outfit (telling a cohesive story). One of the most common compliments I hear RWBY get, and one I agree with, is that it has so many cool ideas. The problem is this isn’t a tumblr post going, “Here are all my fun headcanons, random concepts, and nifty details vaguely held together by a broad plot.” Cool ideas alone isn’t enough to carry a mainstream story a lot of people are paying for, certainly not one as long and complex as RWBY has become. Granted, every story has window shopping to a certain extent. We can acknowledge that there are different levels: 

Dropping Glynda is super understandable largely due to the issues surrounding her voice actress. Finding someone new for Qrow is one thing because he’s still actively a part of the plot, but if you’ve lost an actress for a character currently off screen, it’s tempting to just keep her off screen. I get that. It’s an arguably smart sacrifice. 

Dropping Jaune’s development is somewhat understandable because we acknowledge that change within a cast this size has to cycle. Jaune got to improve last volume through figuring out how to heal that guy’s arm and amplify Ren’s semblance. So his development takes a backseat the next volume to make room for others’. Problem is… 

Dropping something like Nora and Ren’s development is both Not Good and actively hurting the justification behind dropping other things (like Jaune). What did we learn about Ren and Nora this volume? Nothing. There was no insight into Nora like we were led to believe there would be. Ren obviously has a lot of stuff he’s trying to work through, but the story actively kept him from working through it by silencing him with a kiss. And the kiss itself? Great in regards to moving forward with their romantic relationship, but we already knew that relationship existed. We were clear about Ren and Nora being a couple up until Ren voiced hesitation… which, as said, was then ignored. The kiss achieved little in the grand scheme of things and, unlike something like Blake/Yang, doesn’t function to provide absolutely needed proof. Again, it’s good we got it, it just wasn’t done particularly well and was done in place of much more important development. I don’t need them to kiss this second because their moments in Volume 4-6 firmly established that they’re a couple. I do need to know more about who Nora is, whether Ren agrees with Ironwood, and why he’s so torn about this relationship that just the concept of hitting a fake version of Nora in battle makes him cry. (Because seriously, don’t they spar? That was clearly something much bigger than just not wanting to his his girlfriend.) 

So… yeah. A lot of window shopping. Which connects to: 

2. The fact that yeah, there was too much going on this volume which resulted in none of it getting the time it needed. We keep coming back to the question of “What is the point?” What was the point of resurrecting Penny if she wasn’t going to grow as a person, or help Ruby do the same? What’s the point of spending so much time on Robyn learning to trust Ironwood only for her to immediately reject him on the airship? What’s the point of devoting time to Qrow and Clover’s friendship if Qrow thinks so little of it he’ll team up with Tyrian instead? What was the point of framing Penny? What’s the point of spending SO much time showing justified and sympathetic scenes of Ironwood if you’re going to take a sharp right and randomly make him shoot a kid in the finale? What’s the point of the group being devastated by Ozpin lying to them if they’re just going to turn around and tell the same lies? Nothing amounted to anything. All the time we spent developing Thing A was dropped for Thing B. Continuing the analogy, the characters spent a whole volume admiring the red dress, checking the price, talking about reasons why this was the perfect purchase for them to make… only to turn around and buy a pair of pants instead, something we haven’t even seen them look at, let alone try on. The journey these characters took is entirely disconnected from where they ended up. 

3. Oof yeah. All of that is a complex af topic that deserves more than my quick response… but suffice to say, anyone who believes that “wasn’t queerbaiting or burying your gays because Clover wasn’t officially canonized as such” fundamentally doesn’t understand what queerbaiting is. The whole point is that it’s NOT canonized. Like Blake/Yang remain. I admit 100% that Clover and Qrow were not teased in the same way that other potential queer couples have been (such as Dean/Cas in Supernatural), but there were a lot of hints and coding that encouraged a queer reading regardless and fans are right to point that out, regardless of what RT’s intentions may have been. Even if you don’t want to go that route, this volume still—quite obviously—encouraged a close friendship, something that in and of itself is chock-full of implications given the history of the buddy duo/opposites attract trope. Whether you read Qrow and Clover as platonic or potentially romantic, the end result is the same: two men embodied an intimate and gentle relationship (something rare for two “straight” guys) and then one was horrifically murdered off in order to “justify” the destruction of the one other friendship Qrow still has going. There’s a lot in there for fans to be upset with, especially when it was all set up so poorly. And frankly, until RT actually canonizes Blake/Yang, I’m not going to make any blanket statements about how they would never queerbait, not matter how lightly. Because you’re right. We don’t know what we’ll get in the future and no matter how seemingly obvious it is that they will enter a relationship at some point…we can’t swear that it will actually make it on screen. In which case everything we’ve seen—romantic hand-holding, intense blushes, going out on presumed dates—would enter the realm of really intense queerbaiting, which in turn would drastically color how viewers read Clover and Qrow. You proved with one couple that you’re willing to string viewers along… so why would we claim you weren’t doing the same here, even though it was a lot more subtle? As an on-going series it’s hard to make any definite statements about RWBY’s representation, but given how long it’s taking for their presumed, primary queer couple to get together (no matter how little time has passed in-world the writers are still making the fanbase wait years) and the history surrounding Clover and Qrow’s character types as well as the ending they got… I’m more than a little uncomfortable. Just like I was uncomfortable with the decision to make the first queer character a villain who blames her crush for those feelings, her abusive relationship, all while trying to murder her parents. That stuff hurts in a world where queer media is still both rare and often badly done. Even if next volume Blake/Yang becomes canon and RT has A+ rep moving forward, we’re still left for the next year with one queer coded character denouncing all his male friendships, one close male friend dead, and two women dancing around each other. Volume 7 has a lot of things that on their own aren’t necessarily that bad, but pull them all together and it paints a far worse picture. 

(Also yeah, another anon mentioned how RWBY is popular because it’s not fanservice and I’m like, “Yes… but also no lol. I have things to say about how ‘We don’t do giant breasts or pantie shots!’ shouldn’t be the only bar we strive to meet.) 

#rwby #rwby volume 7 #rwby volume 7 spoilers #mymetas #submission

[lgbtqareads]

15 Books I Want To Read That are Releasing in the Next 6 Monthes

Every six monthes, I am excited to see the new LGBTQA+ YA books of the next monthes and while thos December, I was a little weirded out to not find them on B&N Teen previews, I was happy to see that Dahlia Adler posted her lists and opinions at lgbtqreads.com. So, of course I went through and narrowed the list from 72 to 34 to 15, only choosing books that I felt I really wanted to read and not just fall for all the amazing synopses and covers, which let's be honest, are all truly masterpieces.

But enough introduction. Let's get into my to be bought (and read) list of the first six monthes of 2020:

We Used to Be Friends by Amy Spalding - JANUARY 7TH

Goodreads Synopsis: Told in dual timelines—half of the chapters moving forward in time and half moving backward—We Used to Be Friends explores the most traumatic breakup of all: that of childhood besties. At the start of their senior year in high school, James (a girl with a boy’s name) and Kat are inseparable, but by graduation, they’re no longer friends. James prepares to head off to college as she reflects on the dissolution of her friendship with Kat while, in alternating chapters, Kat thinks about being newly in love with her first girlfriend and having a future that feels wide open. Over the course of senior year, Kat wants nothing more than James to continue to be her steady rock, as James worries that everything she believes about love and her future is a lie when her high-school sweetheart parents announce they’re getting a divorce. Funny, honest, and full of heart, We Used to Be Friends tells of the pains of growing up and growing apart.

Dahlia Adler's Synopsis: Relationship breakups may be heavily covered in YA, but friendship breakup stories are still few and far between. Enter the story of James and Kat, two girls who were once beyond close and now watch their friendship unravel as college nears. Things are complicated for both girls: James’s mother has left her and her father for another guy, and she doesn’t know how to talk about it, not even to Kat or her still-too-present ex, Logan. Kat’s discovering that her feelings for her new friend Quinn aren’t strictly “friendly,” and in fact, she’s realizing she’s bisexual and falling head over heels for a girl. It’s a bittersweet story to be sure, and while it definitely has its fun scenes, close moments, painful familial interactions, and tingly romance (what Spalding book doesn’t??), you’ll spend much of the book wishing you could push the characters together and say “Just talk already”…but isn’t that exactly how life goes?

My Opinion: As someone who has been through too many friendship breakups to count, this read is going to be devastating. But I put this book on my list for one reason: the synopsis made it feel so much like life that I couldn't help but feel that the story would pull me into James and Kat's universe and tear my heart into pieces. I absolutely cannot wait to have my heartbroken.

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The Gravity of Us by Phil Stamper - FEBRUARY 4TH

Goodreads Synopsis: As a successful social media journalist with half a million followers, seventeen-year-old Cal is used to sharing his life online. But when his pilot father is selected for a highly publicized NASA mission to Mars, Cal and his family relocate from Brooklyn to Houston and are thrust into a media circus.

Amidst the chaos, Cal meets sensitive and mysterious Leon, another “Astrokid,” and finds himself falling head over heels—fast. As the frenzy around the mission grows, so does their connection. But when secrets about the program are uncovered, Cal must find a way to reveal the truth without hurting the people who have become most important to him.

Expertly capturing the thrill of first love and the self-doubt all teens feel, debut author Phil Stamper is a new talent to watch.

Dahlia Adler's Synopsis: This is a lovely and bighearted debut chock full of space nerdery, big dreams, new beginnings, and social media scandal. Cal’s life is completely uprooted when his dad shocks them all by being chosen for a space mission, something his family had never taken seriously as a lifelong dream. Worst of all, he’s forbidden from documenting life in the new compound, forcing him to leave his massive social media following behind. On the bright side, there’s Leon, son of another astronaut on the program and immediate thief of Cal’s heart. But when things go awry in the program and secrets are revealed, Cal will have to decide exactly what he’s willing to do to get the truth out there, and who he’s willing to lose.

My Opinion: Social Media? Media circus? Texas? NASA? First loves? And a choice that could implode Cal's life from the inside? The name Cal? Other than Texas, a state which I hate, all of this adds up to something good, hopefully so good that I can forget that Texas is involved at all. So, basically, it has to reach Red, White, and Royal Blue levels, which is the only book so far that has made me like Texas at all. But I trust that it will do well. Plus it was reviewed by 4 of authors on my queer bookshelf - Becky Albertalli, Adam Silvera, Shaun David Hutchinson, and Caleb Roehrig. Bonus points for not being a graphic novel like I feared it was.

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Only Mostly Devastated by Sophie Gonzales -MARCH 3RD

Goodreads Synopsis: Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda meets Clueless, inspired by Grease.

When Ollie meets his dream guy, Will, over summer break, he thinks he’s found his Happily Ever After. But once summer’s ended, Will stops texting him back, and Ollie finds himself one prince short of a fairytale ending. To complicate the fairytale further, a family emergency sees Ollie uprooted and enrolled at a new school across the country—Will’s school—where Ollie finds that the sweet, affectionate and comfortably queer guy he knew from summer isn’t the same one attending Collinswood High. This Will is a class clown, closeted—and, to be honest, a bit of a jerk.

Ollie has no intention of pining after a guy who clearly isn’t ready for a relationship. But as Will starts ‘coincidentally’ popping up in every area of Ollie’s life, from music class to the lunch table, Ollie finds his resolve weakening. The last time he gave Will his heart, Will handed it back to him trampled and battered. Ollie would have to be an idiot to trust him with it again.

Right? Right.

Dahlia Adler's Synopsis: Grease goes gay YA in this rom-com about two boys whose dreamy summer fling comes crashing into a harsh reality when our lead, Oliver, transfers to Will’s school thanks to a family crisis-driven move, only to find out Will isn’t Out and isn’t about to be. As Ollie finds his own ways to settle in, he can’t seem to shake Will’s presence. But whether there’s a future for them remains to be seen. This sophomore novel is warmly delightful and delightfully warm, with some tears on the side for the aforementioned family crisis, and some hard-earned queer solidarity is the icing on the cake. 

My Opinion: The last musical-ly queer book I read was What If It's Us? so Ollie and Will have a lot to live up to, but it gets points for getting an Instagram shoutout from Becky Albertalli herself. From the synopses, it sounds like a case of strangers to lovers to strangers to maybe friends to maybe something more and hopefully a happy ending, but what I look forward to the most is rewriting Summer Nights as I read this book.

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Super Adjacent by Crystal Cestari - MARCH 17TH

Goodreads Synopsis: Claire has always wanted to work with superheroes, from collecting Warrior Nation cards as a kid to drafting "What to Say to a Hero" speeches in her diary. Now that she's landed a coveted internship with the Chicago branch of Warrior Nation, Claire is ready to prove she belongs, super or not. But complicating plans is the newest WarNat hero, Girl Power (aka Joy), who happens to be egotistical and self-important ... and pretty adorable.

Bridgette, meanwhile, wants out of WarNat. After years of dating the famous Vaporizer (aka Matt), she's sick of playing second, or third, or five-hundredth fiddle to all the people-in-peril in the city of Chicago. Of course, once Bridgette meets Claire-who's clearly in need of a mentor and wingman-giving up WarNat becomes slightly more complicated. It becomes a lot more complicated when Joy, Matt, and the rest of the heroes go missing, leaving only Claire and Bridgette to save the day.

In this fresh and funny take on the world of supers, author Crystal Cestari spotlights what it's like to be the seemingly non-super half of a dynamic duo with banter-filled romance and bold rescues perfect for readers seeking a great escape.

Dahlia Adler's Synopsis: Claire is a superhero fangirl, a card-carrying member of Warrior Nation. And when she finds an unexpected way (with some unexpected help) into winning an internship with the Chicago WarNat branch, it should be everything she’s ever dreamed of. But that unexpected help is proving very difficult to work with; it’s in the form of Girl Power (aka Joy), the newest hero and a pain in Claire’s butt. A very, very cute pain in Claire’s butt.  But distraction or no distraction, Claire’s determined to prove herself, especially when she and Bridgette, a WarNat, who’s tired of being “the girlfriend” to an even more famous hero, decides to mentor her and they end up having to be exactly the heroes Chicago needs. 

My Opinion: Two words. Super. Heroes.

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Music From Another World by Robin Talley - MARCH 31ST

Goodreads Synopsis: It’s summer 1977 and closeted lesbian Tammy Larson can’t be herself anywhere. Not at her strict Christian high school, not at her conservative Orange County church and certainly not at home, where her ultrareligious aunt relentlessly organizes antigay political campaigns. Tammy’s only outlet is writing secret letters in her diary to gay civil rights activist Harvey Milk…until she’s matched with a real-life pen pal who changes everything.

Sharon Hawkins bonds with Tammy over punk music and carefully shared secrets, and soon their letters become the one place she can be honest. The rest of her life in San Francisco is full of lies. The kind she tells for others—like helping her gay brother hide the truth from their mom—and the kind she tells herself. But as antigay fervor in America reaches a frightening new pitch, Sharon and Tammy must rely on their long-distance friendship to discover their deeply personal truths, what they’ll stand for…and who they’ll rise against.

Dahlia Adler's Synopsis: Talley is one of queer YA’s most prolific genre jumpers, but she seems to be making herself beautifully at home in historical with this follow-up to 2018’s Pulp, again set amid a context of vital queer American history. This time around, it’s 1977, and Tammy Larson would love more than anything to come out of the closet as a lesbian, but that’s a major no-go where she lives. Her only outlet is to write “letters” to the activist Harvey Milk, at least until she’s matched with a pen pal to whom she can write letters for real. Sharon makes for a much better companion than Tammy’s diary, and she can sympathize, given her brother is gay and feeling all the same misery in the wake of Anita Bryant’s leading to a successful repeal of their protections. Together they’ll find their own brand of activism and learn to fight back against a world of hate. 

My Opinion: Ever since reading Annie On My Mind by Nancy Garden, I have been craving more historical sapphic girls. With Pulp in my Kindle library and this in my future shopping cart + Casey McQuiston's time traveling book in 2021, I am bound to get a fix for that craving soon. Hopefully, it will also cure heartbreak.

Loveless by Alice Oseman - APRIL 2ND

Goodreads Synopsis: The fourth novel from the phenomenally talented Alice Oseman – one of the most authentic and talked-about voices in contemporary YA.

Georgia feels loveless – in the romantic sense, anyway. She’s eighteen, never been in a relationship, or even had a crush on a single person in her whole life. She thinks she's an anomaly, people call her weird, and she feels a little broken. But she still adores romance – weddings, fan fiction, and happily ever afters. She knows she’ll find her person one day … right?

After a disastrous summer, Georgia is now at university, hundreds of miles from home. She is more determined than ever to find love – and her annoying roommate, Rooney, is a bit of a love expert, so perhaps she can help.

But maybe Georgia just doesn’t feel that way about guys. Or girls. Or anyone at all. Maybe that's okay. Maybe she can find happiness without falling in love. And maybe Rooney is a little more loveless than she first appears.

LOVELESS is a journey of identity, self-acceptance, and finding out how many different types of love there really are. And that no one is really loveless after all.

Dahlia Adler's Synopsis: Oseman’s crossed the pond before with Radio Silence, so this American’s fingers are crossed she’ll do it again with her newest, about a girl named Georgia who’s struggling with the fact that she’s eighteen and has never had so much as a crush. She’s sick of people thinking she’s broken or weird, and it isn’t like she isn’t into romance; she’s just not into it for herself. When she gets to university, she thinks maybe she can “fix” things with her roommate’s help. But what if it turns out there’s nothing to fix, and Georgia’s great and perfectly capable of happiness just as she is?

My Opinion: Alice Oseman has written a-spec characters before, but it's possible that this seemingly aromantic character will be the one that I'll read first. Not to say Radio Silence wasn't amazing, I just wouldn't know. But I can't wait to find out when I read it after I read this one. And then maybe her other books too.

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Verona Comics by Jennifer Dugan - APRIL 21ST

Goodreads Synopsis: Jubilee has it all together. She’s an elite cellist, and when she’s not working in her stepmom’s indie comic shop, she’s prepping for the biggest audition of her life. Ridley is barely holding it together. His parents own the biggest comic-store chain in the country, and Ridley can’t stop disappointing them–that is, when they’re even paying attention. They meet one fateful night at a comic convention prom, and the two can’t help falling for each other. Too bad their parents are at each other’s throats every chance they get, making a relationship between them nearly impossible . . . unless they manage to keep it a secret. Then again, the feud between their families may be the least of their problems. As Ridley’s anxiety spirals, Jubilee tries to help but finds her focus torn between her fast-approaching audition and their intensifying relationship. What if love can’t conquer all? What if each of them needs more than the other can give?

Dahlia Adler's Synopsis: Dugan debuted with one of my absolute favorite queer YA rom-coms (seriously, if you haven’t yet read Hot Dog Girl, do yourself a favor), so I’m thrilled to see her returning with another one, this one an m/f pairing where both halves of the couple are bi (or, more accurately, one is bi and one is still figuring it out). [Jubilee] is an elite cellist with a major audition coming up and a side job working at her stepmom’s indie comic shop.  Ridley works at his parents’ comic shop too, only theirs is a big chain, and no friend to the little guy. Which makes it a little difficult when the two meet at a comic-con prom and immediately hit it off, despite their family feud. I’ll take Romeo & Juliet with a much happier ending and heaps of bisexuality any day, wouldn’t you?

My Opinion: Romeo and Juliet retelling + comic convention prom + bisexuality + indie comic shops = a recipe for me to like a book.

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When You Get the Chance by Tom Ryan and Robin Stevenson-MAY 5TH

Goodreads Synopsis: [Edited] Cousins Mark [from the East coast of Canada] and Talia [from the West coast of Canada] go on a road trip to Pride in Toronto as they search for love and adventure and uncover family secrets along the way.

Dahlia Adler's Synopsis: One of the things I’m often asked to recommend is books that feature mlm and wlw solidarity, and I especially love giving answers that show it not just in characters but in authorship. Here, two Canadian rock stars of queer YA come together with a story about cousins named Mark and Talia who are reunited from their respective Canadian coasts after a death in the family and decide to take a road trip together to Toronto so Talia can see her non-binary partner and Mark can get to Pride. The two don’t have much in common, and they’ll have to let Mark’s little sister tag along, but they both know some kind of magic awaits them in TO, and they can’t wait to get there. 

My Opinion: There is too much to love about this book. Canada! WLW or WLNB/MLM solidarity! Canadian road trip! Road trips in general! Canadian Pride! PRIDE IN GENERAL! A nonbinary s/o! TORONTO, CANADA! And family secrets! Plus it gives off You Know Me Well vibes, and that's one of my favorites.

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The Extraordinaries by T.J. Klune - MAY 5TH

Goodreads Synopsis:

Some people are extraordinary. Some are just extra.

Nick Bell? Not extraordinary. But being the most popular fanfiction writer in the Extraordinaries fandom is a superpower, right?

After a chance encounter with Shadow Star, Nova City’s mightiest hero (and Nick’s biggest crush), Nick sets out to make himself extraordinary. And he’ll do it with or without the reluctant help of Seth Gray, Nick’s best friend (and maybe the love of his life).

Dahlia Adler's Synopsis: Klune’s doing double duty this year (or maybe even more? Damn, it’s hard to keep up), following up an adult contemporary fantasy with his first entry into YA, about a boy named Nick who happens to be the Extraordinaries fandom’s most popular fanfic writer, and who aims to be even more extraordinary when he meets the hero he’s been crushing on. (But maybe he’s in love with his best friend, Seth? It’s complicated. It’s always complicated.) 

My Opinion: What can I say? I'm a sucker for books about fanfic writers. And for best friends to lovers stories, so hopefully this is one, and not a fan-dates-hero story.

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The Summer of Impossibilities by Rachel Allen - MAY 12TH

Goodreads Synopsis: Skyler, Ellie, Scarlett and Amelia Grace are forced to spend the summer at the lake house where their moms became best friends.

One can’t wait. One would rather gnaw off her own arm than hang out with a bunch of strangers just so their moms can drink too much wine and sing Journey two o’clock in the morning. Two are sisters. Three are currently feuding with their mothers.

One almost sets her crush on fire with a flaming marshmallow. Two steal the boat for a midnight joyride that goes horribly, awkwardly wrong. All of them are hiding something.

One falls in love with a boy she thought she despised. Two fall in love with each other. None of them are the same at the end of the summer. 

Dahlia Adler's Synopsis: Allen’s been a personal favorite of mine since her subversive feminist debut, 17 First Kisses, and I’m thrilled to see her releasing her first queer YA, which basically looks like a gay Traveling Pants except not all the girls actually wanna be spending the summer together at the lake house where their moms became besties. Most of them can’t even stand their moms right now. All of them have secrets. And two of them…well, two of them are in love with each other, so one way or another it’s gonna be a hell of a summer.

My Opinion: Look, I'm going to be honest, I saw that it was co.pared to Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and I immediately added it to my list. Plus, strangers to friends to lovers? I love.

Date Me, Bryson Keller! by Kevin van Whye - MAY 19TH

Goodreads Synopsis: What If It's Us meets To All the Boys I've Loved Before in this upbeat and heartfelt boy-meets-boy romance that feels like a modern twist on a '90s rom-com!

Everyone knows about the dare: Each week, Bryson Keller must date someone new--the first person to ask him out on Monday morning. Few think Bryson can do it. He may be the king of Fairvale Academy, but he's never really dated before.

Until a boy asks him out, and everything changes.

Kai Sheridan didn't expect Bryson to say yes. So when Bryson agrees to secretly go out with him, Kai is thrown for a loop. But as the days go by, he discovers there's more to Bryson beneath the surface, and dating him begins to feel less like an act and more like the real thing. Kai knows how the story of a gay boy liking someone straight ends. With his heart on the line, he's awkwardly trying to navigate senior year at school, at home, and in the closet, all while grappling with the fact that this "relationship" will last only five days. After all, Bryson Keller is popular, good-looking, and straight . . . right?

Kevin van Whye delivers an uplifting and poignant coming-out love story that will have readers rooting for these two teens to share their hearts with the world--and with each other.

Dahlia Adler's Synopsis: If this book looks like the cutest, fluffiest, most make-you-melt kind of romance, it’s because it is…at least in the little romantic bubble that ensued when  when Kai took advantage of a dare that requires Bryson Keller to agree to date the first person to ask him out every Monday morning for that week. But outside the bubble, the world is still wondering who Bryson Keller’s mystery girlfriend is, the one person not to shout from the rooftops that she’s got the guy. And Kai isn’t gonna be the one to tell them it isn’t a girl at all; his spontaneous request made Bryson the first and only person he’s ever come out to. But when both the answer and Kai himself are forcibly outed, he and the boy he’s come to fall for, the boy who’s only just realized he himself is gay, will have to band together and put their relationship through the ultimate test.

My Opinion: A lot of these books are comparing themselves to Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, and this one's even comparing itself to To All the Boys I've Loved Before, so it's basically setting me up for disappointment, but I will admit, I am judging this book by it's cover, and that smile is too cute to resist.

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I Kissed Alice by Anna Birch - MAY 26TH

Goodreads Synopsis: For fans of Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda and Fangirl, I Kissed Alice is a romantic comedy about enemies, lovers, and everything in between.

Rhodes and Iliana couldn't be more different, but that's not why they hate each other. Hyper-gifted artist Rhodes has always excelled at Alabama's Conservatory of the Arts despite a secret bout of creator's block, while transfer student Iliana tries to outshine everyone with her intense, competitive work ethic. Since only one of them can get the coveted Capstone scholarship, the competition between them is fierce.

They both escape the pressure on a fanfic site where they are unknowingly collaborating on a graphic novel. And despite being worst enemies in real life, their anonymous online identities I-Kissed-Alice and Curious-in-Cheshire are starting to like each other...a lot. When the truth comes out, will they destroy each other's future?

Dahlia Adler's Synopsis: Sign me the hell up for literally every enemies-to-lovers f/f rom-com, but especially this one, where the girls who hate each other at Alabama’s Conservatory for the Arts have no idea they’re falling for each other online as they collaborate on a graphic novel for a fanfic site under their online identities. That’s…everything I love in book? Yep, pretty much!

My Opinion: This one is on my list because Alice is basically my favorite sapphic girl name ever after my rewrite of the song, All the Girls Love Alice. Unfortunately, neither girl is named Alice, but it does seem to involve something about Alice in Wonderland. Maybe the graphic novel they're creating is a queer retelling of the classic story? Can't wait to find out.

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Six Angry Girls by Adrienne Kisner - JUNE 2ND

Goodreads Synopsis: A story of mock trial, feminism, and the inherent power found in a pair of knitting needles.

Raina Petree is crushing her senior year, until her boyfriend dumps her, the drama club (basically) dumps her, the college of her dreams slips away, and her arch-nemesis triumphs.

Things aren’t much better for Millie Goodwin. Her father treats her like a servant, and the all-boy Mock Trial team votes her out, even after she spent the last three years helping to build its success.

But then, an advice columnist unexpectedly helps Raina find new purpose in a pair of knitting needles and a politically active local yarn store. This leads to an unlikely meeting in the girls’ bathroom, where Raina inspires Millie to start a rival team. The two join together and recruit four other angry girls to not only take on Mock Trial, but to smash the patriarchy in the process.

Dahlia Adler's Synopsis: Kisner is three for three in putting gloriously queer YA on shelves, and I am in love with the idea of this newest, which takes the famous “Twelve Angry Men” and situates it in Mock Trial with an ace lead. Raina’s killing it at life, until suddenly she isn’t. Millie’s in a similar spot, having just been ousted from the all-male Mock Trial team. When the two pair up to start a rival girls’ team, it isn’t just their opponents they’re gunning for—it’s the whole motherfluffin’ patriarchy.

My Opinion:

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The State of Us by Shaun David Hutchinson - JUNE 2ND

Goodreads Synopsis: The State of Us is the story of Dean and Dre—the 16-year-old sons of the Republican and Democratic candidates for President of the United States—who fall in love on the sidelines of their parents' presidential campaigns.

Dahlia Adler's Synopsis: Tis the year for political YAs, for obvious reasons, and this contemporary romance also does double duty of being a touching demisexual coming out story that happens to take place across the aisle. (The political aisle, that is.) When Dean, the son the of the Republican candidate, and Dre, son of the Democratic candidate, find themselves locked in close quarters, they’re surprised to find that they quite enjoy the company of someone else who knows what it’s like to be in the junior spotlight. Soon, romance sparks, which is a bit of problem considering the whole “opponents” thing, not to mention Dean still trying to figure out how to deal with and discuss the fact that he’s demisexual. But someone out there seems determined to make their problem much, much bigger, and they’ll have to figure out who wants their relationship outed, how they can make it work, and how they can reconcile a future.

My Opinion: While unfortunately this love story has no Prince from England or Wales, this book is definitely in the same genre as Red, White, and Royal Blue, though of course Dean and Dre will be more YA than our favorite international political couple. No matter what, I can tell I'm going to love the angst in this one.

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The Falling in Love Montage by Clara Smyth - JUNE 9TH

Goodreads Synopsis:

Saoirse doesn’t believe in love at first sight or happy endings. If they were real, her mother would still be able to remember her name and not in a care home with early onset dementia. A condition that Saoirse may one day turn out to have inherited.So she’s not looking for a relationship. She doesn’t see the point in igniting any romantic sparks if she’s bound to burn out.

But after a chance encounter at a house party, Saoirse is about to break her own rules. For a girl with one blue freckle, an irresistible sense of mischief, and a passion for rom-coms.

Unbothered by Saoirse’s rulebook, Ruby proposes a loophole: They don’t need true love to have one summer of fun, complete with every cliché, rom-com montage-worthy date they can dream up—and a binding agreement to end their romance come fall. It would be the perfect plan, if they weren’t forgetting one thing about the Falling in Love Montage: when it’s over, the characters actually fall in love… for real.

Dahlia Adler's Synopsis:

Love books that make you laugh, swoon, and cry? Then you are going to fall head over heels for Smyth’s debut, an Ireland-set romantic contemporary about a girl named Saiorse who’s losing her mother to early-onset dementia and is determined never to get involved with anyone as a result…until she meets Ruby, and all bets are off. The girls agree to a no-strings-attached summer of just the good parts of romance, the movie montage where the couple does all sorts of fun things as they fall in love. But when the end of the summer comes, will they be able to let go? 

My Opinion: The falling in love montage is my favorite part of love stories and I can't wait to read one set in Ireland! No strings attached? I don't think so Saiorse and Ruby. If they aren't together by the end of the book, I'll be tying the strings myself and writing fanfiction for days. I've only had one relationship that would qualify for a falling in love montage, most likely because I've only been in love once, and that's... ended, so I need something to fill my heart and this book just might be it.

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Check out @lgbtqreads for more recommendations and check out the link at the top of the post for the rest of the list!

#we used to be friends amy spalding #the gravity of us phil stamper #only mostly devastated sophie gonzales #super adjacent crystal cestari #music from another world robin talley #loveless alice oseman #verona comics jennifer dugan #when you get the chance tom ryan & robin stevenson #the extraordinaries tj klune #the summer of impossibilities rachel allen #date me bryson keller! kevin van whye #i kissed alice anna birch #six angry girls adrienne kisner #the state of us shaun david hutchinson #the falling in love montage ciara smyth #2020 reads #lgbtqareads book recs

[jojotichakorn]

HIStory3: Trapped: Review (& General Info)

About the Series:

Summary: A police officer and a gang leader were killed in a gunshot attack four years ago. What's the secret behind this case? The only survivor, Tang Yi, is now the gang leader. Shao Fei is a police officer, who’s been following Tang Yi around for the past four years, trying to figure out what’s really happened during the attack. Will he be able to get to the bottom of the case? And can something unexpected come out of their rivalry? (Trailer)

Couples: Main gay couple, as well as two side couples - one gay, one straight.

Running Time: 10 episodes - around 45 minutes each - 8 hours in total

Cast (& their Instagram pages): Jake Hsu (Shao Fei), Chris Wu (Tang Yi), Andy Bian (Jack), Kenny Chen (Zhao Zi), Diane Lin (Hong Ye), Sphinx Ding (Dao Yi), Zhang Guang Chen (Andy), Stanley Mei (Li Zhi De), [more].

Where to watch? VIKI (if you watch on mobile, you’ll have to download the app).

Related Shows: HIStory is a recurring Taiwanese BL series, however, each season is separate from the others and none of them are connected in any way, so there’s no other Trapped content out there.

My Review:

Rating: 9.5/10

Short review: Trapped is my favorite BL of all time. It has a good plot, fantastic acting, the most wonderful couple ever (whose intimacy is handled incredibly well), amazing characters, awesome friendships and a whole list of other great things. Despite having one controversial character, a slightly questionable background couple and a not-so-satisfying (though still not bad) ending, I don’t think there’s anything that could stop you from enjoying it. And though, as usual,  it’s obviously your own decision to make, it’s definitely a must-watch in my book. 

Extended review (under the cut):

I consider Trapped the best BL that exists to date – without a shadow of a doubt. Not everyone agrees with me and that’s entirely understandable, however, I assure you that even though someone might prefer one or a couple of other BLs to this one, everyone considers Trapped one of the best ones for sure.

The plot of Trapped is thought-out and actually good. It obviously isn’t a masterpiece of modern cinema, however, unlike so many other BLs, the plot actually matters. It’s interesting, gripping, well-thought-out, with a nice mystery and some unexpected reveals that might actually surprise you. Everything gang-related isn’t just there for show – it’s done tastefully and doesn’t seem cheap at all, you truly believe it. So many moments are hilarious, especially in the beginning. And the show is very meticulous and careful with all its little details, so there are no annoying minor plot or aesthetic inconsistencies that could take you out of immersing into it. The pacing of the plot is a tiny bit slow in the first couple of episodes, but it needs that to build itself up properly, and it quickly picks up as soon as it can.

The characters in this show are amazing. You will not only fall in love with the mains, but also adore most of the background characters and hate the rest of them, which just goes to show how much each of them can impact you emotionally because they’re that fucking great. All the details about the characters are well thought-out and awesome too. Tang Yi is not just a gang leader in name – Chris, the actor who plays him, does a fantastic job of showing just how intimidating Tang Yi can be and generally convinces us of him being the Big-Bad-Gang-Boss through so many brilliant subtle acting choices. The villain is actually threatening and terrifying too. Shao Fei can be rather embarrassing and cringy, however, Trapped certainly manages to show that this is truly just his personality, and they’re not just doing this for laughs. Besides, I’ve heard many people who usually get second-hand embarrassment all the time say they didn’t feel awkward for Shao Fei at all – he isn’t embarrassed since this is his true, authentic self, so no one else is embarrassed for him either. Finally, two background queer characters are fantastic. Usually, in other BLs background queer characters, who aren’t there for a romantic plotline, are never anything beyond a stereotype and are always there for laughs. That’s not the case in Trapped. Both of the characters are absolutely incredible, authentic and beautiful – most certainly one of the best background characters I’ve seen in any BLs.

I must note that one character definitely caused some controversy in the fandom, and I can’t say much else beyond this without giving you a gigantic spoiler. However, even though I do think they could’ve handled the topic better overall, I don’t find there’s anything wrong with having one of the many queer characters in the show be a bad person. I’ve talked about it many times and, considering the fact that we still have at least six positively-portrayed queer characters, the seventh being a piece of shit does not affect the representation in any way and doesn’t suddenly give all queer people a bad name. There are shitheads among us too, you know. And it’s important to talk about it.

Moving on, let’s talk about relationships. For starters, the main couple is hands down the best enemies-to-friends-to-lovers you’ll ever see – that I personally guarantee. Their romance is developed well and treated with the care it deserves, and they end up being the most adorable, wholesome couple ever. I also want to especially point out how well Trapped handles their intimacy. A lot of other BLs have their couple treat each other like friends half the time, be dating another half and kissing/having sex on rare occasions. In reality, though, a couple is always intimate with each other. And I don’t mean that everyone fucks like bunnies – no. I mean couples have intimate conversations, hold hands, kiss each other in a million different ways (and on a million different spots), cuddle for no reason, hug, express emotions and, of course, sometimes have sex. Not every couple does absolutely everything I’ve just listed, of course, but you get the overall point. Couples are intimate. And Trapped gets that. It shows that. And that’s wonderful. As for others, the straight background couple takes up just enough screen time to not annoy you and it’s actually kind of cute, which is super rare for me to say. Now, the gay background couple is rather questionable. One of the guys is kind of oblivious and juvenile, while the other pushes him too hard. It’s not so critical that I’d tell you to skip their moments, however, it is definitely food for thought and I’d say pretty problematic.

The friendships in Trapped are sort of a double-edged sword. On one hand, we have Shao Fei and Zhao Zi, who were proclaimed to be best friends, but don’t end up having any meaningful moments together and are really out of the loop with each other’s lives by the end of the show. This can be explained and justified, but I still feel like it’s a little unrealistic. On the other hand, though, we have Tang Yi and his friends – mainly, Andy, The Doctor (whose name I, apologies, don’t remember), as well as Hong Ye and Tang Guo Dong. Despite only seeing a couple of moments with each of them, we get attached to every character and their relationships with Tang Yi very easily. His friendships with Andy and The Doctor are familiar and realistic. His relationship with Hong Ye is deep and authentic – you can truly see they are like siblings to each other. And his relationship with Tang Guo Dong is so beautiful and raw that you end up falling in love with the “found father” trope and wish you had the same relationship with your parents or any mentor figure, really. Despite Tang Yi and Tang Guo Dong only having four small scenes with each other – all of which are flashbacks, their dynamic is my second favorite in the show and their relationship is one of the best father/son relationships I’ve ever seen.

Finally, the show is shot beautifully and the acting in it is on a completely different level. Seriously, you will say, “Holy shit, this actor is so good!” like every other second. I literally grabbed my pen to write some version of “the acting is so good” in my notes, while rewatching the show for this review at least twenty times, and the only thing that stopped me is already having it written down thrice.

The very last note I have is about the ending. Now I will say immediately that this show does not have a bad ending – I could not have it as one of my favorites, if it did, I’m strictly a happy-ending kind of person. However, the ending is still a little too vague for my taste and I wouldn’t say I’m satisfied with it. It’s not the end of the world and overall it’s an alright ending you can live with – nothing bad happens. However, I wouldn’t call it the best ending this show could have – and that’s all I can say without giving any spoilers.

Finally-finally, should you watch this show? Fuck yes! Absolutely, my guy! Have you heard all I’ve just said? It’s brilliant. An absolute fucking masterpiece, I’m telling you. So yes, I recommend it to literally everyone. There is legitimately no other series I want to show everyone as much as this one – this is fucking mandatory in my book. Regardless of however I feel about it though, at the end of the day, it’s obviously your own decision to make.

#my fav show is in my dudes #history 3: trap #history 3: trapped #archer's bl recs

[tshepiso-reads-books]

I Fully Understand The Hype | The Diviners by Libba Bray

Started: November 16th, 2019

Finished: November 24th, 2019

Despite the fact that it took me an unbelievably long time to finish I had a rip-roaring time reading The Diviners [Goodreads} . This spooky paranormal read was filled with equal parts atmosphere and charm and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a fun YA read.

Our primary protagonist in The Diviners is seventeen year old Evie O’Neill, a whip smart flapper with her eyes on notoriety. After an unfortunate incident in her hometown of Zenith, Ohio Evie is sent to live with her bachelor uncle, Will in Manhattan. Almost immediately after her arrival Evie worms her way into the hunt of an occult serial killer Naughty John and uses her skills of psychometry and boundless charm to unravel the paranormal mystery.

The Diviners is filled with great characters. While Evie is the primary protagonist of our narrative, we also closely follow five other characters: Memphis Campbell, Theta Knight, Mabel Rose, Jericho Jones, and Sam Lloyd. All of these characters are richly rendered and compelling enough to carry their slice of the narrative. What’s great about Bray’s character writing is her ability to capture the unique vulnerabilities that make the core of all our characters. I was able to easily connect with each of them because of their engaging personalities and depth of their characterisation. While Bray didn’t spend equal time with each of the teens (that would have made for one hell of a slog) she still managed to create six memorable characters, which is  a feet deserving of praise

I adored the relationships developed in this novel (both platonic and romantic) . The book was filled to the brim with hilarious dialogue that made every group scene a fun time. I appreciated the quiet moments between characters; those scenes in particular revealed interesting facets to our protagonists and made me believe their growing friendships. My favorite character interactions were definitely between Evie and Mabel, I adore these two’s friendship so much. I wouldn’t go into The Diviners for romance because it’s certainly a background element to the plot (though shout out to Theta and Memphis for having the most adorable meet-cute). I can tell Bray is setting up a lot of romantic conflict so it’s gonna be a fun time watching that unravel.

The mystery in this novel was intensely compelling. Because we get the concurrent perspective of our antagonist, Naughty John, The Diviners isn’t hinged on figuring out the mystery of who the serial killer is. The atmosphere works to build a sense of pure dread and anticipation in the audience. Bray establishes the ominous tone throughout the novel so well because of her omniscient third person narration. She intersperses asides that have a birds eye view of the conflict that both give her story scope as well has imbue the story with a sinister presence.

I adored how deeply political this novel was. The Diviners is often praised for its diversity in its cast, we have a fantastic plethora of minorities in this book including black, jewish, immigrant, and gay characters throughout. I don’t often see people talking about how integral a refutation of bigotry is to the plot of the novel. The racism and xenophobia of 1926 is baked into the plot and setting of The Diviners in a way that never felt like lip service or set dressing, but pointed and relevant. The fact that the antagonist of this story is supported by a rising white supremacist movement hits hard in the context of 2019. I’m not even capturing the depth and breath of this but the thesis of Bray’s point can be summed up in this one quote:

“When the world moves forward too fast for some people, they try to pull us all back with their fear”

The 1920s is an often glamorised period of history, people love the flappers and the cinema. Bray brings to light the ugliness of the time in an important way and reminds us that the 1920s was also a time of eugenics and xenophobia and in bringing that to light speaks to the bigotry of America today.

Stars 🌟🌟🌟🌟

The Diviners was pure joy to read. I fully understand the hype and I will promptly be binging the rest of the series once King of Crows comes out in February.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Content warning: sexual assault (IPV), animal abuse

#The Diviners #Libba Bray #YA #Fantasy #YA Fantasy #I don't think i mentioned in this book how much i adore jericho jones #he is my precious bean and i will protect him at all costs

[desparikon]

Fanfic misfires feat. Murdoc #2

The Valentine’s fics I’ve been working on aren’t happening, soooo

1. Jack/Murdoc

2. Murdoc/Mac (theme: hair clip)

3. Murdoc/Bozer (theme: birthday)

4. Murdoc/Bozer (theme: cheesy Christmas movies)

Murdoc backhanded Jack, a line of blood welling up when a metal detail on his glove caught against his cheek.

Jack's hand flew to the scratch. "The Hell is your problem?!"

Murdoc shrugged. "Oops."

He shoved Murdoc back, nearly causing him to lose his balance. Before Jack could take advantage of the opening, Murdoc slammed his foot into Jack’s knee, and threw him to the ground, but was drug down by Jack’s grip on his sleeve.

This time, Jack was able to get a handle on Murdoc before he caused too much trouble. He dug one knee into Murdoc’s stomach, the other trapping an arm against the floor. Murdoc struggled violently, so he gave his other wrist a warning twist as he pinned it to the floor.

“Hold still!”

“Make me!”

Jack fisted Murdoc’s hair, immediately convincing him to go still. They glared at each other, silently continuing their combat as they caught their breath.

It was Jack who broke their staring contest, growling quietly, “Fuck it,�� before leaning down and crushing his lips against Murdoc’s, holding him tightly in anticipation of resistance.

Resistance that didn’t come.

A quiet moan was all it took to break the tension.

Jack relaxed his hold on Murdoc’s hair, running his hand through it before letting his hand drift to Murdoc’s neck. Murdoc rolled his stomach as best he could against Jack’s knee, encouraging to him to go lower. Jack obliged, and earned a needy moan as he pulled on Murdoc’s shirt before trailing lower, lower--

"--c? Mac?"

"Huh? Yeah?"

"Hey, don't worry." Jack rubbed his hands soothingly over Mac's shoulders. "Next time Murdoc shows up, I’ll deal with him. I won’t give him a chance to get near you again.”

Mac hoped any blushing was invisible under the soft lighting. "...Thanks, Jack."

————————————————————————— 

"Doesn't that get annoying?"

Mac looked up from his project to where Murdoc was sitting on the kitchen counter, watching him with a pleased smile. He sighed and stood up straight. "You, interrupting me?"

"The hair flip. You've done it eight times in the past five minutes."

"I didn't notice." Now that Murdoc had brought attention to it, he realized that his hair had once again fallen into his face.

"You really get in the zone."

"But it apparently annoys you. Guess next time you're holding scissors, I should be concerned that you'll cut my hair instead of stabbing me." A knowing smile pulled at the corner of his lips. They both knew Murdoc was past the stage of wanting to kill him.

"No, it just makes me want to touch it even more. And it's...one of the little things you do, that I think about. Did think about." He reached into one of his pockets. "I have something for you."

He dropped off the counter, and walked around the table to stand in front of Mac before holding up the tiny present.

"Hair clips?"

"To keep your hair out of the way. I made sure to pick the package with blue ones, so they'd match your eyes."

Murdoc gently swept Mac's bangs to one side, and slid the first clip in, pulling them out of Mac's face. He added a second clip to make sure it was doubly secure.

"Fancy." His fingers lingered in Mac's hair, unable to resist the softness.

"Feels kinda weird." Mac lifted a hand to run his own fingers over the clips. "But I think they'll hold."

It still made him feel slightly shy when Murdoc did nice things for him, like seeing happy Murdoc was something forbidden. He moved his hand over the hair around Murdoc's ear, even though it was already neatly tucked behind it.

"You didn't bring any for you."

"Blue doesn't match with this outfit."

————————————————————————— 

"Murdoc! You're here!" Bozer wrapped his arms around Murdoc's neck, and kissed his cheek.

"Should I be worried, seeing how excited you are at me just walking in the door?"

"I wasn't sure you'd actually show up." Bozer took Murdoc's hand, and led him from the front door to a chair at the kitchen table. "Sit. I have a surprise for you!"

"So your text said."

"First off, you have to close your eyes."

Murdoc hesitated, but decided that Bozer's energy was only eager, not malicious, so did as instructed.

"Don't peek."

"Hmmm..."

"No."

He heard Bozer retrieve a plate from a cabinet and set it on the kitchen counter, followed by quiet noises as he moved items on the counter.

"I was thinking about last time, when you were trying to tell us that your birthday is on April 1st."

"Because it is."

"Uh-huh. But, it got me thinking about how it doesn't have to be your birthday to celebrate." He sat the plate on the kitchen table. "Ta da!"

Murdoc opened his eyes to find a double-sized cupcake sitting in front of him. Yellow cake filled with rainbow sprinkles, and topped with a large spiral of chocolate icing that was almost as big as the cupcake itself. More rainbow sprinkles finished it off.

"You made this...specially for me?" Murdoc kept his gaze low, his eyes glistening with tears.

"Of course! I wanted to do something in honor of all the birthdays I know you didn't celebrate. Maybe you didn't care, or other people in your life didn't, but I'm here now, and I care. Because you being alive makes me happy."

"Wilt, I..." A few tears escaped down his face. "I love it."

"And no birthday's complete without making a wish!" He pushed a candle into the icing, careful to disturb as little of it as possible, and lit it. "Happy birthday, Murdoc!"

Murdoc smiled to himself before blowing out the flame.

—————————————————————————

Bozer rolled his eyes and turned on the TV. Murdoc was currently lying on the living room floor on his back, eyes closed.

“Guess I don’t have to worry about you complaining about what I pick to watch. Since you’re dead or whatever.”

He opened the channel guide, and scrolled to see what the cooking channels were showing. The guide lagged for a few seconds, and the cursor landed on one of those channels that focused on feel-good programming. The Christmas season meant sappy, made-for-TV romance movies, and the current movie was of the Cinderella variety.

Definitely not his type of movie. But perfect for annoying Murdoc.

The ballroom scene was already underway, and the airy music, combined with conversations about the prince, got Murdoc’s attention. He slowly turned his head toward the TV. Bozer couldn’t see Murdoc’s face, but he was glad for the TV that it wasn’t alive to be able to see his glare.

“What. Is. That?”

"Oh my Goddddd! Murdoc! She's dancing with the prince! But he doesn't know that she's the owner of the Christmas tree shop!"

Murdoc gave a long, pained moan. “Ughhhhh...the life is being sucked out of me! And it’s not even the good kind of sucking.”

“Quiet! You’re ruining this beautiful moment.”

“This movie’s stupid. Change the channel.”

“What’re you gonna do? Come over here and make me?”

Murdoc rolled onto his side, and stared up at Bozer. “If I have to get up...”

“You want the remote that bad? Here.” He dangled it off the couch, and waited for Murdoc to scoot himself within arm’s reach before pulling it back up. “Mine!”

 “Now you’re in trouble.”

“Oh no! Murdoc’s gonna punish me!” Bozer tackled Murdoc before he could be pulled off the couch, and slapped at Murdoc’s hands. “You like that?!”

Their limbs tangled as they playfully wrestled, but Bozer straddled Murdoc to keep him from gaining the upper hand. Pokes into his sides caused him to wildly jerk.

“Don’t tickle me! I’ll tickle you!”

“I’d like to see you try.”

Bozer  firmly held one of Murdoc’s wrists as he wriggled underneath him, attempting to protect his exposed side with his remaining free hand.

“Your Highness, I do believe that’s mistletoe hanging in the doorway.”

Their attention snapped back to the TV. Gay prince? In one of these movies??

The scene continued, revealing that something about the mistletoe was going to lead the prince to his mystery woman.

Murdoc scowled. “How dare you have these guys walk under mistletoe and have nothing happen! I hate this movie!"

“You’re just jealous that you weren’t there when someone put up mistletoe in the war room.”

“...Maybe.”

#macgyver #mine

[seasaltmemories]

Devil’s Line Review/Analysis

This is gonna be a different beast to tackle for a few reasons A) I actually started this once before and dropped it, B) For a proper analysis I’m gonna have to dive into spoilers, and C) I technically haven’t finished the entire series, as the last volume of the manga isn’t translated (and I will only talk about the manga here) I say this all so you’ll be gentle with me as I pop from subject to subject

To start let’s get that summary:

Tsukasa, a college student, is rescued from an attack by a devil, one of many vampires that can blend in among the human population. Anzai, her savior, is a half-devil who exploits his supernatural gifts as a member of a shadowy police task force that specializes in devil-related crime in Tokyo. As Anzai continues to keep guard over Tsukasa, the two quickly forge a tentative bond—one that Anzai fears will test his iron-clad rule of never drinking human blood …

So I feel like expectations play a lot into how you receive this story and what you want to get out of it.  My first time going in I was told it was a dark fantasy series, and then what I got in the 7 or 8 chapters I read was a lot of faffing about of will they won’t they with the external plot only appearing to be there to drive the main couple together, so I got bored and dropped it

This time I went in not only knowing there would be a lot of romance, but also personally more in the mood for vampire stuff, and kinda meeting it where it was allowed me to see it grow into more interesting ways

The beginning isn’t bad, but I think it is best appreciated when you know up front this is 50% romance and 50% thriller, both genres are equally important to the narrative, but rather than starting out with that ratio, the beginning focuses entirely on Tsukasa’s and Anzai’s blossoming romance, from there a greater plot concerning devils begins to unfold, and then the two really begin to work in sync to prop both sides up

Bc once the ball starts rolling, the plot becomes a high-speed mystery concerning secret conspiracies and questions of who you can trust, what started out simple gets more information added on that complicates matters as you begin to question your own judgement, still what keeps the plot from becoming a jumbled mess is the fact at the heart of the story is always Tsukasa and Anzai, it gives the narrative focus that I’ve see few things series have

I should also mention my first impressions of the romance being shaken bc I am so used to series having couples who are love at first sight yet waste the entire time actually getting together until the end, and while these two basically also have love at first sight and take a while to actually get together, they get together in an overall timely manner, and their relationship is allowed to grow and evolve in very mature ways, not just sexually but also emotionally, a lot of their arc together is learning about how to communicate what they want to the other and as their relationship grows, their strength as individual characters grow as well

Now I’m gonna get into some spoilers, but what turned the series from simply fun into can’t put down is the timeskip

A lot of the elements that I enjoyed were being done before the time skip, but I feel like the skip is what allowed it to reach new heights it just kept hovering up at

Bc slowly as we start from Tsukasa and Anzai, the world expands, first to his colleagues, then to their enemies until it is a large but never burgeoning cast of connections, and the way they keep it all together is that it is grounded by lot of casual little moments to see people just be people, no matter their relation to the protagonists, we are consistently shown the humanity of almost everyone we come in contact with, and as a result it is hard to not fall in love with people who had previously tried to murder your faves (and might still currently be doing so)  and after the timeskip we just get hit with back to back side stories of the cast each going through their own internal problems, while still keeping to focus on Tsukasa and Anzai

Another thing that helps is that the worldbuilding concerning devil’s is extremely well-done, again it starts out simple “they see blood, then transform into monsters, sexual lust is connected to their bloodlust” but not only do we learn devil’s themselves, but a lot about what it means for a world to have a population like this, for example we get a detailed look into the tech created to help devil’s have safe sex with human partners and while it can be easy to poke fun at such specific details, by the end of the series it really does feel like an actual genetic disorder rather than some supernatural stuff with a sciency explanation tacked on

A moment that really made me stop and realize “oh the person behind this must know stuff besides story-telling” was when after and educational lecture about devils, the speaker admitted privately that the model used to describe them was problematic in that it demonized certain sects of devils, like wow, it was a quick moment, but a story showing the struggles of nuanced activism? Then we not only touch upon exploration of devil’s through a social science lens, but the overall philosophy that gets brought up on how to deal with institutional bigotry is interesting (this will be endgame spoilers so if you want to skip this, scroll down until you see bolded words again)

In two separate cases, we see two queer women involved in institutions get asked to do something unethical, both decide that if they refuse then they’ll get fired and someone else will simply take their place, and their goal then becomes to work through the system until they make it to the top and can start openly resisting

The effectiveness of these strategies is intriguing to dig through, the first is a researcher breeding devil/human children to study, (many of the participants being convicts) and from her actions we see her try and inform those involved to the best of her abilities and get their consent, and when possible, try to use couples who are already together, any information that would put individuals at risk of being chosen for illegal experimentation, she destroys, when she becomes the head researcher, she changes the program to rely completely on studying the children of already formed devil/human couples who come to them willingly

The second is asked to head the conspiracy of wiping out all devils, when ironically she is a devil herself, and so what they do is essentially play their part until they’ve amassed enough power to eventually stage a coup, until they can get an insider to be the prime minister to publicly reveal to the world, the conspiracy and have vocal support of devil rights, not only does this plan depend on the actual killing of innocents and riling up actual bigotry, but it also attracts actual cold-blooded killers and violent bigots which complicate matters, and for all their effort, the prime minister gets assassinated right during his big speech 

As I mentioned their is still one volume left untranslated so I don’t know how it will add on to this, (most of the plot lines got wrapped up so I can’t see many major developments happening beyond wrapping up character plot threads) but they’re some juicy thematic questions to chew on as well, which is always a treat

Returning to some general strengths of the series, there really is a genuine sex-positive stance, I say that specifically bc it isn’t just simply exploring themes of sex, but also the way it does so, as mentioned above, there is a lot of baggage around devil’s and their sexual relationships, but a lot of what the characters have to learn is that such desires are normal and not some great abomination, just something they have to be responsible about, no one is shamed for communicating what they want/like, especially women, where multiple female characters are in fact openly encouraged to communicate to their partners that they are interested in sex, and from their we watch multiple couples (including a m/m one) work out what they want, in one neither is interested in romance, but is ok with a friends with benefit thing, two have the male participant be unsure of their feelings and so they work in their comfort zone (one likes physical touch and kissing, another they only hug) the m/m couple not only get screen-time of struggling with the “are you gay, I want to show interest but not get perceived as a creep” deal, but one admits to being repulsed by sex, and they still work out a romantic relationship

And the most surprising amount part of this, is that there is no unnecessary titillation, the eternal question of what is over-sexualization and all can get confusing and tiring, so I won’t define a specific threshold here or say this is the only way to tell such stories about sex, but first you don’t got any unrealistic body proportions on anyone or any creepy shots, everyone is fully clothed and dressed normally for the non-sexy bits, and while we do get a sex scene, it is pretty non-graphic (you got boobs and that is all that it on screen) so there really isn’t any confusing moments like in other stories I’ve experienced where I have to wonder if the framing contradicts its message 

I could go on, but the strength of the story lies within at the end of the day being about normal people just trying to live their lives, it really does seem to capture the essence of what it means to be human effortlessly, and I am just immediately charmed and ready to follow Ryo Handa in whatever other projects she does

#devil's line #my reviews #hope this stays coherant #but I love these characters and the world and will probably cry when it is completely over

[magic-and-moonlit-wings]

Hi, how did you feel about Kanjigar as a character and his death? Were there any Trollhunters' pairings that felt forced and rushed, or ones you like, but either became bland or felt tacked-on? And finally, how would Trollhunter Claire's relationships go with Blinky, AAARRRGGHH and Draal?

Kanjigar’s death:

Kanjigar’s death is a necessary aspect of the show’s premise, since there can be only one Trollhunter at a time, chosen by the Amulet. (Unlike in the original novel, where there could potentially be many, and Jim Sturges and Claire Fontaine were both revealed to have genetic predisposition to be paladins - another name for Trollhunters, which I think Netflix chose not to use in order to avoid conflation with Voltron - and the amulet was just a translator device.)

Kanjigar’s death not only sets up the Amulet choosing a new Trollhunter, but also provides a bunch of exposition within the first few minutes of the show - that Bular is dangerous (Kanjigar clearly concluded he wasn’t getting out of that fight alive); that sunlight doesn’t just hurt trolls, but can outright kill them; and that this is a show where characters can and will die.

The fact it was a suicide which led to the selection of a new Trollhunter might be a deliberate parallel to how Jim’s use of the transformation potion in Season Three was filmed like a suicide, ‘killing’ Human!Jim to replace him as Trollhunter with supposedly-hybrid Troll!Jim.

Setting aside Doylist analysis and switching to Watsonian, Kanjigar was shortsighted.

Based solely on evidence in the show, we don’t know if Blinky was watching the fight and Kanjigar knew it and just didn’t call attention to him in order to protect Blinky from Bular, or if Blinky went looking for Kanjigar later and just happened to arrive in that drainpipe at the right moment to see Jim get the Amulet. (Supplementary books say Blinky and AAARRRGGHH were both witnesses but Kanjigar didn’t know they’d followed him.)

From what is shown on camera of Kanjigar’s knowledge at that moment, as far as Kanjigar knew, Bular could have climbed down from the bridge and stolen the Amulet immediately at sunset, before anyone from Trollmarket even knew Kanjigar was dead.

Supplementary comics justify this to some degree by showing the Amulet fly to Kanjigar following the death of his predecessor; but again, from evidence presented on camera in the show, there was no reason to expect that to happen … unless you count the Amulet vanishing by mid-afternoon when Jim tries to go back for it in Unbecoming, which I interpreted on my first watch to mean the Changelings had stolen it - which could well be the case, since they didn’t know yet that they needed the Amulet and the Trollhunter, and they might have let Draal find it after they did learn as much; Nomura’s dialogue with Strickler regarding the Trollhunter in that episode is basically, “he’s someone I know well enough to easily manipulate.”

So, Kanjigar’s ‘heroic sacrifice’ was narratively necessary but a dumb move on his part. Having a well-meaning hero create problems by trying to protect everyone and solve things alone seems to be a theme in this show.

Kanjigar personally:

Kanjigar is … what Jim could become. I don’t mean that as a compliment. I mean an admired and well-meaning figure, who nonetheless causes serious emotional harm to himself and those close to him by pushing away their attempts to support him and feeling like he shouldn’t bond emotionally with anyone, in an attempt to “keep them safe”.

Jim is good(ish) at teamwork when he starts out as Trollhunter, but as the series goes on he tries more and more to contain any fallout by cutting out the rest of his team, most notably when he goes into Darklands (just after Kanjigar ‘reminds’ Jim that “a day will come when you must finish the fight alone”) and uses Merlin’s potion (after being left alone with the wizard strongly implied to have created, not just the Amulet, but the Trollhunter job in the first place).

Likewise, the supplementary materials imply Kanjigar used to bring Draal, Blinky, and AAARRRGGHH along on missions, but it’s repeatedly stated in the show that Kanjigar had created distance between himself and Draal by the time of Kanjigar’s death, and Blinky and AAARRRGGHH never share any personal memories of interacting with him.

My opinions on various ships:

Jlaire was developed about as much as any straight relationship between teenagers in an animated series ever is. My reflexive response when Jim’s crush on Claire was introduced was “Oh No, Another Obligatory Unnecessary Hetero Romance Subplot To Prove The Protagonist Is Straight”, so its presentation actually exceeded my expectations by a lot. I could enjoy Trollhunters just as well without Jlaire being a thing - I’ve actually got a short essay on how I think that ship has a negative impact on my perception of Claire’s character, because it feels like she’s only there to be the love interest, even though I recognize she actually is plot-significant in her own right - but it’s fine. It has its roots in the original novel and there was no real reason to cut it from the script.

Darby was very much a background relationship. Something I noticed during my full-series rewatch was that Darci doesn’t get a lot of screen time or definitive characterization; I was trying to take notes on her so I could better write her in my fic, because I feel like I haven’t developed her character much, but I didn’t actually learn anything new about her. She and Toby are cute, and they have at least one ‘off-camera’ date (stated by Toby in the double-date episode) as well as their on-camera date. Definitely hoping to see more scenes between the two of them in the next season of 3Below - we know Toby’s going to feature because of the trailer where Eli is recruiting Toby to help him investigate extraterrestrial presence in Arcadia.

Stricklake starts out really intriguing, but gets fumbled with how clumsily Strickler’s redemption arc is written. What I would’ve preferred would be if he actually says the words “I’m sorry” during the doorway scene, mentions when Morgana tries ‘tempting’ him that Barbara would never forgive him if he lets her son be trapped in the Shadow Realm forever, and the next time they meet is because Barbara contacts him. We have no idea how or why he shows up in Parental Guidance, but a scene of Barbara calling him, as another adult who the Nuñezes and Nana are likely to listen to, to back up her story, would cover that base and give Barbara more agency in their interactions that season. So, yes, getting them together by the end of Season 3 feels rushed.

BlinkAAARRRGGHH was heavily implied but technically left to the audience imagination. I personally would not call it ‘baiting’, because to my knowledge the show was not marketing itself as “hey there’s a canon gay relationship” and then leaving it in subtext, but it is disappointing.

Dromua, meanwhile, happened entirely off-camera, casually referenced and hinted at by Draal and Nomura both, but never shown other than an ambiguously flirty moment between them after the escape from the Darklands. Again, I would have liked to have seen more.

Trollhunter Claire’s dynamics with Blinky, AAARRRGGHH, and Draal:

Claire wouldn’t see Blinky as a father figure. She has a dad already and seems to have a mostly-positive relationship with him. (Less ‘under pressure’ than her dynamic with her mom, at least, with some cute moments.)

Blinky would approve of Claire’s academic inclinations. Her interest in Shakespeare could be used as a framing device to explore troll literature, poetry, and theatre. For example, a scene could begin with Claire and Blinky discussing some troll playwright, and then somebody (probably Bagdwella, maybe Vendel) comes in looking for the Trollhunter.

Her dynamic with AAARRRGGHH probably wouldn’t change much. In canon, he’s about equally affectionate with all the kids (until Toby becomes his favourite, but even then, he stays affectionate with all of them.)

Draal, I don’t know. Claire’s certainly got enough of a temper to challenge him to a fight, so that would probably happen. It’d be more difficult to sneak him into her basement since her house is more populated. If he moves in before Enrique is kidnapped, I could see that creating tension when Claire discovers Not Enrique - “you said you were going to protect my family!” - and maybe she’d even throw him back out, forcing him to find alternate lodgings since he still can’t show his face in Trollmarket? Also I feel like Claire would introduce Draal to punk rock at some point.

#Trollhunters #Tales of Arcadia #ask me anything #Kanjigar #Jim Lake Jr #parallels #meta #tw: mention of suicide #Troll Jim #TOA novels and comics #shipping #Jlaire #Darby #Stricklake #BlinkAAARRRGGHH #Dromura #Anonymous asks about Trollhunter!Claire #canon divergence #alternate universe #Claire Nuñez #Blinkous Galadrigal #AAARRRGGHH #Draal

[incarnateirony]

The Problem with DreamHunter...

Is that there is no problem with DreamHunter.

You're probably like "wait, what?" So let me clarify: This is absolutely not a Dreamhunter!Critical post. In fact, I have a lot of accolades for DreamHunter. I'll address a few complaints I've read from a surly, never-happy swath of stan twitter, but this post isn't actually about that - it's about a pervasive cultural issue involving coded phobia and how Bobo Fucking Berens showed his level of quantum literary and social brainfunction to do everything from canonize an LGBT ship to run a far deeper and more exposing social experiment on the fandom at large.

We've all seen the gif sets. I can't find the video in my vat of poorly maintained blog, but I'm sure someone else could, wherein Bobo on Twitch was talking about being ecstatic over us seeing what he wanted us to see. To the fandom that keeps their ears open, none of DreamHunter's premise is new to us. The only new thing was a certain confirmation, "First love strikes quick."

First, to the part that is NOT the point of the post, but I feel needs addressed before people start yelling at me:

Now, this has opened up a floodgate of hard-end-stan-twitter complaining like "Oh so they didn't just kill a WOC but a queer WOC and then after-texted it?" Well, no, fam. They were setting up a queer romance of the century with her dream half and potential return to the self while facing the darkest parts of challenging the self and deleting our weaknesses, and maybe even going so far as to make a statement of self imposed biases. Wayward just wasn't picked up so they've had to funnel and condense the concept in other ways. Dark Kaia wanting to target Claire after seeing what she meant to Kaia isn't an arbitrary and random sentiment. But arguing literary romantic value with stan twitter is like arguing algebra with an ill-behaved goose, so that's as far as I'm going to take that explanation beyond "y'all are often our biggest enemies on content."

Now then... to the actual point of the post:

I've mentioned it before, but it really deserves its own rebloggable master post not attached to some overlong thread, and able to be brought into fuller scope. The problem with DreamHunter is almost nonexistent. In fact, the simple fact is: with a line that simple, it was universally accepted as a truth, whether people are screaming about tropes they want to read in the worst light before the romantic element ever got a chance to get its feet under it. Nobody's out there saying it doesn't exist. Nobody's out there downtalking that line.

THAT is the problem with DreamHunter - that there is no problem with DreamHunter. And by that, I don't mean to say we should have a problem with DreamHunter. It's that DreamHunter reveals a hugely systemic coded bias in our culture.

And honestly, I think Berens did that on purpose.

There’s a certain level of coy battle in acceptance going on. First of all, people naturally seem to accept F/F before M/M due to a bunch of cultural reasons. Mostly because F/F has been convenient to publicly fetishize while M/M freaks out dudebros that are really uncertain about themselves, so for a longer time, GA has been exposed to and accepting F/F. And I think of anyone out there, My Big Gay Author King Berens is going to understand that.

WLW still has its own stigmas, I'm not saying it doesn't, but acting like resistance to it is on any cultural coding level parallel to the stigma against MLM is a weird display of intersectional privilege and lack of awareness.

Acting like it’s coincidence that they monkey-stomp packed as many identical lines and scene arrangements into all of one episode as possible, then dropped a bomb like that episode two, is silly. We know exactly what he’s after – hell, he said he was ecstatic we saw what he wanted us to see. So the real question is, why is it that “first love strikes quick” is taken without argument from the GA but a thousand up-nods for the M/M pairing with the same content – and TBH, far far far more that could never be packed into a single episode – has people take lines like “attached at the everything” and immediately have a portion of the audience start laughing, despite the surrounding substance around it?

Destiel fandom read into yet-again heaven and hell believing DeanCas are an item; antis decided it was an insult to “annoy” them. Even the angel in the past threatening to gouge Cas’ genitals over it. Because that’s what I do when I don’t believe it but am a religious zealot. Threaten to cut dicks off to annoy people. But somehow, it’s far easier to negotiate, to these people, that the male queer coded content is a punchline, rather than either a genuine or perceived truth. Antis choose to interpret MLM as a punchline. It’s that simple. No amount of surrounding content or story thematics can convince them otherwise. 

The same substance they monkey stomped, condensed, and largely stripped down for time limitations, into DreamHunter?

I’ll give a hint: it’s the same cultural stigma that – which late night show was it, where they started playing well-edited slash videos and the audience started laughing despite it being well timed and edited? It’s that. It’s the same thing that made Ateo unable to play queer roles in the industry as being “not believably gay” despite being a gay man himself, until the Hunter Husbands. It’s a horrific stigma that the audience has been coded to bite and gnash back against M/M content unfairly to the queer male audience and it’s gross, but it’s just there, sort of in the collective mind.

I absolutely don’t think Berens, of all fucking people, is unaware of this. And I see what he did as a really, really fucking coy set of actions beneath already masterful writing.

Berens knows exactly what he’s fucking doing and has basically coded a social experiment into the show that betrays people’s biases against M/M queer pairings while allowing the saturation (largely by fetishization) of F/F pairings to do the heavy lifting for him. Nobody out here yelling that Jody could be wrong about it or that “we didn’t see a kiss so it didn’t happen LOL they’re just in a sismance” – it is what it is. And here we are.

So on a social level I am fucking fascinated to see where he takes this next.

Berens has come out swinging for the queer male community whether anybody wants to accept it or not. Which is, modernly, by our demographics, at least an equal if not the greatest portion of our primary male demographic of viewers for the show. And I'm not just talking about the fandom census. I'm talking about Nielsen's demographics shift on gender since season 10, and general Kinsey-scale-esque testing of the true target demo at large in the US. Our ads count 18-49. CW targets 18-34.

Following the work of Berens within Supernatural will give you a very blatant papertrail. It started in deeply layered subtext; his first episode Carver directed Misha to play Cas as a Jilted Lover; after that, he took Robbie's work on Cain and manifest the Colette parallel coded into our story; he chose to take Dabb's Dean-speech from 12.1 and turn it into our coffee-Mixtape-Win spree that other authors shed from their pen in his wake, just like later in season 10 people continued his Colette grind. Berens has been an internal motion for the legitimization of truly structured and admittedly intentful elements of Destiel in the show. And people can scream that they don't like or see it all they want, but it's right there -- and with DreamHunter, it was What He Wanted Us To See.

It's grossly disingenuous activism to try to accuse SPN's first overtly queer author of queerbait while internally shifting the motions of our author room mechanics towards genuinely structured and intentful romance-skewed storytelling, whether it remains subtextual or not. Especially as that author continues to throw wrench upon wrench upon wrench into the no homo gears in ways the GA is perpetually exposed to and spun into having to think about. An eternal negotiation of poignantly delivered lines that catches even the most resistant ears and at least plants a seed in their mind about something else. A true normalization of it as a potential element to the story.

The same sort of normalization hyper-condensed into DreamHunter, but as per the above discussion, far more readily accepted. I have literally heard, from people who argued the "bromance, I'm not entirely convinced" on Destiel, that DreamHunter had been "obvious" to them and the "first love strikes quick" wasn't even necessary, because everybody knew. Cue me sending simple gifsets and script line side by sides and blowing their brains because suddenly their entire world scope just got bent sideways in -- why do I accept the one while I negotiate away the other?

Well, I covered why, above.

The problem with DreamHunter, I repeat, is that there is no problem with DreamHunter. People accept and see that it exists, without argument, even going so far as to label it "obvious" from a single episode, of a highly condensed version of only a fraction of the moments of another queer-coded duo in the show, but simply with culturally differing gender dynamics.

The concern troll of "bromance" or "why not let men be close" dies here. The idea of a bromance is letting two men have a friendship with the form of openness platonic female friends can have. That's fine, that's great. Dean-Benny would be a great example of this, and even then we once again had the offset of Dean-Cas to show different operations. I might even say Dean-Sam as an idea of that, but I don't think "bromance" is necessarily needed since brothers natively have a different sort of dynamic from growing up together. But once you are going out of your way to dismiss elements that we accept in hetero pairings with a laissez-faire “duh”, or even WLW scenarios as “it’s so obvious”, because it's MLM, we have left the area of "bromance" and "why not just let men be close without making it gay" and into “I am negotiating this away due to some sort of coded unwillingness to accept it, perhaps subconsciously, even if I consciously consider myself an ally.”

And that's the true masterpiece of this social experiment Bobo planted in the Supernatural universe with DreamHunter.

The world is grossly unfair and tilted in remaining cultural stigmas about queer males after ages of repressing them to limited niche capacities and stereotypes so strong that masculine gay men couldn’t even get cast in roles as gay men, where the world reads queer men as a punch line rather than a “duh” or “it’s so obvious” or “it’s just right there”, and DreamHunter is a walking fucking social experiment putzing around in Supernatural universe that gives no choice but to pick a side of the fence once you’re aware of these things.

Whether or not it’s physically consummated does not make it not-romantic. Being queer isn’t just about sex. It’s about feelings. And yes, we want our feelings to lead somewhere, and they deserve to lead somewhere, but is Jody acknowledging Claire’s “first love” now what suddenly makes it romantic, or is it the motions, the stories, and the feelings that preceded those lines, even though they never kissed and all hand-holding could be negotiated away the same way we can negotiate away our canon touches for two very emotionally involved men? “She was just leading her through the gate because she was scared,” “she was just consoling her as she died.” See how easy that is? But we won’t do that. And now, frankly anybody that does looks like a jackass.

So why, oh why, is this treated with ambiguity? This is a canon statement of “this relationship is being in love.” It was young love - it struck quick, in only an episode - but it was love. But name an element DreamHunter has to define that love that Destiel doesn’t? If you bend over backwards and try for the handholding, I can raise you hundreds of moments of intimate style contact. Try again.

Canon just confirmed what we already knew -- that Destiel is romantic. That there is love there. And not the kind of love we dismiss as Bros. Bobo just did that. Because every element of their relationship exists in Destiel, and a hundred times more. But it was first love. Dreamhunter was young love that came quickly, and not a single soul argued. Destiel is the same showcase of love, older, more matured, grown over years with dozens more moments of contact and display -- but in the very least, those moments -- those ones lived through DreamHunter in parallel -- that’s love. Canon literally just painted those sparse, compacted down elements, these behaviors we’ve seen, these moments, as coded romantic and in love. If you take nothing else from that -- take that. The elements that build Destiel are canonically romantic, when within DreamHunter and the question is -- without any physical affirmations or DreamHunter on screen, why is it romantic to them and not to Destiel? Why do we even humor this as a discussion, though we expect it, and what does this say of the coded phobias in fandom that we even have to expect it?

Dean and Cas haven’t kissed or dual-confessed to it in public, but you know... neither did DreamHunter. Unless of course we don’t talk down the timely placement of Need Yous and Love Yous and Big Wins and whatever else like people insist on doing with the MLM arrangement. Nobody’s talking down Jody’s third person “first love,” because we know better, and there’s not a mix of MLM and ship warring in play with DreamHunter. Bromance ends at the same line platonic female friendships end. Everyone accepts that DreamHunter is not platonic. Even without ceasing previous negotiations around poignant DeanCas lines, DreamHunter has established the romantic and loving engagements in retrograde. Canon has literally confirmed -- this relationship is romantic and in love.

And until this post, not a single person has tried to argue it down as Just Young Sis Love. Because we all know. Just like, deep down, everybody knows it about the mothership, some just don’t want to accept it. For whatever reason, subconscious or otherwise. I’ll laugh if the same antis that just tried to blind parallel it to W*ncest as a proof of love, while disconnected from the very origins and confirmations of DreamHunter, suddenly start rambling that doesn’t make DreamHunter canon either once this post gets around.

Berens is a fucking master ISTG.

I mean, I guess you’re free to celebrate any network level blockades going on right now while Bobo does Big Queer Fatal Combat from within, but allow me to celebrate DreamHunter whether or not we get consummation for Destiel, an MLM-scenario ship that has to deal with entirely other stigmas on a network primarily run by a bunch of old dudes. This is there. This will never be taken away. And cheering any blockades being run against MLM content with blatant intent does not make you the gr8 person here, m8.

This post is probably gonna have a low level of spread because it’s also something that forces even Destiel fandom to negotiate with themselves too -- how many lines and moments and whatever-else have we negotiated down, talked around, and chosen to interpret in the most left field way as if arguing ourselves from the position of an anti, only to get crack slapped across the jaw in this? How many have yelled queerbait without really observing what Bobo has been doing from within, how many have to face-or-deny the unfair queerbait shouting? How many hold-outs are we putting up, ourselves, because it isn’t the type or level of confirmation we want; we’re sitting here waiting for a bigger more dramatic reveal than a third person statement like that, or what-have-you, but when it’s not “our ship” that we are eternally defending from antis, and not a ship being targeted due to a mix of ship warring and MLM social issues, this is fine? And why is it okay when it’s not The Mothership and we totes accept it for DreamHunter canonization but we’re still talking circles around DeanCas like we’re our own antis? Why do we let anti-dom spin everyone’s head up in such knots that the majority expect Dabberens to live in stan twitter, abandon narrative properties and quality, and have Sam walk in on something while they profess their love and walk away with pictures as hard sealed photographic evidence when that isn’t expected of literally anybody else?

Can anybody tell me why Bobo Bookends Berens, who penned Cain -- Dean’s kindred spirit and fated path parallel -- calling out -- as confirmed -- that Castiel was his Colette, his wife, the love of his life that knew who he was, and what he was, that loved him unconditionally, forgave him, and only asked for him to stop -- a third person perspective -- has a third person, offscreen confirmation of the same sort, with far less plot weaving, taken universally as canon without the play of shifting goalposts via MLM social stigmas and/or ship warring stan twitter getting up in everybody’s heads?

Cuz it’s the same dude, guys. Same pen. A moment nobody even dismissed or TRIED to heckle out. If we just want to go third person while dropping punchline perception, we have everything from The Angel In The Dirty Trenchcoat Who’s In Love With You to Attached At The Everything. Y’all really think Bobo Berens is out here using his own sexuality as a tool and a punchline to be laughed at though? Bobo, “I protest human trafficing and ICE engagements front line in the body walls while people are being arrested” Berens? That guy? 

You’re gonna go out of his way that hard to miss the point just because you have phobic asshats on twitter, and/or asshole haters with “opposite ships” on twitter, or it’s just not the kind YOU wanted to see for Destiel, even if it’s enough for you to take it as canon in DreamHunter, when you already Been Had It for Destiel?

Meh. So many problems with DreamHunter, in there not being any problems with DreamHunter.

All Dabberens. Every Dreamhunter moment was a Dabb or Berens written previous Destiel moment. The meaningful third party line from Jody was Berens. Just like the meaningful third party line in Executioner’s song, also by Berens. Not just a random jab - someone who knew them inside and out. And that - people will take that as canon, again, when there’s no rival ships or MLM phobias in play. Every inch of Dreamhunter (and far, far more) existed in Destiel, by the same authors, porting the same concepts across, piece by piece, and like magic, nobody protested.

And if you’re protesting, or worse if you hilariously ship Dreamhunter but reject Destiel, despite -- I dunno -- Bobo’s own book reviews on issues like queerphobia and intersectional issues -- you may want to introspect on the real reason you’re denying it.

Because that, my friends, is a strictly personal problem.

#supernatural #lgbt #destiel #dreamhunter #bobo berens #mine