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sparkthespork · 2 years

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Coming back with a Hazbin post for the first time in a millennium

This was actually an ancient school assignment my teacher always wanted me to publish online but it turns out that’s difficult to do nice and officially so screw it tumblr blog

The prompt was to write a review about how love or relationships (specially lgbt ones in my case) are treated in any film or tv show of your choice and ‘cause I’m a huge nerd I picked Hazbin Hotel.

There were a bunch of links in the review too but I noticed that when I transferred it all to tumblr it erased it all… there were too many to put back in so just ask me if you want them I guess??? Idk what to do-

Anyway review is under the cut, time to switch to my formal voice

Consider Giving “Hazbin Hotel” a Second Chance

While it may seem shocking and offensive at first, its supposed “negative” representation is actually ahead of its time.

By Ruby H (sparkthespork)

1/15/21

From the moment the independent cartoon was first announced on YouTube, some controversy had already followed it. But after its release on October 28th, 2019, it would become famous to discourse forums far and wide, causing many to avoid it altogether. Of course, its rude humor and a cast of characters who are not exactly role-models will not be everyone's cup of tea, but it would be incorrect to say that the show is ignorant or pushing a harmful message. With only one episode, Hazbin Hotel is already one of the most original animated shows in its time. And while that might be the reason for its negative reviews, its ambition, heart, and surprisingly positive representation are all impossible to ignore.

Hazbin Hotel is a web series created by Vivienne Medrano, better known by her internet alias “Vivziepop,” a popular artist and animator on YouTube. Initially gaining an audience for her webcomic Zoophobia, and animated shorts such as Die Young and Timber, Hazbin Hotel is her first cartoon series, with a thirty-minute pilot that is free to watch on her channel and future episodes close on the horizon since the show was picked up by distribution company A24. The series follows a demon princess named Charlie, who was born in Hell and wants to give the sinners a second chance to get into Heaven. She creates the “Happy Hotel” for anyone looking to redeem themselves. However, no one believes her cause is worth it, and questions if redemption is even possible in the first place. Joining Charlie is her protective girlfriend and hotel manager Vaggie, their first and only guest Angel (who himself admits he is only there for the free room), and powerful overlord Alastor, who only wishes to help them out of boredom. There is also a wide cast of minor characters, each with their own eccentric designs and over-the-top personalities. For anyone looking for a lively, colorful, energized cartoon, it’s more than a treat.

Where Hazbin Hotel stands out in terms of representation is with the LGBT+ community. Not a single character in the main four is straight, with Charlie being bisexual, Vaggie being a lesbian, Angel being gay, and Alastor asexual and aromantic. Currently, the character’s sexualities remain confirmed on Twitter and only (heavily) implied in the show, but there is already a same-sex couple in a long-term relationship from episode 1, and it is promised that the character’s identities will be further explored in future episodes.

This sounds like a dream come true for representation, but critics believe it is doing more harm than good. The show itself calls its characters “loathsome sinners,” as they are mischievous, selfish, and even cruel. On the surface, it does not appear to be a very good look for the community.

The common rebuttal to this take is that “If Hazbin Hotel is meant to tell the story of the denizens of hell, the place where the worst of the worst go to when they die, it would make sense if the characters were horrible people.” However, while it is true that in the setting of Hell, horrible characters can only be expected, this has not helped quell many fears that the message is accidentally being sent that these characters are bad because of their sexuality. So the pilot solves this by going out of its way to explain the real reason for each of the characters’ afterlives in the nine circles, as they do bad things completely independent from their identities. Angel and his friend get into a turf war with another demon, Vaggie is easily angered and repeatedly lashes out with violence and threats, and there is a minute long monologue explaining Alastor’s insatiable hunger for power. The reason they are horrible people is not because they are LGBT, it is because they would all stab a man without a second thought.

Even if the show is aware of its own reasoning behind the character’s actions, it could still slip into harmful stereotypes. It might be clear to a lot of viewers that sexuality does not determine whether someone is bad or good, but is it possible that others will associate being LGBT with the negative traits on screen? Fortunately, the show addresses this too by making a real attempt to spin a stereotype onto its head. This is done with the character Angel, who has probably stirred up the most controversy. On top of being a sinner sitting on literal rock bottom, he is feminine and promiscuous, a common negative portrayal of gay men since the mid-century when Hollywood’s Hays code prohibited showing them as anything otherwise. To many, Angel is just another lazy deviant character who falls into that. “A show existing in Hell isn’t an excuse for characters to be blatant stereotypes,” one critic says, and in any other context they would probably be right. But what separates Angel from the Captain Hooks and Buffalo Bills of the world is the role his character serves in the story. It does not align with the point of this stereotype in the first place, and in fact subverts it intentionally.

During the days when gay characters almost always looked or acted feminine, they typically existed either to “get a quick laugh out of the audience” or as “cold-hearted villains.” Either way, they were not meant to be cared about or even respected by the audience. But that is where Angel is different. In a short yet vital scene in the pilot, Angel’s chipper smirk fades to a look of concern and guilt. After he makes a joke that upsets Charlie, he briefly considers apologizing to her, changing his entire character from one to be “laughed at” to one to be understood. That moment makes the audience wonder why he acts the way he does, if he is truly expressing how he feels, and most importantly, if he has a shot at redemption. He is not a one-dimensional villain or comic relief that the audience wants to see fail, instead they should want to see him grow as a character and be successful.

Following the pilot, both a comic and music video, Addict, have also been released. They both surround Angel, and have continued to build on the deeper side of his character. He is shown to have a genuine close friendship with another character, taking care of and cuddling with his pet, and his troubles dealing with an abuser. These all work to prove that he has more layers than are seen on the surface, the absolute last thing that a stereotyped character would have. As Vivienne says about him, “it feels like people just saw him at face value and not the character he really was on screen,” and who he really was is a multidimensional human being. He has redeemable traits, but cannot stop giving into his inner demons, and that is what will change with his arc.

In contrast to Hazbin, other characters praised for good representation both in and outside the community actually tend to be less complex. For example, an almost universally well received movie among the LGBT+ community is Love, Simon, with a 91% score on Rotten Tomatoes, calling it a “milestone of inclusion.” However Simon suffers the fate of a lot of coming of age heroes: his only flaw is to be shy and awkward, and any conflict in the story can only come from him being gay. Of course, 90-minute movies do not have as much range as longer series to explore a variety of conflicts, but even Simon’s shyness appears to be tied to his gayness. At best this just makes Love, Simon another shallow Disney-Channel style movie, but at worst this suggests that if Simon were not gay, he would be a saint living a perfect life.

The “Saint trope” is something that is beginning to arise in animation as well. Perhaps first started by the LGBT champion Steven Universe, which has no shortage of representation particularly for lesbian women. Its most popular character is a celestial entity named Garnet, who is intended to be the physical embodiment of romantic love, and created by two lesbian characters who fuse together to become her. She does have flaws for sure, but it is always meant to be a surprise whenever she shows a sign of weakness. Most of the time, she’s depicted as a strong, smart, beautiful, talented goddess, and while there is nothing wrong with a lesbian goddess, it’s rare to see anything else in modern cartoons. LGBT+ characters deserve to exist as all kinds of people, but they are almost exclusively superheroes, witches, demigods, magical princesses, and unrealistically perfect teenagers. Where the rule used to be that “gay characters cannot exist unless they are in a negative light,” it is now “gay characters cannot exist unless they are perfect.”

Part of Hazbin Hotel’s representation comes from challenging this idea. Due to a long history of suppression and violence, it is no surprise that there is a push to depict LGBT characters as no less than godlike, but the hard fact is that is not how it works in real life. A gay person is just as likely to be kind or to be a jerk as a straight person is, and it is wrong to expect them to act like saints all the time. The problem is not that overpowered LGBT characters exist (since straight ones do too), but that the less impressive, average human characters cannot exist alongside them. So what is a better way to point this out than to exaggerate the trope’s opposite with literal demons? The show is meant to have a “cast of characters that are very flawed, but there is a heart underneath all that,” making it the perfect backdrop to send this kind of message. It initially grabs the viewer’s attention with its shockingly different characters from other modern LGBT media, and then reveals their humanity in its quieter, more touching scenes. It is a reminder that everybody fights their own demons, and it would be unrealistic to expect everyone to be perfect, even fictional characters.

Another common trope in modern LGBT media is that the character’s sexuality becomes the driving force of the story. This happens in more obvious ways like Love, Simon and Happiest Season, where the story is about coming out, and then in more fantastical worlds where an LGBT character’s arc wraps around a romantic plot with another. Like most other tropes, the problem here is not that stories exist about LGBT experiences, because they should, and romantic stories should exist too. It is that these stories exist disproportionately to characters who are more casually LGBT. In the world of straight characters, couples exist like Homer and Marge Simpson, or Woody and Bo Peep, where they are allowed to be affectionate with each other and their relationship can influence their actions, but the story is not about developing their romance. Hazbin Hotel features an LGBT relationship like that, and with one of the most rare occurrences on screen: it’s between the main characters.

Charlie and Vaggie might be the most casual LGBT couple to date, and strangely enough, that is the reason their critics are not impressed. The issue they cite is that the two of them are not affectionate enough with each other, to the point where some viewers miss that they are together in the first place. “While it’s true,” reads one critique, “a couple doesn’t need to be on top of each other to show they’re a couple, there needs to be something a little more on the nose, at least once in a while,” The humor to that critique is that Charlie does quite literally boop Vaggie on the nose, but it also makes one consider why critics miss the only reason that this and other gestures do not signal to the audience that they are a couple. It is because they are not straight.

In the pilot, Vaggie adjusts Charlie’s tie, Charlie puts her hands on Vaggie’s shoulders, and Vaggie calls Charlie “hun,” along with numerous other small gestures. If you imagine either of them as a man, it’s automatically obvious that the two are dating, because a man is not expected to act that way around a woman unless she is his partner. On the other hand, two women might need an hour long speech complete with a powerpoint presentation to prove their relationship. It is an innocent enough argument to say that the two should kiss each other or blush to make their romantic feelings more apparent, and with an entire series of episodes ahead along with comics, that is not unlikely. But it is important to realize that the reason they are not so upfront with each other is not because they aren’t a serious couple. It is actually quite the opposite; they’ve been together for so long that they do not feel the need for such grand displays. Vivienne explains so in a response to the criticism that she posted online, stating that “Charlie and Vaggie have reached a place in their relationship where it is a partnership, and they carry themselves on equal footing at almost all times. They feel 100% comfortable around each other, and they have a lot of things they are doing that take up most of their attention,” hence why the storyline focuses less on their romance. They reach an incredible balance in having a relationship that is not deliberately hidden away from the viewer, but also does not take control over its characters. If they are already “comfortable around each other,” it is best to let them be, as letting characters live as themselves is the best form of representation. It feels the most authentic.

The last of the main cast is Alastor, who despite being the fan favorite, is the least talked about in terms of representation. Between all LGBT characters, asexual and aromantic ones are especially hard to come by, and so there is not a lot to compare him to. Alastor also does not receive the same big hints towards his identity that the other characters do, with him appearing two thirds into the pilot and therefore not receiving as much depth to his character in general. However, some fans already express concern that he falls into the “incapable of love” trope, where villains are portrayed as not being able to have any sort of attachment in order to seem more formidable. There is hope that he could subvert this trope by gaining friendships over the course of the show, something one fan says would help by “making his asexuality/aromanticism seem understandable, relatable, and harmless, and most importantly separate from his cruelty.” It is promising that this could happen as the show has already done a good job at making the other characters’ bad deeds separate from their orientations, so he might just be in need of more than ten minutes of screentime. Others point out that some already introduced aspects to his character set him apart from the conventional idea of asexual people. Where the typical aro ace character likes to live in their own little box at least ten feet away from everyone else, Alastor is far from being against touching others, as he pushes other characters and puts an arm around them multiple times. One fan also enjoys how he remains true to his orientation, this versus other characters who insist that they “may be aro ace but (they) can still love,” which really means that they will eventually find a romantic interest and discover that they are not aro ace after all. The way he is represented may be a little more on the fence, but with a few positives already in place, along with the brilliant representation of other characters, his future looks bright.

Hazbin Hotel brings so many new things to animation. With its unique style, wacky characters, and unconventional method-of-creation, it is honestly no surprise that it is ambitious in its handling of real-world topics. It certainly does not hit every note perfectly, and where it has an especially nuanced portrayal of the LGBT+ community, it falls flat for other groups. But when it does triumph, it triumphs so spectacularly that it would be a sin not to watch it. If you were someone who decided against watching the pilot after what the internet said about it, you should look into it for those moments social media has skimmed over. And if you are brand new to Hazbin, go ahead and watch it now, then be sure to look into the other official videos and comics for the series. Its characters are so engaging that they will leave you wanting to know more about them, so stick around for when the show returns with a larger budget and an even more professional look.

Overall, Hazbin Hotel is a delightful series about hope and redemption, and deserving of being called the true “milestone of inclusion.”

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel review #hazbin hotel analysis #hazbin hotel charlie #charlie hazbin hotel #charlie mange #charlie morningstar #charlotte mange #hazbin hotel vaggie #vaggie hazbin hotel #charlie x vaggie #chaggie #hazbin hotel angel dust #angel dust #angel hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel alastor #alastor hazbin hotel #vivziepop

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olivieraa · 3 months

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I need to rant for a minute.

And also, I say this without doing any proper research into Japanese laws, culture, etc. I'll just speak about my experience with it over the years.

So yaoi is controversial, it always has been. There's like... 8 different sides. The homophobes, the fujoshis, the fetishists, those who think yaoi shouldn't exist but for the exact opposite reason the homophobes do, and so on.

My earliest experience with yaoi was during a time when I didn't even know homophobia existed. So to me, yaoi was just "man gets with man", the same way I'd view any romance of man gets with woman. Just... romance. That's it. But I was also well aware that gay romances were rare. So when I watched my first yaoi, it was a 2 part OVA series, and well... I didn't expect it to be so explicit. Now I was very well aware of hentai, which is basically porn. Straight anime porn. So I assumed then that yaoi basically just meant gay anime porn. And so bc it was such a rare thing to see, I looked into it, and watched them all. Basically all in a row. It wasn't hard lol there's not that many and they're short. At max, 4 eps per show, mostly 2 eps on average. They all featured sex scenes. Some more explicit than the others. The plots weren't anything to write home about ofc. It was basically porn.

Through this was the discovery of shounen-ai. More about the romance than the sex. Usually a 12 ep anime series. Again, the stories for most of these were nothing to write home about.

Junjou Romantica became the most famous bc it was a mix of both. It was about the romance, but they did have sex (non-explicit). And this show got 3 seasons. And a spin-off, Sekaiichi Hatsukoi. Very, VERY rare for a gay romance to have that.

Now Junjou itself is controversial (I get why). But outside of that, its kind of the "ideal" romance anime, in a sense. If you imagine you're watching one of the thousands of romance animes with a straight couple, and you're always wondering when they're gonna kiss, and when they do kiss, when will be the next time?? Well Junjou is like, "yeah but they're adults so we're not gonna just build up to a kiss, we'll... give you a little more". I can only think of two "straight" romance animes that had sex scenes outside of ecchi and harem nonsense. It was a finale episode of a non-romance anime called Kiseijuu where they two mains get together and they have sex (its not explicit)

The genres for this anime were:

Its a really good anime. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'll re-watch it someday.

But here's the point I'm getting at.

Romance was not listed as a genre.

When an anime wants you to know its gonna have a gay couple in it, it will use the following terms:

Gay sex is yaoi, gay romance is shounen-ai, lesbian sex is yuri and lesbian romance is shoujo-ai.

When an anime wants you to know its gonna have a straight couple, it will use the following terms:

Straight sex is hentai and straight romance is just romance.

Here's what gets to me.

In Kiseijuu, in this anime where romance isn't listed as a main genre in any way, the couple is still implied the whole time. The show is full of action and plot but these two are hinted at. And then they get together. And they kiss. And they have sex.

Something like Inuyasha, which is a shounen-adventure series, does have romance as a genre

You straight up KNOW the main characters will get together. For Kiseijuu, its not so directly out there like Inuyasha and Kagome, but heavily implied. And then the result is that they do get together, despite it not being a romance anime, or having romance listed as a genre.

My frustration is why can't this happen with gay couples.

ACCA is a great anime, and its genres are these:

But the lead blondie and his blue haired friend are constantly eye-fucking each other.

I, for the most part, never ever truly care for the main implied couple in a show, but I'm always rooting for them. I'm rooting for Inuyasha & Kagome, I'm rooting for Ed & Winry, I'm rooting for Eren & Mikasa.

And if I see an ending kiss, or an ending hand-hold, or literally anything that implies "we're a thing", I feel joy. I swoon a little bit. Cause its so damn cute.

In ACCA, if you replaced either of these two with a female character, you just know what the show is hinting at, despite romance not being a genre. Bc as we know, if a show has the genres "action, adventure, magic" and there's a leading dude and a leading gal..... flirting the whole time....... they're still gonna get together.

Like, I would love to see at the end of this, these two looking at each other in a romantic way (so you, the audience, gets it), and then it ends. Even that. Even something as mild as that.

That an anime doesn't have to have the explicit genres of "yaoi" or "shounen-ai" so you know you're defo going into an anime where the plot is basically about the two main males getting together.

Give me an action anime where it just so happens that the leading guy has insane chemistry with his best friend and so the whole time you're thinking "damn I love the fight scenes in this anime, and the plot is fantastic. ...and also, they totally have to get together" AND THEN THEY DO and its just NORMAL cause its IMPLIED THE WHOEL TIME, its not just random GAYBAITING or FANSERVICE, its just a very obvious pair who you can clearly see fell for each other throughout the course of the action packed show.

GUH. NOT HARD TO ASK

LOOK. HOW. HE. LOOKS. AT. HIM.

WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK.

#don t r e blog pls

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femmesandhoney · 6 months

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i'm not sure what other gay implications have been censored bc i've only heard of the jeht thing but that's quite sad 😭. those tweets really annoyed me since they felt so dismissive of how censorship affects lgb ppl and representation of same sex relationships. it's nice that hyv continues to give us implied gay and lesbian relationships even when they've been forced to remove stuff before. they even extend it NPCs (who don't make them money) and dedicated a whole lantern rite (only yearly reoccurring festival, representing chinese culture!!) to showing guiping being soulmates.

i've read that beiguang thread; i love it a lot and reread it (+ other threads by that twt user) every once in a while since the amount of symbolism between them is wonderful. like the amount of effort put into their relationship is so lovely. and i love that the VAs are allowed to openly talk about and ship the gay and lesbian ships. not only the english VAs but i've seen chinese VAs tease about them often too!!

ur right that bronya and seele are more explicitly lesbian in honkai impact! in fact they kiss in one of the mangas (so not in game but still official content) and unfortunately this actually got taken down due to censorship and iirc was only reuploaded on the global site. not sure if it's still unavailable in CN. and apart from those two, the other two main characters, kiana (protagonist) and mei (who ei and makoto are based on) are canonically in love too!! kiana declares her love for mei within like 10?? minutes of starting the game and is very affectionate towards her. the driving force behind one of mei's main character arcs is literally her love for kiana. they have a buuuunch of cute official art including them getting married etc.

if you would like to see them being angsty here is one of their most iconic moments:

https://youtu.be/v1sd5CzR504?si=o3yEoUIrYNCoe1dD

for context kiana (white hair) is dying and mei (black hair) has been offered the chance to save her by an enemy organisation and kiana is trying to stop her from leaving and joining that organisation

sorry for rambling 😭 i just love hyv lesbians

no haha im actually already decently familiar with the hi3 lesbians (tho not the story of honkai), so thank you for the reminders and context! also i forgot the bronseele stuff got taken down, which is again such an obvious rebuttal to those people who go "well there's explicit gay relationships in hoyo's other games, so they could do it in genshin and this means the couples you think are implied gay actually aren't" yeah before the even harder censorship crackdown that occurred a few years ago, those games?? the ones now being affected by the same censorship? like lmao okay. and genshin is their most popular game, ofc the censorship will be more enforced upon the media that has the most eyes on it. like it doesn't take much thought to realize why and what is being censored in genshin lmao. i wish we had more explicit lesbian and gay rep in genshin tho :'( i'm familiar enough with kiana and mei to wish we got more stuff like that. maybe in an upcoming region we could get a lesbian couple that's more heavily hinted at like how alhaitham and kaveh were. and they need to go "back" to beidou and ning and ei and miko and give them more obvious couple-y hints and scenes, we haven't seen them in ages and i'm missing them so much, especially beidou and ning.

#where's eimiko official marriage art hoyo

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booksandwords · 2 years

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Bloody Spade by Brittany M. Willows

Series: The Cardplay Duology Book 1 Read time: 9 Days Rating: 5/5

The quote: She twirled, white hair and porcelain skin touched silver by the moonlight, with flung water droplets like stars around her. And Iori pictured himself as a meteor among them, no longer caught in this girl’s orbit but plunging helplessly through her atmosphere. Oh. So this was what falling felt like. — Iori Ryone

Warnings: Many and provided by the author. See the bottom of the review for details.

S**t how do I talk about Bloody Spade. I'm going to be totally honest and say it almost got put on the backburner to priritise library loans but I picked it up again and couldn't put it down. For me it was that kind of book. I'm so happy I decided to finish this. Yes there are some definite tropes in play (not to mention a spoiler in the blurb) but it's not about the destination as much as the journey. The representation provided in the characters. This was a joy to read. It is quite unlike anything I've ever read. I will say it is left in something of an odd place at the end but I know this fully intended to be a duology. Now the waiting begins.

I guess I will look at the representation first which is one of the two reasons read this (the other being the genre). Pansexual, Gray-Ace, Asexual, Demiromantic, Demisexual. These are just the four main characters. Among the four main characters, Iori is Pan (as identified by the author). Kyani is demi sexual and demi romantic. Alex is ace. Ellen in this book is only identified as aspec but is grey (again author info). Other characters are gay, bisexual, lesbian, trans and enby. Soren the transmale uses male pronouns. Iris may or may not use they/them. Enby Dax uses xe/xem/xyr. The generation above likewise has same-sex couples. I probably should say here that according to Brittany M. Willows in an answer on Goodreads unless explicitly stated otherwise all the characters are queer/bi, it's jus naturally coded into the world. I identify as aspec or queer I just had a moment of pure glee when I realised exactly how much aspec representation there was in this. When I was reading the author bio one thing caught my attention "bisexual/gray-asexual author, all I could think was 'well that explains the aspec rep'. This level of representation, done well, usually comes from within our community. I will have a look at anything that is tagged asexual but this is, is a whole ever level of representation for aspecs. If you want realism try Alice Oseman's Loveless but if you want diversity and open acceptance (and aren't plot picky) try this.

The lore and plot. Usually, I do characters first but in a world where characters depend so heavily on their lore and position within the world, I have to do that first. The basics of Bloody Spade is urban fantasy set in a fictional world circa 2027. We see no mundanes (those with no powers), we only see within the Empowered world. There is as one would expect some discrimination, primarily the Empowered are limited to one city, Hildegand, by a wall. All of the Empowered have different powers, as one would expect. I do have a theory that but it's only ever going to be implied not outright stated. The Empowered are given three choices when their powers awake, take suppressants, waive the use of their powers (and pay the price if they use them) or join the Jokers at Cardplay. Cardplay's opposite is Blackjack. Where Cardplay is light or on the side of pure magic. Blackjack is dark or on the side of void magic. Operators for Cardplay are called Jokers, Blackjacks operators are called Players. Blackjack are the villains of Bloody Spade. I appreciate the lore reveal. The lore is not provided in one massive piece of exposition. It is given to the reader only as it is needed. Sometimes answering questions you didn't know you had other times answering questions you've possibly had for a while. With its YA intended audience and coming of age (but not quite) feel. The plot has some predictability. But it's more how. And the world. And the characters. The pleasure of seeing the characters are overcoming adversity both of their own making and from external forces. Of battling their own demons and accepting help, of self-discovery of what will help you beat those demons. I will say there is an appendix that includes a meet the cast, both main and supporting, a list of notable locations and a list of magic-related related terms.

Bloody Spade has four main characters. Iori Ryone, the Keeper of the Spade. Possibly the closest thing to a titular character it has, 'Bloody Spade' is the name of his active power. A way Iori is perhaps representative as a character is his handedness, his naturally ambidextrous (important no, but interesting). Iori is the sort of character that has the potential to break your heart. He raised himself on the streets, his physical appearance with its feline attributes is known to all and he blamed releasing void magic on the world. His suit, the Spade, is corrupted while it should be using pure magic it uses void magic, and Iori and the Spade do not get along. Iori resents the Spade. He is all anger against the world and I will become the monster you believe me to be. Until he crosses paths with a certain young Empowered who intrigues both him and the Spade. Enter Ellen Jane, newly graduated Joker with the power to remove the void from a person, to cure them. Not that anyone is made aware of that.

The second set of main characters are Ellen's older brother Alexander Jane and Kyani Oto. Alexander is fire type more or less and his temper matches this. He can be emotional and hot-headed. It suits Cardplay at points but when it comes to Ellen that can be a problem. After being orphaned at a reasonably young age Alex took on both the big brother and pseudo father role for her. He has expectations of her to a degree. Alex is one of the strongest Jokers fighting along his best friend. Kyani is the Keeper of the Club. She loves flowers and nature and was until recently a florist. Everything she does she does for the good of her father who for reasons we are unsure of is in some kind of expensive medical care. This has landed her in the hands of Blackjack. She is a kind soul even if it sometimes appears she doesn't appear as such. Her power is tied to her interest in botany she can manipulate plans and replicate the active agents of plants after ingesting them. She has a secret from Blackjack, she sees the auras of people.

Formatting. As well as being chaptered <i>Bloody Spade</i> is broken up into 5 acts. Act I: The blood drenched Spade; Act II: The Club, wilting and withered; Act III: A Diamond blazing in the night; Act IV: A star fallen; Act V: A Heart so full. Each chapter has a number, date and location. If two of the four pov characters are involved in the same event there may be a pov switch mid-chapter indicated by ♣ • ♠ •✫• ♥ • ♦ but mostly it changes chapterly though not in a pattern (I don't think). The plot does have some substantial time jumps which provide natural places to put the book down for the night in addition to the 5 parts. The four suits, Spade, Club, Diamond and Heart and always capitalised. This is a mark of respect also, an indication that they are alive. Have a dump of just some of my highlights and comments from my reading (there were some 304 before I culled them)

What I can't figure out is when or where-ish it is meant to be set. Yes, I am aware the lands are fictional but usually there is more of a visual of real world element than I'm picking up here. I sort of wish there was a map of the locations too. So we can see exactly how far apart the places are, some idea of exactly how fast Iori's auditory powers can help him move.

“She taught me how to dance and sing. How to write poetry. She was fiercely independent, too. Anything she could do by herself, she would, and that included having me.” — (Iori) This is Iori clearly about his mother. That actually explains something he has quite a strong EQ (emotional quotient, like IQ measures intelligence) common with sons of single mothers.

I'm guessing their magics are somewhat enhancing existing traits. Alex was always fiery and emotional, a tad volatile. Ellen is a born caregiver and healer. She was aiming for medicine. Kyani was a green thumb as a child. Iori has a talent for the auditory, piano and poetry. Dax probably had a gift for computers and hacking. Soren's comes from his personality he is loyal and a lightening force to his friends. Tatiana is a whirlwind of energy. Pavati Varma (wh we only meet once) was probably a sewer. I can't find any justification for Oskar's aquatic power but eh.

This has the most spoilerific blurbs I have ever read in my life. The thing given away in the blurb is supposed to be the big reveal in the closing pages. I get why it makes for an appealing blurb but really?

Empowered, they called them. Nobody could decide yet whether they were the heroes or the villains of this brave new world. Saints or sinners, a gift or a curse. The way Iori saw it, they could be both and neither. Magic didn’t automatically make good people bad, and it didn’t make bad people good. — (Iori) This from the earliest pages. Iori has a wide almost worldly mind for a protagonist in this sort of book. And he is quite young too.

“It’s courage, not bravery,” Alexander said. “Bravery is the absence of fear in the face of danger. Courage is about facing danger in spite of the fear.” — (Alexander) This is a version of a Franklin D. Roosevelt quote. But I still like it. I think it needs to be included here.

Elysian Tower is a key place in the Cardplay Duology world. It is clearly a play on "The Elysian Fields, also called Elysium, are the final resting place of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous in Greek mythology and religion." (via Wikipedia). But the question is more why?

Aryel’s kit making him look like he stepped out of a winter wonderland while Ikkei’s and Naomi’s offered considerably less coverage. Vinyl bands crossed Ikkei’s broad chest and looped around Naomi’s athletic figure, fastened to form-fitting pants by silver clasps. — (Ellen) Add to this that Magnetic Empowered Ikkei and Electric Empowered Naomi Toi are sibs and Cryogenic Empowered Aryel Rizka is the resident drama queen and it tells you all you need to know about them. Oh and Ikkei is Alex's best friend. They are the Joker A-Team and with their powers that work well together and separately you can see why.

To the public, he was a troublemaker. To the police, a wanted criminal. But to Cardplay, Iori Ryone was known primarily as the Keeper of the Spade—an Empowered teenager in possession of a special kind of magic called a Suit. The stuff of legends, literally. They were only able to identify his status early on because he shared his feline traits with a painted depiction of the Spade’s former Keeper. — (Ellen) I missed the import of this quote when I first read it. I missed the section on depictions. That becomes important when it comes to the other Keepers. Those of the Diamond, Club and Heart.

“Wait,” Ellen pleaded, stepping out from her brother’s shadow and into the Keeper’s view once more. “You don’t have to fight us. We can talk this over!” — (Ellen) Something I have thoughts on is that Ellen's impulse is to be a peacekeeper, to negotiate first and to fight last. Iori's is the opposite. Fight first then flee. She is something akin to a peacekeeper he is closer to a weapon.

The Keeper rose from his throne, and with a sweeping gesture, presented the place to her with an ostentation unbefitting of its decayed state. “Welcome,” he said, “to my domain.” — (Ellen) There is true beauty in some of the places described. Particularly the three dreamscapes, making me really wonder what the hearts is and if the spades was always like that. Or if the Spades corruption changed it. Ellen's belief is that it was the corrupted Spade, but it does also suit Iori

"It’s Iori, by the way,” the Keeper said. “Huh?” “My name. I figure you might as well use it since we’re getting so intimate.” — (Iori and Ellen) What I would so good about this line is that they were both working instinct and it wasn't the self-preserving kind. For a bit of context Ellen is about to fish one of Alex's bullets out of Iori's body.

“Don’t make me out to be the bad guy here. You’re the one who hid a killer in our house.” “Iori is not a killer.” “Stop calling him that!” “What, his name?” “Call him what he is—a monster.” — (Alex and Ellen) At this point I started to like dislike Alex. He has valid(ish) reasons for his anger but ugh it's a lot to deal with. Because we see the world through Iori and the empathetic Ellen's eyes. Aside from that I just dislike humans being called monsters. It's all about perception (exceptions do of course apply).

“He was petrified, told us repeatedly to stay away. What we didn’t realize was, he wasn’t afraid of us. He was afraid of what would happen to us if we got too close, and I should have listened, because the second I stepped into the den, every dark shape I mistook for shadow came at us. Ripped through my entire squad. Killed three, left two of us in critical condition. That, Ellen, is how I lost my leg.” A weight settled in her chest. “The Spade took it.” “I don’t believe Master Ryone willed it,” he said. “Those early days saw many magical accidents resulting in injury and death. Likely, the Spade was influenced by his panic. Subsequent incidents also indicate a lack of control rather than malicious intent.” — (Hikaru and Ellen) Okay, so this is a huge part of Iori's story. The death of his mother destroyed him in a way. Iori was 10. But I really appreciate this moment as a way to learn his story. Both his I guess. Hiaru and Iori. Basically everyone is connected. Hikaru raised Ellen and Alex.

How odd, thought Kyani, to look down and not recognize your own legs. Where once her fingers glided along warm beige skin, they bumped over scales from knee to toe. Glossy black things, like chips of obsidian. She couldn’t decide which was stranger—these, or the entirely new appendages at her back. They drooped at her sides, raven feathers frayed and molting. A pair of small and brittle wings. — (Kyani) This is the introduction to Kyani and it is a strong introduction for me. We just walk into her mind and she is thinking this.

“They had a fight?” Ikkei howled a laugh. “Right in the middle of the restaurant, too. Let me tell you, pyric and electric types do not do civil debate.” — (Ellen and Ikkei) This is about Alex and Naomi. While reading that fight I could almost see the sparks coming off Naomi.

“It doesn’t bother me, really! It’s just kind of tingly.” He arched a brow. “I make you tingly?” “Don’t make it weird.” — (Ellen and Iori) They have this light playful banter nearing flirtation that I really appreciate. It's worth realising that 'don't make it weird' coming from Ellen an aspec.

Alexander’s purposeful stride a contrast to Iori’s nonchalant stroll. Two very different people with very different strategies, their techniques about as diverse as their gait. Professionally trained versus self-taught. Military-style teachings versus a rudimentary weaponization of acrobatics. — (Iori) This is critical in a way. The contrast between the formal training of the Jokers represented by Alex and Iori's free-flowing nature. Alex sees Iori as a threat to Ellen (and everyone else), Iori just kind of wants to prove himself worthy of her faith. This being a fair fight requires both of them keeping their cool and holding it together. It was never going to happen it was just a case of how badly it went.

“You taught me to stand up for what I believe in,” she said. “I believe in him, and I’m not going to let him bin his chance at a decent life because you can’t let go of some petty grudge.” — (Ellen-to Alex) This is Ellen. This is also a total mood. Even had that moment when your parents look at you with surprised pikachu face when you act as you were raised? Yeah that is happening here.

In conflict, Ellen always tried to see things from the other party’s point of view, but his was clouded by rumor and conjecture and a couple of unfortunate encounters that had forever marred the Keeper of the Spade in his mind. What would it take to change his perception? What if it couldn’t be changed? — (Ellen) This is part of the key point of the book.

“Your battlemaster was right. To some extent, this thing inside me is influenced by my feelings. My emotions. I’m a mess, Ellen. If I stay, sooner or later, someone is going to get hurt. Someone could die.” His hand slipped from the folds of his shirt, falling heavy to his side. “Nobody should want a monster like me.” — (Iori) This broke my heart. Iori needs a hug. And serious human contact. These two could heal each other. They are the balance to each other. He can teach her to live and embrace experiences. She can teach him trust and control.

“You want me to pay rent for occupying your couch?” “For occupying my couch unnecessarily,” Ikkei specified. “Consider it bitch tax.” Alexander scowled. “Excuse me?” “You have a perfectly gorgeous house waiting for you in the rich district. The only reason you’re crashing in this dump is because you’re being too much of a bitch to share said house with the sister you unfairly disowned. Thus, I say again: bitch tax.” — (Alex and Ikkei) I adore Ikkei okay. He makes me smile. And this is a brilliant play. Alex needs to hear this. It is true friendship.

"The streets foster this kind of ‘screw-it’ mentality. Everybody’s already decided what you are, so why bother trying to be anything else? Be the troublemaker, be the thief. Fit the mold society’s carved out for you. And when every good thing that does come along gets ripped away—I guess that’s why I ran. Suddenly there were all these promising new paths in front of me, and instead of being excited, I got scared because it meant I had something to lose.” — (Iori) This feels like it still so true now.

“Darling, may I hold your hand?

The moonlight permeating the balcony curtains illuminated Iori’s shape on the bed, his back to her, a faint rise and fall to his chest. One of his ears was already turned in her direction, and when she didn’t soon move along, his gaze followed next. — (Ellen) This is such an appealing image. I can't even say why. It's not so much the intimacy of it but the feline feel to it. The moonlight, the sense of noise and the awareness. His feline self goes well beyond the ears for me.

Get a grip. He buried his burning face into his palm, trying to banish those thoughts—those images—from his brain. He couldn’t be envisioning her like that when he didn’t even know if these feelings were mutual. Well, not these precise feelings. He knew they weren’t—not to the same degree, anyway. The black band on her middle finger, the “why frick-frack when you can snick-snack” shirt she wore to the gym, plus numerous other signs pointed to her being on the asexual spectrum. Where exactly he couldn’t say, but that didn’t matter. Not that it wasn’t important. It was. It simply had no bearing on his desire to be with her. — (Iori) Two massive things here. One God bless consent and understanding. He respects her sexuality but also respects his attraction to her. But he is also aware it's a spectrum. That it is not like a light switch, there might be some chance. Two i adore this representation of a modern aspect woman. Confident in her sexuality and more than willing to show it publically, black aspec rings are a thing (and I will be getting one) they have been around since 2005 and that shirt? Omg yes. It's just an all round good piece of writing.

In Ellen’s company, those terrors grew tamer. Fewer. He’d noticed it shortly after his arrival at Cardplay, how safe he felt when she was near—an irony not lost on him as his whole purpose here was to protect her. And all these months later, he still couldn’t explain why her presence was such an effective salve. — (Iori) All I can say to this is he protects her while they are awake. She protects him while they're asleep.

Warnings to keep in mind. Brittany M. Willows has very kindly provided a list of warnings for Bloody Spade which I will also include here. "Content Warning - Coarse language - Blood and violence - Moments of gratuitous violence/torture - Emesis - Body horror - Anxiety/panic attacks - Trauma related to kidnapping/physical abuse - Parent death (discussed, glimpsed in flashbacks) - Car accident (discussed, glimpsed in flashbacks) - One instance of a forced kiss (not intended to be romantic or sexual)" For those like me who are unaware emesis is essentially vomiting. That last one related to the forced kiss is especially important to those in the aspec community. It really isn't intended as romantic or sexual, it is almost painful to read is what it is. On parent death that is more than one parent and may be particularly triggering to some readers.

Second quote: There was a fluidity to Iori’s movements. The gentle sway of his body, the way he led her delicately along. Of course, she should have known he’d have a knack for this. From their not-quite-legal river skating adventure, his fighting style, and even from the carefree swagger he adopted in a cheerful mood, it was clear rhythm was ingrained in him. — Ellen Jane

@godzilla-reads Simple Reading Challenge. Filling the June prompt: "Choose a Light Fantasy Novel" Bloody Spade is generally classified as Urban Fantasy a sub genre of Light Fantasy. If I hadn't found this book I think this prompt could have been difficult for me. I guess I could have gone Paranormal but I'm glad to have the opportunity to promote a book with 3 aspec protags during Pride month.

#book review #bloody spade #the cardplay duology #brittany m. willows #read 2022 #ktreviews #godzilla reads #spoilers on goodreads #queer #fantasy #asexuality #pansexual #booklr

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hellomynameisbisexual · 3 years

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Since the very conception of the motion picture, the LGBT community have been represented on-screen in some form. An early example is Algie the Miner (1912), a short silent film which follows the effeminate Algie (Billy Quirk), who enjoys kissing cowboys. In order to marry someone’s daughter, he heads west to prove that he’s a man. While this is quite an outdated stereotype of being gay, the portrayals have varied greatly over time. Only recently is LGBT representation becoming more positive and common. However, when it comes to portraying bisexuality on-screen, it still seems to be a difficult task.

Many narrative tropes have been birthed through filmmakers trying to show sexuality on-screen and most of them contribute directly to the overall erasure of bisexuality in cinema – usually with ambiguous portrayals, negative stereotyping and characters needing to pick a side. Not all instances are problematic, but their prevalence isn’t helping to combat the stigma that bisexual people face. There are three main tropes when it comes to depicting bisexuality, which is infidelity, picking a side, and the horrible husband. They’re usually found together in a common narrative that erases bisexuality, whether intentional or not.

Infidelity

There’s a long-standing stereotype that bisexual people are more likely to cheat on their partners and are incapable of commitment. This is a trope that is heavily carried in some of the most well-known depictions of bisexuality. Typically, a female protagonist is engaged or married to a man, but she meets a lesbian woman and they become involved sexually and romantically, leaving the protagonist torn between two lovers. This happens in Imagine Me & You (2005) when Rachel (Piper Perabo) falls in love with lesbian flower shop owner Luce (Lena Headey), who provided the flowers for her wedding to Hector (Matthew Goode). It’s a fairly average film that could’ve been amazing had it acknowledged Rachel’s bisexuality, but it’s still one of the better ones considering Perabo and Headey have amazing chemistry.

For some reason, bisexual characters are often in serious relationships when they’re suddenly sexually awakened. This happened to Rachel right after her wedding because she happened to meet the right woman. While this type of experience does happen in real life, it’s always the go-to narrative for films about women realizing they’re not one-hundred-percent straight. In these instances, the same-sex love affair acts as the conflict within the narrative – this can create good drama when done right, but it gets boring and bisexual characters deserve better than constantly being portrayed as cheaters. People are not more promiscuous or likely to cheat on their partners because of their sexuality, but these tropes are constantly telling people otherwise.

We deserve to see bisexual characters whose sexuality isn’t the main narrative focus or who at least explore their sexuality outside of a relationship. Appropriate Behaviour (2014) is a good example of this as Shirin (Desiree Akhavan, who is also the film’s writer and director) is a bisexual Persian American woman who is keeping her sexuality a secret from her judgemental family, while also attempting to rebuild her life after breaking up with her girlfriend. Seeing bisexuality portrayed on-screen is another place where people pick up more stigma or acceptance, and with bisexuality it, unfortunately, seems to be the former. This is why bisexual filmmakers like Akhavan are better suited to portraying the experiences of bisexual men and women than others.

Picking A Side

When the protagonist is in conflict with her sexuality, the people around her usually wonder if she’s a lesbian now – despite them being engaged or married to a man. This can be seen in Below Her Mouth (2010) where Jasmine (Natalie Krill) begins having an affair with Dallas (Erika Linder). When her husband finds out, he tells her “You’re a lesbian” but she tells him that she loves him and nothing has changed between them. It seems impossible to grasp that a person could be attracted to both men and women. Bisexuality is erased.

Some films insinuate that the protagonist isn’t necessarily bisexual or even a lesbian, it’s just that they’re attracted to this one woman only and no others – they’re an exception! This is the kind of impression you get from Below Her Mouth, but also from other films such as Imagine Me & You and Elena Undone (2010), which isn’t particularly helpful for lesbian representation either. In Imagine Me & You, Rachel tells Hector “You are my best friend. That was enough before, and it will be enough again.” This implies that Rachel was never truly attracted to him in a romantic sense, thus implying that she’s a lesbian. While this could be a case of compulsory heteronormativity, it seems problematic as it’s never discussed or explained. Avoiding discussions about sexuality – as most of these films do – are what contribute to this trope massively and result in misinterpretation and erasure.

Films as new as Netflix’s Alex Strangelove (2018) also feed into the idea that bisexuality is a stepping stone to picking a side. Alex (Daniel Doheny) prepares to lose his virginity to his girlfriend but finds his plans derailed when he’s attracted to another boy. He spends most of the film questioning his sexuality and at one point thinks he’s bisexual. The film does highlight biphobia which brings attention to this problem, so it’s disheartening at the end when Alex realizes he is gay and not bisexual after all. The set up for Alex Strangelove was perfect for a bisexual love story and, while it’s still positive LGBT representation, it’s a shame it didn’t stick with that. It’s even rarer to see bisexual men portrayed on-screen, so it would’ve been really rewarding.

It’s important to acknowledge that bisexuality is a comfortable place for some people to be while they’re trying to accept that they are gay – and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, there still seems to be some widespread discomfort when it comes to sexuality being fluid. For bisexual people, there isn’t any side to pick – they’re not torn between polar opposites, nor are they confused. They aren’t on the fence, they’re on both sides of the fence. Nevertheless, films continue to portray bisexuality as a personal conflict that needs resolving, and it does this by putting bisexual characters in a situation where they’re having affairs. This makes their sexuality the narrative conflict, which is wholly problematic in itself.

The Horrible Husband

The protagonist’s fiancé or husband is usually abusive or passive in the relationship, and thus portrayed as the antagonist. She is then drawn to a lesbian woman who treats her so much better and gives her the attention she deserves. Sometimes it’s as though these films are saying that lesbianism is the cure for a dissatisfying heterosexual relationship. This contributes to bisexual erasure by suggesting that bisexual women can only be happy with women and never with a man because they’re horrible or not good enough. It also perpetuates the idea of picking a side – almost telling bisexuals that they should just be lesbians instead.

This trope is found in films like Elena Undone, where Elena (Necar Zadegan) meets Peyton (Traci Dinwiddie) who is a famous lesbian writer. Elena’s husband Barry (Gary Weeks), however, is a homophobic pastor. Elena Undone is actually loosely based on director Nicole Conn’s real-life romance with Marina Rice Bader, but the film itself isn’t great. It’s also shown in The World Unseen (2007) as Miriam (Lisa Ray) quietly follows the customs of 1950s South Africa, alongside dealing with her abusive husband Omar (Parvin Dabas). Miriam becomes empowered to change her circumstances when she meets and falls in love with free-spirited cafe owner Amina (Sheetal Sheth).

A much better film that deals with this trope is Bound (1996). Lesbian ex-con Corky (Gina Gershon) arrives at an apartment building to start work as a painter and plumber. She soon finds herself being seduced by Violet (Jennifer Tilly) who lives next door with her boyfriend Caesar (Joe Pantoliano). Violet explains that they’ve been together for five years and he’s a money launderer for the mafia. She wants to escape and make a new life for herself, so she and Corky plan to steal $2 million of Mafia money and blame it on Caesar. The horrible husband trope actually works well in this film because the women plan to screw Caesar over and it doesn’t use Violet’s infidelity as the main narrative conflict – it’s a lot more original, which isn’t surprising as the first directorial feature film from the Wachowski Sisters. Bound would’ve been much less effective if Caesar was just a regular guy who Violet hated, but she has a better motive with the drama surrounding his violent mafia connections.

These three tropes are collectively the entire plot of Imagine Me & You, Elena Undone, The World Unseen, I Can’t Think Straight (2008), Kiss Me (2011) and more. It’s a shame that there isn’t always a huge focus on the actual relationship between the two women in these films. It’s more about them hiding their relationship and because they officially get together at the end, we never get to see much of what their life is like as a couple. They all feature very similar themes, meaning that when it comes to telling the stories of bisexual characters, the narrative is rarely diverse. Romantic comedies in general always follow the same beats which is fine, but these tropes for bisexual characters either erase their sexuality and/or display it as a problem.

These tropes can still work well (like with Bound) depending on certain aspects of the narrative. Infidelity works well in Carol (2015) due to the 1950s setting. Carol (Cate Blanchett), who is in the process of divorcing her horrible husband, and Therese (Rooney Mara) have to hide their relationship due to homosexuality not being accepted during this time. This adds an extra layer to the narrative, giving actual depth to why things are happening the way that they are. There’s also Disobedience (2017) where it works well due to the Orthodox Jewish culture. Ronit (Rachel Weisz), who is considered bisexual, returns to the community for her father’s funeral to find her childhood friend Esti (Rachel McAdams) married to a man. Esti describes herself as a lesbian woman in a relationship with a man, which is disheartening but works in the film’s world. Disobedience also plays through the infidelity trope very differently to other films, allowing it to be more effective.

The Erasure

In films with bisexual characters, it’s rare that the word “bisexual” actually comes up. It’s mostly ambiguous, implied or erased completely by the protagonist seemingly picking a side. It’s constantly reinforced by narrative tropes that are set up for dramatic entertainment, with no real intention of representing sexuality with genuine care. Erasure also happens due to words like “gay” being used as an umbrella term when referring back to certain films. Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Call Me By Your Name (2017), for example, are often referred to as gay films on social media due to the gay relationships portrayed, However, the characters are portrayed to be sexually fluid/bisexual due to the nature of their relationships with women. It also happens with films like Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2014) which is always painted as a lesbian love story when Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos) is clearly bisexual. It’s not necessarily bad to use gay and lesbian as umbrella terms, but it, unfortunately, does contribute to bisexual erasure. We should be bringing more attention to bisexuality on-screen and pointing it out specifically when we see it.

One of the biggest erasures is the portrayal of bisexual men. They appear much less frequently than bisexual women. The most recent example that comes to mind is Jake Gyllenhaal’s character in Velvet Buzzsaw (2019), but the word bisexual was never used and he was portrayed as being promiscuous, which fits into the negative stereotype (although the film is satire so perhaps it can be excused). Some better, or at least more interesting, depictions of bisexual men are still out there and can be found in films such as Velvet Goldmine (1998), Kaboom (2010), The Comedian (2012), The Lobster (2015) and Moonlight (2016).

If anything, bisexual characters are usually left out of the bury your gays/dead lesbian syndrome trope. It’s very common both in film and television for gay men and lesbian women to be killed off in some dramatic way, such as in Brokeback Mountain, The Fox (1967), Les Biches (1968), Lost and Delirious (2001) and A Single Man (2009). Bisexual women have been killed off quite a bit in television – like Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton) in The O.C. – but they’re relatively safe in film and hopefully, it’ll stay that way.

Acknowledging Bisexuality

It is disheartening that bisexual representation on-screen isn’t as good or as frequent as gay and lesbian representation. We’re also at a time where it could be massively improved, but now we face the barrier of “queer” as another umbrella term. It’s wholly unhelpful when not everyone identifies with it and when we want bisexual characters to say the word bisexual on-screen. We want to be acknowledged. Bisexual actress Stephanie Beatriz made sure her bisexual character in Brooklyn Nine-Nine got to say it earlier this year, because that word means something to certain people and the impact is great. Hopefully this will start to happen more in film going forward.

There are definitely films out there where the word bisexual is actually said, like in Appropriate Behaviour, Kiss Me, Velvet Goldmine and Margarita with a Straw (2014). It’s rare that we hear it so when we do it’s pretty exciting. In addition to these, other films that feature positive and/or complex portrayals of bisexual characters in general (and not the previously discussed tropes) are: Cabaret (1972), Chasing Amy (1997), Black Swan (2010), Atomic Blonde (2017) and Tully (2018).

There have been many positive and negative depictions of bisexuality, but the majority of them aren’t great or feed into the biphobia and the erasure of the identity. Filmmakers need to do better when it comes to portraying bisexual characters and their stories. It’s always helpful when bisexual people themselves get a voice, whether as writers, directors or actors. For some reason, although there are exceptions, most straight male and lesbian filmmakers have trouble portraying bisexuality both positively and accurately. They essentially give the message that bisexuality doesn’t exist or is an inner conflict that needs to be resolved. We must do better because one day someone will be watching a film where a character says “bisexual” and their life will suddenly fall into place.

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buddielove · 3 years

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Hi! I'm a gay fan of 911 and I have a question about the whole Buddie fandom. As much as I like Buck and Eddie, it's frustrating that a HUGE part of the fandom is pushing for these two characters to get together instead of putting energy into supporting Hen & Carla and Michael & Dave. Not to mention Carlos and TK in Lone Star. Can you explain to me the appeal of wanting these two men together? Wouldn't it be more interesting to see two heterosexual males just be able to bond in a non-toxic fashion? That's something we don't get to see often on television.

Hey! This is MAD long lmao I am so sorry! You caught me on a day I felt like talking! Also this took like a year to answer you lolololol. This does have a few ʻhot takesʻ so please be warned! So like in this essay....

So first I am also apart of the LGBTQIA+ community, so I do understand how it could come across as a fetish or being non supportive of the current canonically LGBTQIA+ characters, however I think a lot of the interest around Buddie and the want for them to be confirmed as a couple is how they are being written. Me personally I knew since s2 e1 Buck and Eddie were written not as rivals but as two people who would eventually become friends, but it wasn’t until the Christmas episode with the elf assuming Buck was Chris’s dad and Eddie’s partner that I was like ‘hold on!’ because I was really hoping Abbey would return and I didn’t see Eddie as a possible Buck live interest because of that. The elf’s comment wasn’t played off like most other shows would (think Dean and Sam arriving anywhere in Supernatural) it made me go back and look at the other episodes to see exactly how Buck and Eddie were being framed/written. And as we have moved into further seasons I think there has been a shift in how Buddie is being written, in s3 it was very much like two people progressing into a deeper friendship then the blood clot/lawsuit gets in the way and they both have to deal with emotions surrounding that, then Buck’s response to Eddie being trapped (we see how is he when Boddy is trapped in a fire WITH A GUNMAN, it’s emotional but not to the point is is with Eddie), even the love interests feel very pushed on us and there’s so little banter between Buddie about their gfs and how they feel about these new beginnings. It feels off, not like a friendship in the slightest, more like two people trying to force something and not wanting to deal with any other feelings. Then when Eddie gets shot and reveals Buck is Chris’s legal Guardian in the event Eddie dies, that’s huge, and he did this after only a year of knowing Buck (I have friends with kids. I’ve known one of them for FIVE years, I’m at their house every week, the kid calls me family. I’m person #10 on the list of ‘who gets my kid if I die’, not #1 lol) It just feels like it’s all building up to something, and people are getting tired of waiting for that something! We’re all emotionally tired from the past two years, and probably from many shows queerbaiting us and this is something that could happen, seems to be something the actors are ok with and the fans want. So why do they keep drawing it out. This isn’t about us demanding they ignore the chance to write a healthy platonic male friendship, or forcing two characters to be gay, it’s about holding the writers to what they’ve implied and seeing what could come of it.

Also think of it like this; If Buddie is confirmed it will still be a good example of a healthy friendship which then developed into something else, like Booth/Bones! Showing the natural progression of friendship to relationship that happens a lot in real life. It’s two men who previously (on screen at least) have only been with woman, but now they have an emotionally connection with someone which they then develop and explore. This could be 911’s first nontoxic depiction of two gay characters coming together, because sorry not sorry the canon couples aren’t perfect (which does humanize them) but they also reenforce harmful troupes that plaque the LGBTQIA+ community, which I’m sure you understand: TK was a drug addict, who only got with Carlos at first cause he was hot and sex was TK’s new addition (all gay men are sex addicts who do drugs and sleep with anything that moves). Carlos was ashamed and wanted to keep TK on the downlow (poc gay men want to pretend to be straight but have free access to gay sex). Hen cheated on Karen seemingly the first chance she got (lesbians can’t handle monogamy when pushed, and cheat on their long term partners). All known and documented troupes that happen far too often.

I’m not saying Buddie is some gay jesus ship that’s gonna save the entertainment industry but if done right it could prove to be one of the few healthy depictions of two men getting into a gay relationship we have. If they plan it out correctly, show us the relationship development, like they did with Maddie/Chim for example, Buddie could be used as a positive example of a gay fictional relationship (I really could go into depth about this. I probably should tbh).

As for not supporting Hen and KAREN, or Michael and DAVID, I think fans do support them! The writers don’t. If you read fanfics Henren and Michael/David are featured heavily in many fics, and ik some people might say ‘well they’re only there so Buddie can talk about their gay side!!’ but both these couples have their own fans and fanfic tags! They aren’t just plot devices in Buddie stories. There is a huge side of the fandom that supports Henren and wants to see more of them and their family. Same with Michael and David, during the episode where Michael and Bobby team up to find that plastic surgeon who was working illegally many people where ecstatic that we were getting more Michael/David content and that David was getting more than a couple lines. But sadly it seems like the writers only want to delve into these story lines when they need filler, they even miss opportunities to include these other LGBTQIA+ characters when it makes sense;

(Someone came for me about this but I am going to bring it up again)

When Chris is sad and wants more human connection, instead of bring Harry + Michael/David and Denny+Nia+Henren back into the picture (and yes I understood at the time the pandemic was bad (lmao still is!!), but all the actors at some point would have/had crossed over into each other’s ‘bubbles’, so ALL the actors would have been exposed to each other so getting the children together with adults they had ALREADY been with during shooting wouldn’t have been a super spreader event) but instead they brought in Ana after only two on screen dates and pretended like it was a logical thing for someone who’s up to that point been extremely careful with their child.

They really could have pushed the ‘118 is a family!’ message here and included the canonically gay supporting characters, and the lesbian main character(s) but they did not and instead chose to push the Ana/Eddie coupling even though they hadn’t properly developed it yet. The writers themselves don’t seem to care about developing their canonically gay characters and including them more than they have to but fans are continuously developing Henren and Michael/David with hc and fics.

I’d like to use your logic against you for a second, in s1 we have a very healthy, platonic friendship between Chim/Bobby but that got written out to the point they are more like boss/employee unless the scene calls for them to seem closer, we now have Bobby and Michael friendship but again we hardly see Michael. On Lone Star we have Owen and Judd as a really, really good example of a healthy male friendship but we see Judd more often with Tommy now then we do with Owen, and in s2 it’s overshadowed by Owen trusting Charlie from Twilight and constantly getting fucked over! Why can’t the writter just be happy with these happy, healthy, emotionally well male-male friendship they’ve already included and expand upon them. There’s enough drama because the show literally involves burning buildings and people’s lives being at risk from some natural/man made disaster ever 12 seconds. Does it need to have so much interpersonal conflict and male peacocking??

#Buddie #Please donʻt get offended by anything in this!!!#These are JUST my opinions which MAY change the further we get into this show!!#ALSO IT IS JUST A TV SHOW!!!! PLEASE BE KIND TO ME AND TO EACH OTHER

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nymph1e · 3 years

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Okay fuck it, I gotta give in, I gotta watch through Supernatural. AFAIK, it's all on Netflix; at least I saw it on there in passing. Going into this, is there anything I should be aware of? Are there any episodes I should skip, any seasons? Should I start from season 4? I know the basic plot and concept, and I know it's very monster-of-the-week. But aside from me highkey shipping Destiel already, that's all.

Well my first piece of advice would be

but uh, let’s fucking ~GO~

If you’re actually jumping into this hellhole (why why why) don’t start at season 4. It’s tempting, but seasons 1-3 are some of the best shit in the whole show, also having context for Sam and Dean’s characters, and their relationship with the supernatural up to season 4 really highlights how fucking wild the introduction of angels is in the show. it’s basically a complete paradigm shift.

I would recommend you watch seasons 1-5 basically as is, though if you’re in a rush, season three is kinda skippable as long as you read a general synopsis. This is the original arc of the show and it shows. A friend of mine, @sammwinchestersdimples has said she’d have been fine if the show had ended there, and I can totally see her point. After season five things start to get... uhhhhh... not as good. THAT BEING SAID some really amazing seasons come later, and you’d get nowhere NEAR the Full Destiel Experience without them. What REALLY sucks is that all the seasons have good moments in them, so even if the seasons are generally bad, they’ll have episodes of GOLD. But fuck it, here’s a season-by-season breakdown.

Season 6 - This is the first... “eh” season. There’s a lot of character choices made in this one that I don’t like. The plot also doesn’t quite seem to know what to do with itself and it has no real main villain... or I guess it has a twist villain? This is also the season where they start chucking in the typical “no homos” you get when a show is queerbaiting, so they can point to the no homo bits and claim the queers are delusional.

Season 7 - The absolute WORST season, imo, is season 7, and it features Cas the least out of all the post season 4 seasons. You can tell the writers genuinely tried to write Cas off here. Not to mention the main plot is completely stupid. HOWEVER this is the season where we get golden things like Cas showing up to Dean’s prayer naked and covered in bees, and the episode where Charlie (best girl) is introduced and Dean subsequently has to flirt with a dude because she, a lesbian, cannot. (Wow so straight, Dean)

Episodes Not To Skip:

6x03 - A good Cas/plot episode (spot the famous destiel quote)

6x04 - A good all-round episode, also Jackles directed it so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

6x09 - This is one of the Batshit Episodes. Definitely watch.

6x10 - On the one hand, Cas episode. On the other, no homo, megstiel episode. Your choice.

6x11 - Good episode.

6x15 - THE ULTIMATE META EPISODE. Sam and Dean are teleported into Jared Padelecki and Jensen Ackles’ lives on the set of Supernatural and it is so batshit.

6x17 - Jolly good episode, and nice destiel content.

6x18 - Time travel episode, which is always fun.

6x19 - “Baby in a trenchcoat.” ‘Nough said.

6x20 - The Man Who Would Be King is the destiel episode. It is infamous in the fandom, and for good reason. It’s not just a good destiel episode, but one of the best episodes in the series. With banging lines like “Freedom is a length of rope. God wants you to hang yourself with it.” and “For a brief moment, I was me again.”

6x21 & 6x22 - The last two episodes are kind of must-watches after TMWWBK, trust me.

Episodes Not To Skip:

7x01 & 7x02 - follows on from s6 final. You don’t wanna skip.

7x05 - Good general episode

7x06 - Again, good general episode. Sets ups plot for the season.

7x08 - Ugh. So the A plot for this episodes invoves Becky, the insane, stalker, fandom-insert character, roofie Sam into marrying her (and it’s heavily implied they have sex - and it’s treated as a joke despite being LITERAL RAPE). BUT this is the episode where Garth is introduced and Garth is fucking amazing. So. IDEK.

7x10 & 7x11 - Plot important.

7x12 - Time travel episode! See if you can catch the bi!dean moment ;)

7x17 - Cas is back! Or is he???

7x18 - GARTH EPISODE

7x20 - CHARLIE!!!! WATCH THIS EPISODE!!!!

7x21 - Cas episode. It’s... interesting.

7x22 - The tagline for this episode is “Sam and Dean seek out an Alpha” 😭. It’s a Cas episode.

7x23 - If Cas weren’t in this episode I’d say skip it.

Season 8 - A fantastic season. If The Man Who Would Be King is the destiel episode, season 8 is the destiel season. When you watch this, DM me so I can RANT about all the amazing destiel this season. It’s also, again, a great season in general I remember watching it as it was airing it was soooo good. You have the arrival of the Bunker, you have Kevin and Charlie being awesome, some nice sprinkles of batshit episodes, BEST BOY BENNY rocks up in all his glory. Fucking epic season. Only downside it Sam’s character takes a bit of a dive. I’d recommend you watch through all of this season.

Episodes To AVOID:

7x13 - I literally pretend this stupid fucking episode doesn’t exist. Basically Dean impregnates a woman with Super Pregnancy and she has a daughter who becomes an adult within hours and then dies. The end. Everyone hated it. Man fuck this episode. Of course it was written by Buckleming.

Season 9 - Sadly, after how amazing season 8 was, and how spectactularly season 9 was set up, this season is a disappointment. It’s an ok season. It’s not bad, it’s not good, it’s just a bit all over the place.

I was going to give you the normal episode list to not skip, but looking through, most episodes this season should be watched for one reason or another. Either they’re Cas heavy, they do some interesting character building, or they feature one of the awesome side characters like Charlie or Jody.

This season is probably the height of the war in the writers’ room about destiel. Some writers want to no homo the whole thing and back way off, while other writers want to lean into it hard. So in the same season where SPOILER Cas loses his virginity to a random reaper woman and Dean kicks Cas out of the bunker to fend for himself, you also have Cas’ fatal flaw used as propaganda against him by Metatron being that he’s "in love” with humanity Dean. /SPOILER Whatever you do DON’T SKIP THE FINAL FEW EPISODES. TRUST ME.

Season 10 - Haha oh dear. This season is likely the biggest for wasted potential. You saw the end of season 9, right? You go “HOLY SHIT YES LET’S DO THIS” and then they do... season 10. They really became experts at setting up an awesome season only to fuck it up in delivery, right? Again, not a bad season, per se.

Episodes To AVOID:

9x05 - In which Dean wants to fuck a dog. I am not joking. I wish I were. Basically a spell-gone-wrong makes Dean doglike. it’s weird. it’s batshit. Not the good kind.

Season 11 - Season 11 is a pretty good season! They tried to give Dean a female love interest but Jackles said ✨No✨ and played Dean as brainwashed and uncomfortable the whole time and I love him for it. Of special note this season is the episode Baby (11x04), which is my favourite episode in the series! It’s funny, it’s heartwarming, it’s weirdly shot. I love it! We also get casifer this season which is awesome! Some episodes are skippable, but they’re generally good episodes.

Episodes NOT to Skip (ignore the 10 year special):

10x01 & 10x02 - Great episodes, Dean in this is *chefs kiss*.

10x04 - *sighs* Fan Fiction. A 200th episode that is simultaneously a love letter to fans and laughing in fans’ faces. I’ve never liked this episode for the second-hand embarressment of it all, but you should watch it and see if you like it.

10x06 - Pretty good episode.

10x07 - Jody AND Donna! Fantastic episode!

10x08 - Dadstiel rears his ugly head. I fucking love how Cas adopts two (2) kids over the course of the series and in both cases Dean eventually goes “ah fuck, I guess I gotta co-parent this thing”. Also we get some KILLER destiel this episode. hey go on a DATE and Cas tells Dean he’s a good person ^_^

10x09 - Good episode. Much destiel.

10x10 - Charlie episode!

10x11 - Teen!Dean! Need I say more?

OK so I just had a look, and you really just need to watch every episode from this point in the season on. Enjoy!

Season 12 - Another example of a TERRRIBLE season, is season 12. Season 12 is also one of the most destiel-heavy seasons in the show. You see the issue? Like, it’s got a stupid plot that makes no sense and has no fucking cohesion, but you also FINALLY have the writers going “fuck it” and all in on the destiel. After this point Dean never has another non-Cas love interest and vice versa, they stop giving us whiplash from baiting and no-homoing. IF the conspiracy theory is true, and the end of the show is shit because of executive meddling, this season is the one where the writers decided they were gonna push for destiel endgame.

I gotta tell you the truth, I skipped this season in my rewatch, so all of my memories are from years ago when it first came out. This seson was the last that I watched live (for a reason). Should you skip it? No. But I’m not well informed enough about this season that I can point out what episodes you should or should not watch.

Season 13 - Congratulations! You’ve reached the point where the show’s gotten consistently good again! (just in time for most of the audience to have already left lol). We start off with SPOILERS Dean mourning Cas like he’s lost the will to fucking live. I’m talking complete despondence, praying for Cas to come back, lashing out in anger at everything, one of the darkest points we’ve ever seen him at on the show, then pulling a 180 and being super happy the second Cas comes back. /SPOILERS They also introduce Jack, who is the SECOND child Cas decides to adopt and Dean ends up co-parenting (Sam too). In fact, Jack is explicity Sam, Cas, and Dean’s kid.

Season 14 - Another good one. My only issue is where they decided to take the plot at the end of the season. I’d recommend watching it all, regardless.

Season 15 - And so we’ve come to the end of the line. This season was... well it was actually pretty good. It started off with what we hellers lovingly refer to as the “divorce arc” where Cas and Dean have a big blow up, and Cas leaves, but that ends with Dean praying on his knees for forgiveness and a nice hug. Honestly this season you can cut the tension between the two of them like a knife, and you can tell Misha and Jensen were doing it deliberately.

I’d say watch up until 15x18, then you decide what to do with the last two episodes. If you want you can watch them to understand just why people put their conspiracy theory hats on, or you can send me another ask and I’ll rec you some post 15x18 finale fics! There’s one fic that’s a replacement for 15x20 written in script format that is particularly good.

Anyway that’s it. It’s kind of left me a little sad, to break down the show in this way. Especially coming up to season 15 nd remembering all the wasted potential. Honestly if you do decide to watch the show, good luck. I hope you enjoy it. I’m also glad you never had to be put through the bullshit false hope that came about after 15x18.

#supernatural #destiel #deancas #spn

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fandomshatelgbtqpeople · 4 years

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mod a’s lgbt musicals

Hi there! I’m a big theatre kid so I thought for pride month I’d put together a list of LGBTQ musicals. Despite its association with queer people, musical theatre is not known for its amazing representation. I’ve put together a list here of musicals I know of with queer characters. I’ve tried to avoid those where the queer characters are incredibly minor roles or those where the representation is just not good enough to be salvageable (*side eyes Legally Blonde*) I know there are many musicals I will have missed out but these are the ones I am most aware of. Feel free to add more! So without further ado, here it is.

Fun Home

The big Tony winner of 2015! Based on Alison Bechdel, a butch lesbian cartoonist. At the age of 43, she looks for new material by trying to explore her past and her relationship with her closeted gay dad. Looks back at a version of herself when she was 10 and a “tomboy” and at 19 when she came out and got her first girlfriend. Has very cute lighthearted moments as well as very sad moments. Has a beautiful song where small Alison sees a butch deliverywoman. Problems in that since the original broadway cast, Alison’s costume has got less butch. Content warning for suicide.

Here’s their Tony performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMAuesRJm1E

The Color Purple

Based on Alice Walker’s novel about black women in the 1930s. Follows Celie who has been abused by men her whole life who discovers she is a lesbian but also makes a journey of self discovery and learns to love herself. Her love interest is a bisexual woman. Won best revival at the Tonys in 2016. Content warning for discussion/implied sexual abuse.

Here’s their Tony performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k2xzQyT2bk

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

A teenage gay boy in Sheffield wants to be a drag queen and go to prom in a dress.Also a nice touch that is does not focus on him having a relationship (since he is sixteen) and him having to come out as he is already out. Focuses on his close relationship with his supportive mother. Has a diverse cast. Jamie is currently played by a black actor and his best friend wears a hijab and has a very diverse ensemble as well. Unfortunately has a part where Jamie responds to a homophobic bully by calling him a bunch of ableist and classist slurs.

Here’s a clip of the most popular song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7C3FuFWDdw

The Prom

Emma is a lesbian teenager in Indiana whose prom is cancelled by the PTA after she requests to bring her girlfriend to it. A group of Broadway actors come down to help her campaign to be allowed to attend prom, as well as styling her, helping her work on her confidence and educating the town’s people. What ensues is basically a two hour musical episode of Queer Eye. Cheesy and fun with so many musical theatre references crammed in. My one issue is that the show is rather harsh on people who are closeted since Emma has conflicted with her girlfriend Alyssa because she is not ready to come out.

Here’s a clip of their Tony performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGcG_r5xv3E

Rent

Probably the most well known on this list. Artists in New York during the AIDS crisis. Two of the main couples featured are queer: Maureen is bisexual and in a relationship with Joanne who is a lesbian, and Angel is a transgender woman of color in a relationship with Collins, a presumably bisexual man. However, she tends to be played bi cis men and there are instances of her being misgendered by the main characters uncritically. In Rent Live (2019), all instances of her being misgendered were removed and her gender identity was confirmed. She was played in this by Valentina, an nb drag queen and has also been played by Pose’s MJ Rodriguez, a trans woman. Very diverse with Jewish characters and people of colour and in the live show, only 1 of the 8 main characters was white. Has been criticised over the years, mainly for its biphobic portrayal of Maureen who is promiscuous and implied to cheat, but in the 90s did a lot for the LGBTQ community and is more progressive than a lot of media even now.

Here’s a clip of Maureen and Joanne from Rent Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06oCfKYYPTY

And here’s some Angel and Collins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hl-M94o_x8

Falsettos

Marvin comes out as gay in the late 70s but decides to move his ex wife and son in with his boyfriend. Addresses AIDS crisis in Act 2. Has “lesbians from next door” in act 2. F Revived on Broadway in 2016. All of the characters are Jewish. Unfortunately, in revival casts, very few actors tend to be Jewish.

Here’s the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjnAHOdMQVk

Come From Away

In the aftermath of 9/11, 38 planes are diverted to a small town in Canada called Gander. Shows people of different races and nationalities bonding in a scary time. Addresses Islamophobia. Has one song called Prayer where prayers from different religions overlap. Has an interracial gay couple called Kevin and Kevin. They break up in the end but are very important characters. Won best direction of a musical in 2017. The Broadway production starred Jenn Colella who has referred to herself as ‘mostly gay’.

Here’s a clip of Jenn Colella singing a song from the musical: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8ukgH6U-d0

Head Over Heels

Honestly I don’t quite know what this musical is about, even by reading the plot summary and listening to the soundtrack. I know it’s set in a Tudor fantasy world and that there are wlw couples as well as an explicitly non binary character, played by Peppermint, a trans woman, and that there are interracial couples and plus sized actors. It is a jukebox musical using songs by the Go-Gos and yes the wlw anthem that is Heaven is a Place on Earth is one of them. The soundtrack is fantastic even if you can’t follow what is going on.

Here are some show clips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx2qQ7QAPm0

Spring Awakening

German school kids in the 19th century discovering their sexuality. Two of the schoolboy supporting characters, Ernst and Hänschen, have a romance when they have a reprise of an earlier song in Act 2. A BIG content warning as it has graphic discussions of rape and songs about it and a sex scene with very dubious consent. However there was a very wonderful 2016 revival using deaf actors and sign language.

This is another one you can very easily find the full show of on YouTube which I won’t link. However here’s the Tony performance for the revival: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSagsMcak4Q

If/Then

A woman named Elizabeth (originally played by Idina Menzel) moves to New York after a divorce and contemplated how different her life would be if she took two different paths. Four supporting queer characters. Her ex-boyfriend is bisexual and played by Anthony Rapp (who is bisexual in real life) and he gets a boyfriend in one timeline. Another of her friends is a lesbian called Kate who marries her girlfriend in the musical. Problems occur as in both timelines, cheating goes on in the lesbian relationship although they stay together in one. Elizabeth also says she doesn’t believe in bisexuals, a view no one ever challenges her on, however Lucas is very clearly bisexual which is some proof for the audience that she is wrong.

I’m not going to link it here but there are many very high quality bootlegs on it on YouTube if you want to watch,

Ghost Quartet

A bit of a weird one. This is more of a concept album. There are four performers who each play instruments and they tell the stories of many interconnected timelines. It is very hard to explain but there are souls travelling through time who keep being reincarnated as different people with different relationships to each other which usually end with one woman killing the other. In the song Soldier & Rose, the ghosts Rose and Pearl are lovers as Rose seduces the soldier for her honey. In the song Four Friends, for one chorus the men sing “I like to put my hand on a pretty girls’s knee” and the women sing “pretty boy’s knee” and then they switch for the next chorus so they’re all bisexual. In general, a lot of fun if you like weird musicals and I mean really weird.

The full show is online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJSaEJm8pCE

Mean Girls

Yes there’s a musical of it. I was not looking forward to it when it was announced but have actually grown to quite like it. It’s hardly lyrical genius but the songs are fun and a lot of the problematic aspects of the film have been fixed. Damian is more explicitly gay in the musical and sings about an ex boyfriend in one song. Janis is heavily implied to be a lesbian (confirmed by actress offstage) and she doesn’t end up with Kevin Gnapoor. She is played by a queer actress in the tour cast. Both queer characters are much bigger roles than in the movie and get several songs each. I’d consider the musical to be quite white feminist but it does address issues such as the sexualisation of teenage girls and the notion that to be ‘sexy’ is ‘empowering’.

Here’s a clip of one of Damian’s songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-zM6QKkxEQ

& Juliet

An English jukebox musical about what might have happened to Juliet in Romeo and Juliet if she had not died at the end. I haven’t seen it but I’ve listened to the soundtrack and it is mainly comprised of 21st century songs by women. One of Juliet’s best friends is non binary although is played by a cis man as far as we know. Also I went to the same school as one of the actors which is a bonus for me. Very diverse cast.

Here’s a trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm2k9nS3o20

In Transit

A capella musical about several people’s adventures on New York public transport. Two of the main characters in this ensemble cast are an interracial gay couple where both are pocs. They are engaged but one of them is having trouble coming out to his mother. I found it refreshing in that his fiance for the most part was not upset with him at his struggles in coming out and they were both able to live fulfilling lives despite this. I am always astonished by the talent of a cappella singers.

Here’s a trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhvik6qoass Another one where the bootleg can be found very easily on YouTube

Firebringer

Remember A Very Potter Musical? Well, the company that did that are still putting out new pieces of theatre on their YouTube channel. In 2016, they put out their ridiculous comedy musical Firebringer, about a group of bisexual cavewomen. I won’t spoil the ending but trust me, it’s great. You may know it from the viral clip of one of the main characters singing ‘I don’t really wanna do the work today.’

You can watch the full musical here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmVuNlu0LCk

Special Mentions

Company

Musical by Stephen Sondheim about a man unable to commit to a relationship, surrounded by his friends who are all in couples. However, the award-winning 2018 West End revival chose to change the genders of some of the characters. The main character Robert became ‘Bobbie’ (although all of her love interests were gender-swapped as well). One of the originally M/F couples became an M/M couple. It opened on Broadway for about a week before the Covid outbreak so that will be one to look out for.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtDK03y4gT0

In the Heights

A musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda about the Latin American community living in Washington Heights in New York. The original theatre production has no explicitly queer characters. However, in the upcoming movie version (that was meant to be released this summer but has been pushed back to next summer) it has been confirmed that the characters of Daniela and Carla (Daphne Rubin-Vega and Stephanie Beatriz) will be explicitly a couple.

I absolutely love this musical and the trailer for the movie looks beautiful check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0CL-ZSuCrQ

#mod a #musicals #theatre #lgbtq rep

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shalebridge-cradle · 4 years

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Bisclavret Round-Up

Unholy took about three months to write. Fairy Tale took five. Hindsight took six.

Bisclavret took nineteen, and that should be the biggest indicator to you that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.

This was my first venture into another fandom, and out of my comfort zone (though not entirely – supernatural elements for life). I’m not sure whether or not I did the source material and its characters justice, however, especially with the supernatural element I went with (Wolves are believed to have gone extinct in England in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century), but I will try to explain my reasoning behind some of my decisions here.

The Characters

My main concern.

We get a good view of Monty’s thought process throughout the show, through the framing device of writing his memoirs and views of his private affairs. Phoebe and Sibella, on the other hand, are characters we don’t get much of in the way of examination – we only see them through Monty’s eyes until the very end, where they reveal themselves as more than that.

Sibella is a bit self-centred, and extremely practical when it comes to how she sees her place in society, which implies some self-confidence issues. Phoebe is more idealistic, and independent, but still hopes for a match fit for a storybook. But, towards the end, Sibella demonstrates she is more than a vain god-digger, afraid of losing the man she loves and willing to potentially compromise her image to save him, while Phoebe shows that she is not nearly as innocent or naive as the people around her consider her to be.

I interpreted the two women’s characterisations as thus; Sibella believes she is bound by society’s view of her. Phoebe does not. This, I believed, needed to be the focus.

Which is where we introduce…

The Whole Werewolf Thing

“[Post-modern Gothic] warns us to be suspicious of monster hunters, monster makers, and above all, discourses invested in purity and innocence. The monster always represents the disruption of categories, the destruction of boundaries, and the presence of impurities and so we need monsters and we need to recognize and celebrate our own monstrosities.” - J Halberstam, Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters

I gave a number of possible causes of the D’Ysquith ‘family curse’, if it is one – the actions of the first countess, Gregory D’Ysquith burning down a monastery (divine punishment is a possible cause), but I never gave a specific answer. I think I might be operating on the logic of the original Bisclavret – it’s irrelevant.

The reason there isn’t is because I intended it as a metaphor – which I think I’ve made clear with my chapter updates here (though you don’t have to read it that way, Death of the Author and all that), but I never quite decided and what it was a metaphor for. In terms of this particular narrative, it can be read as a metaphor for feminism, and/or a metaphor for same-sex attraction.

Feminism

Edwardian Era England, where A Gentleman’s Guide takes place, is not overly-represented in fiction. Not surprising, considering it’s a pretty short time period between the surprisingly long Victorian era and the world-changing events of World War One. However, when you think of that time period, a certain group tends to come to mind – the suffragettes.

(Just a note. Agatha D’Ascoyne, the character from Kind Hearts and Coronets who inspired Hyacinth D’Ysquith in the musical, was a suffragette. She has no lines, apart from “Shush!” – Deeds, Not Words.)

We know what these people wanted – Votes for Women. They were not prepared to wait for society to change to get it, and when peaceful protest was ignored, they began to act out. They refused to fit into their role of quiet, demure, loyal wives, and for some groups, this was seen as threatening. Anti-suffragette cartoons of the time often depicted these women as old, ugly and/or selfish for wanting similar rights to men instead of accepting their place as a ‘lesser being’.

The point I am trying to make is, being in defiance of the role you are expected to play – which Sibella is afraid to show – was seen by many to be ugly. Beastly.

Phoebe runs Henry’s country estate for him. Phoebe flaunts societal expectations by proposing to Monty, instead of waiting for him to propose, the ‘proper’ way to do things. While she is feminine, she does not fit the idea of what a woman ‘should be’.

Sibella makes a point to meet her obligations as a wife, though she does surreptitiously carry on an affair. She sacrifices her own happiness to get what she wants in a socially acceptable way. She has no intention of leaving Lionel in the source material, but she convinces herself that a rich, good-looking, polite man – what society thinks of as the ideal male – is what she wants, and realises on her wedding day that it isn’t.

And goes through with it anyway.

When she can no longer fit that mould, when she refuses to go along with Lionel’s plan to leech off the countess, when she undermines and argues with her husband, that’s when things start happening. Indeed, her ‘beastly’ outbursts manifest as standing up for herself. She ends the story as a much happier and self-assured person than she was at the beginning, and attempts to bring justice to other women.

Same-Sex Attraction

This is a bit more straightforward. We’re coming right off the back of the Victorian era here, where Oscar Wilde and others like him got their lives ruined. Same-sex relationships aren’t viewed in a positive light at all at this time – you like the same gender? Off to prison with you, deviant!

As people that were (and often still are) villainised, misunderstood and attacked for the crime of existing, some members of the LGBT community reclaim monsters such as vampires, werewolves and the Babadook as their own as a means of subverting their image in a heteronormative society. Being ‘monstrous’ is not bad. Being different is fine. You may feel malformed and wrong, but you are not. You and your quirks are accepted.

For some, the ones to fear are those who appear in the daylight.

Sibella, for all her talk of being a monster, only fights back when threatened. Morton has a heart attack when put in the position of his victims, subverting the formula he’s used to. Lionel, fearing that Sibella will leave him and damage his image, resorts to violence against Sibella and several other women he sees as substitutes for her. Mary attempts to murder Sibella for getting in the way of a monogamous man-woman relationship. In her eyes, Sibella is an irredeemable villain, but Phoebe can be ‘fixed’.

If you want to look deeper into this link between horror and the LGBT community, here’s a video essay discussing gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender representation in horror films.

There are only a few non-metaphorical references to werewolves. The wolf head in Eugenia’s dower house is a family member – as previously mentioned, wolves went extinct in England during the reign of Henry VII. St Hubert’s Key is a charm that more often than not looks like a nail, and was supposed to be able to rid the body of disease caused by a dog or wolf bite. There is some science behind this – the metal was heated before being pressed to the wound, and, if the subject was at risk of contracting rabies from the injury, the heat would likely sterilise and cauterise the potential infection site.

Not the First Murder-y Heir

There are a couple of characters named or directly taken from Israel Rank – Autobiography of a Criminal, the inspiration for Kind Hearts and Coronets and A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. I’ve compared these works before, so I’ll just go over those that appear here.

Esther (Lane) – The third object of Israel Rank’s affections, and a governess. Knows more than she’s letting on in Israel Rank, and in this story as well.

James “Jim” Morton – Appears for about a page to explain Israel’s disillusionment with the ideal male – while Morton seems great to some, he really isn’t. Since Jim only appears as a child in the book, his characterisation here is drastically different.

Lord and Lady Pebworth – Almost directly lifted from the book, with Lady Pebworth being a bad singer and Lord Pebworth an older gentleman who lets his wife get away with a lot. The difference here is that Israel introduces the Hollands to the Pebworths, while the Pebworths are hoping the Hollands introduce them to Lord and Lady Navarro.

Sir Anthony Cross – Quiet, very well-off, slightly older gentleman who is quite taken by Sibella, but it doesn’t go anywhere. Acquaintance of the Pebworths. Pretty much the same guy.

Ethel D’Ysquith (Gascoyne) – An ancestor Israel is quite taken with, not only due to the resemblance between the two. He’s made the 3rd Earl of Highhurst because I didn’t feel like making an imaginary preceding title (Monty is only the 9th Earl, while the 10th Earl Gascoyne is about five generations before Israel – Ethel was the 6th Earl) and the 2nd Earl, Roland, had already been named in the musical. Phoebe’s description of him is meant to heavily imply he was also a werewolf. If I had read the book before fleshing out the D’Ysquith family tree, he would have taken the role that the first countess plays in the narrative’s events (Ethel Gascoyne hid in a tower with an Italian magician for 20 years).

Kate Falconer – The character who would later be known as ‘Boat Girl’ in Kind Hearts and Coronets and Evangeline Barley in A Gentleman’s Guide. Her great crime is to go on holiday with her boyfriend, and gets poisoned for her troubles. She survives here, and I used her to try a formatting technique (while she speaks, none of her dialogue is in quotes: in a way, she is voiceless).

(Sir) Cheveley Drummond, (Lady) Enid Branksome, and Catherine Goodsall – only mentioned briefly. Drummond is described as handsome and ‘interesting’ by Israel, Lady Enid is a young woman from a penniless but aristocratic family, and Catherine Goodsall in an actress whose abusive husband was beaten so badly by a Gascoyne he joined the navy and never came back to land.

In addition, Lionel’s later characterisation comes directly from Kind Hearts and Coronets, since he gets almost none in the musical. His breakdown in Chapter 11 follows his emotional journey when asking for a loan – affability, begging, threatening suicide, insults and physical violence.

Literary References:

Not always relevant, but there is a wide enough variety that I’m collecting them.

Every chapter title, and the tagline of the work, comes from Manners and Social Usages by Mary Elizabeth (Mrs. John) Sherwood. It’s a bit out of date by the time of this story (written in 1884), but Sherwood does have some great phrases in her etiquette handbook.

Ruddigore is mentioned in chapter 2, only because it is a musical theatre production (opera) where ancestors play a role and family expectations are subverted.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Hamlet. It’s Hamlet.

When in the chronicle of wasted time, I see descriptions of the fairest wights, and beauty making beautiful old rhyme in praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights... Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Number 106.

I desire, and I crave… Fragment from Sappho’s poetry.

The countess closes her book; something by a George Reynolds. George W. M. Reynolds wrote Wagner the Wher-Wolf (with that spelling) in 1857.

I met a lady in the meads, full beautiful, a faery’s child: Her hair was long, her foot was light, and her eyes were wild. La Belle Dame sans Merci (The beautiful lady without mercy) by John Keats.

Sibella also briefly mentions Algernon Blackwood, a supernatural fiction writer who wrote a short story about a werewolf (portrayed quite differently here) that a character in 1909 could have possibly read (the story was first published in 1908).

In addition, the whole story is named after a very early depiction of a sympathetic werewolf, Bisclavret by Marie de France (and the most direct I think I’ve ever been with a title). It depicts, naturally, a werewolf (who is also a knight, because not being human doesn’t disqualify you from doing that – cutting social commentary for the 12th century) who is trapped in his wolf form after being tricked by his wife and her lover. Through chivalric behaviour to the king on a hunt, he works himself back into the royal court and, when his former wife pays a visit, bites off her nose. The king thinks the sudden aggressive behaviour from his pet prompts further investigation, the wife reveals all, and the knight is restored to human form. Also, all of the wife’s children are born without noses from then on. Lionel getting his nose bitten off is a reference to this poem.

Uncategorised Trivia

This work was written with the UK spellings of certain words, because it takes place in England. Previous works all took place in the US, and so used US spelling.

Les Patineurs Valse is French for The Skater’s Waltz. Reference to Asquith Jr. and Evangeline Barley.

All of the racehorse names Sibella finds are either variations, anagrams or synonyms of actual racehorses in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Sir Hugh is Sir Huon, Gil Owen is Neil Gow, Irish Lass is Irish Lad, Supervision is Oversight and Pinnacle is Meridian.

Lionel was right to be concerned about Phoebe’s flower arrangement. Red begonias represent love, lavender-coloured heathers represent admiration and loneliness (and are a reference to another fandom I write for), tuberoses are symbolic of wild or forbidden passion (and was commonly used as a funeral flower), and verbena is reference to romance and sweet memories. The dead foliage is meant to mean sadness. Overall, the intended meaning is I miss you, my love.

#the cradle will write #bisclavret:work

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dalishious · 5 years

Note

You mentioned some of the LGBTQ+ characters in the novels and stuff, do you know any queer npcs in the games? I've heard Herren and Wade from dao are gay.

(Not including companions and advisors)

Fair warning: The majority of WLW characters are either abusive, abuse victims and/or dead.

DA:O -

Herren and Wade are indeed a couple. It’s heavily implied in-game but some people still needed clarification LOL, so Gaider did outright say as such on the dead forums. They own and run the blacksmith shop Wade’s Emporium together.

Branka is either bi or a formerly-closeted lesbian (while she agreed to the arranged marriage to Oghren she never actually had interest in him, and had been with Hespith in secret all that time, but LBR, that could be just because he’s Oghren.) She was in a relationship with Hespith before getting so obsessed with the Anvil of the Void that she purposely lets Hesptih and the other women with her get turned into broodmothers, to produce darkspawn that she can use as fodder to try and get through all the traps to the Anvil. Hespith ends up killing herself rather than becoming a broodmother. (It’s all easily the most disturbing portion of the game.)

Marjolaine is Leliana’s abusive ex. She has a minor appearance in the main game and a main part in the Leliana’s Song DLC.

Isabela (who is then a companion in DA:2!) is bi. She’s a pirate who can teach your character the Duelist specialization, but only after she gets to know you either by beating her in a card game or sleeping with her.

DA:2 -

Zevran (from DA:O) makes a reappearing cameo. He’s bi.

In the Mark of the Assassin DLC, there’s Cyril, Duke Prosper’s son, who is bi and can be seduced by Hawke.

There’s also Jethann and Serendipity who are both bi sex workers at the Blooming Rose. It should be noted that Serendipity is uh, not what you’d call good representation. Gaider said that Serendipity is not trans but a drag queen, but would have been trans if they had the options, which I don’t understand what that means but whatever? Either way she’s treated like a joke you’re supposed to point and laugh at. However I guess on the bright side, they actually took criticism seriously, and then we got Krem in DA:I.

DA:I -

Krem is the first in-game trans character. He’s the lieutenant of the Bull’s Chargers mercenary company.

Dagna is a lesbian, and if the Inquisitor doesn’t romance Sera, she and Dagna become a couple! Dagna makes her first appearance in DA:O, but her sexuality is not acknowledged until this game. She’s the Inquisiton’s Arcanist and rune expert.

Celene is the Empress of Orlais and Briala’s abusive ex. She’s a lesbian. (She’s a main character in The Masked Empire.)

Briala is the leader of the elven rebellion in Orlais and Celene’s ex. She’s also a lesbian. (She’s a main character in The Masked Empire.)

Ritts is an Inquisition scout that you can save from getting attacked by templars. However, you are unable to save her mage girlfriend.

EDIT: Scout Harding! I tricked myself into thinking she’s an advisor adlskhagdlfsaj

#abuse tw #suicide tw #q word #(tagging by request)#Anonymous #ask

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ilovemygaydad · 5 years

Text

punk!patton au masterlist

characters: listed under the cut

pairings: moxiety, logince, background remceit (sleep/deceit), past thomas/female oc, and possibly more in the future

rating: teen (see under read more for more info on that)

warnings are on the individual chapters :)

links to the fic itself:

part one

part two

part three

part four

part five (updated 3/22/19)

ao3 version

companions:

serpent’s silk

weak spot

mouth breather

answered questions and random ramblings:

about virgil:

about his celiac disease

when they discovered he was celiac

more about his celiac disease

is virgil adopted?

about virgil’s biological mother

can’t he bring a lunch?

about patton:

a bit about logan and patton’s relationship

more about logan and patton’s relationship

does patton want logan to be a dad-dad

patton’s curls vs his emo style

what does patton normally wear?

tattoos and piercings?

abandonment issues?

about his meltdowns

does he want to be a dad

music tastes

about roman:

his deafness

about his hearing aids

his reaction to virgil having a black eye

how he feels about patton

roman as a teenager with a splash of thomas

about logan:

has he wanted to adopt anyone else?

about emile:

future role in the fic?

about dc:

how old is he and what does he like about remy

artwork:

patton being edgy

virgil being a sweetheart

some cuTe artwork of patton and virgil

patton and virgil moodboards

more moodboards!!!

a shitpost about patton and logan

the softest, sweetest baby boy

miscellaneous:

virgil cosplay (makeup)

questions are always welcome! i love to talk about these guys and the story!!! <3

any artwork is totally cool as long as you tag me so i can see it!

other stuff: