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spookfished · 10 months

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media roundup june 2023

hey guys guess who just went "oh its the 4th of july. that means that its july" here im going to talk about things i read/watched/played last month! i didnt read as much but did finish a couple books that ive had checked out Forever. ok actually i read a lot woops

books/comics/written media:

fake dates and mooncakes by sher lee: fake dating (obv) premise between a cooking boy and a rich heir! book that made me realized im honestly just not that interested in ya romance anymore LMFAO. pretty sweet and a decent read, but landed more heavily on the expository end of uhh i guess diaspora fiction? than i really prefer. i think i picked this up bc the author got mega cancelled on tyk twitter lol??

bird by bird by anne lammott: book about how to write. i love to read about how people do stuff :3 some of the advice applies pretty universally to creative efforts i think.. made me want to write more too

john dies at the end by jason pargin: DNF. comic/horror about this loser guy who discovers stuff. sigh i tried so hard to like this book its supposed to be pretty 'mecore'...talked about this with alena a bunch but its like hm... i know the sort of casual offensiveness sort of goes in hand with being poor and white and in the midwest and i appreciate how its like that creates its own doomed narrative or whatever. but also i feel like the protagonist would call me slurs or something. also the lowgrade but pervasive orientalism is kinda offputting. probably fun for some other guy! i did enjoy the horror elements though

the goldfinch by donna tartt: literary coming of age about a boys relationship with a painting (the goldfinch). also he flops a lot and its sort of homoerotic i guess? a movie was made of it. so something to note is that ive had this book out on loan since literally december. neil kept on being like hey man just stop reading it LMFAO. thoughts cp'ed from discord:

why does the goldfinch feel like a 600 page leadup to the actual book which is 800 pages

idk at this point im kinda sick of pathetic lovelorn self obsessed semi literary men. like toku men are also sopping and pathetic but i think its more appealing when they are also kind and can be vulnerable. this guy is just annoying and kind of incel coded. like does a grand gesture to make up for the fact that he killed your dog while dogsitting

i actually did enjoy the parts post timeskip but i still think the first two thirds could have been cut or Greatly compressed or interspersed w the present or Something, yk? prose was nice though

the bodyguard by katherine center: romance novel about a woman bodyguard who lives for her job. fresh from a breakup, shes given a new undercover assignment with a handsome actor, recently withdrawn from society. will they be able to break each others' shells....? my mom recommended this to me LMFAO we kind of have different tastes in romance.. ive read a book by this author before i think her platonic scenes are very strong? i wish there had been a couple more of those. also i like how she always includes a life affirming section at the end about how important it is for us to open ourselves up to love etc etc cute but not especially memorable

kiss quotient by helen hoang: (reread) a shy, autistic econometrician decides that she needs to get better at sex, and so hires an escort. helen hoang is one of my faavorite romance authors i really enjoyed this reread although i kinda forgot that both leads say, think and do some pretty embarrassing things. but you know a little embarrassment is endearing and all that.. i still prefer her other book (the bride test) but this one is pretty good too. vivid characters 👍

sisters of dorley hall by alyson greaves: web fiction - a trans woman infiltrates a secret force-feminization program. ok im just cp'ing my thoughts from discord again but i enjoyed it a lot:

my thoughts are that the first like, third? is really really good. it like idk takes the very real trans fears of like discovery and passing and all that and fictionalizes them a bit. but like its still grounded and swag. sooo tense once The Reveal happens n things w steph are pretty normal it gets kinda meandering? which i dont really mind bc i love interpersonal drama even if i miss how tense and scary it was. but also theres only like two major plot threads going on rn and theyre both pretty slowburn. a timeskip would probably benefit tbh like the point rn is kinda like. the 7 year meteor? yeah sorry

like it used to be sort of psychological thriller? and now its sort of more character focus and also surprisingly fluffy.. im surprised that the author has said they have a complete outline bc it doesnt feel very focused atm? but also like i suppose things are snowballing a bit re: revealing the sisters to the outside world

an unauthorized fan treatise by lauren james: a fangirl trying to prove her rpf ship is real uncovers a greater conspiracy. to me if something is able to capture a specific age/vibe from the internet its automatically pretty good. however more and more people are learning how to do that so maybe i should change my standards... i was never involved in All That re: rpf or even fandoms of live action shows until kamen rider? but like i definitely knew people in hs that were sort of like this LMFAO so it felt very familiar. i appreciate the author trying to make that $$ but i dont know if it really needs an expansion/sequel.. the ending is better off with some ambiguity imo

impossible us by sarah lotz: literary romance? a man and a woman fall in love online, but encounter difficulties when they try to meet. ok im just pasting my thoughts here again (spoilers btw):

ok that was a lot of stuff. onto movies/tv:

xo kitty: kitty goes to a school to connect with her online boyfriend, but all is not well. yall this was not good. i guess my standards shouldnt have been that high but to all the boys ive loved before was so cute!! (havent watched/read the others). but like.. the writing was bad and the main actress just wasnt very sympathetic or charming? characters waste time saying "i can explain" until time runs out for them to actually explain, additional (and nonsensical) romance plots are added for no reason, and the male lead isnt even that hot. sorry. also kitty deciding to move to korea to connect with her mom but not bothering to learn a speck of korean and insisting that everyone else speak to her in english really sucks honestly. not even my mom liked it so thats how you know its bad 👎

succession season 1: yesss succession. greg is my favorite cant wait to see him become evil. makes me stressed

shin kamen rider (hideaki anno): reboot of the first kamen rider by the guy who made evangelion. this guy kinda makes the same thing over and over but it looked sick as hell so i wasnt complaining. like stella obstinaterixatrix said, kinda more introspective or even insular to the point of kinda ignoring the usual kr theme of justice but it was still very fun :3 kinda want to watch the original now

ready player one (movie): my parents made me watch this movie. aggressively mediocre.

kamen rider revice and live and evil and demons: pretty fun if you have the disease that makes you think revice is good, but mostly made me miss revice. i think they should have gone more into the clone thing but i always think that so

kamen rider juuga vs kamen rider olteca: two-parter special for kr revice. i forgot what happened in this pretty much immediately after but karizaki was hot

roman holiday: a princess touring in rome escapes her duties for a day, and meets a dashing young reporter. classic romance!! i actually liked this so so much like it actually is very romantic and funny and like deserves the hype. didnt expect it to be in black and white even so audrey hepburn is really hot. (spoilers) more romances should have bittersweet endings though like it hit

kamen rider ryuki: a young man is inducted into a battle royale between those fighting for their deepest wishes, and decides to try and stop the rider battle once and for all. hey guys ryuki is so fucking good for those who have watched madoka magica a lot of it is very heavily based off of/inspired by ryuki! but ryuki does it better. pretty much The kamen rider has so much to say about justice and love and what it means to be a hero and sacrifice and *runs out of air and falls over* also it made me cry. if you ever try kamen rider try this one <3

EDIT OH i forgot about across the spiderverse 100/10 obviously groundbreaking in animation nice take on generational trauma and also like the nature of adaptation and being in a multimedia comics franchise and all that. really hope the sequel doesnt get crunched too bad. oh but copaganda not great 99/10

video games:

twisted wonderland: gacha game where random disney villains are bishie high schoolers instead. ill play chapter 3 sometime soon i swear. gameplay is terrible as with most gacha games but the characters are cute? i feel terrible guilt for being involved with a disney franchise. honestly pretty compelling character writing sometimes though sorry

apico: stardew-like about raising bees (in beta). sooooo cute and the devs obv care about bees a lot in real life. the gameplay loop + breeding systems are a little bit punishing right now though i really hope it gets adjusted. took over my life during finals (woops) and i got like half the bees and then burnt out. multiplayer is fun though!

legend of zelda tears of the kingdom: the next zelda game, now featuring building + vertical elements. yeah this took over my life for two months like it did for a bunch of other people i finished the main story a couple days ago! i might go back to do a couple more of the shrine puzzles, but other than that i think im done. LOVE the vertical elements and also all the little sidequests there are to do and how the world has changed since botw. dragons tears was really good and OMG PROVING GROUNDS. would be a 10/10 if zelda was the protag stop damseling her you guys cmon

paper mario origami king: newest paper mario game, which is a spinoff of the main series where theyre all paper (duh). im about halfway through this, i think? tried it out because of the dunkey video lol and also bc it was free at my library. very charming and inventive, has a really good soundtrack and really funny writing! i know the gameplay was controversial, but im enjoying it a lot (and theres a lot of room for error). might 100% it

it feels like this month i tried a lot of things that i didnt really like LMAO. also a lot of romance. im very happy about finally finishing the goldfinch! the only holdout on my libby is slaughterhouse 5 :P i did find some things that i really liked though! anyways this one feels a bit more scattered but if you got to the ending, congratulations! thanks for reading :3

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mspaintp7ague · 1 month

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quite thankful i dont have a lot of dysphoria cause my mom thinks hrt will give me heart problems or some shite 😐 like bitch please you do realize cis men just have that much t and don't go around dropping dead right

my doctor is chill on the whole thing she's just bein weird. there's a trans health center pretty close to us but nooo she doesn't want to go there and check out the actual medical resources and opinions on the matter. oh and she's also antivax but just for the covid vaccine. yes i am still not vaxxed for covid fml

tldr. im gonna be Busy after i turn 18

fr tho she really is just being stupid. i don't ever want children so idgaf about losing my fertility. idgaf if it would actually kill me tbh the world is going to shit anyway and i doubt i'm gonna amount to anything. thing is literally no one thinks hrt kills you. she needs to get off chinese 4chan fr

she lets me do what i want for the most part but is annoyingly stupid about certain things. yeah i don't like the government either but the vaccine that millions of people have taken is not going to give me cancer in ten years. she fr thinks people will start dropping dead eventually and "we just need to wait to see the long term effects" the mrna is reabsorbed in like. three weeks. how do you have this little critical thinking / trust in science

and she thinks men and women genuinely have biological differences to the point that gendered razors are actually important and you need a dick to wear boxers. fuck off mom let me buy some swim trunks. the razors i could care less about tbh cause she pays for them but still

ughh. kinda glad i'll probably commute to college cause rooming with someone would probably get awkward in several ways.

she also doesn't seem to believe in mental illness. which. while im self diagnosing and mostly guessing at what's wrong with me i am about 100% certain i have trichotillomania (hair pulling compulsion) because. yknow i fucking do that and have a giant bald patch on my head. and she will just be like "why don't you just stop?" and "use some self control" etc. recently i've decided to just stop showing her my hair (i wear a hat a lot) because it really just makes me feel worse and it's not her fucking business. she keeps asking anyway but i'm just gonna keep telling her no until it grows back. she literally can't do anything to help and only makes me feel worse about it

another thing i'm less sure about is the possible cyclothymia / mild bipolar i may have. i mentioned it to her and she thinks it's just mood swings, which, it might be, but this has been happening for a long time. so much in fact that i've projected it onto my ocs. plague as a character started off as a 'normal' mask of myself but gb (who was based off my irl appearance but. whiter) had two characterizations that i swapped between inconsistently. can u guess what they were. yeah. depressed/apathetic and extremely manic, deranged even. looking back i see the patterns of depression and extreme interest in media/characters/other stuff i've had. even if i would hide it irl i'd have weeks where i stayed up until 3 or 4 multiple days in a row just because i couldn't stop playing a game or reading or i just had this amazing idea and i have to write/draw it right now or i will explode. sleep is for the weak. etc. and then i'll have weeks where i can't look any of my teachers in the eye and am too tired of caring to shower or do laundry or anything beyond the bare minimum chores and wake up in the morning skip breakfast and walk to the bus stop contemplating if it's worth it to still be alive. at least when i'm excited i'll do essential stuff just so i can get back to the fixation again. it's so fucking stupid. "yeah sorry i havent worked on my essay in six weeks because i was too busy doing random shit and/or thinking about dying but was too pussy to actually do anything sorry"

that and the anxiety spirals. those were pretty bad for a while. like. someone told me they wanted to play games with me and i said yes. then they didn't reply for forty minutes and i just. kept thinking i did something wrong or misunderstood their message or otherwise fucked up but turns out they just forgot they messaged me. haha. yeah totally normal reaction there plague.

i can't tell if there's something seriously wrong with me or not but i don't want to tell my therapist about it because i don't want to get institutionalized or something. and my mom is anti medication too. yippee. maybe it's too much to hope some drug will make me stop having days where i can't fucking do anything for literally no reason but i don't know how to fix myself otherwise.

oh and i mentioned to my mom very vaguely a time where i overshared some suicidal thoughts and proceeded to spiral for like 5 hours straight over getting no response and ultimately dipped from a friend group for a while and now she wants to know the details. i literally told you i didn't even tell my therapist the whole story what gives you the right to know? huh?

i don't know if i'm normal. i feel like i'm not but i might just be overreacting and being edgy. i also have definitely have experienced impostor syndrome about several things in the past so i clearly can't trust my own judgement on either thing.

i also don't think i love my family. they don't really matter that much to me anymore. i think i felt something for them when i was younger but it's just not there anymore. my mom simply does not understand a lot of things and i think i see her on the same level as a friend, maybe. we talk and spend time civilly but there is nothing deeper there on my end. i've tried explaining it to her but i don't think she gets it. i really feel nothing more for her than for my school friends.

my siblings i've never been very close to anyway. i don't feel like i can talk to either of them about much anymore. with brother i can sometimes but i only reference certain stuff through jokes. yeah look at this funny stan blog i made for this vtuber that i've been thinking about nonstop for the last two weeks because i can't tell the difference between a crush, admiration, gender envy and aesthetic appreciation of his avatar. i'm so silly and not mentally ill at all.

there's no one who's an appropriate audience for this huh. ok. mental illness blog it is

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catcrazyx · 10 months

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Hello! I found your Kaito/Saimota post. I'm not really part of this fandom anymore because it has become a very hostile space in recent years, but Kaito is very dear to me and I think you have your heart at the right spot, so a friendly word of advice: get your trans and queer friends in and talk about Kaito. Unless you're trans yourself (in which case, feel free to ignore me), we are not to ignore the inclusion of those slurs. Uplift trans voices and advocate that Kaito's personality isn't based on an awful line of writing. Those are the voices that matter and should be heard and if people still continue to hate, their problem obviously lays somewhere else. This is not meant to be offensive. I was part of earlier v3 fandom and I very well know what people tend to think, and it should absolutely be acknowledged that he's neither homo nor transphobic. Sincerely, a fellow Kaito fan that's just very tired of fighting

Hi! Thanks for this. I am not trans, although I do have trans and queer friends, and yeah definitely some who have told me they don't care that Kaito said such slur. However, the problem here is that, one trans person can't speak for the other, and my point with Kaito's slur is not to say the slur isn't offensive, because it is and must be to many trans people. The slur is indeed a slur and people have the right to be uncomfortable by its usage.

When I talk about the slur Kaito said not meaning anything, I'm not saying it doesn't mean anything for the audience, I mean that it doesn't mean anything for his character, because it absolutely doesn't. Kaito says that slur out of nowhere, no character acknowledges it, and Kaito never ever brings up any hint again to feeling different towards Kiyo. He said the slur in ch.2, if how Kiyo acted bothered Kaito that much to the point of saying that slur, then there's no explanation for him to not go all out on shaming and judging Kiyo in chapter 3. Instead Kaito is only mad at him for killing like Kaito is with any blackened.

That slur literally means nothing for Kaito's character, for Kiyo, for no one. It was a stupid gag by the writers. And this is not something that I think it matters getting a trans opinion on, because I'm not saying the slur is okay. It is something that its normalised in Japan, someone has pointed out other characters that used that word in other Japanese media, and idk if it meant anything in that media, but it's so clear how it didn't mean anything for Kaito's character, in writing, because it does not represent him at all in any way, it's really only representative of what is considered a gag in Japan, at least at the time.

I watched a video which talked about an anime that didn't age well. I didn't watch the anime, so I won't say, but I watched similar ones, so I'll talk about that. It's about for example, the male character being dominant and possessive over the female character. At the time, it was so normalised, it was hot, it was the personality of every male character in every romance anime, and everybody loved those male characters bc nobody associated what they did with something toxic or bad. But now? If people watched those animes again, the characters would be cancelled and buried alive like for how toxic and bad they were.

However, that's not even the case with Kaito, which is what makes all of this even more baffling and stupid. Kaito clearly has toxic masculinity traits, and that's part of his character as we see how obsessed he is with not showing weakness and some more common things he says like "men shouldn't apologise so easily". But homophobic??? You literally could not say he's homophobic if he didn't say that slur. Remove that slur from Kaito's speech, and does it change anything about Kaito's character? No, just people's perceptions of him. Which is what I mean. The slur meant absolutely nothing for Kaito as a *character*.

And I repeat, people have the right to find that slur uncomfortable, it was wrong for the writers to add it, but with how it was likely normalised, I believe that's why it's so easy for them to just put that in without it meaning anything. Some trans people may be offended, others may not, but that's really not my point and that's why I am not bringing trans people into the discussion.

I hope it makes sense..�� im sorry if anything I say sounds offensive, it's not my intention.

#ask

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moviesstoriesandbooks · 2 years

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Thoughts on Not me episode 4

1) i think i saw few people being very uninterested in the series , complaining that the progression is slow , the main couple is boring etc etc etc. Stop watching , or maybe stop whining out loud.

2) the gas cannister. It brought back memories when the entire world was fighting the pandemic and thai people were out protesting for their freedom. Of course they had to be prepared.

3) gram really is the coolest character. He strutting up to law school with platinum blonde hair (?) with best mate who's kinda the head of the biker vigilante gang that he's part of, cracking jokes with his trans ex gf who he broke up coz he's in love with another man , prefers when men make effort with their looks like hair and likes his men to smell nice and always willing to help out his buddies and... He didn't assault black. Nop. I refuse to jump into assumptions.

4) is the truck driver sean's dad? Is that what the nightmare is about? His dad isn't the drug dealer it's tawi?

5) white. I know you're preoccupied with a gazillion problems but wake up and smell the jacuzzi. Todd is literally the posterchild of the opposite team .

6) that's👊🏽 literally🤛🏽your🤜🏽 brother's 🤜🏽ex. STOP🤦🏾‍♀️KISSING🤦🏽‍♀️HER🤦🏾‍♀️!!!! I get that choices were limited. Atleast he tried to get her to stop by getting her drunk. 🥲 I can't believe this is what I've become.

7) i thought he'd use facial recognition to unlock the phone and read the entire text

8)" the media won't act as our mouthpiece" war flashbacks to certain ✨tings✨🤓☺️

9) gumpa keep training them I'd like to see more of offgun training together pls

10) yok is in ❤️lurvvvvv❤️

11) i can't believe that he drew yok in his artwork , waited there till yok came running, then RAN AWAYYYY when he actually saw him. Their fics are gonna have so much 'idiots in love' tags , coz of course , they don't even realise that they're in love. From the previews it looks like my boi yok is gonna kiss dan when the building behind them might be going up in flames.

12) the dance? The lecture? The crocodile round table conference? 🤌🏽🤌🏽🤌🏽🤌🏽🤌🏽

13) also i thought even in last episode there were dom/sub undertones but this time it's like it's intentional. Also throws light on how different white is as a person from black.

14) also I'm a say this here and then shut up. All we know about black is how he fights for equality and justice in the society but that does NOT make him a good person to be romantically involved with. What if gram and eugene met up to discuss how black played with both of them? What if black and gram were already a thing before black got injured? What if the reason gram isn't bringing it up is because he thinks black disappeared for days coz of him ? that black doesn't want whatever it was there between them to continue but didn't have ways to tell his feeling out loud, so gram just decided to be the grown up and just shut up about their "mistake"? It's purely a headcanon and that's just what i think. Maybe i should write a fic(I won't)

15) so when he isn't drunk , he's rough? And white is gentle even when he isn't drunk? What are supposed to do with this information?

Every Sunday I'm scared that I'll wake up to the news that they won't air the show again. Please God let it air without any sort of hiccups . I sometimes think the people who look down on bls might just throw haughty looks on not me for it's ambition and it's strong political stances. But that's all the more reason i want the show to succeed , atleast fully air. 🤞🏽🤞🏽🤞🏽

#thai bl series #not me series #thai boys love series #thai drama #thailand #offgun #gun attaphan #off jumpol #mond tanutchai #sing #danyok #fluke gawin #gmmtv series #gmmtv #not me the series #seanwhite

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nothorses · 2 years

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i don't remember if i've sent a similar ask before but i just wanna talk about how i feel that my political stances (while ideologically consistent and aligned with my personal values) are out of place where i live.

i live in a country where violence of all kinds against women is insanely common, which results in two things i'm conflicted about: the very eager internalization of radfem rhetoric in the few social circles where feminism is even accepted, and pretty extreme social media callout culture (similar to the metoo kind) which spirals into cancel culture.

i know for a fact that saying shit like "kill all men" and "all men are evil" is unproductive at best and harmful at worst. but this is just one example of the sort of rhetoric that is very very common in the most progressive of feminist circles here - it's literally the tip of the iceberg. i feel like i can't speak out against it (as a trans man myself) because i would be offending every woman who's had a horrible experience with a man. it would undoubtedly be seen as "incel behaviour" or misogyny (i actually got called an incel the one time i did it lmao). and anyway that just makes me wonder how we can ever manage to embrace a better form of feminism without first seeing progress already, so that refuting the aforementioned statements (and the feminism they represent) isn't seen as a personal or misogynistic attack. and if things do get better on their own, who's to say that people won't just take it as a sign of radical feminism working? idk it's really confusing

in a similar vein, i despise cancel/callout culture, but i don't know how to reconcile that with my support for victims who speak out. every time someone does that, it triggers a movement of others following suit, but this eventually spirals into attempts to cancel people for very minor incidents that can easily be learned from and moved past. i don't see any point in encouraging people to speak out as long as they're doing it for "good reason" because obviously that's kinda hypocritical, so that leaves me with two options: either nobody speaks out about anything or everybody does about everything. both of these lead to harmful outcomes, whether it's a toxic culture of silence and suppression (which is already a problem here) or a toxic culture of demonization and not allowing growth at all.

i know this doesn't sound great lmao, but i formed most of my feminist opinions based on the things i saw on tumblr and other online spaces (plus some readings by historical feminists) that i felt were logical and effective. the problem with that is that all these spaces are predominantly white - which i am not - so the things i read are mostly by white people. and it leads me to wonder whether, even by critically thinking about the content i consume and forming independent opinions, i'm trying to apply a mostly white solution to a non-white situation. that implies that the brand of feminism i practice and advocate for is only useful in white spaces. it acknowledges the intersectionality of race, class, and gender but it doesn't feel like something that is readily acceptable to my own community - and i don't really blame my community for that either. so i wonder: is it my feminism that's the problem or the situation we're all in?

anyway. idk this is just some stuff i've been thinking about, especially since all the current tumblr drama started again. thank you for reading. stay safe <3

Hey you sent this to me ages ago- I'm sorry it's taken so long to get around to answering!

I can't address everything here, but I can offer some thoughts to maybe chew on:

It seems like you're muddled up in a lot of very black-and-white questions: "either nobody speaks out about anything, or everybody does about everything" is a pretty all-or-nothing way of looking at callout culture.

I've been talking to a large audience for a while now, and I've noticed a few things:

Pretty much everything I say and do will be interpreted and responded to in ways I could never have predicted, especially if it reaches enough people.

However far my reach seems, and however serious my impact, it is always, always going to be a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things.

The circles I run in & the shift of culture within them are lightyears away from even the circles some of my friends run in. Whatever the culture here, the culture in a neighboring circle could be vastly different.

I very often don't have the knowledge, influence, or power to try to speak to every person, every culture, every issue, or every circle- or to predict what my words and actions might do. That's not a bad thing. It also neither absolves me of responsibility for my actions, nor means I'm insignificant.

I say that because I think it's important to have some perspective, and because at least personally, it's taught me that it's pretty pointless trying to act based on what kind of impact I think I'll have.

My advice is to evaluate this stuff based on what you actually believe. Incorporate some nuance. Choose what you say and what you do based on what seems right for that situation, and allow that decision & the ideas behind it to evolve over time. Be guided by your values, not other people's potential reactions.

So to take your callout culture question, for example: ask yourself, what makes a callout bad? When might they be useful? Why do people make callouts? Who is hurt when a callout is made? Is it worth it? Is there an alternative? What is that alternative? What does the ideal situation look like? What is reasonable to advocate for?

Those kinds of questions are what critical thinking is, and you'll probably start to uncover a lot of nuance once you start asking and answering them. Embrace it. It means you're giving the issue the care, complexity, and space it deserves.

#I know that's really ambiguous in a lot of ways and I'm sorry lmao #it's hard to dig into the core of this without writing like. an entire book about it yknow?#but this is the starting point I'd give you. and hopefully there's something helpful in there.#advice

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magnhild · 3 years

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the misconceptions and mis-framing of penny’s death

i hesitated to make this post here for a good while; partially because i didn’t want to right when people’s emotions were heightened from the finale, partially because i’m sure some people are going to argue with me here and i’m not looking for a debate- if you don’t agree, please just scroll past.

i’ve made a large number of posts of penny’s death on twitter before, but some were based on my own heightened emotions, and they were all scattered over the course of a couple of weeks, so i’m making this psot to kind of gather all of those thoughts together, the most important ones, at least.

a quick disclaimer before we start- don’t mistake this as all being ‘oh you must just not really care that much about penny’. it couldn’t be more untrue. penny is a comfort character of mine, and a kin to boot. her second death was also the only in the show to really impact me, seeing as i watched v1-3 within a couple of days and didn’t give myself enough time to get attatched to any characters (and i just didn’t personally care for clover all that much). so, please don’t assuming this is coming from a place of not caring- it’s coming from the opposite.

i’ve tried my very hardest to look at what people are saying when they call her death inherintly bad writing, and honestly, i can easily see the validity to some of their points. there were a lot of flaws in the scene.

it felt very rushed and blown-over, but then again, the entire episode did, and i have to wonder if it was done on purpose to emulate the chaos of war- you usually don’t get time to process anything. i mean, in rwby’s case, cinder was winning a fight, half of the characters that would’ve moured her were in the void, and the other half was in another kingdom. that left jaune, who had to focus on fighting cinder. it’s the same as when ruby wasn’t given time to mourn yang.

it also was weird to kill her off two episodes and probably only, like, 10-15 in-show minutes, after she’d been saved from death by gaining a human body. i think it would’ve happened anyway, given the many death flags she had, but i’d have expected- and liked- for them to wait a little longer. it would’ve been nice to see her adjust to having a human body, that’s for sure.

and i can fully agree that framing suicide as a good thing is not...a good thing. but, that brings me to the first point when i say ‘misconception’. because, penny’s dead wasn’t suicide at all. and i have no idea why people would frame it that way it the first place.

first of all, if we’re going to start labelling sacrifices as suicides, we’re going to have to say the same about pyrrha, vernal, and probably yang even though she didn’t actually die (but she thought she would). but being killed in a battle while protecting people...is sacrifice. penny asking jaune to kill her quicker, so that she could make sure the powers went to winter, was sacrifice. it also meant that she didn’t have to die slowly and painfully instead. penny was not suicidal. she has never been suicidal. to be suicidal is to want to die. penny never wanted to die- she only ever believed that it was her only choice to save the people she cared about and the city she was assigned to protect. in penny’s situation, i imagine you’d have a hard time finding another way out of all the siuations she’s been in too. it honestly feels like people are only calling it suicide instead of sacrifice to frame the scene as worse than it was, and that rubs me the wrong way.

and now you’re probably wondering, ‘but blaire, if she’d let jaune save her, she wouldn’t have died’. except that everyone who thinks that is missing one critical factor- she would have died anyway.

cinder’s blow was a killing one. from the moment she struck, she was already starting to steal the maiden’s power. a little longer, and she probably would have. but the one thing a lot of people seem to miss is that, even though jaune was there, he would not have been able to save her. firstly, his aura would have been extremely low at that point, considering we see it shatter in this episode; he probably would not have had enough to fill another person. he maybe could’ve sealed the wound a little before his aura would have broken, and then cinder would’ve just kept going with no problem.

but, even if he somehow had been able to- his aura recharges pretty quickly, after all- another critical factor is that there literally wasn’t time. penny said so herself. as i mentioned earlier, cinder was winning the fight agaisnt weiss. and we’ve seen how long it takes for jaune to heal someone. with weiss, he was lucky; there were several other people there to protect him and weiss while he did his work. with penny, there was only weiss. the moment cinder saw jaune healing her, that would’ve been it. with both of them defenselss, she probably would have killed jaune on the spot, given that weiss never would have been able to stop her on her own, and continued to take penny’s power. jaune or not, penny would have died. because penny didn’t kill herself, jaune didn’t kill her, cinder killed her. this was a murder.

bu then, what was all that about penny finally making her own choice? was it not to die?

no. of course it wasn’t. how i ever believed that myself at one point baffles me, because the more i look back, the more it’s very obvious that it wasn’t the case. it’s almost funny, actually, because my current self would’ve called myself from two weeks ago stupid for believeing such a thing.

as i mentioned, penny has never wanted to die. and, in this case, it wasn’t even that she felt she had to for the greator good; she was dying anyway. her choice had nothing to do with death. her choice was who to pass the winter maiden’s power onto. because, if jaune hadn’t used his sword and severe’d cinder’s connection, the power very likely would have gone to cinder instead. she’d have the relics and both the fall and winter powers, and she’d have been near-unstoppable otherwise.

even the wiki editors somehow saw this more clearly than i did, but like i said, it’s actually pretty obvious. once you get the weird idea that penny was suicidal out of your head, it’s clear to see that the choice she was talking about was to choose winter. and it’s a damn good thing she did, because winter probably would have died otherwise, and the evacuees would’ve been left defensless agaisnt the grimm- penny wouldn’t have been able to save them, as we’ve established.

the last thing that everyone should consider is that we literally have no idea what could happen next. it’s hard to write this off as anything when we don’t know what effect it will have on the story and characters, or- though it’s a stretch- if penny will even stay dead. she is, after all, based off a character who dies and is ressurected on a frequent basis. it was the same case with pyrrha and clover’s deaths; both were dismissed as bad writing based purely on assumptions, only for the auidence to find out later that both deaths actually served pretty reasonable purposes; pyrrhas’s to set the stakes and give all of the character’s a reason to keep fighting, and clover’s to demonstrate how loyal-to-a-fault the aceops were, and that ironwood had no problem sacrificing his own men.

in the end, to call this a good writing choice is probably a stretch. but, it wasn’t a bad one either. there were just too many factors that weren’t considered, or were misunderstood, and the aformentioned rushed feeling of the episode probably did not help with picking all this out. these are realizations it took me days and even weeks to come to. what’s instead important is to look at the situation from as many different angles as possible, and to keep in mind that we can’t really say anything for certain about the consequences of the event. nuance is important! espeiclaly in media critisism!

i genuinely hoped this has opened people’s eyes, even if they already didn’t consider it bad writing. seeing crwby, and this show, undermined so drastically, has been pretty hard for me to see, especially when some people are using it to call crwby morally wrong. i’ve even seen people say it was transphobic, because penny was trans-coded, while totally dismissing may, a canonically trans character. and i know that crwby are getting death threats again, which is bitterly disappointing and enraging. stop. and stop enabling this behaviour.

also, if you’ve read over all of this and still don’t personally like the decision, that’s fine and understandable. i can easily see why people still wouldn’t. but i think it’s important to remember that not liking a writing deicsion doesn’t necceserily make it a bad one. kind of like how me not liking any of star wars doesn’t make it a bad franchise.

thanks for reading, and please remember to just...be nice. and if you’re still mourning penny’s death, which is understandable, remember to look after your mental health! she would want you to!

#rwby #rwby essay #rwby analysis #rwby v8 #blaire rambles #my writing #penny polendina #rwby voume 8 #tw penny's death #tw character death #tw suicide

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tendercoretroglodyke · 3 years

Note

... I’m interested in legitimately gay Reese (I assume one piece of evidence is “look at what they’re doing and tell me you’re not gay”)

okay this is like 2 days late but this is why reese malcolminthemiddle is legitimately gay:

(side note: did anyone need a queer media thesis paper or something... I am willing to share lmao)

so none of this is like... rock solid evidence or anything but I need to believe at least one main character of a show is gay and/or trans to maintain interest and reese is the most plausible gay character. also it’s early 2000′s so he just gets a lot of vaguely homophobic jokes lmao

first of all, yes, the biggest piece of evidence he’s gay is those lines from that episode I quoted the other day--thinking malcolm is gay, he tries to show his support by giving him a gay porno: “’Naught Pool Boys 3!’ I watched 10 or 12 of these, and this one seems to have the most stuff you guys like.” and when malcolm says he isn’t gay, reese responds “Malcolm. Check out what those guys are doing in that movie, and THEN tell me you’re not gay.”-- so, 1) reese sat down and watched like a dozen gay porn movies to ““find a good one for his gay brother”” and 2) he thinks malcolm would reconsider his heterosexuality if he watched what was in that movie, implying that HE reconsidered his sexuality after watching that movie, or at the very least found it hot

in the same episode, the character tricking malcolm into thinking reese is gay lists the following as evidence: he obsesses over his hair and his looks, loves his gourmet cooking, has a bunch of magazines covered in comically muscular men, and that he’s angry and acts like a jerk because he’s “dealing with something weird and confusing.” now obviously, the obsession with hair/looks can be chalked up to the fact that he’s a teenage boy, and there’s nothing inherently gay about enjoying cooking. the dozen magazines of muscle-bound men could certainly be taken as gay evidence, though, and it IS established in the show that his entire bully persona is his way of masking his inner feelings and insecurities. there’s literally a whole episode where he & malcolm realize they have no friends because they act like little shits to push people away because they’re afraid of rejection and/or abandonment from their peers. they ostracize themselves before they can be ostracized by the other students at school. I could probably write a whole other essay on reese’s psyche tbqh lmao there’s a shocking amount there!!

of the brothers who are actually old enough to be attracted to girls (reese, malcolm, and francis), he shows the least interest. now bear with me here. you might be thinking, “well, yeah, it’s malcolm’s show, we’re not gonna see things from other people’s perspective!” but that is actually surprisingly untrue, the show is very much equally shown from each family members’ perspectives. starting about s2, when malcolm is in early middle school, he starts getting crushes on girls and pursuing them. francis goes after a few women in the first couple seasons and then marries a woman we see a lot throughout the show.

in the roughly... 130?? episodes I have watched so far, nearly all of reese’s “interest” in girls involve either: competition with malcolm, genuinely just liking her as a friend, or some completely ulterior motive. the only exception to this I can think of is in the early seasons where he has a crush on a cheerleader and tries to get on her good side by joining the cheerleading squad, which the writers clearly set up as a way to make gay jokes about reese. let me give you a few examples of his relationships with girls

the first relationship we see him in is with a “stupid girl” that malcolm tried (and failed) to date, and the main reason they get together is that they think on the same wavelength and genuinely seem to enjoy hanging out. they take breaks from their bro chats to make out every once in a while. eventually he gets her to break up with him because he doesn’t want to go to the school dance with her (he doesn’t want to go at all). years later, he’s dating some girl we meet for like 5 minutes, before he goes to confess to her that she’s the first girl he’s ever loved. she then breaks up with him. he’s sad, but taking it fairly well. he’s about to leave when he sees malcolm hiding under the bed, and learns that he stole his girlfriend. he then runs away to join the army. he was clearly MUCH more upset that his brother stole his girlfriend than he was that his girlfriend broke up with him. there are many more instances of him and malcolm competing for a girl’s affections, and he seems mostly motivated by the competition itself.

in addition to “stupid girl,” he also manufactures an “attraction” to his female army buddy in the last season. the premise of this episode is that his old army buddy (a girl he play-wrestles with and insults like he would his own brothers) comes to visit him, and malcolm convinces reese that she’s attracted to him, and that reese’s nervousness at learning that fact is proof he’s in love with her. there’s a misunderstanding where reese asks her if she has certain “feelings” and she says she does, but what she ACTUALLY means is that she has a crush on reese’s MOM. she’s a lesbian. reese later propositions her (saying he’s saved his virginity for this--he’s probably about 18 here), and when she says omg no im gay, he is HUGELY relieved they can go back to being friends. CLASSIC mlm/wlw friendship moment.

there’s an episode where these cute girls pick up reese (& nerds) to kiss in front of their boyfriends to make them jealous. reese is all for it, and when malcolm argues that it’s not worth his dignity and the beating he’ll get from the girl’s boyfriend, reese counters that that’s WHY he wants to do this--he’s completely invisible at school, and thinks getting beaten up for kissing some guy’s girlfriend will at least make him known around school. at no point does he indicate he’s actually attracted to this girl, and when it comes time to kiss her, he finds the weakest excuse to run away at the last minute.

im not gonna list all of these but there’s more lmao

the following is a random assortment of one-off gay jokes and out-of-context lines with gay reese implications, often homophobically bc its early 2000′s writing:

says “I’m gay” to a girl to give malcolm a better shot at her

(again in competition with malcolm) tries to flirt with a girl by spraying milk in her face as the punchline to a joke, which is. well. hm. self-sabotaging, to say the least!!

Reese: “Do you think it’s right to totally change who you are and turn your back on EVERYTHING you believe in, just to impress a hot guy??” [his dad gives a long, blank stare, before asking:] “...Burt Reynolds hot, or Sting hot?”

“YEAH I like clouds! I call them sky kittens :)” (I just think that one’s sweet!)

“Look, Christie, here’s the thing. When I first met you, I was just messing around. But we’ve gotten so close that, now... I really like you! I can’t keep this up anymore. I’m not the person you think I am. I’ve been pretending since the day I met you. It’s so hard having to constantly cover my tracks to keep my story straight... and I don’t WANT to anymore! I’m tired of living this lie! I’m done with it. I’m sorry.”

he catfishes some guy to blackmail him, but is implied to continue the flirtation even after the catfishing/blackmail is revealed

reese is, technically, married to a man. this particular plot point is played as a joke and manages to be both racist and homophobic, so I won’t go into it. but I believe he is still married to that man. technically.

reese takes care of a huge box full of caterpillars until they pupate and become beautiful butterflies. I feel like there’s some kind of gay coming out metaphor here somewhere.

I think there are a couple other times where he comments on a guy’s attractiveness but I couldn’t find specific instances.

In conclusion: Reese is a deeply repressed gay kid who was socialized SO thoroughly as an early 2000′s straight boy that, despite his attraction for men and his obvious compulsory heterosexuality, he still cannot admit to himself that he is gay even as he enters adulthood. Furthermore, his subconscious frustration about this fact is turned outward to form the “schoolyard bully” costume he uses to mask his insecurities and keep others from getting too close to him.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. I could be convinced to come back for another talk about how Dewey is trans or about how each and every member of that family is neurodivergent in entirely different ways. Assuming anyone has read this far in the first place!!

#sorry this was so long lmao I legit spent 2 hours on this #I have 2 modes: not doing the thing and overdoing the thing #hey anon if you actually see this I'd appreciate a quick message saying so lmao I'd hate to write all this only for you to miss it #I'll probably rb sometime tomorrow at least #also liz if you're reading this i was GONNA add a bit about francis' gay potential like you mentioned but I ran out of steam so remind me t #i think reese has the most gay potential tho #mitm #malcolm in the middle #anonymous #Anonymous

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softtransbf · 3 years

Text

Mister Nice Guy, part 2

part one

Summary: Shit hits the fan, and the rest of the BAU is done with it.

Word Count: 3523

Reader: he/him trans man, no physical description

Warnings: case involving targeting gay people, brief mention of a child abduction case, coming out/anxiety of experiencing transphobia (no actual transphobia though), alcohol, swearing

@aleccolocco (sorry it took so long to finish lol)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"No, that doesn't make any sense at all, doctor!" you spat his title. "He's not jealous of these couples, killing what he can't have, or a homophobe, punishing gay people for being happy. He's putting an end to their unhappy relationships. He sees it as mercy." Over the months, your cold war with Reid turned into outright conflict, and tonight, alone in the police station in Oregon, was no exception. Hotchner had tasked the two of you with presenting the preliminary profile the next morning, and it was going as well as conversations ever went.

"We have no evidence that he knows they're unhappy, though. All of his victims are clearly happy in their relationships," Reid challenged.

You rolled your eyes and scoffed. "Please. One look at their social media and it's obvious that the relationships are on the rocks."

"Where do you get that? All I see are typical happy relationships. Selfies, checking into special events together, posts about kind things one does for the other. Nothing indicating a troubled relationship to me."

"The gentlemen doth protest too much. They're painting an overly happy painting on social media, hoping that some of that happiness will actually become real. They're desperate for the relationship to work."

"Let's say you're right. I don't think you are, but let's pretend for the sake of trying to see your logic through. Why? Why would they be so desperate to save a failing relationship?"

"God, straight men just don't fucking get it!" You went to grab a file, missing his small flinch. "You don't understand how limited the dating pool for men who are into men is. Look at the most recent couple in particular. The most lovey-dovey on social media, and got the most brutal deaths."

"Yes, because they were the happiest. My theory holds," Reid interrupted.

"No. Look, this guy put way more out there on social media than his partner, and look at the pictures he posted. Look how forced his smile is, look at the body language. He needs this relationship to work, because dating as a gay man is one thing, dating as a gay trans man is almost impossible. Having to start over and deal with transphobia over and over again is worse than being in a bad relationship. In his eyes, I mean." Shit, the first person I come out to on this team cannot be Spencer fucking Reid. He doesn't deserve the honor.

"That was yesterday. We haven't gotten the autopsy report yet. How could you possibly know that he's trans?"

"Testosterone vials and needles in the bathroom. Neither of them are old enough for a cis man to reasonably have issues that require testosterone injections. It's HRT, hormone replacement therapy."

"Even if you're right, your conclusion still seems like a much bigger jump than mine, that the killer sees the relationships as happy and is lashing out at that, be it from jealousy or homophobia."

"Whatever. You'll see tomorrow, when we talk to the M.E., that he was trans, and that fact backs me up. I am absolutely right about this, and you will eat your words. Then I will present my theory, and you can choke on yours."

"We? You anticipate us spending more time together?" He raised an eyebrow.

"I meant 'we' as in the team, asshat. The world doesn't revolve around you. Mine sure as hell doesn't. I'm gonna go back to the hotel, write my own damn preliminary profile, and try to get some fucking sleep. Clearly we won't agree on this."

"We don't ever agree on anything," he pointed out.

"Not true. We agree that we dislike each other and can't get along. Good night, doctor." You turned and walked away, not giving him a chance to respond.

This man is going to be the death of me, he thought as he watched you walk away.

The autopsy report came in the next day, and you were right. The tech team also found a locked notes app on his phone that catalogued his unhappiness and fear of leaving. You presented your preliminary profile to the team. Reid didn't even argue; he just sat in silence, leaving the room as soon as you were finished. Never one to pass up a chance to gloat for beating him, you offered to get coffee for the team, got everyone's order, and left shortly behind him.

You were expecting to catch up to him, his impossibly long legs be damned. You weren't expecting him to be waiting for you. He pulled you into an empty interrogation room and pushed you up against a wall, his face just inches from yours. It was only a moment before being flustered by the closeness and those goddamn eyes were replaced by anger.

"What the FUCK, Reid?"

"What game are you playing, Y/N? What game are we playing? What's your endgame?" He spoke quickly and softly, but there was an intensity in his voice that had you captivated.

"I'm the one playing games?" You pushed him back, away from you. "You're the one who decided to hate me before we even met. When I transferred, all I wanted was to do a good job and fit in with the team. But quite literally from the minute I walked through the door, you'd decided you hate me. Turnabout is just fair play, gorgeous." Oh, fuck.

"Gorgeous?" You walked past him to the other side of the room, running a hand through your hair and turning your back on him. "Fine. Yeah, okay? I wanted approval from the brilliant and handsome Doctor Spencer Reid. In a way that's respectful of your heterosexuality, of course." You turned around and faced him again. "But that doesn't matter, because you made it clear you wanted nothing to do with me right off the bat."

"What makes you think I'm straight?" He's fucking with me, now that that cat is out of the bag. Great. Fucking cishet men. Even he's no different. Thank god he still thinks I'm cis.

"Garcia mentioned in her newbie-run-down that you're 'awkward, but in a cute way, especially around women'. Plus, she mentioned that Emily is bi, leaving everyone else implied straight as even the best cishet allies are wont to do. And as we both know, Penelope knows everything.

And before you make the hearsay argument I can see forming in that brilliant head of yours, I've heard and seen too much about your impeccable memory to assume you don't remember when we all went to the bar after my first case. I was unabashedly Queer, friendly flirting with Derek and calling out cishet bullshit. When I did the latter, you literally rolled your eyes and walked away. Which is, funnily enough, some cishet bullshit.

JJ said you were just going through a thing and things would get better, but they just got worse. I'm not going to ask you to spill whatever was going on, because it's not my business, but god damn, dude. Why did you hate me so much so quickly?"

"You asked JJ about me?" He took a few steps towards you, a small smile on his face.

"That's the part you focused on? Jesus fucking Christ. Yes, I asked her about why you decided to hate me before we even met. Whatever. I hope you got whatever you were looking for by pulling me in here. I'm done. Done with this conversation, done with whatever has been going on with you and us since the day I transferred." You turned to leave, but he grabbed your arm. It was barely more than a light touch, but you let it stop you.

"Y/N. I can't-" he sighed. "God, you make my head spin. I can't organize my thoughts enough to say what I want to. JJ was right, there was something I had to work through, and I guess you'd made up your mind about me before I figured it out. It isn't an excuse for how I treated you, just an explanation. As for the more recent development of arguments… I guess I read a subtext that wasn't there. I could never dislike you, let alone hate you. I am truly sorry for- for all of it." With three long strides, he was out the door.

Make his head spin? What subtext? Since when is he unable to say what's on his mind? And what was that about not disliking me? All we've done since we met is argue or ignore each other. Why else would he act like that? Why do I even care? Why am I so knotted up about what he's thinking and feeling? Whatever. Fuck him, and not in the fun way. I've gotta go get coffee for the team. As you were getting the coffee, you couldn't get the memory of his face, so close to yours, to stop playing in your head.

The rest of the case was mostly as normal, but there was an energy between you and Spencer that was distant like when you joined the team, but there was something else to it that you couldn't quite put your finger on. It made you a little bit sad, though, for reasons you didn't understand.

"I love you, Y/N. I love you so much. I pulled away from you because it terrified me how much I loved you from the moment you walked through the door that first day. Being around you, even when we were arguing, made me feel alive in a way I never had before. You're all I think about, you're all I could ever want. I love you."

"I… I love you too." You didn't know which one of you moved, maybe you both did, but in an instant, you were kissing Spencer Reid, and you couldn't have been happier.

You woke up with a start, breathing heavily. You looked around; you were in your room, home alone, and it was 3:37 am. What the hell was that?

Four hours later, you trudged through the door of the BAU office, venti red-eye in hand. You made it about ten steps before Derek had his arm around your shoulders.

"Whoa there, hot stuff. Rough night?" You tried to shake him off, but he wouldn't budge, so you just kept walking, making him go with you towards your desk.

"So not your business, Derek. You being open with your personal life doesn't mean we all have to be open like that with ours."

"Personal life, huh? So who is he? More importantly, how was he, and should we expect more mornings like this in the future?" You rolled your eyes and playfully shoved him away. You'd reached your desk, so you sat on top of it, facing him. As you did, you made eye contact with Spencer, who was well within earshot. His face was unreadable, and you weren't sure why him hearing Morgan tease you like that upset you. It never had before.

"No, Derek. There's no one. Just some nightmares. Nothing major; I'll be fine by tomorrow." You got off your desk, sat in your chair, and logged into your laptop. Derek whistled and walked away without another word, shaking his head.

You tried to focus on the paperwork you needed to get done, but you couldn't stop thinking about that dream. The feeling of his lips on yours… it felt so real.

This is ridiculous. Love? We don't even like each other. Well… there was the stuff he was saying yesterday- 'I could never dislike you, let alone hate you', and some sort of subtext? But not disliking someone is a far cry from love. Plus, he's straight, so this is all absurd. And even if he DID have feelings for me, I sure as hell don't return them. I mean, maybe he's not as awful as I've thought, especially if he wasn't coming from a place of dislike. And he really is very pretty. Those eyes… Wait, what the fuck? This is all fucking ridiculous. I just need to get a full night's sleep tomorrow, and all this weirdness will be gone.

You took a giant gulp of your coffee, shook your head, and ran your fingers through your hair. Fortunately, Hotchner called a team meeting, forcing your attention to other things.

While no case could ever be described as 'normal', this case was pretty cut and dry, once you figured out what you were looking for. No dramatic twist, no tense showdown at his arrest. There weren't many cases like that, but you were very glad that this one was. You never sleep well when on a case, and no matter what you did, you couldn't shake that dream, the butterflies it left in your stomach every time you looked at him, and the strange disappointment when, unlike before that moment in Oregon, he wasn't looking at you.

Two more weeks passed. The energy between you and Spencer, whatever force it was that had drawn you together to argue again and again, was gone. You were polite to each other, and cooperated as necessary, but didn't do more than the bare minimum when it came to interacting with each other. Your interactions were cold and low-spirited. So you were so glad for a fun night out with Penelope, Emily, and JJ.

"So, Y/N, things seem… different… between you and Spencer these days. Did something happen?" Emily's tone made it clear that the three of them had intended to bring this up long before the plan to get drinks was even made. "I appreciate y'all waiting until I had a couple of drinks in me at least before going here. I guess we just got tired of fighting? I don't know. I can't figure out what's going on in that brilliant head of his. I thought I at least knew where I stood with him, even though it was purely adversarial, but I think I was wrong. But then that leaves me with no idea what he thinks of me or why I care so damn much."

"Really? No idea at all?" JJ asked. "I remember walking by a closed door in the police station in Oregon and hearing the word 'gorgeous' being thrown around." "Oh my god. You heard that?" You buried your face in your hands, and they all laughed.

"Yeah, I did, but only that one word. I'd figured you were on the phone with someone, but then you and Spence both started acting sad. I wasn't sure, of course, that you were talking to him until just now."

"Fuck. Okay, yeah. I think he's pretty. But I'm absolutely not alone in that. Derek calls him Pretty Boy, for goodness' sake. Appreciating someone's beauty doesn't have to mean anything more."

"Y/N, really? After everything we've been through together, you're gonna lie to us like this? Whatever happened, you've both been miserable since, and it's throwing the whole team off balance."

"What do you want me to say, Penelope? That I'm in love with him? He's pretentious and a know-it-all and a nerd and funny and kind and gorgeous and oh my God. I think I'm in love with him." The three women clapped and cheered.

"Finally, you get there! Took you long enough." Emily winked. "So, what's the plan now?"

"Keep this shit between us until my feelings go away. Even if he wasn't straight, I wouldn't risk fucking things up by telling him how I felt. As it is, I stand no chance in hell, so I'm just gonna write this one off as another straight guy I've fallen for and try to move on."

"Y/N, if you tell him-" Penelope started.

"No. You, more than anyone, know why I can't even entertain the idea of trying to be with him. I can't set myself up for that kind of pain. Not here, not where things are so good." You looked at all three of them. "I know that your intentions were good, but I just can't do this. I'm sorry." You grabbed your coat and left.

Your interactions with Spencer changed yet again. Now that you knew you loved him, you couldn't help yourself from being warmer towards him. As the weeks passed, you got closer. After three weeks, you considered him to be a good friend, not that that made things any less painful. You were just hoping that Penelope, Emily, and JJ were going to respect your wishes and drop the subject of your feelings for him.

[From: Penelope]: round table room ASAP

Shit. The last time you'd gotten that text from Penelope, the team left on a serial child abduction case 30 minutes later. So, despite it being your day off, you ran out the door and were there with your go bag in 15 minutes.

But no one else was there. No files on the table, nothing to indicate that there was a new case. You pulled out your phone to call Penelope, but then you heard a commotion outside the door- you'd closed it behind you.

"No, Derek, wait, I don't-"

"Can it, Pretty Boy, and thank me later." Derek opened the door, pushed Spencer into the room, winked at you, and shut the door, all in about 3 seconds.

"Spencer. Um, hi. Is the rest of the team not going to join us? Garcia's text seemed pretty urgent." You tucked your phone into your pocket.

"I don't think so, since I just heard Morgan barricade the door." He tried to open the door and failed.

"Oh my god they're Parent Trapping us. I'm gonna kill them."

Spencer tilted his head, confused. "Parent Trapping?"

"Oh my god have you not seen any of the Parent Trap movies? Were you living under a rock in 1998?" "I was seventeen and working on my first doctorate, so pretty much, yeah," he laughed. You couldn't help but laugh, too, as you firmly ignored how his smile made you absolutely melt.

"Fair enough. The '61 one is good too, but the '98 Lindsay Lohan one is Iconic for good reason. Anyway. The point is, they've locked us in here and won't let us out until we have a conversation."

"Just a conversation? Or do they want us to talk about something in particular?" He took a seat at the table.

"I- yeah, they have a particular topic in mind. I'm so sorry. This is my fault. I was tipsy and said things I should have just kept to myself. I thought they'd respected my wishes and left well enough alone, but clearly they didn't. And they won't let us out of here until I tell you-" you hesitated.

"Tell me what?" He leaned forward, and part of you swore you saw hope in his beautiful brown eyes. You looked at the floor, avoiding them.

"Tell you that I… have feelings for you. Romantic, cheesy, butterflies-in-my-stomach feelings. I don't know why they want me to tell you this. We've just gotten to a good place as friends, and you're straight, and-"

Somehow you missed the sound of him getting up and taking the few steps over to you, because you practically jumped out of your skin when his hands were suddenly on your shoulders.

"Y/N. Please, darling, look at me?" Bewildered by the endearment, you did, and his smile was blinding. "I'm not straight. I'm bi, and I think part of me has been in love with you since your first day at the BAU. The thing JJ said I was working through? The potential problems of having feelings for a coworker. For you. As soon as you walked through that door", he pointed and then took both your hands in his, "I loved you. The night at the bar? I was rolling my eyes at myself for how much I wanted to kiss you, and I walked away to stop myself from doing something reckless. I love you, Y/N. Can I do something reckless?"

"I'm trans," you blurted. "I hope that doesn't change anything, but it's something you should know. If knowing that I'm trans changes things, now is the time for you to say something. If it's a problem and it blows up later, it might actually kill me. Because I love you, too. So much. If it doesn't change anything, then please, Spencer, kiss me."

The words were barely out of your mouth before his lips were on yours. You weren't sure how long you were kissing before you were interrupted by cheers from the other side of the door. "Shit, Spencer, they're going to be the worst about this, aren't they?" You were a bit embarrassed by how breathy your voice was, but you were too happy to really care.

"Oh yeah. We're not going to get a moment that's just us in this building ever again. Do you want to get it over with and face them, or would you prefer we stay in this moment a bit longer?"

"What do you think, doctor?" you asked, pulling him in for another kiss.

#spencer reid x male reader #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #spencer reid fanfiction #Criminal Minds Fanfiction #otp: pretty boys

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thedeadflag · 3 years

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I’m so confused! I know it’s not your responsibility to educate me but in your post bringing awareness to the negative aspects of g!p fanfic you say

“Why do these g!p characters rarely if ever involve experiences reflective of trans/intersex women? Why are they so utterly cis and perisex-washed? Why do nearly all writers have zero idea that tucking is a thing? “

Doesn’t that answer your original question? The reason they don’t reflect those groups of ppl is bc g!p isn’t trying to represent those groups of people or else it WOULD be transphobic to limit them to one specific fetish right? it just refers to a canonically female character with the addition of a penis (I don’t argue the name “g!p” should be changed bc that’s a no brainer why that could be offensive). But the fanfic in general, how could it be harmful? I’ve noticed in my time reading it as a non binary person it’s given me great gender euphoria reading a reader insert where reader has a penis while being a femme representing person just bc that’s a reflection of my personal experience. I don’t see anywhere where g!p fanfic ever references or tries to emulate the experiences of trans or intersex people so how could it be offensive?

Sorry this is way too long I’m just very confused

I'm going to try and lay this out as politely as I can. It's after 3:30 in the morning here, so this could be a bit disjointed and rambling. More under the cut:

In real life, ~99.999999% of women with penises are trans women. Which puts us in a tricky situation of (A) being the only women with penises around for media involving women with penises to reflect back on, and (B) being in the lovely position of precious few people actually having had meaningful real life exposure to trans women, meaning (C.) all those stigmas and all that misinformation are going to purely affect us and it’s going to be uncritically gobbled up by the masses, since they don’t have any meaningful information to fill in the blanks with instead.

When we peer into the depths of femslash fandoms and see all these folks who aren't trans women writing about women with penises, and using cis women’s bodies as platforms for these penises, it’s the simplest thing.

I mean, some of those folks might actually be struggling and confused about why they’re into it, what the real appeal is, why they get off on it, why they might have some feelings about wanting a penis of their own…

…but from our vantage point, it’s really easy to gauge 99.99% of the time. We can generally see valid, legitimate yearning to have a penis pretty damn easily in a piece of art/writing, and we can also see when people who create this media are just hung up on a boatload of baggage and fetishization.

And 99.9% of the time, the creators are just hung up on a boatload of baggage and fetishization, and see trans women’s bodies as a perfect vehicle to tap into that, generally due to deeply held cissexist views that link us and our bodies and genitals directly to cis men, to maleness. As if penises are rooted in maleness and masculinity (which is absolutely not true).

And I have sympathy for NB folks (certainly TME ones who have reached out to me in the past about this) who might be struggling with that, but just because they’re non-binary, it doesn’t mean they get to appropriate our bodies and reproduce transmisogyny and trans fetishization in their attempts at feeling better. Shit doesn't work like that.

Because again, the only women with penises in this world, essentially, are trans women. Meaning any woman with a penis in media is a trans woman, implicitly or explicitly. Meaning that when people who aren’t us want to write us, intent doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter if it’s just the writer’s fantasy, it’s still going to attach a variety of messages directly onto us.

And more often than not, due to cissexism, those messages are linking us to maleness, to toxic masculinity, etc..

While I do want to believe they're a fairly small minority, a lot of NB folks in fandom spaces like g!p characters in part because they see penises as male and the rest of the body as female and think that duality is interesting and would be comfortable, and is a nice balance of “both worlds” or a nice position “between male and female”, but that’s a wholly cissexist, transmisogynistic view to have, and it’s one that absolutely cannot be supported without directing sexual violence against trans women and invalidating our entire existence. Certainly not all NB folks into g!p like it for that reason, but holy shit a fair bit of them do and it’s weird and wrong and fetishistic.

g!p emerged from the idea that women can't have penises, and drew on the transmisogyny and cissexism of tr*nny porn to structure that frame of desire and the core patterns and trends within these works. It's always been trans women's bodies being used as a vehicle, whether or not the writers of these fics are explicitly aware of it, because the trope itself still holds true to its original patterns and cissexism. It's not the name that's the problem, it's the content; changing the name would be a surface level change that wouldn't affect anything.

g!p objectifies women with penises (trans women). A woman with a penis is more than just a woman with a penis, but the use of the term and trope is literally to (A) remind people that women don't have penises, otherwise the g!p term wouldn't be needed if people actually accepted women with penises as women, and that (B) this is a story centered on a scenario where there's a woman with a penis, with key focus on that genitalia specifically. it's the drawing point, it's the lure, it's what everything is centered on. It is a means for folks to write lesbian sex while also writing about penis in vagina and getting off to it. It's also no surprise that the penises so clearly emulate cis men's penises in these works, that is by design.

As I’ve said many times before, if you’re only writing trans women’s bodies to showcase cis men’s penises, you’re not respecting the womanhood of trans women, and this ultimately has nothing inherent to do with penis-owning women, it has to do with (cis) men and their penises, because trans women are just being used as a vehicle to emulate them. When NB folks do the same thing, and imagining themselves as those g!p characters, they are ultimately embodying cis men, their maleness, and often toxic masculinity, in a way that feels safe and distanced enough for them, a shell that they often code as cisnormative due to their own unprocessed cissexism.

And trans women don’t deserve that.

You seem caught in the idea that if something doesn't directly perfectly reflect trans women, that it can't be linked to us., which ignores the long long history of media being used to misrepresent marginalized peoples and cast us in insulting, dehumanizing lights. You show a lack of understanding of the g!p trope and the long history of its usage across a few other names, even if the content and patterns remained the same. It shows a lack of understanding of tr*nny porn and transmisogynistic stigmas, which the trope draws heavily from.

I think we can all recognize that most 'lesbian' prn that's made does not represent actual lesbians, it's overwhelmingly catered to the male gaze. We can also recognize that this category of porn has led to a lot of harassment towards lesbians from cis men who at the very least want to believe lesbians are just like they are in the porn he watches, that lesbians just need the right man. Lesbians are being used as a vehicle for a fantasy that was created externally to them, and doesn't represent their realities.

It's the same kind of situation here. The way g!p fics play out overwhelmingly doesn't reflect trans women's realities, but they are inherently linked to us regardless, as we're the vehicles for those fantasies, as unrealistic and harmful as they may be.

g!p characters are built in our fetishized image that’s based on a deeply cissexist misunderstanding of us, of the gender binary, and of bodies in general.

I mean, when 99% of cis folks don’t understand how trans women tend to be sexually intimate… when they don’t understand what dysphoria is and how it works and how it can affect us physically and emotionally…when they don’t understand almost any of our lived experiences…then they’re not going to be able to accurately portray us even if they wanted to.

And I’ve read enough g!p fics where authors wrote those as a means of trying to add trans rep, but because they didn’t understand us at all, it wasn’t remotely representative, and it was ultimately fetishistic, even if there was an undercurrent of sympathy and a lack of following certain common g!p patterns there that differentiated it from the norm.

If g!p fics were at all about reducing dysphoria or finding euphoria, then it wouldn’t be explicitly tied up in the performance of very specific sex acts, very specific forms of misogyny and toxic masculinity, very specific forms of sexual violence and exertion of sexual power, etc.

But it is.

So the notion that creating g!p fics helps NB folks? Nope. It CAN certainly prevent/delay those folks from facing a whole boatload of shit they’ve internalized, and coddle them at the expense of trans women.

Because if it was really about bodies and dysphoria/euphoria, there would be a considerable push (allying with out own) to end our fetishization and to represent us in and out of sexual contexts with accuracy, respect, and care. Because they wouldn’t care what sex acts were performed and what smut beats were hit, they’d just want to see someone with a body like their ideal being loved, being sexual, connecting, being authentic, etc. Which very much is not the case in the overwhelming majority of g!p fics. That's what we want, and it's not what g!p writers want, it's nothing they give a shit about.

Like, a ways back I started doing random pulls of g!p fics from various fandoms and assessing them for certain elements to provide some quantitative clarity. I started on The 100 here, and did OuaT here. Never finished the 100 one since the results leveled out and stayed pretty consistent as the sample size grew, so I didn't really see the point in continuing any further after about 140 fics when the data wasn't really changing much at all.

Lastly, media influences people. I've read countless posts and comments from people who use fanfiction as a sex ed guide, in essence. Which is ridiculous, but I also know sex ed curricula often isn't very accurate or extensive in a lot of areas, so people take what they can get. Representation in media can be powerful, and when it overwhelmingly misrepresents people, that's also powerful. Just because fandom is a bit smaller than televised media, it doesn't make that impact any lesser, certainly not for those whose primary media intake is within fandom.

Virtually all trans representation in f/f fanfiction is misrepresentative of us. That has a cost in how people understand us, how people react to us, and how people treat us. Not just online, but in physical spaces, and in intimate settings.

I invite you to read that post you referenced again, or perhaps this longer one which is a response to a trans guy who seemed to feel something similar to you with this trope.

All I can do is lay it out there and try to explain this. It's up to you how you handle this. All I know is whenever there's a big surge in g!p in a fandom, trans women generally leave it en masse, because it's a very clear and consistent message that we're not valued, respected, and that people value getting off on us over finding community with us.

#g!p #creative responsibility #trans fetishization #trans representation #intersex fetishization #intersex representation #genitals tw #genital mention tw #intersexism #transmisogyny #fandom meta #long post #cissexism #t slur tw #media representation #media literacy

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gayregis · 3 years

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1/2 ngl i think many western witcher book fans make the series out to be way more progressive than it actually is. part of it is mistranslation ofc, like for example with the 'man was not made for monogamy' bit where the use of singular man is rlly misleading and it should be "a man" or "men aren't" bc originally it's just dandelion being a sexist cheating dick and not some openminded progressive the way ive seen this interpreted sometimes, But

2/2 there's a lot of plainly bad takes out there that i feel are partially an issue of just worldviews and circumstances. like obv its not some Enormous difference and im not saying that "hurr durr westerners Bad and Stupid" or whatever but in regard to stuff like lgbt issues or coding or feminism ive seen so many bonkers horrible takes that like. with my experience as a closeted polish trans homo are truly fucking concerning in how naive they are

(fucking 3/2 bc i can't count) but like. just from the top of my head the godawful girlboss femdom #feminism shit ppl pull with yennefer bc they cant admit shes not all that well written and that shes borderline abusive at times, people trying to make sapkowski out to be pro-lgbt which is fucking baffling with the blatant homophobic storylines/writing, the "GERALT IS CODED X" shit when hes a blatant cishet whiteman power/oppression fantasy rolled up in one like. idk im really tired and its a lot

(4/2 ok i SWEAR im done im sorry) like. i think what im trying to say is that i feel like theres a lot of like. kinda rose-colored-glasses type of naivety and a lack of understanding of how the general reality of life for women, lgbt people etc. is way different in poland and further east than it is in the states or britain or even fucking germany, so people just take very blatant bigotry and uncritically try to twist it to fit their western uwu pseudofeminism and whatnot

no, LITERALLY THIS. i think [mostly western] progressives on tumblr especially want and long to see progressive messages or representation where there simply are not any, or where the messages that are there are largely milquetoast centrist and not actually saying anything radical. (this post i made is more specific to an aspect topic but it voices some of my opinions on it)

i think it’s of course fine to have separate interpretations of the characters / rewritten characters in your mind that you appreciate, but in order to do that you need to engage with the source material and acknowledge the reality of what is written on the page (for instance, what you said about yennefer being a #girlboss when in canon she struggles with characterization at times and especially in the short stories comes off poorly, almost abusive, and her and geralt’s relationship is definitely not some kind of #goals).

i think that there are some redeeming features and it’s not all bad, everything is very grey - for instance, sapkowski wrote yennefer poorly when it came to her first introduction to ciri, but then her training of ciri that immediately follows it is much better. and geralt is a power fantasy in his heterosexuality and protagonist-isms, but spends the saga in turmoil over trying to protect ciri because he’s a good father. everything kind of blends together and does not just mean ONE thing only, because it’s understandable by many people. for instance, geralt being mopey and upset that he’s abnormal can be related to by MANY different types of people.

i think the issue is when people state that characters are definitely “coded” one way or another (not like, actual canon relationships, like saying ciri is gay because she had relations with mistle... that’s a can of sapkowski-worms for another day... i’m saying, for example, arguing that dandelion is intended to be coded as gay because he wears colorful clothes or something like this). i don’t think it’s very valuable at all to look at the content and say “sapkowski intended THIS,” because i don’t find much value in what mr. centrist sells-the-rights-to-netflix had to say. i find value in what you have to say, personally, and what it means to you.

sorry to speak about my minor again for like 0.2 seconds (it’s relevant) but it reminds me a lot of posts on here about ancient greece or rome that are like “ancient greeks and romans were GAY, we have ALWAYS BEEN HERE!!” like you really want to claim kinship with the violent imperialists who practice pedastry...? or posts claiming that X female figure, such as sappho, was a feminist. we call it an anachronistic interpretation: it’s a completely different time period, context, culture, and intention than what we understand in a modern sense. you can’t project your modern and western culture onto ancient greece and rome, because they are ancient societies.

similarly, i don’t think that you can take american feminism from 2020 and apply it to a fantasy series written by a polish man in the 1990s. you may reinterpret the characters how you so choose, of course you will have favorite characters and appreciate specific ones for specific things... but you cannot say that sapkowski’s intentions were specifically this or that as you understand them yourself in your own life, and you cannot do this with very many authors unless you are the author yourself.

specifically for the witcher because as you said, there is a cultural misunderstanding: “[a] type of naivety and a lack of understanding of how the general reality of life for women, lgbt people etc. is way different in poland and further east than it is in the states or britain or even fucking germany.”

i think in the english-speaking progressive social media circles currently for a few years there has been this very big hyperfocus on good representation for people of color, for women, for lgbt people, and in this quest for representation many are willing to overlook blatant bigotry in hopes of claiming another character ‘for the gays’ or whatever. for example dandelion hating on yennefer in a little sacrifice because she is old - i’m pretty sure sapkowski didn’t write this because he intended it to be like dandelion is gay and jealous of her! you can headcanon that if you like, but don’t claim that’s what it is and nothing else, because you need to acknowledge the misogyny present there.

i think it’s dangerous because you end up parading the original content around like it’s fantasic and progressive when it’s really not. i encourage people to have lgbt headcanons if they choose, but you really shouldn’t be saying it was sapkowski’s 100% intention to make this character X or Y because you really must take the writing into context with the author’s biases, life, culture, setting...

#ask #anon #the witcher #sorry for bolding statements but since this is a long post i wanted to bold what i thought were the most important points

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stargazing-enby · 3 years

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Hello Knower of All Things Queer! (Like seriously, I love you and your blog for all the info lol) Please could you tell me what the hell queerbaiting is?

Thanks! 🐸

I'm really glad you like my blog! I learn so much through the things I reblog, so I'm glad others do too 😊

I think the urban dictionary and Wikipedia definitions are pretty good tbh! It's basically a marketing technique where mass media creators add subtle cues that their characters may be queer but never actually make them canonically queer. That way, they can attract queer fans and allies—who are basically starved for representation—with the "promise" that there will eventually be canon rep, while also avoiding the wrath of their queerphobic audience.

Sherlock and Merlin from the BBC are the most well known examples, at least that I know of. I've only seen the term queerbaiting used in the context of hinting at romance/attraction between characters of the same gender, but I'm sure this also happens with trans characters as well as with other identities.

The thing is, when shows, movies, etc. hint at something that is accepted in society, like a straight* relationship, the audience doesn't need to question or analyse it. It's understood by everyone that those hints will follow through and those characters will be some brand of canon. Even if they don't end up together, their relationship will definitely be explored in some way. Why would those hints be there if not? That'd be poor storytelling.

But that's not true for things that aren't acceptable by society's standards, and in particular for queer themes. Following the example of ships, if two men or two women share intense looks, have moments of vulnerability with each other, or clearly display intense emotions for the other, there is absolutely no guarantee that anything beyond that will ever happen; that the characters will even acknowledge those emotions. In fact, in fandom spaces, anyone who DARES point out the clear chemistry between the characters—which is often being portrayed in the same ways as it's usually shown between straight characters—will have to face the wrath of all the homophobic fans of that media, who'll tell them they're trying to turn a good friendship into a queer one for their own personal agenda.

This happened with Princess Bubblegum and Marceline in Adventure Time, for example. They didn't become canon until the last episode of the show, where they kissed on the lips. Think about it. Through the show, it had been shown that the shirt Marceline gave PB held more emotional value that a plushie Marceline had owned for a thousand years that the man who rescued her during the apocalypse and raised her, only to lose himself to a curse and abandon her, had given her. Through the show, they are shown wearing clothes that belong to the other, blushing when looking at each other, singing about their feelings for the other... Hell, it's canon that they were really REALLY close before the events of the show, but PB's need to care for her kingdom made her push Marcy away. There was even a whole miniseries about Marcy becoming a mortal for a few days and growing up enough as a person that she was finally at a point in her life where she and PB could be equals and could finally "be together forever".

AND THEY STILL NEEDED TO KISS ON THE LIPS TO BECOME CANON.

Why do we have to analyse every single frame of a show and argue and write entire essays to "prove" our ship is canon before they kiss on the lips, when straight ships only have to look at each other for 3 seconds once and everyone already knows they'll be canon?

And yes, I say "on the lips" for a reason. After Ruby kissed Sapphire's face several times in a row while she lifted her off the floor in the last episode of season 1 of Steven Universe, homophobes on the Internet bullied literally anyone who dared imply they were anything more than siblings, or perhaps really good friends.

I mean, for fuck's sake. In Voltron, Keith told Shiro he loved him—he loved him—after a super intense battle where Keith risked his life to save Shiro from himself—and they STILL didn't become canon! It was the Bubbline argument all over again, except this time, instead of arguing with homophobes on Instagram about how, no, they were NOT just really good friends, we had to argue with antis on twitter and tumblr about how NO, that is NOT brotherly love! Ffs!!!!!

This has turned into a 3am ramble, but my point is that the way so many mass media creators capitalise off of queer identities while not making an ounce of effort to normalise our identities isn't just disgusting and queerphobic, it's also fucking dangerous. Because it teaches homophobes they're right when they silence us and tell us we're making things up—it teaches them that queer people identifying with their favourite characters are, in fact, forcing queer identities onto those very straight characters. It teaches them that they're rational and we're emotional.

And it's so fucking exhausting.

(Shoutout to Adventure Time and Steven Universe for making the wlw ships canon, though!!! But yeah, I used them as examples of how explicit our representation needs to be in order to count, and how this can be used in order to queerbait viewers—to give just enough hints that something SHOULD happen to attract a queer audience, but then never follow through and have the rest of your viewers be completely okay with that).

*I use 'straight' as an opposite of queer on this post

Ps. please bear in mind I'm not an authority in this topic—these are just my thoughts. Feel free to share yours!

#rockmarina answers #Ask #Long post #Queerbaiting #Homophobia tw #Queerphobia tw #Adventure time spoilers #I have a lot of feelings about Bubbline as you can probably tell #Not only were they my first wlw ship #I also cosplayed them with my girlfriend before we were evens dating #And wrote her Bubbline fic for her bday lol #And I argued with a LOT of homophobes about them #Gosh I got so riled up lol #And I'm sure most of them still think that Bubbline kissing in the last episode was 'fanservice' and ruined the show 🤷🏼‍♂️

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mspaintp7ague · 1 month

Text

tldr. im gonna be Busy after i turn 18

ughh. kinda glad i'll probably commute to college cause rooming with someone would probably get awkward in several ways.

there's no one who's an appropriate audience for this huh. ok. mental illness blog it is

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bronanlynch · 3 years

Text

weekly (monthly?) media roundup

ok so I do want to actually do these on some sort of schedule but unfortunately, as you already know, brains,

listening: Malice in Wonderland by Fangbanger, which I found from a tumblr post that described them as band for “if you have a complicated relationship with gender, had a falling out with god, hate the government, or just think that vampires are neat" and y’know? yeah. my notes on this song from several weeks ago are that I might not know any of these people’s genders but I do know they’ve listened to MCR

youtube

reading: the new Cassandra Clare book, Chain of Iron. it’s boring and homophobic. in the first book of this series, we find out that the heroine’s brother is gay and in a relationship with a man who has no intention of ever coming out publicly because 1) the book is set in 1903 in England, it was literally illegal and 2) he’s trying to have a career in politics. the heroine decides that this means he’s ashamed of her brother and doesn’t deserve him, and she is present and active in their breakup conversation.

above is the relationship chart I made from the first book, it really hasn’t changed much except now the main guy and the main girl are married, the lesbians got back together and then broke up again, the main girl’s gay brother hooked up with one of her husband’s friend, who’s a Good Gay and therefore worthy of love unlike the Bad Gay ex who is constantly mocked by just about every character for. checks notes. caring about appearances and manners given that his life and career are based on those things. the brother and his new love interest break up because the brother still thinks he’s a bad person for ever having dated his ex. also the main girl has now platonically run off to Paris with her husband’s platonic soulmate who is allegedly in love with her but it’s really unconvincing that he’s not actually in love with her husband (he’s not for very stupid lore reasons, the whole ‘parabatai are magically prevented from being romantically in love, except for these two straight people, when historically parabatai pairs were two men’ makes my fucking blood boil)

you might ask why I still read these books even though they make me angry and the answer is the 1) the aesthetic slaps 2) some of the characters are fun 3) the premise has enough potential that it could be good if it was good 4) sometimes I need to get cathartically angry abt bad fiction bc it just. does not matter

watching: so many things that I’m gonna just. run through them real quick

Word of Honor: gestures vaguely at how it’s slowly taking over my blog

Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty: love a found family, eh about the politics, can’t believe I predictably got a new fave character within the last two episodes of the show because one of the main characters is betrayed by his second-in-command and I think treason is the sexiest part of a relationship

SamBucky show: in the original draft of this post I said that it was so boring that week (episode 3) that I completely forgot about it until I saw the draft below this one talking about how bad and boring it is. at least more happened in later episodes and they’re finally giving me some tasty queerbaiting but the premise and the politics are. wow. it sure is military propaganda

My Hero Academia: new season is fun, love a tournament arc. don’t love that they tell us right away that the double agent character is a double agent, it was more fun in the manga when you’re not sure if he’s a traitor or not for a pretty long time

Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun: new season is cute, there sure is some gender happening. there’s a tsundere bisexual catgirl

Backflip!!: I usually avoid high school sports anime for backstory reasons but my roommate wanted to watch it with me and oh boy these gymnasts sure are gay for each other huh

Joran: The Princess of Snow and Blood: my roommate pitched this to me as ‘cyberpunk but in the 1930s’ and there sure is dark lighting, lots of glowy neon stuff, and government oppression, which are the most important elements of cyberpunk apparently. not sure how I feel about it yet, because there’s a cool shapeshifting lady assassin with a revenge quest but there’s also a trans character who was revealed to be trans in a way that I personally did not enjoy. yes you can have transphobic villains but like. hmm. maybe the audience shouldn’t find out that someone is trans because the villain cuts his shirt away specifically to ~put him in his place. or maybe I personally am just sensitive to that but either way no thank you

on the other hand, the main character is sick as shit

The World Ends with You: god I love an anime about the power of friendship. I’ve only had these kids for two episodes and I would lay down my life for them

Nirvana in Fire: we’re only three episodes in and I did spend the first half of the first ep being like. oh god which of these people are actually important who am I supposed to care about here. and then by the end of the first ep I knew which ones I cared about and am now very afraid for their safety. do love the political intrigue though

playing: got through the first mission of Brigmore Witches. I love a good undercover mission, I wish I hadn’t been too afraid of like. alarms going off if I freed the other prisoners because I think Comrade Daud should do a jailbreak, and Lizzy Stride can call me anytime

also recently have played various ttrpgs including Firebrands, more Things, Eldritch and Terrifying, Link, and of course more Beam Saber (oh shit I meant to do my recap post for last session OOPS)

making: Zan and I made some real good chicken parm the other night, vaguely based on this recipe. by which I mean, we looked at the recipe to see how many eggs to use and how long to cook it and pretty much nothing else. the egg marinade step seemed unnecessary and I made the sauce the way I always make tomato sauce, which some day I should write down because it does in fact fuck. the secret is a shit-ton of oregano and basil and no chunks of tomato because fuck that. bad texture

Zan made the zucchini which also slapped, using some of the leftover bread crumbs

writing: I’ve posted a couple of things but most recently I wrote some rarepair femslash. this is the first fic for this ship on ao3 and the second ship in the f/f tag for this fandom that’s actually about the women in the show (as opposed to showing up in the f/f tag because it’s marked as “multi” or like. genderbent versions of the main m/m ship) but like. look at them. they’re terrible evil assassin women and they’re in love. anyway I’ve gotten over being embarrassed about having written a sex scene and moved on to wanting people to read my fic. there’s sparring as foreplay it’s a good time

#dreaming.txt #tuesday no problem extended universe

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