#queer freedom respect and love | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

strrwbrrryjam · 2 months

Text

either treat abigail, molly, mary, with respect or die looking down the barrel of my gun

i'm being one hundred percent serious when i say i'm tired of people disregarding and disrespecting them to uplift their queer ships. it's bad and it needs to stop.

like i just read a jovier post where they have john cheat on abigail?what the fuck man.

his love for her is unwavering and he is incredibly committed to abigail, he's so devoted to her, working so hard to create a life for the three of them. john is willing to lay down his life to protect his family, and he does so, rescuing them is his whole motive for seeking redemption in the first game. he would never disrespect abigail like that, he's learned and grown, he's no longer the shithead deadbeat dad when jack was young, he loves her.

arthur still so clearly loves mary, his love remaining steadfast and unwavering even years after their broken engagement, it's so obvious on his face when he looks at her. his heart still yearns for her that when she calls, he comes, even if he's a little miffed at the start, he still goes. honestly, i believe if arthur didn't have other commitments in the gang, he would have run away with her when she asked him.

and while molly and dutch's relationship is tumultuous and dutch absolutely does not deserve her, molly is so important to dutch's character and the story as a whole. molly's loyalty to dutch highlights dutch's charisma and the ways dutch inspires loyalty throughout the gang. her existence also depicts the internal conflicts dutch has and the moral uncertainty of dutch's actions. her presence within the gang and relationship with dutch represents the internal strife and conflicts within the gang, highlighting the human cost of their choices and the sacrifices that are made in pursuit of a false freedom in the old west.

and let's not even mention the treatment eliza, annabelle, bessie and even susan receive, which is hardly any mention at all.

eliza, annabelle and bessie each play small but significant parts to not just their respective partners, but to the story as a whole.

eliza shapes arthu’rs past and motivations. her tragic death, along with their son, isaac, has a large impact on arthur and his present relationships, such as abigail and jack. their memory serves as a driving force of arthurs path to redemption.

annabelles fate fuels dutch's vendetta against colm and the o'driscolls, and adds personal stakes to the gang as a reminder of the consequences of their life as an outlaw.

and bessie, oh bessie, not only does she add depth to hosea and represents hosea's wishes for a more peaceful life, but hosea loves her so much that when coming to terms with his inevitable death, whether by gunshot or sickness, the mere chance of reuniting with bessie brings him so much comfort, despite the fact that he fears that bessie lives above, while hosea will be traveling down below.

susan is a very controversial character due to her treatment of the women in the gang and her murdering molly, who did not betray the gang, both of which i do not condone, but it is impossible to deny her importance to the story. not only was, from what we know, dutch's first woman, coming before annabelle and molly, she also served an important role in the gang, acting as an authority figure, maintaining order and discipline within the gang where tensions often rise. she serves as an emotional anchor, which is incredibly important when death is constantly looming over you and adds so much depth and complexity to the story of rdr2.

when you ignore and disregard these characters you are undermining the depth and the richness of the story, each of these characters are important to the story. if you wish to truly appreciate the storytelling of rdr2, it is important to recognize and respect each of these characters.

#i know i've said this before. several times in fact but this keeps happening and people are not learning #listen i love charthur so so much. i have written multiple posts about my love for charthur.#i have studied every interaction every compliment every argument and yet. and yet. i still respect mary because i know how important she is #to not just arthur but to the story of rdr2 itself. representing hope and redemption and personal growth #im not as big as a vandermatthews fan. like i ship it sure - but god please learn to respect molly annabelle and bessie. especially bessie #the characters importance does not disappear because you want them too #respect them like you would any male character #rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 abigail roberts #abigail roberts #rdr2 molly o'shea #molly o'shea #rdr2 mary gillis #mary gillis #rdr2 susan grimshaw #susan grimshaw #rdr2 bessie matthews #bessie matthews #rdr2 annabelle #rdr2 eliza #rdr2 isaac #rdr2 hosea matthews #hosea matthews #rdr2 dutch van der linde #dutch van der linde #rdr2 arthur morgan #arthur morgan #rdr2 john marston #john marston

219 notes · View notes

nectar-cellar · 2 months

Text

thornton & morgana makeover.

thornton looks like a soap opera star and morgana looks so goffik i can't. they look like an odd pair, side by side ... i guess it fits their lore. how did they ever end up together, i wonder??

i kept morgana's whole purple thing. morgana, if you like it i love it!

very long headcanon ramble below:

in high school thornton was a theatre kid and morgana was the emo girl who sat with the queer kids, #ally. they were both really smart straight-A students but thornton had very strict parents and morgana's parents were a lot more chill and hippy. morgana has big dreams, she's a modern woman who wants to have it all - while thornton feels like he has been forced into living and pursuing a certain socially acceptable lifestyle created for him by his family/society. they got married young and as they mature through young adulthood, morgana finds it increasingly difficult to relate to thornton's personality and worldview. (i think morgana's parents were probably always surprised she ended up marrying a man who seemed so fundamentally different from her.)

when they were young, thornton was drawn to morgana because of her open-mindedness, her kindness, her ambition, and her creativity - all qualities he admired about her. and he always thought she was very pretty. she was so different from anyone else he knew, and he loved that she was never afraid to not fit in with the norm.

morgana was drawn to thornton because he was charismatic and handsome, sensitive and in touch with his emotions, and seemed to have his life and future figured out compared to their peers. they could talk for hours about anything. he was always respectful towards her, she never felt weird or creeped out by him like she did with other guys. she could see him as a good husband and a present father to their children.

so they kept dating and eventually he proposed and she said yes because that's what you're supposed to do, right?

thornton has never wanted kids. he thought he might change his mind when he got older but he hasn't. and lately he's not sure he even likes women. he envies the childhood and family that morgana has, he envies her confidence in herself and her hobbies and her freedom of self-expression, things he never had and perceives to still be out of his reach. he resents her for wanting a family and for the pressure it places on him to continue playing the role he has cast himself into.

but they're both doing well for themselves considering their youth, they have a comfortable life together if they don't think too deeply about things, and neither of them wants to ruin that picture-perfect suburban life.

i think deep down they both genuinely have love for each other and care about each other, so it's that much harder to honestly acknowledge that they're incompatible as life partners and they're unhappy and the marriage isn't working.

regarding jamie jolina: i think the reason thornton hit off so well with jamie is because jamie has many of the same qualities as morgana: she is smart, open-minded, kind, and caring. she accepts him for who he is. she listens and doesn't judge. and he can be honest with her about his sexual orientation because she's not his literal wife.

#ts3 #the sims 3 #morgana's d**th in my gameplay is NOT canon okay!!!! WE DID NOT APPROVE THIS!!!!#townies: sunset valley

127 notes · View notes

genericpuff · 5 months

Note

What are your thoughts on LO Krokos and LO Ampelus (Psyche) ?

These two male mythological figures, who had a gay relationship with gods, turned into female characters ! If they weren't included (especially since Dionysus is still a baby here), I wouldn't mind. But just using those names like that TWICE is strange, right ?

It's also weird how LO turns two virgin goddesses into lesbians, but don't even implement the canon gay relationships.

Can you find an explanation?

I mean I can't really offer an explanation because obviously I have no way of really seeing into Rachel's head, but it's definitely a choice that she's taken so many gods and characters from Greek myth and turned them into something else entirely, it feels very random and, in the case of the gods who were canonically gay/queer/etc. ... it's hard to ignore and give benefit of the doubt.

Another example is Persephone's therapist, Chiron, who's not just gender bent, but also put into the role of being a therapist ?? Which is like, okay, fine, but like... what is this accomplishing besides vaguely referencing Chiron's affiliation with medicine LOL

(this wound up turning into a bit of an essay so I'm including a jump to make it easier for scrollers lol)

To me, it just feels like it really cements Rachel as not being as well-read in Greek myth as she claims to be, because so much of the actual Greek myth in this comic is either taken directly from first results on Google (see: Zeus' definition of xenia which is taken straight from a Princeton study guide from 2004) and slapped haphazardly into the comic where it's convenient, OR it's just vaguely referenced at even if it's not being properly utilized (like she saw 'Chiron, wise centaur' and went "yeah cool she can be the therapist character!"). I have zero explanation or even assumption as to why she'd turn Crocus, a male lover of Hermes, into Krokos the flower nymph, or why she'd choose to use Ampelus as the name Psyche adopts after being turned into a nymph (which also didn't happen in the original myth). These are "creative choices" that come across as less creative and more just random attempts to make her seem smart.

Like, to a surface level reader or someone who's new to the series, it might seem neat and subversive (it definitely did to me back when I started reading and fell in love with it), but then you actually get further in and peel back the layers and go, "wait, she's just grabbing Greek names that are affiliated with real Greek heroes and gods and characters at random-" and it gets especially ick when it commits queer erasure in the process.

Don't get me wrong, I think having fun with character designs and swapping them or changing them up is perfectly fine, that's the fun of re-interpreting old stories, it's not that on its own that's the issue. It's just that these re-interpreted characters have literally NOTHING to do with the characters that she's basing them on. At least in Punderworld where Charon is a woman, she's still a psychopomp who ferries souls to the Underworld, her being gender-bent doesn't change much because her character and role in the story is still largely the same. Or like in Hadestown how the Underworld is more of a coalmine with Hades running it as a business, instead of the River Styx being a literal river it's a brick wall that protects the Underworld from outsiders ("and they call it freedom"). In both of these examples, they're taking the source material and making it fun and new, while still respecting the source material they're taking it from and keeping it on theme with that source material.

By comparison, Rachel just creates these character references and that's where it ends, they're just references and they don't do anything new or interesting with them, they're not even adjacent to what they're referencing. So we wind up with Chiron being a therapist, Ampelus being the nymph version of Psyche, the Fates looking and acting the exact same as each other even though they had different roles to play between Past, Present, and Future, and Aphrodite's children who... are literally made up from scratch, instead of pulling from the actual real children that Aphrodite had loads of in the original myths.

So many of Rachel's writing choices feel like attempts to be "subversive" when they're not, they're just random. Nothing about the things she changes from the original source material does anything to further explore that source material, it's just yoinking things at random to try and seem more Greek while also further separating her work from legitimate Greek culture. Even when you THINK something is about to be retold in an interesting way, it's very promptly either swept under the rug or veered off in a whole other direction that makes zero sense for what it set up (ex. Echo, what the fuck happened to Echo-)

It's very "ideas first, structure never" writing, she comes up with standalone ideas that sound good in isolation, until she actually tries to execute them and connect them and you realize they have no through line or reason to exist the way they do. It's giving real hard "first draft" vibes, so much of what Rachel chose to do should have been left on the cutting room floor (meanwhile the things that supposedly did get left on the cutting room floor SHOULD HAVE BEEN KEPT IN THE COMIC, ex. Hera's coat prophecy, Hades and Persephone having a date in the Underworld where she decides she might want to go into law, etc.)

Ugh. This got longer than I intended it to. It's just frustrating. I have inspiration to write that essay about queer erasure in LO now, at least. So yeah, hold on tight for that one LMAO

#ama #ask me anything #anon ama #anon ask me anything #lore olympus critical #lo critical #anti lore olympus

105 notes · View notes

comradekatara · 3 months

Note

IDK if you're still giving your thoughts on AtLA ships but I would feel remiss if I didn't shoot my shot and pitch yuetara. I know on the surface this is going to immediate read like “yuekka but gay” except I FIRMLY reject the idea that the siblings are interchangable. They bring different dynamics to the relationship! and I love yuekka, don't get me wrong here, but for no fault of its own it suffers from only having a couple episodes to develop and a mostly cishet writing team doing a lot of “he's a guy and she a girl, could I make it anymore obvious?” doing a lot of the heavy lifting. WE know Sokka has a lot to offer as a partner, but from Yue's perspective Sokka is yet another man that vaults into her life and immediately wants [something from] her.

But Katara. Here she comes, granddaughter of the woman who rejected their status quo that is supposed to be there to keep them safe? And she Got Away with it, went on to lead a happy fulfilled life, and years later that granddaughter rolls right up to their master bender, an elder, A Man, one of the pillars holding up the system, and forming the bars of Yue’s cage as a physical representation that he was Wrong. And this girl spits his authority back in his face, tells him where to shove it, and somehow against every odd, she bends him to listen?? Can you imagine living your whole life being told that every part of you belongs to someone else, that you will never be a person before you're a daughter, wife, mother, princess, and then out of a clear blue sky on the day of your birth, where it's been announced you're about to change hands from one man to another, a girl just like you blows in like a typhoon, and says there's another way. Wouldn't you fall just a little bit madly in love with her?

Yue is shown that she CAN choose freedom for herself... and it makes her choosing duty in the end so much more meaningful? She could walk away. She was not born to be a prop and a sacrifice, no matter what even THE FUCKING MOON intended, she can be a whole person on her own. And ugh, the symbolism of taking up the mantle of the moonspirit so that KATARA can have her bending still!! The heartache of knowing now that everytime she bends, yue is RIGHT THERE. Literally to Moon and the OCEAN paralells FUCK.

Putting aside that korrasami crawled so that a lot of today's queer flavored kids media can even think about walking, I truly believe that if AtLA had been a product of the late 20teens or 2020’s that yuetara would have been THE ship. Anyway, sorry for the inbox blast, you're just the Katara conisuer and if you have thoughts I wanna hear em.

okay, to be clear, all of this is obvious to me. you make a compelling argument, but it’s hardly something I haven’t already considered when thinking about this ship.

however, there’s something very beautiful to me about yue’s story being a tragedy, and I think that while warping that narrative to be about feminist liberation through the power of lesbian love is obviously a noble goal, yue and sokka being two people who are confined and stifled by their respective obligations to patriarchal duty whose happiness is fundamentally impossible because neither of them can imagine a world beyond the bars of their cages is nonetheless far more interesting than a narrative wherein someone “rescues” yue from adhering to patriarchal standards and shows her a brand new world.

it’s actually very fascinating to me that sokka refuses to talk about himself, and whenever yue asks him questions about himself and his home, he is self-deprecating. besides his first attempt to claim that [by virtue of being the son of the chief] he is sort of like a prince himself, it’s clear that spending time in the nwt, who look down on their southern counterparts, wears on his self-esteem because he is predisposed to insecurity. you’re right in that katara is nothing like sokka. she wouldn’t be insecure, dismissive, cagey about her past, tacitly accepting of yue’s resigned obligation to her arranged marriage, or attempting to repress her feelings around yue. she would be bold, loud, confident, agentic, and willingly vulnerable, as she is with every potential love interest. perhaps their relationship would still end in tragedy, but it would be anything but quiet.

and if that kind of obvious bombast is what you want out of a romance, then fine, you do you. but personally, the beauty of yue’s role in the narrative to me is specifically how she foils sokka as someone who sacrifices, diminishes, and martyrs herself for the sake of her people. she literally has obligations to her tribe and to her father!!!!! she and sokka inform each other so beautifully because they are so similar and equally constrained by their perceived obligations and lack of agency.

the fact that sokka is who she gets close to whereas katara merely represents a sort of unattainable ideal to her is intentional, it’s part of the point. if yue is sokka’s moon, shining brightly above him but always out of reach, then katara is yue’s moon, kanna is yue’s moon, every woman who had the agency to liberate themselves from this system in which yue has no choice but to participate is her moon. and by becoming the moon, yue sacrifices herself, her humanity, her body, but she also liberates herself, frees herself from the contraints of being a woman in society. she kisses sokka to reclaim her agency, because kissing him as she had wanted to had been denied to her, and now that she is no longer bound to these earthly standards, she finally can.

yes, we are introduced to yue through sokka and not the other way around (i shouldn’t have to explain that that is how basic storytelling sequencing works), but yue is immediately interested in him, sees a kindred spirit in him, longs for him. maybe he is initially struck by her beauty, but he treats her with kindness and humanity, and he never asks for anything from her besides what she is willing to give him (which is the point. they’re at an impasse, and so their tragedy is inevitable. unlike suki, who is willing to take the lead and basically forces sokka into experiencing happiness lmfao). also, for the record, they already are a beautiful butch/femme couple. to me.

but yeah, if you really want to see a bold, courageous girl fight to liberate a repressed, abused girl from the clutches of patriarchal violence, you can just watch revolutionary girl utena free on youtube. in fact, you all should. it’s much better than atla.

#lizardlicks #asks #katara #yue #sokkaxyue #analysis #katara IS deeply important to yue #but it’s also very important to yue that her primary arc is with sokka #katara and aang both INSPIRE yue #but sokka ANGUISHES her #and personally. I love anguish :)#especially when it involves sokka :)

54 notes · View notes

treasureplcnet · 7 months

Note

Hello! I adore your Bodies fanart. I was imagining Karl in 1890 and how much havoc he would wreak. Also Henry and Karl would get along very well, I think, and Karl would be a *terrible* matchmaker for Henry and Alfred... I'd love to see your take on any of this, if anything comes to you 😍

HELLO OMG THANK YOU FOR THE EXCUSE TO JUST DROP HOT TAKES INTO THE BODIES NETFLIX TAG <3 all these drawings are very scrappy and i lost the plot and this became more like sharing all my hcs but still :')

now that you have brought it to me i really do think henry and karl would be unstoppable, i think they'd constantly have a fun, back-and-forth banter !!! i also can see karl dropping multiple not-so-subtle hints, and all of the detectives being quite supportive. gently too, considering the period-typical homophobia. i do think sometime along the lovelorn pining looks, he gets tired of seeing them orbit each other without anything happening, and this exchange occurs:

more doodles and crying under the cut :)

i will die on the "karl weissman bisexuality" hill. HE TOLD ME IN A DREAM!!!! it's just a little messier for him because he really likes women and will not figure it out ever. charlotte hillinghead TO ME also has the exact opposite problem where she is very much in love with her husband and doesn't have any incentive (or freedom considering the time period) to explore her sexuality. the way she accepted hillinghead's feelings for henry, and was less rejecting and more devastated over thinking he didn't love her or polly, just read queer to me somehow. an acceptance because she's like that too, yk? (maybe a bit of a reach but i don't get to choose who my mind designates as being bi)

i like to think that charlotte-karl experience a spider-verse mindmeld "YOU'RE LIKE ME" moment over being bisexual but they're not quite sure why they're feeling that way because they have no idea they're bi. if you are me you will understand perfectly

and i am a henry/alfred/charlotte poly truther as well (please see above discord ranting from my dms with a friend lol)

on more notes of just giving whichever character i want the bisexuality card, hasan is bi to me too. i think hillinghead and her bond a little over that shared religious guilt, of having their respective institutions be homophobic, and the feeling for so much of their life that they're different, so there must be something wrong. it helps her empathise with him and they quickly become closer because of it :) possibly also introducing him to queer lit, and maybe some non fiction lgbt history books

and one last final doodle because i think alfred as the only detective with an active love life where he's pursuing someone would make the others pretend like they can be adults but they want to know SO BAD and they also give advice once in a while because they're rooting for alfred :) they're all pretty good at hiding how badly they're invested in this (think iris 'casually' asking hillinghead how it's going and the other two perk up in the background) like i refuse to believe any of them are totally immune to the equivalent of office-gossip

this was so so long LOL i hope any of that is coherent !!!!! a lot of it ofc is my own projection bc i am bi, but it's real to me <3

#re hillinghead poly..... realistically a V poly with alfred in the middle but if i am allowed to be anymore annoying #literally everyone in the cast is bi to me. so its a triad. PLEASE DONT BURST MY BUBBLE RN LOL #esp the way ashe casually charms charlotte and makes her laugh in like ep 2... BI SWEEP!!!!! THEY ALREADY LIKE EACH OTHER #i do think ofc its easy to read ashe as being gay tho so i understand if some of this is just. not workable #but i will probably die on bi karl hill sorry everyone i know what he is #and also hasan thinks its ironic the moment she manages to get him out of the 3-piece victorian suit #alfred beelines for an outfit that makes him look like a gay history professor on a dark academia pinterest board #ANYWAYS. IF U READ ALL THAT UR A REAL TROOPER THANKS FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK #bodies netflix #my art

91 notes · View notes

dictee · 1 year

Note

I don’t get why people argue it’s problematic to assign gender roles to a same sex couple like isn’t the show engaging with loads of problematic issues?? For better or worse it’s what the show is about. Marrying a powerful wealthy man who promises you everything your hearts desires in order to escape your dissatisfaction only to find he’s a controlling monster. I mean how else are we meant to watch this show without the gender lens! It’s impossible to engage with this show w/o it.

yes! well i understand the idea in principle which is like. generally the attempt to assign gender roles to a same sex couple comes from straight people trying to comprehend a break in the myth of universal heterosexuality in which they are invested. So in that sense yes that's a reductive and inaccurate framework to coerce people into. But that's not what's going on here! the depiction of something and the discussion of it is not the endorsement of it and to treat it as such--to write a world where race class and gender have no bearings on people's existence or behavior--is actively harmful. Like this anon that got sent to a different blog

first of all i dont think either of them are gender nonconforming in terms of presentation LOL (Edit: except for louis in dubai) second of all i don't think anyone talking about for example louis reading edward carpenter in the wake of severe domestic assault is being like i love gender roles and domestic assault lmfao. and thirdly it's not "swapping out" it's what's depicted in the show. but to explain myself in depth anyways 💀:

i think this is emblematic of how totally the project of "representation" has neutralized queer politics. & this is why i think movies that came out under the hays code often have more interesting and nuanced gay characters than movies that came out for decades after. because after it was legal to depict gay people on screen well there's still the amount of homophobic jokes but like putting that aside. "positive" representation is about marketing. it is a reactionary politics that centers on reifying social categories as intrinsic to people's selves and making us think that celebrating those categories is liberation when really it's about creating another market. the rare "respectable" depictions of gay people emphasized assimilation into society ("we're just like you!") and demanded morally upstanding, universalized characters which are fundamentally uninteresting. the earlier hays code depictions (like the children's hour or rope) aren't about representation because they legally couldn't be. instead if they include queer material it is because there is a genuine thematic interest. so often this is very homophobic but also often it involves a real criticism of normative structures.

what i really appreciate about iwtv is that the writers are obviously not interested in presenting a generalized "correct" (and marketable) representation of what gay people are like. because that doesn't exist--the idea that it exists is a trap. and because they have moved beyond what would have been a concern ten years ago, which is the relationship genuinely being interpreted as a message about the evils of homosexuality, and towards an actual thematic engagement. they're interested in telling a complex and engaging story! in the same way, Louis isn't Black so they can say oh we have a Black character who behaves Correctly and proves the racists wrong. the humanity--not the moral perfection--of the characters is already assumed, and therefore not the point. instead we have a story that is concerned with grappling with immortality, trauma, forgiveness--with the core "lie" of vampirism being that it means freedom from the past and the society that made and hurt you. we can understand Louis's deep rooted desire for assimilation and we can see as it plays out how the very premise of the bourgeois nuclear family both conceals and relies on a problematic configuration of power.

there is a real wave of (mostly white) bioessentialist "to be a woman is to be oppressed therefore women are good and men are bad" type rhetoric which serves no one's liberation. and thats emphatically not what i'm trying to get at. i'm not defining womanhood by suffering and i'm not saying louis Is a woman. but i also think it's equally reductive to say the characters are Essentially Gay Men and establish "gay man" as a category somehow discrete and uninfluenced by the heteropatriarchal world. it is reductive to say that gender is absolutely discrete and uninfluenced by social context and the roles we are forced to play. like that too ends up with an essentializing understanding of gender. it's not that abuse in general is feminizing, it's that the abuse in the show is explicitly gendered even as it's in a family with a same sex couple. because the nuclear family is fundamentally a mechanism for the perpetuation of patriarchal abuse. and the show, at least in this season, is explicitly concerned with domesticity and with the inescapability of social roles. And it's criticizing those things. To be clear.

#Long post /#and to say that acknowledging the existence of patriarchy or gendered abuse is bioessentialism is just. unserious #iwtv

210 notes · View notes

sepublic · 1 year

Text

The Owl House is about many, many things. It’s about neurodivergence, weirdness, not fitting in and being left out. It’s about finding a community of others like you. It’s about being your own person, but also wanting to be a part of something, and balancing these seemingly paradoxical things. It’s about how everyone is alike and similar to each other, but also each person is wholly unique and irreplaceable.

Everyone has their own story, we all think we’re special or more better in some way than the rest. There is no destiny, but people have the power to choose and decide for themselves. We can all mess up and do something wrong, but what truly prevents us from getting better isn’t circumstance, it’s the refusal to improve; Just deciding to do so and taking that first step forward is all you need to begin.

It’s about disability, about not fitting up to a certain standard and that’s okay, even if you’d also like to do that. It’s knowing what you’re good at and discovering that, and it not having to fit other people’s definitions of what’s meaningful. It’s about learning and loving and doing things for their own sake, not as a means to an end, it’s about the value of art and how it makes us humans.

We have powerful relationships with stories. They can heal us, inspire us, motivate us. But they can cloud and delude people, set them down paths of arrogance and solipsism. Stories mean a lot, especially to the neurodivergent, to those who fit in, and it can be seen as cringey or too much, too overwhelming, but no those feelings are valid, even if people must be responsible about how they express them. Stories can do so much for us, but they aren’t everything either; Reality is just as important and necessary to engage with.

It’s about different ways of thinking and learning, of doing things, and how they’re all valid. Different existences, diversity, a wide variety of experiences, and how could you want to make the world smaller by making it more monotonous? But you must approach differences with respect and understanding, it’s exciting to engage in something new, but you must be the difference between a colonizer and an immigrant. It’s a defiance to conformity but a reminder to mind others around you. Be kind, for even if others take it for granted, compassion does well in the long run.

Sometimes kindness won’t work for some people, but ultimately we must counter Christian ideas of retributive justice, guilt, and punishment in order to prioritize healing and rehabilitation. Restorative justice is what will build the world back up, let it heal. There is no fate, no greater God or will, it’s just people interacting together, sometimes trapping themselves in a cycle of their own making, but still people.

People aren’t above nature, nor are they separate; Do not seek to control or tame others, be it that you don’t understand and assume foreign, or those you do notice commonality. You can’t make people do things, only yourself, but you can give them the freedom and support to decide better. Forgiveness is not mandatory either, if you truly want to do better. You are not the hero and that’s why you can forgive yourself for not fixing everything on your own.

Co-exist with nature, with different things and their own ways of existing, instead of trying to justify them as a natural resource to exploit. It’s about environmentalism, sowing seeds for more to come, instead of just taking. It’s about a cycle of kindness where you put things in and hope what comes out, the next generation, does even better for you; Rather than a cycle of pain where you spread and project that, and refuse to acknowledge people for who they are.

It’s about people overlooked in real life; People of color, the queer, the neurodivergent. It’s about non-conventional family structures, found family; The bonds we make and choose, because things don’t have to be given to us at the start of life. We can earn and build it for ourselves just as much, if necessary.

There’s perception, learning to trust in your own abilities and those of others. Learning to be positive about your body and its appearance and alleged shortcomings. It’s about seeing people for they are as a whole, not something you whittle and simplify them down into. Parents want the best for their children, but they were children once and are just as flawed and messy as the rest of us.

Accept change, accept things even if they’re bad, like death or disabilities, because sometimes you just have to learn to live with it. You can’t hide in an insincere fantasy, hollow and bereft of substance; Make real connections and experiences. But you can also strive for things to be better, and you can recover. Wounds heal, even if scars might linger.

Chance can cause anything, you can never be too certain about what comes your way, how people will impact you, and you’ll impact them. It’s how people live beyond death through the influence of their actions, and that is more alive than any failed resurrection or clone. Give freely, just because others suffer less than you, doesn’t mean they should suffer at all. Be the change you want to be, take initiative.

People wander around, searching for homes. People are cast out or lost, but find new places to belong. Nobody deserves to be in a cage, nor lost. We’re all seeking for those connections, pre-existing or to be made. Some places you won’t fit in, some people won’t accept or be interested, and that’s okay because there’s always someone out there.

It’s about wanting to be special but also understood, for people to see and learn about you in good faith, to give you the time of day. It’s reciprocal love, about healthy boundaries in relationships. You are more than what you do for others, and locking them out to deny your pain will only hurt them in the long run, too; To love yourself is to love others. It’s okay to be selfish and even angry, it doesn’t have to come at the expense of others, and sometimes you have to prioritize yourself over those who do you harm. Wanting things isn’t inherently harmful to others and can co-exist with wanting things for others too.

Think critically, question what you’re told, come to your own conclusions. Defy binaries, things aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive nor paradoxical. Don’t settle for singular choices, it’s the fine yet real line between indecisiveness and openness. Let people try new things while giving them the space and support to back out or change their mind. Friendships exist between generations, among them, kids deserve to have other kids as their friends, and mentors.

It’s about how the loss of a parent leaves you alone and grieving. Wondering about them. How they can impart a final gift onto you, something to revolve your whole life around because it’s your world and it’s them. Grief can manifest into betrayal over feeling abandoned; Or a desire to honor and live in their name. It’s hard to say goodbye and find the right words, language can affirm so much.

It’s about the ordeals of growing up and coming of age, realizing how terrible or difficult things can be, but confronting that instead of retreating to emerge stronger. History changes but also repeats itself, the cycle renews.

Fiction and reality have a divide, but they can intersect, or invade one another. It’s about making things real, while recognizing when they aren’t. But fantasy is an example of what could be, and that’s the hope that inspires a kid to keep moving forward. People deserve a chance and that’s why judgment should be reserved, as we’re all still making mistakes and learning.

It’s about connecting with the world around you, both the people and the place itself, and loving and understanding them both for who and what they are. It’s about finding a home, which can be many things, as long as it makes you feel like you belong. That’s why it’s called The Owl House.

#the owl house #themes

254 notes · View notes

that-ari-blogger · 3 months

Text

Iconic (Defying Gravity)

If you look up "iconic Broadway songs", you get lists upon lists of musical numbers, but there are a few constants. Beside One Day More from Les Misérables, Don't Cry For Me Argentina from Evita, and Seasons Of Love from Rent, you will usually find Defying Gravity, from Wicked.

If you think about it, this is actually rather weird, right? The aforementioned songs are about preparing for death, dying, and looking back on life, respectively. Defying Gravity is about a witch deciding to fly. A story that is objectively fantastical (it depicts magic and flying monkeys in a place that definitely does not exist) stands next to stories of real-world history and events, and nobody bats an eyelid because... well... because it's just that good.

This is like a corgi winning a race fair and square against a ton of cheetahs.

I think it's worth examining just what Defying Gravity does to stand beside giants, and what story it is telling.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD: (Wicked)

Defying Gravity is a battle cry.

When you examine a piece of media, the first thing you need to understand is what it is that that piece of media is trying to achieve. For example, if you examine a commercial for toothpaste through the same lens as a commercial film, that commercial will fall short. Similarly, if you examine a song that is trying to get stuck in your head through a classical, technical lens, things get funky.

You can, of course, apply those different lenses if you want. That's the fun thing about art, there are few rules. But even then, you need to understand the purpose of the text.

Defying Gravity is a battle cry.

It is a song that calls to arms its listeners. It says to Oz that things will get better, if Elphaba has to tear down the world to make it so. And it tells the audience to get excited, because someone has just started shaking things up.

The song is a turning point in the musical. It is the end of act one, and it sets the trajectory of the second half of the story. It defines how the characters will behave going forwards. But also...

Defying Gravity is a breakup song.

I don't think the two are disconnected at all. Wicked is about reality and dreams colliding, and it follows the seeking of freedom. The twist is that for freedom, you have to give up your safety, and Glinda isn't prepared to do that, but Elphaba is.

This is a piece by @abd-illustrates (Youtube, Deviantart). Although I believe it's technically about No Good Deed, I feel it's relevant here and a spectacular feat of artistic merit that I had to put it in.

Wicked has been accused of queer bating by fans, and while I see that angle, I don't quite agree. I think that the romantic relationship between Glinda and Elphaba does happen, but the fact that it doesn't work is key to the story. They are doomed lovers, and this song is that breaking point.

What is more valuable to our protagonists? Autonomy or stability? Both characters pick different options, and that incompatibility tears them apart.

"Elphaba, why couldn't you have stayed calm for once? Instead of flying off the handle!

I hope you're happy

I hope you're happy now

I hope you're happy how

you've hurt your cause forever

I hope you think you're clever"

Glinda's perspective here is clear, she believes in the system she is a part of. She sees its flaws, but because they work for her, she sees them as strengths. And this is understandable, the system has only benefited her, so she is blind to its faults.

But understandable is not the same as agreeable, and I am inclined to follow Elphaba's logic here. The system is unjust, and directly in opposition to her goal of fairness and equality. She wants to make the world a better place, and now that the system's lies are revealed to her, she needs to take things in a different direction.

"I hope you're proud how you would grovel in submission

To feed your own ambition"

So, the sides are established, and this song serves as a battle of ideas. Both characters want their friend to join them, and its notable how they go about doing that.

Glinda falls on aspiration and references a previous song to get her point across.

"You can still be with the wizard

What you've worked and waited for

You can have all you ever wanted"

I feel the need to point out that Glinda wasn't present when Elphaba sang The Wizard and I, and yet she matches the tune and meaning almost perfectly. Elphaba hasn't merely told Glinda her dream, she has shared her dream with her, and confided in her that incredibly vulnerable side of herself.

Elphaba acted so differently in The Wizard and I than in the rest of the story, she was less guarded, and more childish with that naive hope that she holds onto throughout the entirety of the show. That hope just becomes less naive and more relentless.

Elphaba has shared that naivety and hope and whimsicality with Glinda, and it's that relationship that Glinda is calling on now. Remember us, remember our dream.

However, for all Glinda's canniness and understanding of the world, she doesn't understand people, and she doesn't understand Elphaba.

Elphaba wanted to meet the wizard for a reason. She had a motive behind her dream that superseded the specifics of how it would play out.

"But I don't want it

No, I can't want it anymore"

Notice the vernacular that Elphaba uses. She can't want to be with the wizard. In her mind, doing the right thing isn't a choice. To Elphaba, good is a force that has pushed her to where she is right now, and forced her to sing this song.

Essentially, Elphaba is a paragon hero and is actively unmaking the grey morality of the setting. Often in media, "realism" is shorthand for everyone being either selfish or misunderstood. It's a pessimistic worldview of life that I don't entirely agree with.

That does happen in real life, don't get me wrong. The vast majority of the world is made up of people who are capable of actions that are good, bad, or neither.

But there are people out there who are truly cruel and evil, trust me, I've met some of them. But I've also met their opposite, people who are kind and compassionate and do what they think is right because to them, there isn't another option.

Elphaba is that second type of person, and the musical has got its audience to take this for granted at this point. But it's worth remembering that this character is the Wicked Witch of the West, the cartoon bad guy of an iconic work of literature. The musical hasn't made her more morally nuanced; it has made the world more nuanced, and that has reframed this character entirely.

The song even reminds the audience of this fact through the ensemble, just to make the juxtaposition more obvious.

"Look at her! She's wicked, get her.

No one mourns the wicked! So we've got to bring her

Down"

This is actually foreshadowing for a later song.

Back to this part, the backing of the song has spent the majority of its run time playing elaborate movements, but for Galinda and Elphaba's talk about dreams, it simplifies. Galinda gets a bare trickle of that floaty harmony, but Elphaba gets next to nothing for her line. Mostly.

This, combined with the slowing down effect brought on by the fermata (the symbol that looks like an eye), gives the conversation an intimate tone. The two have just each other to hear, and nothing to get in the way. It also frames Elphaba's line as reassurance. There is a storm coming and she is telling her girlfriend that things are going to work out ok in the end.

However, the big chords come back in on the "anymore" and lead into the key change that covers the rest of the song. This is a metaphor for the change that is happening in Elphaba's mind. As she makes her decision on how to proceed, and recognises that things are now different, the slow build up to this song's finale is finally got underway.

The rest of this song is just a build up to a final crash of sound. It rises in a few beats with the choruses, as Elphaba tests her wings, so to speak. And the song gains momentum slowly as more instruments are added.

If you thought I wasn't going to at least reference Glee's multiple performances of this song and how in that series, Defying Gravity is explicitly synonymous with queerness and pride, welcome to the blog. I make analysis posts, maybe stick around if you like this kind of thing.

"Too late for second guessing,

too late to go back to sleep"

There are two separate ideas being intertwined here. First up is the reiteration of Elphaba's inability to stop. Once again, she is doing the right thing because someone has to do it, and soon it will be too late. But the duality of this phase links that idea with the revelation about Oz. She can't go back to sleep, she can't go back to ignorance. Now that she knows what she knows, she has to act.

"Too long I've been afraid of

Losing love I guess I've lost.

Well, if that's love, it comes at much too high a cost."

This isn't particularly complex storytelling, but it's effective none the less. Elphaba is saying her realisations out loud to keep the audience up to speed. In this instance, she has been chasing acceptance, and now understands that she was never going to get it from Oz, and that what she would have to do to obtain a facade of understanding is not worth it.

The fact that my analysis of that phrase is just saying it again but slightly differently is a pretty good example of how effective the storytelling in the line is.

"I'd sooner buy defying gravity

Kiss me goodbye, I'm defying gravity

And you can't pull me down"

The first chorus of this song is remarkably understated. It doesn't have the confidence of latter verses, and I will discuss why I think that is in a moment. The orchestra pulls back to a few instruments, and the drum plays a light rhythm on one of its... ok I my musical knowledge is a bit limited here. The bit of the drum that goes "tss tss tss", you know the one.

This gives it a light feeling that adds to the unsteady feeling of the chorus as Elphaba tests the waters and learns to fly. But she needs guidance, and support, and who does she turn to for that?

"Glinda, come with me."

This is the first time Elphaba has been thinking on the spot. Usually, she thinks everything through before she says it, but now she is running entirely on a single train of thought. I cannot stress enough how this thought process is literally: "love, kiss goodbye, Glinda". Historians will say they were close friends.

A leitmotif is a recurring musical phrase that represents a certain theme. For example, earlier in the musical, Galinda's "you deserve each other" musical phrase was repeated to show false relationships and false promises, and was also used in The Wizard and I to foreshadow the false promise of the Wizard and his gifts.

The Unlimited Leitmotif is used exclusively to symbolise Elphaba and Glinda's relationship. You can read that as platonic if you want, but there are some context clues that I would argue suggest otherwise. For example, it's called the "Unlimited" leitmotif for a reason.

As I have kept harping on about, the most valuable thing a person can achieve in this musical is freedom. This is a song about defying the laws of physics themselves. And the thing that Elphaba is offering Glinda here, the thing that is so defining for their relationship that it is literally the shorthand for it, is complete and total freedom.

Together, the two are unlimited.

The second chorus is sung together. Glinda gives Elphaba the strength of spirit to continue and is quite literally the reason she can fly in the first place.

But Glinda doesn't want that. She wants to feel in control of herself more than autonomy, and that's why the relationship falls apart. The two are doomed lovers, and it's not because one of them lies or cheats or any of that soap opera nonsense, but because they want different things out of life.

"Well, are you coming?"

"I hope you're happy

Now that you're choosing this"

"You, too

I hope it brings you bliss"

All in all, I think this breakup goes remarkably well. The two realise that their lives are taking each of them in a direction that the other cannot follow, and so they offer their goodbyes peacefully and get ready for the finale of this act.

Glinda even gives Elphaba a cloak to protect her from the elements as a final goodbye gift. Which, if you are keeping track, means that both the hat and the cloak, the Wicked Witch's most iconic visual elements besides her skin, were gifts from a very close friend.

I don't need to explain why the final chorus of this song is so good, do I? The music is phenomenal, the vocal performance is unrivaled, and it outright says half of the points I have been trying to make in this post.

I do think that the sheer skill on display here is important for the theming as well. Yes, the high note symbolises the flight and escape, yes it's synonymous with rising above petty grievances, and yes the rising is literally a reverse Deus Ex Machina. But it's also just the actress who plays Elphaba showing off and having a blast. There are no limits on her vocal performance, she doesn't have to rein in anything, and she can instead belt out a number as loud and powerfully as she wants because nobody is stopping her.

"As someone told me lately,

Everyone deserves a chance to fly"

This is a reference to something that the Wizard said to Elphaba, but when he said it, he was completely talking out of his arse. The Wizard, and a significant portion of Oz as a whole, parade around saying nebulously benevolent things, but they don't actually mean it. The Wizard has created a nation based around surveillance and oppression, there is no way that he believes in everyone getting a fair go.

The important thing to understand is that the Wizard's worldview is wrong. Everyone does deserve fairness. So his lie to appease Elphaba was in fact true. Elphaba's role in this is making that lie into a reality, by giving the people someone who will say things honestly and try to actually make the world a better place.

Finally, however, as the lights prepare to shut off and Elphaba rises into the distance. Glinda stands beneath her, looking up. She is now just another face in the crowd, but her sentiment stands in stark contrast to the rest of Oz.

Simultaneously, Glinda says goodbye, and wishes Elphaba good luck on the road ahead.

"I hope you're happy."

Final Thoughts

It needs to be understood that part of why Defying Gravity stands beside historical giants like Don't Cry For Me Argentina is the fact that it is fantastical.

Wicked is a musical about the relentlessness of hope. It is set in a world where anything is possible, and it brings that to life. Through the application of some truly impressive stagecraft, the actress who plays Elphaba genuinely flies for all to see.

This is a story that takes the impossible and makes it possible, and this is the song which cemented that theme in the minds of anyone who watched it. This song fully deserves its place as my second favourite in this musical.

That's right, my favourite is yet to come, and I'm enjoying watching y'all guess at what it is in the replies.

Next week, I will be looking at Thank Goodness and how it sets up the plot of the second act. So, stick around if that interests you.

Previous - Next

53 notes · View notes

theforestalchemist · 2 years

Text

#pride 2022 #queer and proud #love is love #love wins #happy pride 🌈#pride month #lgbtqiia+#respect #tolerance #freedom

0 notes

xiaq · 1 year

Note

What was your relationship with HP in your childhood and what did it mean to you?

Warning: long answer is long.

I read the first HP book when I was 10. It felt like coming home. I was a deeply awkward, anxious kid dealing with bullying at school. I felt wrong and out of place and like everyone except for me had a manual for how they were supposed to navigate life; without the manual I was certain I would never catch up.

Books were a fucking haven. And THIS book. This book was about a kid that I empathized with so much. Except he's bullied and feels out of place because he IS out place. He's meant to be somewhere better, with people like him, who (for the most part) treat him kindly and with respect. And suddenly he's able to make friends and excel at his studies, and he settles into this fantastic world where he fits, and he's bright and likable and he has a purpose. It was just. God, it was everything I wanted for myself. AND there was magic and a train and a cool castle.

I think the first two books were already out when I started reading and I read the rest as they were released (re-reading them all multiple times in between). The friends I did manage to make also adored the books. I went from "playing Harry Potter" on the playground to writing fanfic to going to midnight book releases and meeting up with friends to see the movies as they started coming out. The final book came out shortly after I started high school, and the final movie came out when I was in college. I went to that midnight showing with a good portion of my friends and we all cried like babies at the end. Because it was over. This thing that had sustained us for so long. This thing that marked our childhoods.

You have to understand that Harry Potter-related expectation was a constant for the majority of my life. Since I was in elementary school there was always a new book to look forward to every year or so. And when the book series was completed, there was the next movie to look forward to. And then it was over (and with such an unsatisfying epilogue). That's when I really got involved in fandom (outside the fic I wrote amongst friends in a the group journal we kept and passed back and forth during studyhall, ofc). And fandom was the most accepting, glorious, place for an anxious queer kid just starting to come out of her shell as college afforded her the freedom to realize that maybe the very narrow (private Christian school k-12) concept of normalcy she'd been afforded until that point wasn't entirely accurate. And it continued to be glorious. I went to cons and got merch and put my House in my online dating profile and 3D printed custom HP cookie cutters and joked about having a HP themed wedding some day and my friends and I loved our nerdy little world that made us happy. Until Joanne ruined it.

And I'm honestly not trying to be dramatic, but when something has been so intrinsic to your life and your social circle and even, to an extent, part of your identify, it's fucking devastating when you find out the creator of that thing is a bigot and actively using her platform to target people you love. I stopped supporting her (buying books/movies/merch etc.) a couple years back, and I was content in embracing the concept of Death of the Author (or, as I've previously termed it, "we've killed the author and are now rifling through her stuff to keep the good bits and throw out the bad"). But now, in light of her continued escalations and the recent TV series announcement, and the conversations I've been having with friends (particularly Jewish and trans friends), I do mean that the very concept of Harry Potter is ruined for me. My, now decades, of nostalgia just...aren't enough to supersede what feels like an irresponsible attachment. Before, I wanted HP's social presence to live on in spite of and without JK Rowling. Now, it's becoming more and more apparent that the entertainment industry is going to squeeze as much money out of the HP world as possible which will, by extension, continue to give her a platform and money with which to actively support her shitty dogma.

So. Here I am, too sad to pick up my HP books for my annual summer re-read, or start the new fic a writer I love has just posted or open the document to work on my own HP fic. Which is not at all a condemnation of folks in fandom who ARE able to keep reading and creating and loving the world while thumbing their nose at her. I just can't right now.

So I'm stepping back and blocking the tags and ignoring the show and trying to let other worlds consume me.

Anyway. That's what it meant to me. Sorry for the tiny violin moment but your ask made me sit down and confront the fact that I'm dealing with an extremely weird sort of grief I haven't ever encountered before.

#I'll update SSS tomorrow and put it on haitus #sorry for folks following me for HP stuff #I'd love to come back some day #the tiniest of violins #jk rowling #harry potter #sigh

251 notes · View notes

vegasandhishedgehog · 1 year

Text

It's easy to complain about how MSP left any address toward homophobia to the last episode and it remained fairly mild but I really wanted to point out what things about it were incredibly significant.

They could have kept it like Bad Buddy where it was a universe where it didn't really exist or just wasn't mentioned. They could have totally done that. I wouldn't have blamed them for that choice either, considering the tone of the series remaining so lighthearted throughout. Homophobia is more than just a serious issue - it can have dangerous implications. The closest this show wanted to get with danger was Gun's mom needing surgery, so before watching the episode I was really curious about how they would handle it.

Starting from the beginning of the episode and seeing the contrast between Gun telling his mom about Tinn, and Tinn's mom seeing how scared her son is and deciding not to ask. Gun has such a wonderful relationship with his mother. She's all he has for family and they have come to love and depend on each other so much, and the show has given us enough clues to the way she thinks that her supporting her son without issue was no surprise. Tinn's mother has been set up to appear that she feels differently, but it all boils down to her worrying for him rather than about him. Tinn gets his supportive, protective way of loving from her (which is the sweetest thing to me, considering their relationship isn't as strong). All she wants is for him to go through life without having to jump over hurdles for his happiness. Considering the privileges he's had as her son, it troubles her that he felt any reason to hide his true relationship with Gun and only wants to assure him that he could have come to her about it earlier. She sees his fear and rightly decides to let him come forward when he chooses.

The deal with the photo outing them and how all that goes down was interesting. It goes without saying, whoever took the picture had no business posting about them and it's unfortunate they never get found and reprimanded for their actions. What I loved was how the show chose to demonstrate how attitudes have really changed among younger generations. The whole conversations about "no one cares!" and "I think we were too afraid in the beginning," were really great points to make. The more exposure the younger generations have had to queer identities through media and people being open about them in real life, the more freedoms we have gained. Sometimes letting fear hold you back can suffocate you. Being outed is awful, but showing that you can not be a jackass about it is important. Also, don't go after my boy Gun for trying to give them a cover story, because this was the one circumstance where he saw Tinn being more at risk than him and he acted the way he thought Tinn would for him. It ended up not really mattering anyway, because people supported them and Tinn understood that's what Gun was trying to do.

And then we got the few bad opinions from the older generation. From a teacher they had all previously respected! Because unfortunately, disappointingly, that is so incredibly common. Even his way of trying to explain "oh I don't actually hate you guys I just don't take you seriously," was so important to include. Homophobes will try to twist their ideas into something that's less than the hateful bullshit it is and out themselves being as reductive as they truly are. Of course, it got escalated for the sake of run time and getting the issue dealt with immediately. Thank you Kajorn for having a pretty awesome come to jesus gay moment.

Finally, my favorite part!! Tinn's mom not only making it clear she's okay with his relationship but explaining just how offensive his teacher had actually been. I really thought her position as the school principal would remain as a wedge between her and Tinn because it was treated that way for so long. I didn't expect it to have any more use than that. But having an authority figure of a school openly call out their colleague and show support for her students meant so much to me! Reminder: this story sets out to say that teen's experiences are not trivial and they're people with hopes and dreams and struggles and have much less say in their daily lives. Adults stepping up and supporting children is so necessary. Adults stepping up and protecting queer children is a desperate need. Any other school principal doing less than that is unworthy of their job. And it goes without saying that being his mother and being so openly supportive before he's even had a chance to ask her is just the cherry on top.

The homophobia arc wasn't for everyone but it had intent and purpose and it executed it just right for me. It said "yeah we know it's there but it's horseshit tbh so we're having our boys sing to each other on stage knowing the most important people in their lives have their back." And then they got to say "I love you" and share their first kiss in the privacy they deserved.

#my school president #my school president the series #msp #tinngun #guntinn

263 notes · View notes

apostate00 · 21 days

Note

What's your opinion on Tankie? I think he's kinda funny and cute

Ohoho THIS is gonna be a long one, strap in!

Well, my opinion on Commie is mostly negative. I HATE this guy, but it's like a passionate hate, the kind that if he were gone, things would feel empty, because he's my favorite guy to despise.

I tend to make him worse in my HCs than he is in the show, even though he's already not great either. I think part of my dislike for him also stems from them fact that he's held up in the fandom as a good guy, when he really isn't, seeing how he's blatantly disrespectful to trans/non-binary people, and would discriminate against minorities if they didn't do as he said.

Nevermind the fact that he's a tyrant and denies the holodomor, which he caused, and also brushed off Nazi's holocaust denial. Also he runs gulags, which are basically just concentration camps & slave labor, but people seem to be mysteriously brushing over that if it's commies who do it. It's a joke then.

People have told me before that the reason they like him is because he's just desperate for a family and community, but personally, that makes me like him less.

How people can ship Leftist Unity is beyond me, when Commie repeatedly disrespects Ancom and later Ansyn. He doesn't give a shit about trans people, misgendering them simply because he can. Also, we all know damn well Commie will kill Ancom the second he doesn't need quem anymore.

I think some of it also stems from me being agender myself. I generally really hate how Ancom/Ansyn's queerness was handled in the show since no one respects quis pronouns ever, and it's more played as a joke than anything.

Fuck even the fandom doesn't respect quis pronouns at times.

People prolly think that it's not that big a deal, but for me who is incredibly protective of the self and their individual identity, disrespecting someone else's to integrate them into your homogeneous view of things is so repulsive and disgusting; it's not nessecarily the act of misgendering, even though that is bad too, but the complete disregard for individuality and identity.

I read Commie as abusive, but I've gathered that some people in the fandom really don't like that lol, I got to add onto my tally of "people online told me to kms" over it. But yes, generally I picture Commie as someone who actively infantilise Ancom and makes quem adopt this uwu uwu personality we see so often, to take away quis teeth, make them submissive, follow him around and make quem less likely to stand up for quemself against him.

There's more of course but, my personal headcanons are besides the point.

I do also use this guy to project my own personal experiences and trauma onto sooo, he has become kind of an amalgamation and caricature of my abusers.

I don't know, basically everything about Commie is so repulsive to me. I can basically only tolerate him with Nazi because they're both tyrannical scum and deserve each other.

I'm pretty big on freedom & individualism so that probably also doesn't help his case in my brain 😭

People can like Commie ofc, you can love and adore characters that are pieces of shit; I'd know so since Ancap is my second favorite character only surpassed by Ancom, but you know, I know what it's like to love a character who is fucking awful.

I guess I just wish people would acknowledge Commie's shitty behaviour more often instead of treating him like this big friendly harmless guy.

But yeah, people can do whatever they want of course, that's just my thoughts about it! :3

#centricide #jreg #centricide ancom #jreg ancom #centricide commie #jreg commie #thoughts on things teehee #dont tell me to kms again 🙏#people can do and think what they want we'll simple agree to disagree

20 notes · View notes