#more and more i find that the transformative queer narratives i want are to be found in nonfiction and not fiction

[kvothes]

okay. transmasc book rec. i’m finally getting to we both laughed in pleasure: the selected diaries of lou sullivan 1961–1991 and i wholeheartedly recommend ‘em, even only being a few pages in. sullivan was huge for the trans male community in the US and was one of the first publicly gay trans men (and largely responsible for our conception of sexuality and gender identity as distinct concepts). the entires are funny and charming and infinitely wilder and sexier than anything you’ll find in fiction. give them a try

#more and more i find that the transformative queer narratives i want are to be found in nonfiction and not fiction #i love love love diary collections and he has such an interesting voice #and the sex he gets up to is WILD #books #pride tag

[hajimedics]

On Puppets, Agency, and Fate

I’ve been writing this thinkpiece for around a week while looking further into Welcome Home’s symbolism through queer/neurodivergent lenses; strengthening my belief that its themes of freedom and fate cannot be separated from the struggles the characters face as queer/neurodivergent folks.

This writing is going to be a mix of canonical content and my personal interpretation as I make many connections to various readings. Not to mention that the story is very far from done according to the words of the creator himself, so please take the things I say with a grain of salt.

You can view this thinkpiece in Google Docs format here.

CW: mentions/discussions of homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and abuse

I've always adored explorations of humanity and their deteriorating, fluctuating psyche through characters constantly challenged by the narrative (example: Phos from Land of the L*strous, Kris from D*ltarune, Guts from B*rserk, Mae from N*ght in the W*ods) and how they struggle to find their place in the world and freedom. To progress, humanity has always desire freedom. Freedom of expression. Freedom to think. Freedom to honestly, unapologetically be who one wants to be. Humans and humanity are not always synonymous. Welcome Home is a case of this too, its ensemble cast consisting of puppets.

Clown has stated that themes of being queer/neurodivergent are very integral to the story in many aspects, from the characters to the metanarrative. I want to talk about the things I've noticed, the analogies they carry, and how every character's identity contributes to the themes or the story.

First off, the neighborhood.

The neighborhood in general

From the perspective of Welcome Home Puppet Show’s creators, the neighborhood is the idea of a perfect, idyllic community through the lens of cisheteronormavity from the 70s. It is something out of a children’s dream with the colorful imagery, the peaceful yet eventful neighborhood filled with fun activities where everyone in the neighborhood is happy and there are no realistic problems like capitalism, oppression, relationship problems, sickness, and death. Of course, it’s the given obvious because this is a puppet show we’re talking about. A show aimed at kids.

Everyone has a role to play in the neighborhood – the shopkeeper, the mailman, the baker, the bug nerd – they all fit the traditional, stereotypical, cartoonish American mold of what the dream urban life is like in the 70s (and it still is in my small hometown, in Indonesia! We’re quite traditional in a sense) especially with the lack of serious overarching threats of aforementioned human problems.

Welcome Home first aired on 1969 and abruptly ended on 1974. A possible theory is that they cannot keep up with the competitor shows at the time (Sesame Street started on 1969 and The Muppet Show started on 1974, fun fact!), but seeing the amount of merchandise they put out and the way it stood out from various angles, this theory can be thrown out the window. The “about” page for WHPS also describes the show as well acclaimed and doing well during its runtime.

Another one is that the sentience of the puppets (and their desire to have autonomy over their own lives) have possibly impacted the writing of the story, given how they have their own identity outside of the one given by WHPS’s writers to them. Even more when you take into consideration that WHPS is produced during the era when LGBT history in America is at a major turning point. As cited from The Atlantic:

“Those years that followed, the decade of the 1970s, represent a remarkable period of transformation for gays and lesbians, particularly those living in America's coastal cities. At its core, that transformation was about visibility. During those years, there was the first gay television movie (That Certain Summer); a sexy on-screen kiss between two men in Sunday, Blood Sunday; and the release of Cabaret, which has been hailed as the first movie that "really celebrated homosexuality.

There were gains in politics too: Edward Koch, then serving in Congress, "became one of the first elected officials to publicly lobby on behalf of the homosexuals of Greenwich Village," Kaiser writes. Gay Pride Week was established. Perhaps most significantly: In December of 1973, the board of the American Psychiatric Association* voted 13-0 "to remove homosexuality from its list of psychiatric disorders."

The laws that no longer criminalizes or dehumanizes queer folks are being written. Changes are made. Even when LGBT movement was going on a fairly optimistic path, oppression and bigotry towards the community was still rampant. After all, oppressors just can’t change their views in a whim! Their hatred comes from their own thoughts and not because the higher ups told them so.

I won’t turn this into a writing about queer history instead of focusing on Welcome Home. Though, I think it's all worth mentioning given the things I'm going to discuss here and how Clown stated that these themes will become prevalent throughout the story. I decide to write this thinkpiece as an outlet for my thoughts and how I connected many of the story's aspects to the themes of freedom – both from their status as puppets and their identity.

Now that the overview is out of the way, time to bring in the big guns.

The neighborhood and Playfellow Workshop

If we take Playfellow Workshop's involvement in the characters' lives outside of episode recordings, Welcome Home becomes a huge transgender allegory, wrapped in a neat colorful package called "being puppets whose view on the world is much more narrow and simple in which they are controlled by beings above their comprehension".

Playfellow Workshop is the company that creates WHPS and owns its characters. They act as the "parents" to the "children" – WHPS' characters – in this comparison. They house the characters, have them as their responsibilities and assets, and, as any show production goes, they most definitely have staff that takes care of the puppets to see if there are any rips or tears in their bodies, making sure they are fit for the show production. It's just like how parents house their children when they cannot afford housing or live on their own, taking care of (or rather monitor) them, giving them shelter and food.

They are controlled both literally and figuratively by Playfellow Workshop – former because they're hand puppets made for children's entertainment and latter because of their status binding them to their duties. Just like how a parent has authority over their children under the guise of “you live under my roof, you live under my rules.” The rules in questions are the episodes which are produced on story scripts, and the puppets follow said scripts. 

Playfellow Workshop is extremely important to the puppets, whether the company is taking a positive role, a neutral role, or an antagonistic role. If the puppets were to break free from their grasp, who would take care of them? Who will place them onto their cases, or fix their rips and tears, or make sure they're in good shape? Playfellow Workshop may have taken a toll on the puppets, but no one can take care of the puppets better than Playfellow Workshop. 

You might be wondering, “But Senja, this can be read as a typical controlling parent and clueless children dynamic. Why so specific about it being a trans experience?”

It can be read like the former! I made more connections and thus thought "Hm. This is so true to my trans experience". 

There are multiple transgender characters in the story such as Frank, Poppy, and Julie. I was struggling on how to put my thoughts into words about the ways the producers of WHPS (could it be that they thought about the puppets not being cis?) can write in trans characters in WHPS, but I believe Clown himself and the wikipedia page for Gonzo from The Muppets said it best. 

A similar case for the puppets can be applied to the trans characters of Welcome Home! Still, the way the puppets present themselves to the audience is also ultimately a decision made by Playfellow Workshop, especially during episode recordings. Clown also said that they won’t reveal much about it since he doesn’t want to give out spoilers. Perhaps regarding to the nature of Playfellow Workshop, too?

The puppets and the scripts can also be a stand-in for how trans folks who still live with authoritative adult figures (especially those that don't accept them or begrudgingly does) are handling autonomy over their own bodies and actions. Although not shown for now, I predict there’s going to be an eventual identity dissonance between who the puppets truly are and who the puppets are according to WHPS’ writers.  It reminds me of my experience of when I was much younger, being a closeted trans person who often struggles with disassociation, looking into the mirror and feeling like me and my body are not one. Not myself. It's like they're two separate beings, "me" who is what I truly am, and "my body" that is dictated and dressed up by my parents. As much as I love my body, little me wanted to claw out and break free if it means I can have a semblance of independence over my life. (Things are much better these past few years, though!)

Again, I don’t like accusing Playfellow Workshop of purposefully mistreating the puppets or even taking pleasure in hurting them because we are just getting started; getting to know the personalities and character dynamics between each character. Authoritative parents won't exactly be abusive to their children. Maybe Playfellow Workshop is just doing their job. They take care of the puppets because if they're damaged, the show won't go on. They act indifferent towards the puppets because well, they're just puppets. No personal feelings. That's just how business goes.

We do know that Playfellow Workshop is a big problem regarding the WHPS’ cancellation and the puppets’ worrying fates.

Playfellow Workshop aside, what about the community regarding the puppets?

The neighborhood is a small town consisting of nine residents. Everyone knows each other, and it’s hard to keep secrets from one another with just how tight-knit everyone is; the experience of living in a small town rings true to mine. Almost everyone in my quaint hometown knows many details about each other and their families because our community strongly believes in the importance of bonds and our culture is built on the word "family".

The neighborhood is a family that does not fit the general criteria of what the traditional structure of a family is. There is no concrete "father" or "mother" or "siblings" assigned here – they're also not the typical found family where they meet one another by chance. They are placed inside the set by the creators of the WHPS, lives already decided by its writers (like a traditional family), but they find solace in each other, having their lives intertwined with one another through bonds that they also take part in building, even outside of the show's production (like a found family, as seen in the "answer" pages). They are friends. They are family. Not to mention how the neighborhood is called "Home", a place where a family lives.

But they also cannot get out – as in get out of WHPS instead of just the neighborhood. I will be covering connections to freedom for each character later on (Sally falling from the sky, Poppy as a flightless bird, Howdy as an adult caterpillar) but the way their existence is bound by the colorful stage sets and rainbow props can also be seen as a small analogy that traditional families are expected to always stick with each other no matter how bad things are. 

Themes of family aside, I’ll talk about how the so-called “long lost and unknown of number” episodes. WHPS’ episodes start with Wally leading the viewers through the cacophony of the neighborhood. Then other characters join in, with many of them having notable activity segments. The episodes then end with Wally, who has finished journeying with the viewer, when the day has ended. It is most peculiar and harrowing that the agency of the puppets regarding the show is dependent on Wally and the time of the day. Wally plays the central figure of the story, first being placed in the position as the protagonist and most important character in WHPS, then having to act as their savior because he is the only puppet thus far that has contact with the restoration team and you, the viewer. He is akin to a child who has to take the lead as the head of the family even though he is not prepared for it.

Nobody remembers Welcome Home. Nobody remembers who the puppets are. At the time, the puppets only have themselves and each other to rely on for support. Then again, it’s not even clear if they are with each other when they went missing or scattered around.

Now that I've covered the connections I've made regarding the neighborhood as a whole, I’d like to analyze its residences one by one.

Wally Darling

Wally is a very complex character and by far the most – ironically – human out of everyone in the cast. The word "freedom" is written all over him and the word "love" is sewn into every inch of his body.

Wally is shown to show little to no interest in romance or dating. He allowed his friends to get touchy-feely with him (examples being sleeping with Barnaby and getting hugged by Eddie) and doesn’t hesitate to show his affections to them, but it’s been said that he never found them romantic. Wally’s lack of interest in romance gives me the impression that he is in the AroAce spectrum. Clown even mentioned that he doesn’t know what to do if someone confesses their love to him. Wally knows what romance is, he knows what romantic love is, he just doesn't see himself finding a partner anytime soon.

Wally's view on love not only ties into his queerness, but also his neurodiversity – his autism. He is not good at reading social cues or acting "as accordingly" to the situations presented to him. Clown also suggested that Wally cannot process emotions “the way humans do”. They also entertain the idea that Wally is “emotionless”; but I’d rather interpret it as Wally having low empathy and possibly alexithymia, traits shared by many autistic folks (including me).

He expresses his love in a way that accommodates his neurodiversity: real actions.

Wally has been shown from time to time as someone who absolutely, truly loves his friends. The way he loves others cannot be categorized into simple boxes such as “romantic” or “platonic” or “familial”. Wally loves his friends dearly and it is deep and true, simple as that. He also loves you, the viewer, and a hidden page in the Welcome Home page says that "Wally is your best friend". When he was communicating with you, it read to me more like fascination, curiosity, and cries of help instead of macabre obsession as I normally would expect in psychological stories such as Welcome Home.

All of this makes the struggles he faced after WHPS' cancellation and getting separated from his friends more tragic.

Having the world that he knows ripped away from him must've been traumatizing to him. The world that he has always known is gone. The people that he knew and met everyday are scattered everywhere. Although there are many image file names that suggest he has contact with some of his friends, he doesn’t know if everyone is fine. He’s now left to pick up the pieces and try to stick them back together. He has so much to think about, too much to think about, and so he decides to reach out to you.

When you take into consideration that autistic folks often rely on self-made sets of rules, Wally's situation turns from sad to depressing. Autistic folks rely on schedules and routines (also seen through Frank) to give them a sense of control over their lives and help them ground themselves in reality. When Wally's "routine" is ripped away from him, he has to immediately make sense of his situation and make himself accustomed to a life full of uncertainty. His adaptation to change isn't simply about comfort – it's about surviving. His struggles don't only stop there. 

Wally's intentions are read wrongly, some people interpreting him as "creepy" or "malicious" instead of just "awkward" or "desperate". Interestingly, this flanderization and misconception of his character comes from the internet's view on him instead of from the audience/staff in-universe. His autistic traits that cannot be deemed "cute" enough (the way he stares, his mannerism, how he talks slowly, or his fixation on the viewer) is considered creepy in a way that appeals to the fandom and thus extrapolated into something more extreme; him being a lovesick obsessive love interest, him being a religious cult leader, or him being the overarching villain of the story. The way that people outside his universe are the ones demonizing him is poetic in a way – reflective of the world that we live in where ableism towards autistics are so embedded even in the way we view tragic characters with low empathy.

Maybe Wally’s mannerisms are written that way because it’s to add more mystery, but knowing that Clown likes to play with secrets and says that neurodivergency plays a huge part in the story makes me think it’s also the other way around. His behavior as an autistic and traumatized character is what makes people believe that he's the villain. It’s unintentional on his part, but people who fail to read between the lines can think otherwise. It reminds me that when autistic folks cannot express emotions "correctly” or act a certain way that is expected regarding certain social situations, neurotypicals immediately jump into bad, unsavory conclusions about their intentions.

In reality, Wally is a desperate person who just wants the viewer to know and realize his presence and (assumedly) save his friends. Sure, he isn't straightforward in his words when communicating to us through hidden audio files, but his intentions are getting more clear to me. He’s thrust into a situation where he now acts as the guardian for his friends instead of Playfellow Workshop. He wants to get in. He's not a saint. He's not a villain. He's a struggler.

Sally Starlet

Sally! Her name is a fun one. She’s a star. She’s also an actress/play writer, related to the phrase “star of the show”.

So far, Clown hasn’t confirmed anything regarding her sexuality or gender identity, but the interactions she has with other characters from various audio files gave me some clues.

Her interactions with male characters are comedic or bossy in a comical sense, definitely stays true to her bombastic personality. She's not particularly fond of having Barnaby or Howdy star in her plays – the former not taking it seriously while the latter advertising his products in the middle of her plays. She also likes bossing Eddie around as shown in Eddie's Big Lift and is entertained by his antics, from him calling her "ma'am" to him not being able to refuse any of her commands. 

Sally is noticeably more mellow around women like Julie and Poppy, notably the latter. Despite getting tired of Julie messing up the script of her plays, she isn’t annoyed with her and thinks of her antics as amusing rather than annoying. She is also patient with Poppy, not getting deterred by her always worrying nature and talks to her calmly. She encourages her ideas, help her to be more confident in herself and is very supportive of her! Their personalities bounce off one another really well, and she is just so sweet. Sally also endearingly calls Julie “Juliet” and Poppy “dear” and “darling”, something she doesn’t do with the male characters.

She gives me the impression of being a lesbian. She reminds me a lot of Lady D from RE VIII who’s a canon lesbian, calls Evan “manthing”, and speaks/acts in the same sophisticated manner as Sally, haha!

Besides her queerness, I found an interesting connection to freedom from her backstory. Sally was originally a star from space that falls to earth in order to pursue her interest in acting. She fell from a place that is vast and endless to a place surrounded by trees and predetermined fates. Also her working with play scripts… the show running on episode scripts… hm…

A falling star has a close definition to a meteor, burning brightly due to the pressure but then losing its spark and mass during its journey, ultimately burning into nothingness. Possibly just a coincidence, but the symbolism when related to Sally is sad.

Frank Frankly

Amidst the cheerful technicolor citizens of the neighborhood, Frank stood out the most by having grey skin and a constant frown on his face. He’s the bookworm character archetype of the show and is described as “arguably the smartest person in the neighborhood”. He’s also one of the handful characters that doesn’t have any information regarding where he was before he came to the neighborhood.

Frank is autistic. As I’ve mentioned in Wally’s part of this thinkpiece, Frank relies on routines and familiarity to give himself a sense of agency and control over his life. He likes arranging things in the order they’re supposed to go, he has a keen eye on organization and structure, and he wants things to be done right in his own ways. “This is the way things should be done, not that way.”

There are drawings Clown made depicting him stimming and infodumping about his special interests, those being entomology and insects. 

Frank and Julie are paired together in many Welcome Home-related content. They are best friends who does things together and spends time playing together. They perform a comedy duo; Frank is the "straight man" to Julie's "funny man". His friendship with Julie is very important to both the show and the overarching story. They are something more than simple friends, something less than lovers, and something just right and deep for the both of them. Not that Playfellow Workshop thinks much about that. 

The animation cells for “Julie-rella” has given me a very thin theory that themes of cisheteronormavity will be at play as the story goes. Frank is the prince charming, while Julie is Cinderella – fated to be together when the story ends. Well, maybe it’s just Sally, being her over-the-top self and her reenacting a classic fairy tale with her personal spin, but I just can’t help but think harder about the implications of it. Frank is not a cishet man, and Julie is not a cishet woman. I have talked about it in this short writing I made about Eddie and Frank.

Frank is canonically nonbinary and gay. He and Eddie are each other's love interests, something that isn’t outright shown. One can argue that they don’t exactly “act” like a typical couple from what we’ve seen, and their interactions in WHPS’ audios and merchandises gives off the feeling that they’re amicable at best (referring to the link I embedded above). They are noticeably closer in the “answer” page, though. It is not certain that their relationship at the time WHPS was still going and before Welcome Home Restoration Project’s involvement was already established or they’re just starting to get to know each other  – though many audios in the WHRP website leans more towards the latter. Either way, it reminds me of the way some queer people have to hide their relationships in public to avoid getting hate or persecution.

You know that one art of a terrified Frank with a bright red rectangle and many appendages surrounding him that can be found in the staff-only page? Regarding his status as the bookworm character, I have a feeling that the phrase “ignorance is bliss” will come at play here, subverting his character. 

Poppy Partridge

This sweet, poor bird who is always shaken by everything around her. Poppy grew up in a nest with her family, though growing up to become the biggest bird out of everyone, eventually leaving the nest and moving into the neighborhood, living inside a barn and rarely leaving it because of her anxiety. Poppy is described to not be based on just one bird, as Clown said. She is said to be a mix of “flamingo from father’s side, hen from mother’s side”, fitting with how unique everyone is in the neighborhood.

It is heartwarming that she is surrounded by people who are understanding of her anxiety. Nobody makes fun of her fretfulness or forces her to be “more social”, Howdy brings her groceries to her barn, and she even has her own baking business! She’s not the greatest at the things she likes doing, but it’s nice to see that she founds joy in them.

Poppy is canonically a trans lesbian. She’s very close with Sally, whose personality is a stark contrast to hers. Poppy feels like she can trust Sally with handling the jobs she’s supposed to do and Sally encourages her to be more true to herself. Poppy feels at ease whenever she’s around Sally and even seems to act more flustered around her – a possible love interest between the two. It’s also cute that Sally likes to drag Poppy in her antics, with the latter not being too bothered about it. They trust each other very much. Also their dynamic is also just really good, y’know?

Connected to themes of freedom in this story, Poppy is a flightless bird, yet another symbol of her state of freedom as a puppet to Playfellow Workshop. Many birds have the ability to spread their wings and fly away to the places that they desire while Poppy cannot. Like the rest of the cast, her world is limited by the trees around the neighborhood. She also left her nest not because she has big dreams like Sally or ambitions like Howdy, but because of the circumstances she cannot control on her own.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, Poppy grew up to be the biggest bird out of her family and it became the reason why she left for the neighborhood. And when she got there, she prefers being inside her own barn instead of going around and socializing with everyone.

Howdy Pillar

Ohhh my god. This guy. He originates from an apple as a teensy little caterpillar, then leaving the place where he was raised in because of his dreams (similar to Sally, different to Poppy). He is shown to be very proud and confident in himself, having a clear ambition on opening his very own shop and takes great pride in what he does. He’s a great talker and can easily convince even the proudest people in the neighborhood to purchase his wares, and his character gives me the impression that he prefers being around people that understands his dreams.

I cannot find any notable queer readings regarding Howdy, but his interactions with Barnaby gives me the impression that they’re close to one another. Howdy considers Barnaby his favorite customer, and is seemingly happy that Barnaby is willing to listen to him ramble about his family gossips.

I do find connections between his physical appearance and the story’s themes of freedom.

In a caterpillar’s life, when they’re about to reach their adult stage and move on from their juvenile stage, they turn into butterflies. Not the case with Howdy. He’s an adult caterpillar whose family are a bunch of butterflies. Like Poppy, whose symbolism of lack of freedom is the same as Howdy's, he cannot turn into a butterfly and fly away from the grasp of Playfellow Workshop – outside the neighborhood, outside the town surrounded by colorful trees and dictated by scripts.

Unlike Poppy however, Clown mentioned that Howdy has the possibility of turning into a butterfly someday. Poppy is also an adult bird, the last stage of her life cycle, while Howdy is an adult caterpillar, the beginning stage of his life cycle. A possible foreshadowing for his fate regarding freedom later on…? Or maybe just a fun little trivia.

Barnaby B. Beagle

Barnaby, the comedic relief who's the most emotionally intelligent. The jokester who knows that something is amiss when the situation calls for it, the comedian who can be honest and straightforward in what he finds amusing and not, the humorist whose appearance is always met with cheers, claps, and boos, as if he’s the main character of a very long winded sitcom.

As far as I’ve noticed, there aren’t as many connections to themes of freedom regarding Barnaby as there is on other characters. Though I can say that Barnaby can stand his ground more than Eddie, another character who is usually put in situations where he gets the boot to the head and usually lets people do as they please. I cannot put these into concrete words, but Barnaby has an air of professionalism to him despite his character archetype being the comedic relief. 

Barnaby is close with Howdy (see the writing regarding his character above!), sharing jokes and puns with him. Barnaby is also considered Howdy’s greatest customer, always making the latter crack up and their personalities bounce off one another really well.

Another resident that Barnaby shares a close bond with – closer even – is Wally. Barnaby is very close to Wally. They are best friends, and many art for Welcome Home depicts them together a lot of the time. Barnaby includes Wally in the things he does like getting hotdogs together or sharing jokes. Besides Home, Barnaby knows Wally the best. He is also quick to notice changes in Wally’s demeanor, getting concerned about him when he doesn’t react to his words the way Wally always does in the last “answer audio”. 

Clown also said that in any universe, Barnaby and Wally will always become best friends. They are the definition of soulmates. Platonic, romantic, whatever you call it – but like I’ve said earlier, the puppets’ view on love are not as complicated as humans’, and I can say that they love each other deeply, simple and true as that. Like someone once said, they’ll find each other in any universe. This makes me fear for their relationship even more, given that Wally and Barnaby are most likely not near each other when WHPS ended.

Eddie Dear

Eddie! Neighborhood’s creative, kind, and hardworking mailman. He has a good eye on arts and craft, and is more than delighted to lead the viewers of the show with the things he wants to create.

As Clown have stated, Eddie is a gay man. I’ve covered most of the things I’ve said regarding their (blooming) romantic relationship in Frank’s section of this thinkpiece however, so I implore you to go back there if you don’t want me to rewrite the whole thing all over again here, haha!

A recurring trope with him is that despite his adherence to work ethics and schedules, Eddie tends to forget a lot of things. The Welcome Home website says that he hails from a town far away from the neighborhood, but he always gets the name of the town wrong and oftentimes mentions names of places that doesn’t exist. He talks to inanimate objects to aid his forgetfulness (also for endearing character traits) and Frank once suggested that he ties strings to the things he doesn’t want to forget, but this doesn’t always work. Eddie also doesn’t remember where he came from and his character profile says that he and the post office appeared out of nowhere one day.

Eddie is also accident-prone, always getting himself into situations (a bug landing on his paper chains, getting chased by Barnaby) and is mainly depicted as the unwilling comedian. Many of his character aspects are depicted as a source of comedy, even by himself. Eddie also has tendencies of prioritizing what others want before himself because of his even-tempered nature. So far, Eddie doesn’t express any serious frustration over this, but with the themes of agency recurring in this story, I’m afraid that it’s going to be a matter of time before we see Eddie express discomfort over this.

Throwback to what I have said: Frank is a smart person who constantly searches for logical answers to things, while Eddie is more laid back and isn’t very focused on finding the right answer and just wanting problems to be handled. This contrast on their personalities and how their backstories are foils of each other (Frank coming from unclear origins, Eddie not knowing the name of the place he’s from) make me think: Is ignorance bliss to Eddie? 

Julie Joyful

The sunshine of the neighborhood! The bringer of rainbows in Welcome Home! Julie stays true to her surname, always depicted with a bright smile on her face. She is the one that can turn Frank’s frown upside down. She is the one that can bring a tinge of comedy in Sally’s tragic dramas. 

Julie joins the side of the neighborhood that has clear origins. She once lived inside a cave with her siblings, but ultimately leaves under her own volition to find life for herself. Regardless, she is a character that is known for her constant interactions with other neighbors, notably Frank, her best friend.

Her friendship with Frank is extremely special for both of them – if you want to read about it, you should go to Frank's section of this thinkpiece as I've covered most of my thoughts about Frank and Julie's friendship there, but I want to add a few more things.

She is the "funny man" to Frank's "straight man", forming the neighborhood’s comedic duo. She drags him into her shenanigans, like the time they played “Business Woman In The Big City”. They’re also quite competitive when participating in the games that Julie conducts. She brings out the best in Frank, always making sure he feels included and happy in any activity they do. Julie is the “spontaneity” to Frank’s “routinity”. Julie is the “fun” to Frank’s “frown”. They’re inseparable from one another, like Barnaby with Wally.

As stated by Clown, Julie is genderfluid and bisexual. She doesn’t have a love interest set for her, but what’s important is that her character is emphasized with her connections with others. When Frank couldn’t play with her, she plays with Sally and enjoys spending time with her and even stars as the main character in many of the latter’s plays. There are lots of love inside her, after all! She is also said to be quite touchy with her friends, often hugging them and encouraging them to go through with the things they want to do. It doesn’t always have to be seen as “romantic”, like I’ve said before.

Onto her status as a puppet for Playfellow Workshop. Something funny is that Julie has a tendency to go off-script as shown from her interaction with Sally while practicing for a play. She has issues getting into the mood of her plays, making scenes that are supposed to be emotional… comedical, instead.

Is this supposed to symbolize something further? Is this habit of hers pointing towards how she’s going to express her unwillingness to be a mere cog in the big machine? The puppets are very much sentient, but I am not sure if they are aware if their actions in the WHPS episodes are controlled by the script. Time will tell, and perhaps, Julie too.

Home

Finally, we get to the last but one of the most important characters in this story – Home.

Home is the ninth residence of the neighborhood, though it’s not a puppet but a stationery character. It houses Wally, the main character of this story. Unlike the rest of the cast, Home talks in onomatopeias, like creaking its doors or opening its windows to produce sound as means of communication. Its eyes are very expressive and is constantly moving. Unlike other houses in the neighborhood, they’re very expressive.

Their importance isn’t only limited to being Wally’s house or being the only character in Welcome Home that cannot walk or talk.

The mobile characters of Welcome Home never expressed annoyance for Home’s non-verbal trait and instead put in effort to understand them and include them in their activities. They accommodate for Home, making sure they feel comfortable, wanted, and not left out. Home feels… at home around them.

Wally writes for Home to help it communicate and makes his canvas face Home whenever he’s painting, Julie teaches it how to hula hoop, Eddie makes small talk with Home, Barnaby makes jokes and laughs with Home, Frank tries to include home in games of chess, and so on! Home isn’t just a building like the rest of the cast’s houses. They are part of the family. It makes me so happy to see that their existence isn’t considered a burden or an annoyance or have their traits be seen as sources of comedy. It hits close to home for me as a physically disabled person.

Regarding the overarching story outside of WHPS, Home is a character that plays a significant part in Wally's journey. Wally loves Home dearly. He takes care of Home and makes sure he is in great condition. He is the caretaker for Home and becomes its communicator when the situation calls for it. In return, Home makes sure Wally is safe and sound inside their cavity and expresses their love for Wally through communication from creaking noises and even lightly squishing him between their door and door frame. Home is also quick to notice changes in Wally’s behavior and shows their concern for him, signifying just how deep their relationship is.

As I’ve mentioned many times before, their closeness cannot be boxed into the usual types of love humans are used to. You just know they are extremely linked to one another and that their relationship is not only important in WHPS, but also the story as a whole.

Home and Wally are inseparable from one another. They have their separate personalities and are distinguishable from one another, but ultimately they will always be one. Home is Wally’s fortress. Home is the shield to Wally’s sword. Home is the pericardium to Wally’s heart. After all, “Home is where the heart is”, right?

Afterwords

Yay! Whew! Congrats on making it to the afterwords! I’ve spent more than a week writing this whole thing and having my friend @rxveriecaeli proofread this thinkpiece (Morfe if you’re reading this I love you bestie). Huge HUGE shoutout to them because I’d be lost without them giving the finishing touches! 

I know, some people will say that I’m reaching or thinking too much about this story, but hey! That’s why it’s called a thinkpiece and not a theory or concrete proof of X or Y. I cannot say that I’m 100% sure about where the story is heading or what Clown has in mind for certain characters, but I just want to think and love making connections and my brain just keeps producing questions after questions after questions. Are the feelings they have with each other theirs and not the byproduct of the script commanding them? I believe so. 

What if Poppy is a flightless bird because she's based on Big Bird and not because it's an analogy for her not being able to fly freely away? What if Howdy is an adult caterpillar because he just IS and not because it's an analogy for not being able to turn into a butterfly that can fly? These options might be so, but even if Clown someday confirm that their design choices are simply because they're inspired by other puppet characters, I'm just happy that I manage to find symbolism that I can connect to their character designs.

I think it's too early to assume that the puppets are surely seeking freedom. At most, they just want to be saved from the tragic states they’re in, and Wally is on the lead. I mean, the show's canceled and they no longer live by following the scripts made for them! We don't even know the true fates of them aside from being nearly forgotten to time. And even if the puppets do achieve freedom, what will be of them? The producers aren't around anymore, the employees that treat them as toys but also take care of them aren't there anymore, and they have to fend for themselves in the big world.

I am not a native English speaker and I cannot put some of my thoughts into words both because of my language barrier and my ADHD. I do not intend on expressing malicious or harmful subtext through this writing, but do tell me if I had worded anything incorrectly and I will fix it. I would love to hear your thoughts about this thinkpiece too, so don’t hesitate to leave comments or tags in the reblogs (though please be patient with me!). Not that I will tolerate hateful or bigoted comments, however!

Please do not start accusing me of spreading the rhetoric that “being queer/neurodivergent is painful and constantly suffering and if you don’t suffer you are not part of those groups”! Being queer is fun and liberating. Being neurodivergent or disabled is something to take pride in. I’m proud of who I am and I encourage others to be so too. The experiences of queer/neurodivergent won’t always be easy, though, and I made this analysis and the correlating connections based on my own experience as a queer, autistic, and physically disabled person. 

That being said, thank you for reading!

Fun little trivia! The characters' favorite colors form a rainbow when put in respective order, just like the colors of the original pride flag :]

#LONG POST AHEAD!!! #welcome home #welcome home puppet show #wally darling #sally starlet #frank frankly #poppy partridge #howdy pillar #barnaby b beagle #eddie dear #julie joyful #home #senja writing

[finnlongman]

About Me, My Books, and My Research (2024 Edition)

Hi, I'm Finn, a writer, medievalist, and all-round nerd. You may know me as the author of The Butterfly Assassin, "that person who wrote the trans Cú Chulainn article", the weird nerd in the Tumblr corner writing excessively long and incomprehensibly niche posts about their research, or something else entirely. I am all of those things! (Well, depending on what the 'something else' is, anyway...)

Currently, I'm a PhD student at the University of Cambridge researching friendship in the late Ulster Cycle (c. 12th-17th centuries). I have an MA in Early and Medieval Irish from University College Cork, and wrote my thesis about Láeg mac Ríangabra, my best beloved. I also have an undergrad degree in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic from Cambridge, and wrote my dissertation about queer readings of Táin Bó Cúailnge, including transmasculine readings of Cú Chulainn.

You can find out more about my research on my website, which also includes info about all of my academic publications. This includes the aforementioned "trans Cú Chulainn article", an article about Láeg in the Death of Cú Chulainn, an article about the seven Maines, and a discussion of a conference on Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire from the perspective of my own work on lament and grief. Whenever possible, I try to make my research available Open Access. If you're ever having trouble finding one of my articles, please contact me!

If you want recommendations for books about medieval Irish (or Welsh) literature, this list on my Bookshop page has all my go-to recommendations. If you buy via this link, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you, so this is a great way to support me.

I am also an author, and I write both YA and adult novels. Again, my website is the place to go for all the info and links, but a quick summary:

The Butterfly Assassin trilogy (The Butterfly Assassin, 2022; The Hummingbird Killer, 2023; Moth to a Flame, 2024): YA thrillers about a traumatised teenage assassin who is trying (and failing) to live a normal life in a fictional closed city in Yorkshire. Featuring friendship, street art, Esperanto, zero romance, and a whole lot of murder, as well as increasingly unsubtle commentary on the UK arms industry and the military recruitment of vulnerable teenagers.

The Wolf and His King (coming Spring 2025 from Gollancz): a queer retelling of 'Bisclavret' by Marie de France which uses werewolfism as a metaphor to explore chronic pain and illness. Also very much about yearning, exile, and the mortifying ordeal of being known.

The Animals We Became (coming 2026 from Gollancz): a queertrans retelling of the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi looking at gender, compulsory heterosexuality, and trauma, through the medium of nonconsensual animal transformations.

To Run With The Hound (coming 2027 from Gollancz): my take on the Ulster Cycle, looking at why Táin Bó Cúailnge is a tragedy and what it means to be doomed by the narrative, but not in the way you thought you were. Featuring a lot of feelings about Cú Chulainn, Fer Diad, and Láeg.

You can find out more about my recently-announced medieval retellings in this blog post.

I generally tag personal posts and selfies as “#about the author”; other than that, I think I’m pretty straightforward with my tagging system.

I’m very happy to answer questions about medieval Irish lit, my research, or my books, or just generally to chat. Send questions via asks, chat via DMs, and if you're looking for my articles, you can email me at finn [at] finnlongman [dot] com, which is also the best way to contact me for professional enquiries, whether academic or fiction related.

You can also find me on Bluesky, on Instagram, and on YouTube, where I (infrequently) retell medieval Irish stories for a general audience with lots of sarcasm and hand gestures. Technically I'm still on Twitter, but I'm trying to leave.

And finally, if you’ve found my research interesting or just generally want to support me, I have a tip jar and am always immensely grateful when somebody helps me to fund my book-buying habits: http://ko-fi.com/fianaigecht. You can also tip me directly on Tumblr if you like. I’m also a Bookshop affiliate, and you can buy books from my recommendation lists to support me and get some great reads at the same time.

#about the author #the wolf and his king #to run with the hound #the butterfly assassin #also owls are transmasculine now #writing #books

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

I've been thinking about why Izzy's arc this season hasn't been bothering me as much as I feel like it should, and I think I've got it sussed out.

I think it's because I don't care about Izzy very much one way or the other, so I've been viewing him as more of a narrative tool than a character (which is what he really was in season 1, even), and when you look at him through that lens, the bones of his arc really make a lot more sense than if you think of it as a true redemption arc for a primary character.

When we look at what they're doing with Izzy this season, he really represents two big things:

Stede has won. His way of doing piracy is better and this is proof.

This season is all about transformations. Stede and Ed struggle with defining themselves and transforming into who they want to be (a "proper" pirate/"proper" man and "not a pirate anymore"). The crew's relationships change. Buttons literally turns into a seagull to illustrate this point. Izzy trying to shoot himself in ep 2 was the death of that old character, and he was reborn as a symbol of what Stede and the crews' way of piracy and relating to each other can accomplish. A literal symbol, I mean, they gave him a horsey leg and made him into the ship's figurehead. Wasn't subtle.

What happens to Izzy always says more about the crew than it does about him, because at the end of the day, Izzy as a character doesn't really matter all that much. Ed loved him "best he could," meaning Ed's best was never going to be enough to find love when he was forced into being Blackbeard. He's proof "there was a time when life mattered." He's proof Stede's way of piracy can win over those firmly convinced of the opposite. He's proof that queer community can change people.

I'm not saying this is always successful; I really don't think they had time to make it work the way it could have. But the bones are there.

I think what this reading doesn't account for is people who are passionate about this character, whichever way that passion leans. And I 100%, completely understand why a lot of people just hate this arc - a lot of us care about fairness, and this is a show that usually cares a lot about dunking on bigots, so Izzy not having to articulate that he's done something wrong or not having to really earn redemption doesn't sit well. It's an arc that works best when you hardly think of him as a character at all.

#ofmd #ofmd s2 spoilers #our flag means death

[inannasdream]

i think the reason why i gravitate towards belos on a deeper level a lot more than any of the other characters in toh is bc my preference in characters and stories is in how they are affected by institutions and the messiness that results from understandable character flaws exacerbated by those institutions, whether they are the oppressed or are enabled to become the oppressor. belos is a mix of both in a way that i like — it's possible to read him as nd & left handed (both heavily stigmatized in his day and society) yet both are possible to hide. in the demon realm he yet again had a trait that made him a possible outcast, as he was a lowly human, yet he transformed himself into a magic user through painful mutilation of his skin all so that he could conform to that society, even when it was one he couldn't stand. his conformity in the demon realm supports the idea of him having to conform in the human realm. but because he was enabled for being a white man in the human realm and could reasonably hide anything that made him a nail to be hammered down, he clung to that power and dominion over others that it gave him for the rest of his life like a security blanket, represented literally with him lording his magical prowess over other witches and demons. it's a lot of layers that i think are very fun and i'm 90% sure are unintentional when put together into this cohesive of a picture for reasons i will state later.

compare that against almost every other character in toh (w maybe the exception of darius??) — every good guy has flaws that can reasonably be blamed on other people as a freudian excuse or that are downplayed by the narrative (eg. amity going from an active bully in her debut to a passive enabler of bullying in understanding willow). there's a dire lack of messiness in them all, from their appearance (all the witch kids could easily be mistaken for humans, fairly good looking ones at that, if it weren't for the ears), to how they deal with pain, etc. it gave me the impression that they really wanted only the villain to be allowed to be messy and ugly because those are traits for villains, when i think it's a lot nicer to see stigmatized traits (ugliness, childishness, hallucinations, mental illness, etc) in everyone. i really wanted the heroes to get in on that kind of action too.

another thing that drew me away from connecting with and trying to deeply understand most of the characters in toh is the lack of meaningful bigotry on the isles. i'm not criticizing the race-, queer-, and gender-blindness of the demon realm on an objective level bc the writers wanted to accomplish a v specific thing w that bit of world building and that's ok and it's a wonderful aspiration for usamerica. it's ok if it's not for Me and the world can't have a million yasuda sayos (i say with difficulty through tears). but because there is a lack of bigotry in what's supposed to be an oppressive society and there's no highlighted underclass in its place (covenless witches should theoretically be the underclass, but the show tends to undermine this aspect of its society, eg. letting wild witches like eda and luz roam perfectly free and having the government-funded school allow witches to study multiple covens without pushback from said government funding them), it becomes just another part of the show that makes it so much more squeaky clean and made me disinterested in a lot of the characters — i connect so much better with characters when i feel their pain and struggle against a world that can't find it in itself to care about them, witnessing all the ways they try to fight for their right to be happy frantically and imperfectly, and that is what makes their happiness so meaningful to me and makes me care abt them deeply.

contrast that w belos: i really love that he came from a society infamous for its conservatism and religious extremism grounded in the real world, and it's so thought provoking for me to think abt the layers of that society and how he interacted with it. which parts he rejected, conformed to, wanted to conform to, etc. that's a challenging character to understand (and then, after having fully understood them, condemn with so much more feeling) and i adore the idea of that being intentional if it wasn't for the fact that almost every other character in toh is boringly easy to understand because they lack enough material in the layers that can make them feel like real, messy people to challenge the viewer in a meaningful way. (side note: a lot of the layers created simply by belos being from colonial connecticut also disappear if you're solely looking at his background based on the text in the show, bc you're expected to fill in the gaps with, like, wikipedia basically lol. similar thing w luz where they show very little of her being bullied/outcasted bc of her adhd and you're mostly supposed to fill that in w your own experience & irl knowledge of adhd.) it results in the show being weirdly liberal about the bigotry/lack of bigotry certain characters have and only being able to halfheartedly say "idk some people are just evil i guess", instead of examining the material conditions that shape people to act the way they do. Bigot Phil vs Weirdgirl Luz could've been "these characters are shaped by their circumstances and have been encouraged to respectively become their worst/best selves through ideals instilled in them" but instead it's "some people are bad and we won't attempt to look at what made them 'bad' in the first place" and then pretending this is a groundbreaking message and not the laziest takeaway they could've possibly written.

basically i like my characters messy with hearts that you have to go out of your way to understand and sympathize with who come from understandable circumstances and i think all girls should be allowed to kill freely. i hope you can understand my position.

#chirp chirp! #this post got away from me. i swear at some point it was only two small paragraphs #what can i say i love mentally ill orphans (collection of ryukishi07 girls in basement) #anyway im going to pull my final trick and reveal my favorite character is actually eda #the characters i analyse and think about every day are usually top five but my favorite character is ALWAYS the wildin girl #(looks at sonozaki mion and shion. like im always thinking abt shion but mion is my number 1 freaking GIRL) #toh critical #bc i think i went a lil too hard in the later paragraphs. sry for blending together opinion and critique here #this was just meant to be a personal post don't come for me pls ajdkwjkfjc

[plantsjustwannahavefun]

What if I told you that Izzy's entire character arc is actually a metaphor for OFMD itself, as a show, and its journey.

The way Izzy started out as this weird, conventionally unpalatable character that didn't seem to amount to much from the first glance, yet unexpectedly ended up gathering a small yet substantial fanbase around him that recognised his potential from the start and was so unprecedently feral, vocal and dedicated that it became a sort of fanbase within a fanbase.

The way Izzy had such an incredible, amazing arc of character growth that even his worst haters were forced to acknowledge the importance of his character and his place in the story and appreciate Con’s talent as an actor.

The way Izzy went from “subtextually queer” (as in all of us knew of course but it was still subtle enough make a lot of the fans confidently claim he was straight…) to openly and proudly queer with one single scene after which no one could deny it anymore.

The way Izzy kept getting beaten down yet surviving against all odds. Literally having body parts repeatedly slashed off, and not only did this not kill him, the crew collectively used their creativity and good will to take something “damaged” and turn it into something beautiful (yes this is about the budget).

The way Izzy had always known that pirate life was unlikely to last long or end the way he wanted to because, in the end, they’d always be outsiders fighting the system (“The only retirement we get is death”, “It’s not about getting what you want”), but he accepted it and focused on the good parts, the things that really mattered to him and made him happy (“Not moving on is worse”; his speech about the crew as his family).

The way Izzy did die, in the end. Even though he didn't have to, even though it could have been avoided, and the justifications we were given fell short when all of the nuances and other angles were taken into account. Because the inevitable force of the narrative was stronger than him. Because characters like him were typically destined to die in stories like that.

But just because he died doesn't mean his story had been for nothing. He still got to live – against all odds, against his own expectations. He got to be reborn and experience this beautiful transformation, rediscover himself, find peace and happiness and people who loved him, and love them in return. Yes, it was short. So short. He should have had more time. But the little time he did have is unforgettable. It really is written in permanent ink. It will always have been, and nothing can take it away now. The crew mourned him and made him a beautiful monument. They refused to throw his body away into the sea. His body would continue nourishing their garden forever. They will move on, but they’ll never forget him. They’ll keep tending to his grave and planting flowers around it.

And the very last shot was that of seagull!Buttons landing on the grave. A little touch of magic. We don't know what it means. Izzy definitely seemed totally, irrevocably, unambiguously dead. The show itself told us so. And yet. You never know. The world's a strange place. Every once in a while the impossible does happen, and a man’s undying devotion and longing for the sea overpowers the mundane reality around him.

#well this was either cringe or inspired #but the realisation struck me like a sledgehammer and I just couldn't let it go #had to put this out there #consider this my eulogy to the show #izzy hands #ofmd #our flag means death

[naranjapetrificada]

This is going to be long so the short version is this:

I convinced my therapist to watch the 🌟Gay Pirate Show🌟 and now I have to confront a previously unidentified and terrifyingly deep emotional wound that could be as transformative to heal as it is terrifying to approach.

My therapist and I have a lot of let's say...demographic things in common that have made this the most successful therapeutic relationship I've ever had, but also that just made me think he might like the show. It's no secret that ofmd has been a deeply moving experience for its viewers, and queer, neurodivergent, and/or people of color have written at length about the special ways it touches us (or doesn't). Those are three categories both he and I fit into and it feels relevant to say that for context.

So yes I thought he might like it, but I also wanted to pick his brain about Big Feelings it was giving me that I hadn't experienced with the same intensity with other media/fandoms. Y'all, he gave me a completely unexpected reading on the show (and its story and its fan works) and why it makes us feel So Much that I haven't seen anywhere before.

When I say Big Feelings, I mean like I've literally had to swear off a couple of pretty innocuous categories on AO3 ("Growing Old Together" and "Domestic Fluff") because they would devastate me in ways that I couldn't attribute to anything specific. Growing Old Together comes with the possibility of death separating them, which is heartbreaking, but that didn't feel like it was the thing that was gutting me. Domestic Fluff could probably be called the most innocuous tag ever, but anything that saw our blorbos settling down and watching the Revenge sail off into the distance was fucking me up as well.

There are plenty of reasons why OFMD makes queer people feel so much, but when I say this was fucking me up I mean like, well, remember when people outside of classical music started learning about appoggiatura? Like intellectually knowing why I was crying but at a loss how intense everything felt. And my therapist (who is as good at analyzing a text as he is at being a therapist) was like "oh, it could be all the grief."

The grief.

The audacity of this motherfucker (affectionate).

It's a romcom! It's a romcom that we were explicitly told would have a happy ending! It's a romcom where the characters will get to sail off into the sunset together like they want and like we want for them! Stede and Ed, after four decades of self-hatred and trauma and fear and isolation, somehow find each other. And one of the sweetest things about their story is that it's a late in life love story, because it's incredibly inspiring for someone to get to experience a part of life they thought wasn't for them. The inescapable fact that their time together will be shorter than any of us would like is sad but not unaccountably sad to me, because of how much joy they'll be able to cram into the time they have left. I could be wrong but I don't think that alone is the source of what's been overwhelming me.

Grief is a constant presence in the world-building and the storytelling because grief is a natural response to well, so many things about being alive. Grieving is some of the hardest shit any of us ever have to do, but it's also so universal and so many of the things that make us uniquely human also make grieving well, maybe not easier, but something we can endure and process through ritual, community, and the example of those we've witnessed grieving their own losses. Many kinds of grief come with narratives that you can accept or reject all or parts of, but the narrative exists.

But have you ever heard of disenfranchised loss? Loss that's not easily labeled or classified or given the time or space or understanding it deserves? Have you experienced a loss like that? Can you imagine how much more difficult it makes the grieving process?

Well what my therapist suggested, the thing that knocked me on my ass hard enough that I had to come have Online Feelings about it, is that eventually, we all have to mourn ourselves. Not necessarily in a "mortality is inevitable" way (that happens to everyone) but in ways that are often unique to people like him and me (black, ND, queer). Even if we work on ourselves, if we grow and heal our trauma and feel at home in our identities and our bodies and build beautiful lives, eventually we will be forced to mourn the selves that we never got to be in the societies in which we live and the selves we once had to become to survive this long.

And that mourning is a kind of disenfranchised loss, with no clear path forward. Obviously this conversation happened within the context of everything my therapist knows about me as an individual, but I thought certain things might resonate with other fans as well so I wanted to talk about it. The story of this bizarre little man and his remarkable second act and his lovely little found family and his incredibly beautiful love story (that we've been guaranteed will end happily) is still haunted by the specific kind of grief that comes from learning what's possible, and regretting that you didn't know it was possible sooner.

And does anybody have more delayed milestones, later-in-life discoveries, and/or need to invent places for themselves than those of us on the social fringes? Than those of us in societies unequipped for (or actively hostile to) the ways we exist and the things we need to survive and thrive? Than those of us who have to create our own narratives or be saddled with inaccurate or harmful narratives created by others, or even no narrative at all?

And narrative is so much. Narrative is everything. Narrative is the story we tell ourselves and each other and that literally shapes our reality. So those story beats where we discover something better than what came before are inherently stories with loss and will require mourning, because we mourn loss.

Even when the story has a happy ending. Especially when the story has a happy ending for someone who never thought they would be allowed to have one.

I mean just like, FUCKING HELL. I can't blame anyone for this but myself. I know my therapist. I know how insightful he can be. I did this to myself and now I have to live with it. But my god is it a massive mountain I'm about to have to climb now. My therapist and I have always found it helpful to discuss media that makes me Feel Things (see all the trauma work that came from Life is Strange) but if you had told me that I'd be looking into this new dark cave of unprocessed shit thanks to what I thought was just gonna be a harmless little gay pirate show starring fucking Murray from Flight of the Concords I would probably just have assumed you were in the middle of having a stroke and taken off to get you the medical attention you desperately needed.

#not to be dramatic #but I definitely worry this might still be dramatic #my therapist is great #but the problem with a good therapist #is that sometimes they will fucking read you #and then you get whiplash #don't be afraid to bring up media that speaks to you in therapy #you never know what might come of it #or how much it might shake you #I should also be clear that all this grief in a story with a happy ending isn't a bad thing #it just kind of is #and when you enjoy it #just enjoy it #every moment of joy is a gift #no matter the context #go ahead and grieve yourself #also I couldn't find an elegant way to fit this in #but the storytelling is very neurodivergent #or at least unfolds in a way that is friendly to my neurodivergence #that's why I'm not a big TV watcher anyway #but I was able to sit down and mainline this #it's the first new show I've watched in literal years #ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd meta #our flag means death meta #🤯🤯🤯 #😳😳😳 #disenfranchised loss

[seraphcelene]

IWTV S2E4 - I Want You More Than Anything in the World

There are games being played.

Let's talk about Louis -- how he's been transformed from the melancholy, self-flagellating moral mess to almost equal parts temper and angst, ever balanced between joy and hope and rage.

I can't compare this series to the books because it is a different beast altogether, and I LOVE the changes.

There is something sinister and beautiful in the way that IwtV has turned gender politics on its head. Queer love is centered and the vulnerability of emotion demanded of women in depictions of romantic relationships gets equal demand in the male leads. That is wildly true of the novels and makes for a welcome shift in the way that men are portrayed on screen. Armand's NEED oozes out of his eyes when he's with Louis. He is so in love. He also opens a vein describing his life before vampirism. It's a narrative that typically frames womanhood -- objectified, sexualized, enslaved and without agency. Then there's Louis grief, guilt, and unrequited love for Lestat, a force in every scene Jacob Anderson is in.

The commentary on how women fit and are objectified within society are there too. Madeline's shunning after her affair with a young German solider is explained in equally by "patriotism" and loose morals (she is slut shamed). Claudia's infantilization, at complete odds with how she sees herself and wants to be seen is horrifying. Her "maman" in the play makes a comment about Baby Lulu distracting her father so that he keeps his hands off her (the mother). It's coarse theater, of course, and it's meant to be a purple comment that suggests and titillates. It is also, to a modern audience, or at least this person as audience, horrifying. It reminded me immediately of how women are portrayed as objectified stand ins to attract the male gaze. Claudia's debasement, sexualized infant for the mortals and walking ridicule as blasphemy to the immortals, is a game, a show and a joke for everyone. That girl is going to break. Her developing relationship with Madeline is the closest depiction of normalcy and something she craves and has craved since she accidentally ate that boy back in Season 1.

It all makes an interesting comment on power structure. Who has it, who doesn't, who wants it, who doesn't. Season 1 sets Louis as the beta to Lestat's alpha. It makes sense. Lestat is a natural born alpha, but Louis as a beta is a little sleight of hand. Yes with Lestat, but as is increasingly more obvious absolutely not with Armand. Louis even reminds us that he is good at running things.

I'd argue that Armand was never really an alpha vampire. He holds the coven because his dark gifts are strong enough to allow him to, but not because anyone is particularly afraid or in awe of him. It makes Louis and Armand as a coven of two an interesting question. @lynnenne has posited that Louis is the one in control. I find that idea deliciously fascinating and more likely as we're watching the events of the past. But because this is still a story of unreliable narrator's, I have to question the truth. Is he? or isn't he?

Louis dresses his disdain and his resistance to emotional intimacy in Lestat's figure. He holds on to him as armor to hold off real emotional attachment even as he stares lovingly into Armand's face in the present and declares that he loved him even back them. I don't know that him letting go of Lestat in the rain (SO FUCKING SAD AND OH!) was about him deciding to be in love so much as it is about him deciding to let go of guilt and fear so that he can move forward. Lestat was his past. Running the theater could be his future and it would be to protect Claudia as much as it would be to protect Armand.

But again … what of this story is real? Daniel's migraines, the reemerging memories of San Francisco that are very much centered around what looks like Armand playing mind games.

Little things I loved about this episode:

Madeline and Claudia in the shop and the way that Claudia is lamenting that she is a vampire and Madeline is dinner

"Go sit in your choice, sister." - That fight was epic and hurtful and real. Both of them abandoned in different ways.

Claudia calling Armand on his shit. She is Lestat's daughter for sure. She doesn't give a fuck about the rituals and the rules. Claudia is looking for a space to belong in, but it has to be shaped for her and according to her rules. Anything else will chafe.

"The wilderness that is our daughter."

Louis letting Lestat go is one of the saddest thing ever. The music is a slightly discordant, manipulative goodbye in this very constructed story reflecting a very constructed end between Louis and Lestat. I love the way that Louis makes Lestat say apple and then apple in French as proof that he is just a figment of his imagination because Lestat is never that accommodating. "There isn't going to be a hunt, is there?" And then he is washed away by the rain.

#interview with the vampire #television #amc iwtv #iwtv s2

[greeneyedvamp]

I saw a post the other day wishing there were more queer ships with characters who are good people, and began thinking about why I'm drawn to queer characters who do fucked up shit instead. tw: internalized homophobia

My family and friends, to whom I've been out for a couple of years, have mostly been accepting and nice. However, I can't easily discuss my queerness with anyone in my life because it is entirely centered around masturbation and sexual arousal. I don't have crushes, I don't date and don't particularly want to, I've never had sex and I doubt I'll ever build a family the way my relatives seem to expect. As a result, I tend to see myself as a pervert whenever I'm attracted to someone irl, and I avoid mentioning that I'm gay to people who don't already know for fear of either being perceived as a freak or as fake because I have nothing to show for it.

Romantic queer fluff to me can feel good at first, but often eventually transforms into fomo and self-loathing for not fitting into the story: not experiencing romantic feelings the way the characters seem to, having poor social skills and not looking the part.

But within stories (and fandoms) like Hannibal that feature queer love that doesn't fall within the mainstream framework of romance or ethics, set on a background of murder, I find every corner of my mind to be acceptable and true. They provide me with a vast alternative mental space to engage with, discover or observe aspects of my psyche (not limited to queerness, as the need to single it out vanishes, though it remains inherent), free of the need to mold myself into a predetermined image. In relation to this media, the secrecy is reframed from that of alienation to that of uniqueness, and with narratives to fall back on, I feel more able to face the world.

The following screenshots also articulate my feelings wonderfully:

#tmi #this has been in my drafts for a while and i've been staring a it way too long to know if it communicates what i want it to #so might edit later #this feeling intensely lasted for about two weeks until my attention shifted to other things but i think it will come back when i need it t #this applies differently to the tagged shows and texts not a one-size-fits-all explanation necessarily #nbc hannibal #hannibal #these violent delights #micah nemerever #anactoria #algernon charles swinburne #saltburn #wwdits #tw internalized homophobia

[witsserviceablesubstitute]

I'm unpacking my MacDennis thoughts a little here because I don't want my posts about the queerness in IASIP to get hopes up, but I also do not want people to think they are delusional for having belief in a Mac and Dennis romance.

Do I think Mac and Dennis will end up together in the end?

I don't know.

I do think they'll get to a place where they have evil fun together again. This requires the rebalancing of their relationship and that's been happening for the last few seasons. I also believe Mac weaponises how dumb he's perceived a lot more than the audience sees. He's a manipulative, stubborn, and sneaky man in his own right, and Dennis's attempts to manipulate him have mostly backfired. It would be perfect narrative symmetry if it turned out Dennis only had the illusion of control after all— which is what they both want.

Hell, I even think there's a possibility Mac and Dennis go in the complete opposite direction, with Dennis heartbroken and alone and Mac moving on. It'd be a bit tragic and grim yet not undeserved.

But if I'm drawing from every experience I have ever had with shows that play around with homoerotic subtext between main characters; then no, I don't think it'll be textually romantic.

The Magicians, a show that prided itself on being queer friendly, couldn't even treat Eliot like the love interest he'd been for 4 seasons until Quentin died and Eliot was mourning him. A love triangle whereby Quentin explicitly explored his feelings for Alice but the only acknowledgement of how deep his feelings for Eliot ran were when there was no possibility of exploring them substantively.

However,

Did I spend a week and a half feeling edged by an on again/off again romance subplot told entirely in homoerotic subtext?

Yeah...

It's pretty audacious if I'm honest. On the one hand I'm annoyed they got away with it because it's proof of how homophobic our society is that the most common sitcom romance structure was utilised like this but the mainstream would still scoff if it were pointed out that Mac and Dennis's relationship is queer (and not the longest running gay joke of the series). On the other hand I'm impressed, what bloody brilliant satire it would be if they do follow through on it. It's good satire even if they don't follow through on it.

This brings the next point, it's okay to not like Mac and Dennis romantically, nor how they've developed (though I admit I do and hope it ends on 'Will' rather than 'Won't'). The toxicity born from their extreme inability to communicate their needs to each other is the underlying theme of their relationship and it's fine for that to be a hard limit. However, soften those edges a little. Don't gaslight each other into thinking the homoerotic complexity of the relationship isn't there when it is. If only because that's what shows like IASIP do all the time to get around the backlash of exploring controversial queerness explicitly.

I'm not angry at IASIP for this by the way, I don't think another sitcom would have allowed Mac to come out at all or created an episode like 'Mac Finds His Pride'. I love that episode, I'm grateful to them for producing something so affirming, subversive, and transformative (and for making me cry).

#mac macdonald #dennis reynolds #iasip #it's always sunny in philadelphia #macdennis #queerness in television #thought thing #navel gazing #mac is dennis's love interest #he deserves to be acknowledged as such

[thebunnybooknook]

Palestinian Book Of The Day

A Land With a People

A collection of personal stories, history, poetry, and art

A Land With a People is a book of stories, photographs and poetry which elevates rarely heard Palestinian and Jewish voices and visions. Eloquently framed with a foreword by the dynamic Palestinian legal scholar and activist, Noura Erakat, this book began as a storytelling project of Jewish Voice for Peace-New York City and subsequently transformed into a theater project performed throughout the New York City area.

Stories touch hearts, open minds, and transform our understanding of the “other”―as well as our comprehension of own roles and responsibilities― and A Land With a People emerges from this reckoning. It brings us the narratives of secular, Muslim, Christian, and queer Palestinians who endure the particular brand of settler colonialism known as Zionism. It relays the transformational journeys of Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, queer, and Palestinian Jews who have come to reject the received Zionist narrative. Unflinching in their confrontation of the power dynamics that underlie their transformation process, these writers find the courage to face what has happened to historic Palestine, and to their own families as a result. Contextualized by a detailed historical introduction and timeline charting 150 years of Palestinian and Jewish resistance to Zionism, this collection will stir emotions, provoke fresh thinking, and point to a more hopeful, loving future―one in which Palestine/Israel is seen for what it is in its entirety, as well as for what it can be.

Be sure not to buy from Amazon or Audible to aboid supporting the genocide instead look for secondhand on sites like ebay!

and before anyone comes at me for my tags: this account is the official book club for the coquette subculture and I would be doing a disservice to not only show solidarity with the Palestinians who likely exist within my subculture but also by not using my platform to spread information to those getting misinformation and also those who want to help but do not know how

#bunnyburrow #coquette #coquette aesthetic #faunlet #faunlet aesthetic #free palestine

[frostfangalphabitch]

I think if I'm going to continue this AC fic of my increasingly monstrous pilot, I need to do two things. The first is start at the beginning. That means mostly human, somewhat cyborg, and not very monstrous. The transformation would have to take place over the course of several chapters to really satisfy me. The second is that I'm going to have to stop letting this be a reader self insert sort of format and actually start characterizing the main character more than I have.

I do have an idea of where I want this to go though. A story about mechas and transhumanism and capitalism and war, of course, but also about trauma. About experiencing it and healing from it. About being different, being alone, and finding family despite it all. Basically, it's going to be real fucking queer. It's not going to be super dark from start to finish, but it will get there eventually, if only so I can deliver catharsis later. That said, while I can't stand despair for its own sake or grimdark bullshit, that doesn't mean I don't like hurting my blorbos.

I also want it to follow at least some of the themes in AC6, but I'll also be tweaking that universe to suit my narrative. I mean, more than just the monster shit. I'll start it eventually, but no eta.

[elfyourmother]

Do you consider yourself a lore breaking, lore bending or lore adhering roleplayer? Does this adherence to lore depend on the kind of lore you're exploring with your characters; i.e. you play fast and loose with ideas xiv has yet to develop, but you tend to pay close attention to the fleshed out ideals? Is there lore you have modified that you're proud of and would share here?

I view lore as a starting point for me to jump off from and make my own. Always have.

I find strict adherence to game canon for its own sake creatively suffocating and always have, in every setting I've ever written in. It’s pretty much entirely because I grew up on DMing and writing in Forgotten Realms, which took a very DIY approach back in the day that was heavily encouraged by its creator. Everyone's Realms were equally valid, according to Word of God, and there were often intentional "blanks" left in sourcebooks for the DM to fill. These books emphasized over and over again that the DM was the ultimate authority on canon, not TPTB or the novels or anything else. That philosophy has informed my approach to worldbuilding in the transformative fandom sense for the last 30 years. That and being a queer Black femme of color who is very rarely satisfied by canon narratives rife w racially problematic tropes. I change things to make a space for myself and my characters and the stories I want to tell, by necessity. FFXIV is no different in that respect.

That said, I don't smash SE canon just to smash it either. Despite how bonkershits a lot of Gisèle's canon appears on the surface (eg. post-war Ishgard's constitutional monarchy with King Aymeric), everything I change has been carefully considered and engineered for as much internal consistency as possible. As much as I operate on Rule of Cool, I need things to make sense for me to have fun.

But I am distinctly not a roleplayer, for this and many other reasons. I'm strictly a fic writer, and I don't ever collab with people. The world Gisèle operates in is constructed entirely for her, and my own enjoyment, by design. So no one is forced to deal with my stuff if they don't like it.

That said, King Aymeric is probably the lore I’m most proud of. I wrote a ficlet for ffxivwrite last year on it here, but the cliffs notes: Aymeric invoked the ancient covenant between man and dragon when begging Hraesvelgr’s aid against Nidhogg and vowed he would restore it, but Hraes said that because that covenant was broken by an Elezen king, only an Elezen king could restore it. Hraes was wily though, it wasn’t just upholding weird draconic custom in saying that. His ulterior motive was to make Aymeric guarantee his people would be united enough not to turn on the Dravanians once Nid was handled. the end result is that Aymeric restored the Ishgardian throne (“The Azure Throne”, as a nod to Haldrath), but as a largely unifying figurehead/ceremonial position with Parliament strictly defining the role of the king. Artoirel is Lord Speaker of the House of Lords. Aymeric’s still LC of the temple knights in addition to his royal duties. He wasn’t giving that up lol.

making a constitutional monarchy plausible in the context of the story was challenging and I think I’ve done a solid job of it tbh. I wanted to lean into the Arthurian romance vibes of HW but also solve the fundamental problem I had w how it ended, which is that I don’t think it’s a terribly realistic scenario for ppl who were under a theocracy for 1000 years. Aymeric essentially having his hand forced by Hraesvelgr solves the issue of why he would restore the throne and tbh I don’t flinch from the complications of squaring that with the revelations about Ishgard’s founding, I think it only plays more into Aymeric’s ambivalence about the role he’s been thrust into.

#gatheredfates #ask bisho

[maryellencarter]

so i'm in a really weird position here. i'm not sure i'm capable of participating in transformative fandom anymore. i'm that burned out on ahipping.

i've been in the lupin iii fandom for the past couple years, as y'all know. at first it was a lot of fun. but there was a ton of really aggressive biphobia, a ton of the "anybody who writes or draws Icky Stuff is a sex criminal irl and must be loudly shunned by all right-thinking people", it got into "if you point out that no one on this show is canonically queer you are a pedophile and must be dogpiled on every social media platform we can find you on"... it's a really, really toxic place.

about a year ago, a streaming miniseries called "lupin zero" aired. it's very well done, very nuanced and subtle. this fandom couldn't find nuance or subtlety if it tried with both hands. lupin zero tells the story of lupin and jigen's friendship, if they met in school as teenagers. it's the only story i've ever seen that manages to show a primary friendship, a friendship with the narrative importance and the story beats you only ever see given to romance. it was -- it *would* have been, could have, should have been, incredibly important to me. i thought i had some representation.

instead, the entire fandom went nuts. they announced that lupin/jigen was canonically romantic (which is a complete misunderstanding of the show and the themes: it's cram-packed with cagliostro references, and jigen is set up as a clarisse figure at every turn, including the direct reference to lupin stealing their hearts). they congratulated everyone within earshot on "not being lied to anymore". they announced that "every queer" was happy to have the relationship "confirmed romantic". they announced that anyone who wasn't overjoyed was a homophobe. and on and on.

i've had to block the lupin zero tag entirely, because every piece of art or screenshot includes a caption like "that moment when you realize you're in love", "this means family as in married NOT as in brothers!", nobody can so much as mention it without aggressively pushing the "it's canon romantic" down everybody's throats. the arophobia is incredibly vocal and continuous.

Only two other people who were watching the show said so much as "it can be read either way", when I was crying out against the fandom-wide celebration that there's no place for me here. One of them is dead. I haven't been able to start writing on a new idea in the Lupin fandom since we lost her.

All I wanted was a little corner. A space where I could fiddle around with my own interpretations, maybe bounce some ideas off people. Be allowed to exist in peace. I wanted to celebrate a friendship that wasn't second best -- that mattered, in the way only romance is normally allowed to matter in this world.

I've spent the last year trying to find that space. It doesn't exist, *can't* exist. Romance is like kudzu here. You always have to be actively fighting it, and you'll never win.

I'm tired. I'm fucking tired. There's no joy left in this fandom for me. And I don't know -- I think about trying to pick up another fandom, about characters I like or stories I might tell, and I just can't. I can't bring myself to write a shippy story, not when it means aligning myself with more people who will probably also call me homophobic and anti-queer for not loving the exact same way they do. But that's what Leia and I write best, it's what we enjoy writing. And I don't want to take up the same exact fight for a tiny isolated box where it's safe to whisper that nonromantic, nonfamilial love might exist or even (shock horror) be love.

#i'm sure this deserves some warning tag but i have no idea what #arophobia #lots and lots and lots of arophobia #an entire fandom drunk on arophobia and gold star gay apotheosis

[authoralexharvey]

INTERVIEW WITH A WRITEBLR — @red-the-dragon-writes

Who You Are:

Red Dragon || Ne/nem/nir

I'm a 22-year-old Queer writer who loves horror. I've been writing stories since I was a little kid and come from a family of aspiring authors (all the way up through my grandparents!) I enjoy working in a deliberately stripped-down style featuring a narratively close third person limited point of view featuring an opinionated narrator, untrustworthy characters, and limited description.

What You Write:

What genres do you write in? What age ranges do you write for?

Action, comedy, fanfic, fantasy, horror, psychological, sci-fi, thriller, tragedy. New adult and adult.

What genre would you write in for the rest of your life, if you could? What about that genre appeals to you?

Can I say "horror fusion" haha? It would have to be horror. I really love getting to pull reactions out of my readers, and horror also lets me push the boundaries of what I've ever seen in fiction before without shying away from how what is new or unusual can also be uniquely unsettling. Plus- no one ever expects horror protagonists to be smart, and I like the lack of pressure required to just write characters being stupid, whereas in a traditional mystery or action story usually the main cast is intended to be smarter and cooler than the reader. I delight in using dramatic irony to build reveals up in such a way that the audience knows before the main characters do, and that works best in horror where it allows me to drive up the tension as well. However, in my actual writing, I like to fuse horror with comedy or mystery or some other genre to make it a little more fun. Horror- in my experience, at least- hits hardest when you can get the reader to laugh a couple times.

What genre/s will you not write unless you HAVE to? What about that genre turns you off?

I definitely don't like "genre"/happily-ever-after romance. I'm pretty firmly aromantic, and at this point in my life I find romance to be almost painfully boring. I find it really hard to write a romance as my central driver of plot, and even moreso when it's a normal romance without either action-adventure or horror elements.

Who is your target audience? Do you think anyone outside of that would get anything out of your works?

I'm not sure I have a "real" target audience. I primarily write fanfiction at the moment while I overhaul my original work ideas, so that's a start- people who like Transformers. A lot of my work deals with adult topics like sex and abuse or coercion, so my audience is also above the age of 18 and comfortable reading about that, or at least interested in some way. And from there... I'm not sure. Fans of black comedy who like to watch characters experience awful torment, I suppose. I find that a lot of stories in the same general vein as what I do tend to "shy away" from the edge or otherwise try to soften what they're writing about somewhat, and I'd rather lean into whatever I'm writing. Like a car crash, or something. If other people are talking about fenderbenders, I'm going to go the full nine yards and write about totalling both vehicles demolition-derby style. In conclusion, I guess I'm aiming for a specific part of the Transformers fandom, wherein instead of reading light-hearted stories they want something worse, but at the same time hardcore angst where the character never gets a break and it's all very miserable just isn't striking a believable chord, or they want the characters involved to have a little more agency over their life than just being the Character Things Happen To.

What kind of themes do you tend to focus on? What kinds of tropes? What about them appeals to you?

I like themes of power, coercion and control, as well as themes of petty rebellion slowly shaking off the yoke of someone else's coercion or control. I think nearly everyone in their life has experience with some authority figure that wanted them to do things that would have either been harmful or counterproductive, and I'm no different. While I typically turn this up to eleven in my writing, it's definitely coming from a place of personal experience- if not with the topic, then at least with the concept. I also really like themes of family - not necessarily good or bad, but always flawed in some kind of way. And I really enjoy playing with ideas that violate "the sanctity of the mind" in some way, whether it be mind-reading, spells or coding tricks to get into your mind and force you to behave differently, or having to share a body and essentially just be a mind working with multiple people to do anything. I just really like making characters work around problems that real people only vaguely experience, but are close enough to real life that the reader can have a frame of reference for it, and I think that shines through with all my favorite things.

What themes or tropes can you not stand? What about them turn you off?

My least favorite trope is probably bodice-ripper-style "rape as seduction" like you find in classic romance novels and/or a "perfect victim" character that is only ever acted on and never gets a chance to stand up for themself. I understand it's something other people like or want to see, but defiance runs in my veins, and it always comes over as hugely unrealistic to me. At the end of the day, I want to watch characters struggle up toward the light, even if they fail in the end; if they just sit down and die- or, worse, decide they're okay with this after all- I'm always going to walk away unsatisfied. I'm also not fond of fantasy creatures that are inherently evil. From my pen name and username it's pretty clear I like dragons; I'm also fond of snakes, spiders, centipedes, jackals, and wasps. Animals are never inherently evil and people are even less inherently evil, because you're able to much more easily communicate with them. If the fantasy creatures are on the other side of an ideological divide, sure, but I really am not fond of "ogre instead of human" as shorthand for "100% evil villain we can never ever make peace with." If a character is being given the kind of intelligence you'd find on a human and some grasp of speech, I find it really frustrating when they're just Super Evil in search not of some goal that can be discussed but just because Ooh Evil Monster. It feels both lazy and really frustrating to me, and has been the number-one reason I put down fantasy novels since I was ten.

What are you currently working on? How long have you been working on it?

My current original fiction project is technically a genre romance (I know, I said I'd never write those!) that deals more with poisonous ideology, religious intolerance, and genocide than actual romance. I've been working on it since roughly 2017, and at the moment I'm reworking the plot to try to zero in more effectively on what I want to say with it. For a little background context, my whole family is Jewish, and I came up with the idea for this one during the Trump Administration while I was slowly coming to be more aware of politics than I'd been previously. This story deals a lot with the anxieties of being Jewish in a world like today's, so I really want to make sure that the point comes across despite the many layers of abstraction and fantasy I'm filtering it through. It's a story that's close to my heart despite the fact that, frankly, what I -have- written of it not being very good because I wrote it when I was sixteen.

Why do you write? What keeps you writing?

That's a tough question. A large part of what gets me writing is that I have ideas in my head that I desperately want to communicate to other people, but I don't know how to make it work if I only describe them outside of a narrative context. But what definitely keeps me writing is the response I get from other people. I have been working on detangling this for years, but like many other writers on the internet these days, attention really keeps me going. When I was younger I used to print my short stories and show them to all of my relatives; now I post them on Tumblr and ArchiveOfOurOwn and show as many of my online friends as want to read it.

How long have you been writing? What do you think first drew you to it?

I started writing when I was five or six, shortly after I learned to read. I mentioned that I come from a long line of other aspiring authors; my father has been writing novels since before I can even remember. I learned to write because I fell in love with reading and wanted to make my own stories that were nicer to dragons, since I was a little kid and really liked dragons and hadn't yet found anything where they were the real main characters. Both of my parents were very supportive of this, which helped a lot, because otherwise I don't think I would have kept writing my whole life the way I have.

Where do you get your inspiration from? Is that how you got your inspiration for your current project? If not, where did the inspiration come from?

A lot of my inspiration comes from seeing other people fumble some part of a story and being convinced that I can do it better. I don't think this is terribly unusual, but it is a little bit annoying when I'm trying to identify influences or inspiration and all I can point out is things that I think weren't very good, or were good -except- for this one element that I'm actually riffing off of. Outside that... A lot of my more ambitious works in progress actually come from weird dreams with narratively interesting setups that I decide to run with, or random bolts of inspiration that hit when I see some random image and get a "vibe" to capture. For example, the inspiration for my long original project that I'm working on came from a dream; but the inspiration for the Valentine's Day project that I'm currently writing comes from my friend mentioning the movie "My Bloody Valentine 3D" one too many times when I was in a bad mood and making me want to write the worst valentine ever because I thought it would be funny and it had an interesting"vibe" to it.

What works of yours are you most proud of? Why?

Last year, I decided to just write a lot rather than writing things that were good. Turns out that this is a very effective way to write things that are good, but as a result it's all Transformers fanfiction. Regardless, I think the work that I'm actually most proud of is a fairly long epistolary horror told through emails about a character being brought to an alien planet and rapidly discovering that things are not as they should be and the planet is a lot more alive than it seems. It was a really lightweight project that I intended to kind of just take up space while I worked on a different thing, which didn't work out, but it wound up doing a lot of things that I think were, in retrospect, really interesting, and the character writing in it is some of the best I think I've ever done. At the end of the day I think that unusual formats have a lot of potential when it comes to creating stories that have some kind of unusual flavor to them, and I'm always chasing after that feeling of "this is the first time I've ever seen this".

Have you published anything? Do you want to?

I've never professionally published anything, but I would like to.

What part of the publishing process most appeals to you? What part least appeals to you? Why?

To be honest, the part of publishing that most appeals to me is the part where I get paid and can go to my relatives and tell them that I got published by an actual publisher and now I have a real book out. The part that least appeals to me is every other part of publishing. It's always sounded like a major hassle and a giant pain in the ass to me (when I was growing up, my father was constantly sending his books out to publishers, and so far has still never been published) but, at the same time, I'd love to be the first person in my family to have a book published by Tor or Hachette or some other real-deal imprint.

What part of the writing process most appeals to you? What part is least appealing?

The part of the writing process that most appeals to me is the part where I've written something cool and I can show it to other people. I also really like getting to write horror sequences or fight scenes, but my favorite part is basically just asking for a beta or getting to share the finished work. The least appealing part of writing for me is definitely editing. In order to get around my dislike for editing, I've gotten to the point where instead of actually doing regular edits, I literally just rewrite the entire story using the first draft as an outline. This takes forever and it's not very fun either, but it's better than going through line by line and trying to figure out which parts are good and which ones aren't. I have never gotten the chance to work with a professional editor before, and I imagine the experience is different when somebody else is doing the editing for you, but as it stands I hate editing my own work.

Do you have a writing process? Do you have an ideal setup? Do you write in pure chaos? Talk about your process a bit.

I absolutely write in pure chaos. The only thing I need to make sure that I can write is a warm drink - tea or coffee- and music I like playing. I've discovered that one of my favorite places to write is outdoors in the middle of the night over the summer, but I can and will write anywhere. I'll be writing in my college classes later today. Then I'll come home and sit on my bed and write some more. And then, historically speaking, I'll go out and I'll write on my phone while sitting in the back of a bar or something, and I'll come home and write in the kitchen while my dinner's cooking. I pretty much never stop writing when I've got an idea in my head. I write on vacation, while at the grocery store, when I'm supposed to be working, and every other time besides.

Your Thoughts on Writeblr:

How long have you been a writeblr? What inspired you to join the community?

I've been a writeblr for about three or four years these days. I really joined the community around 2020, when during quarantine lockdowns I decided to write an alternate universe take on the backstory of one of the characters that I have in my long-term novel project because I didn't want to work on that. I wound up joining regular so that I had some kind of community to talk about that wip in, and I've stuck around ever since. I've been tangential to writeblr since well before that, though- I love seeing writing on tumblr and I really enjoy original fiction.

Shout out some of your favorite writeblrs. How did you find them and what made you want to follow them?

Natalie Ironside - @natalieironside - writes a lot of trans-focused action stories that appeal to me both as a trans individual and a person who likes action. Her protagonists are often characters who don't necessarily wield a ton of institutional power but fight for what they want and what they deserve regardless. Ezra - @doikayt - another Jewish writer, which I appreciate, but also every part of their writing I've seen is really cool. Speculative fiction is a favorite genre for me, even though it's one I don't often write in myself. Jax Wolff - @blind-the-winds - a writeblr I'm newer to following but really like, they post some really interesting snippets and do a lot of tag games.

What is your favorite part about writeblr?

Definitely the interactive aspect. If you interact with writeblr, writeblr will interact with you. I love attention and I love getting to see other people's writing, so this is perfect for me.

What do you think writeblr could improve on? How do you think we can go about doing so?

Writeblr has a bigotry issue. It happens. In any community where people are showing up to share their creations without someone at the door vetting them when they come through, there will be people who are bigoted or who have biases that they have not vetted. It's something that most marginalized individuals, myself included, have already come to expect from most online communities. However, because writeblr is an interconnected and highly interactive community, when issues of antisemitism or Islamophobia or racism or sexism or homophobia come up, it's almost impossible to avoid seeing it and it's very frustrating that everyone seems to feel the need to jump in and defend their friends if they believe that the bigotry wasn't poorly intended or it was accidental. I don't want to be trapped in and on ending chamber of "hey, look how antisemitic/Islamophobic/racist/homophobic/otherwise hateful this writer is" for however long the issue is being brought up- it's emotionally taxing- and I know that other marginalized writeblrs who do the hard work and speak out against people who are being bigoted tend to see much more aggressive and, frankly, bigoted backlash than the people they're speaking to or about. I don't know how to fix this, because it's an issue basically everywhere, and if there was a fix for it I'm sure someone would have mentioned it already. But I would like to see more support for a: marginalized writers in the writeblr space, and b: those of us who would like to disengage from the topic after a short period of time. At the end of the day, I'd like writeblr to be a space where writers of all stripes can spend their time- not only cis, straight, white, Christian, abled writers. A lot of how people pitched writeblr to me when I was thinking about joining in was on the idea that Tumblr is a place with less of the traditional barriers of entry than traditional publishing, but if the bigotry issue runs unchecked, eventually it will just be a space with the same kind of demographics as traditional publishing.

How do you contribute to the writeblr community? Do you think you could be doing more?

I don't really contribute much. I play tag games sometimes and I occasionally make advice posts after I found something that works for myself. I could certainly be doing more, but honestly, I'm kind of lazy and I don't really have that much to say, so on the advice front I've kind of made all the posts I have to make already, and I'm not terribly well suited for running events or communities. I'm much more happy to be a person in the background and a leader in the forefront here.

What kinds of posts do you most like to interact with?

I like reading short snippets- in the range of 100-1000 words- and I enjoy interacting with interactive games, like a tag games or ask games. I think my favorite kind of post would have to be tag games where we share short snippets of our wips- the best of both worlds.

What kind of posts do you most like to make?

I like to share snippets of my work. This is probably the easiest for me to do, because all I have to do is copy blocks of text and paste them into tumblr.

Finally, anywhere else online we may be able to find you?

My main Tumblr is @bitegore :D

Questions For Fun:

What is your favorite dragon-related story? What makes it your favorite?

For my favorite dragon-related story I had to split this question into two parts, because I read so many books with dragons in it that I can't help but differentiate between stories where dragons are people and stories where dragons are very intelligent and scary animals. The first dragon story i want to talk about is the Heartstrikers series by Rachel Aaron, an urban fantasy novel following the Only Nice Dragon after he gets kicked out of his home for being too nice and therefore disappointing the family. It's been a big inspiration for how I write since I first read it when I was fifteen; the idea of a protagonist not taking the two options set out for them but making their own choice, the idea of a world where magic and modern society and technology blend and interact, and different social modes of interaction and how they might not seem as useful as they wind up being (aka; the power of friendship, treated more seriously, lol) all really compel me and I enjoy Aaron's storytelling a lot. The only reason I wouldn't necessarily consider this a "final" answer is because, like a lot of other urban fantasy novels, the dragons in this are shapeshifters and the protagonist spends most of his time in a human form. The other one I could probably talk about would be the Dragonriders of Pern series, which I'm really due for a reread of. Pern is one of those series that I read as a kid that rocked my whole world. Not only is it about dragons, which I love- but it's also one of the early sci-fi fantasy stories where the genre was still finding its feet, and much like other stories in the same vein from the same time, the slow reveal of the sci-fi elements underpinning the fantasy absolutely fascinated me when I was a kid and still do for me now. The things I like about both series are different, but one of my favorite things is when dragons are treated as neutral parts of the world or positive ones, rather than uniquely evil monsters. I think I mentioned that that was a trope I don't like very much, and while it can be done well- Maur from The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley is a great example of a dragon so evil that even killing him doesn't solve the problem, and that's another favorite book of mine- it really delights me when instead dragons are just there, for better or worse. And while the worldbuilding in both books is very different, with enormously different styles and aesthetic trappings and social structures, both put a lot of work into crafting a world that feels believable, which is another thing I really enjoy in my stories and which makes these two beat out a lot of other narratives where dragons are more of a unique rarity or an aberration upon the face of the world they're in. And, finally… I just think they're cool. They're stories that both do things that, at least when I read them, I hadn't seen before. The stylistic trappings of fantasy and science fiction from the late 60s and early 70s, like Pern is, are very different from modern genre conventions, which makes the experience fun and novel for me as someone who was born in the early 2000s, and Heartstrikers- an urban fantasy speculative-fiction novel set in Detroit with an unusual spin on a "standard" magic system and very interesting legal setup- also felt like a breath of fresh air when I first read it.

Who is your favorite Transformer?

My favorite Transformer would have to be Vortex. He's interesting- a violent bad guy character who also manages to be nonchalant and amused almost every time he's on-screen. And, of course, it doesn't hurt that I think his design is really cool. A big robot with swords on his back that he uses to fly with? That's cool and I love it.

What is your favorite piece of horror-flavored media? Why?

It's hard for me to answer this question. My default is to answer with the horror movie I like best- Us by Jordan Peele, a movie so incredibly well-paced I have genuinely never seen the like before or since- but that's just straight-away horror. Down The Rabbit Hole by hypnoticwriter, a work referencing the Mystery Flesh Pit project by Trevor Roberts, is also really good, but the line between thriller and horror is indistinct at best, and usually when I say "horror-flavored", I mean that horror elements have been thrown in for seasoning and spice rather than consuming the tone of the work and changing the genre entirely. I think for this question I'm going to go with Transformers, actually. In terms of genre, the All Hail Megatron story is closer to a disaster survival story with action elements than horror. It tells a story about the Autobots being nearly defeated and the Earth being taken over by the Decepticons. But many scenes are paced and written like horror. Dangerous monsters are hunting the surviving Autobots, fuel is running out... and on Earth, the Decepticons see humans as vermin or playthings. It's a really fun series and one I really enjoy.

[whilereadingandwalking]

Manhunt is beautiful, raw, and cruel, finally a speculative fiction novel that treats chromosome-based biological catastrophe in a way that's actually compelling. Gretchen Felker-Martin's writing is excellent and awful in its excellence, because this book is terrifying, visceral, and violent. In it, a disease (dubbed "t.rex") transforms people with the right amount of testosterone (primarily cis men) into rabid, murderous, sex-crazed zombies. Gangs of TERFs, cis women tattooed with XX, police gender and seek out and murder any person who they decide is 'secretly a man' or a gender traitor. Meanwhile, a few queer people try to survive in an apocalyptic world, hunted by everyone. It's been a minute since a book made me cry, but this one did, more than once. Felker-Martin's characters are compelling: crossbow-welding Beth, always-longing Fern, fat doctor Indi who refines their estrogen, and Robbie, a trans man who joins their squad to try and find safety. It's an excellent book about zombies and the power dynamics in apocalyptic worlds in general—but more than that, it's a horror story about the arguments that TERFs and other transphobes use to insist that there are "real women," on the violence of that point of view, of the endless damage of turning on our most vulnerable while there is a (in this case, extremely literal) seething crowd of patriarchy that we'd be better off fighting together. It goes hard, poking at the kind of women or queer people who still think there's a way to blend, to survive within the TERFs' world, instead of resisting against it. Manhunt is bold, and it is at turns grotesque, funny, extremely sexy, graphic, horrifying, and devastating. Warning: I think anyone who does not want to encounter scenes of graphic rape or violence should stay far away from this book, and it is questionable whether the rape scene was gratuitous. I don't think it needed to have not happened, but I question how graphic that scene needed to be. It's possible that within the zombie-apocalypse genre of blood and gore and guts, Felker-Martin felt that scene should also be 'honest' to the violence of what's happening. But I thought it was excessive. Other complaints: the timeline of the narrative got pretty intensely mixed up several times, which was confusing. The logistics were often suspect. (I'm not mad at "coincidences"—one character shows up in the nick of time, etc—for me those are a classic part of the zombie apocalypse genre so they didn't bother me. I'm referring to like, timelines, distances, that kind of thing.) One of the main characters is a TERF. Some people think she has a redemption arc. I personally don't think it is one. She is not exactly forgiven at the end. I think she's there more to reveal the rot at the very core of the TERFs' own ideologies. This idea that none of them truly believe what they spew, most of them just want the power the divisions would give them, want others not to have what they've been told is theirs to have. I think it was effective, but I'm willing to debate it. All around, I really enjoyed this book, but the parts I didn't like really stick in the seams. I wouldn't recommend this one to everybody, but I do hope we get more fiction that does as good of a job talking about TERFs and why their rhetoric is so dangerous for people of all genders. Content warnings: Extreme: body horror & violence, transphobia, rape (graphic) Also: suicide, gender dysphoria, deadnaming, fatphobia, anti-Semitism, self-harm.

#manhunt #gretchen felker-martin #bookish love #book blog #book review #sff #book photography #my book reviews