#this is why it's so fucking hard to trust (especially white) cishet men

[scentedluminarysoul]

#this is why I'm not interested in stand up anymore #this is why it's so fucking hard to trust (especially white) cishet men #they don't GET IT #not really #they never can #their privilege prevents them from it #they don't see what's so bad about being friends with bad people #they're so nice to THEM after all??? #anyway #john mulaney #dave Chappelle #transphobia #homophobia

[mywingsareonwheels]

I was thinking about the whole... what's more progressive debate out of m/m romance representation and actually close and tender (as opposed to buddyish) m&m friendships. And how utterly futile and insulting to the need for more of both a debate it is when we need infinitely more of both and a lot of other things.

Fundamentally, between the lingering after-effects of the Hays Code and the extremist end of Christianity (not that those two are unconnected) and the patriarchy (ditto) and militarism and capitalism... in mainstream Western story media we still struggle to get *any* genuine emotional intimacy that isn't:-

romance between a different-gender couple who are both cishet, and which if it's happy will lead to marriage (but hasn't yet).

marriage between ditto, but only if they haven't been together very long (after they have for a few years they're supposed to bicker all the time).

at an extreme pinch, fond closeness between blood relatives, especially if at least one of them is a woman.

Friendships between men and between women are okay so long as there's a... distancing of rivalry and teasing. If you can imagine one of them tucking the other in or stroking their hair (especially if they're both men) or being utterly and wholly in solidarity with each other (especially if they're both women)... hm, no.

And that's... it. We're still at a point in mainstream western media where anything that deviates from, especially to the extent of serious warmth and trust and confidence and understanding between the characters, that feels at least a little transgressive, especially in e.g. a blockbuster movie. We're still at a point where everything else is under-represented. Less and less so, thank everything, but still.

I'm thinking of some of my favourite relationships in fiction at the moment and how they fuck with those stereotypes and do better things (and always as part of awesome stories, because as always, good rep is important but it should never be treated as everything). :-) This is inevitably a v personal list, I'm not claiming that anything here is The Purest And Least Problematic Thing Ever, and this is very much just a, "this is what's enthusing me right now" thing. :D

yes they're a het couple and both cis, but: Mike and Alison Cooper in Ghosts. They have been married for a few years now, and they actually like each other. They're best friends as well as lovers, and I know that some critics have actually had a problem with this and regard it as unrealistic. [facepalm] I adore so much that they're not a stereotypical sitcom married couple, nothing like. In a quiet way they are utterly defiant and fuck completely with the genre.

Donna Noble & the Doctor in Doctor Who. I mean, do I need to say much more? :D Close, glorious platonic friendship between a woman and... the Doctor. Some of the most beautiful platonic love in any fiction ever and it's so tender and gorgeous and fun. Adore it. <3

Red, White, and Royal Blue is a silly film but omg I adore it and part of it is seeing all of those standard romance beats between two men. And with a lot more true closeness than a lot of het romcoms manage. We're getting more and more of this (we need more between women too, and indeed other queer romances of many and various kinds!!!). <3 <3 <3

yes, they're shit at expressing their love for each other most of the time, but I still stubbornly add: E Morse & Fred Thursday in Endeavour. The fact that they're inhabiting the 1960s-70s and there is no framework for their mutual affection and devotion is of course part of why things get so hard for them both. They don't know what to do with it or where to place each other in their priorities, but the loyalty and the tenderness is there, and some remarkable emotional intimacy at times considering who they both are. We watch and interpret it as father-son or as romantic or as fraternal or as an intense and wonderful (and complicated and difficult) friendship. But it defies easy definition and... and oh goodness well anyone who's been following me for any length of time knows how I can go on about them, apologies. ;-)

the entire Fellowship of the Ring, but especially Frodo and Sam. And whatever my mixed feelings on the PJ films of The Lord of the Rings, my Gods am I endlessly glad and grateful that they retained warmth and intensity and devotion and intimacy. I worry that it wouldn't have been if made now, with a more stereotypical masculinity so much in the ascendant in mainstream film-making (we really are in the midst of a patriarchal/homophobic/transphobic reaction :( ). As with Morse and Thursday, you can absolutely interpret some of the connections there as romantic (and we know that Tolkien was remarkably non-homophobic for a man of his generation and religion), or as platonic. Either way, what matters is that there's serious love there between male characters and that goes right back to the books. Tolkien could be problematic af, but I love him so much for how he writes masculinity and love between men. <3

Heartstopper, not just for Nick/Charlie and Tara/Darcy, but also because of Charlie's friendships with Elle, Isaac, and (especially, actually) Tau.

everything with Found Family, and especially everything with Found Family where there is no easy equivalence to a "nuclear" family to map the characters on to.

Honestly I could go on. Hooray for all of these! But also: we are still in a position where these all feel subversive and make a lot of the more bigoted critics spectacularly uncomfortable (even when there is no actual queer rep). We're still in a position where mainstream film series and some tv shows struggles with anything like this, and/or will sabotage a friendship between men and even an entire character arc because it's got too close and intimate and there's a desperate need to "no homo" everything (*coughs* Steve Rogers *coughs*). We're still in a position where romance between women and any romance involving trans people of any gender is dramatically under-everythinged (but that between cis men is also still not exactly even a fraction of where it should be). We're still in a position where honestly even the representation of romance between cishet characters is most often weirdly distant and lacks real closeness or mutual liking between them (often, let's face it, because the writers struggle to write women as people). I snarked a bit at first about the debate as to which is more important and under-represented between m/m romance and really open and loving m&m friendship, but honestly the main problem with that debate is that dividing up the exact same problem: we aren't going to get more open and loving representations of m&m friendship until the media get less afraid of the relationship being interpreted as romantic whether or not it is, by both fans and haters. (I.e. don't blame the shippers when a production company loses their nerve and trashes a friendship between men so that it's not seen as romantic! Blame homophobia. I mean, to put it on its simplest real-life terms, it's consistently my experience in the UK at least that het male allies are in general vastly more comfortable hugging each other than homophobes are.)

#long post #post i wrote when i should be looking after my neck by not being on my laptop oops #bbc ghosts #doctor who #rwrb #red white and royal blue #itv endeavour #lotr #heartstopper #mcu critical #tw homophobia discussion #tw misogyny discussion #tw transphobia mention #i could so easily have got into good omens and conversations from a long marriage but honestly they were both almost too easy :D

[ventureawaybitches]

Campaign 1 Finale Feels

Ok, @lost-in-the-cosmos-lovely asked so here we are. Obviously contains major spoilers for campaign one, discussion of canon-typical violence, major character not-death, Rem apologist (kinda) musings.

This is all purely personal and probably incomprehensible. I also haven't listened to the last 15 or so episodes in A While so I hope I remembered everything correctly.

Character development feels: How the Maidens operate as a group has changed so much, from the first fight against Ethan where they didn't communicate at all and ended up killing him, to spending the first half of the episode discussing what they wanted to do and making sure that everyone is clear and fairly ok with the plan (there's also the whole mechanic of the boss battle that was basically the power of friendship), this is kinda a player thing but it's also totally a character development thing and it made me so happy. The power of the Squad Walk and Hug Unit.

Kara: Kara's character development from chaotic neutral to lawful good honestly makes me melt. From her impulsiveness and blind rage to how she's driven by justice and uses her rage tactically *chef's kiss*. Her decision to let Rem live (I was surprised, also that the others all deferred to that decision) no way would she have considered that at the start. Also the Order of the Furies is such a badass name. Kara matured so much and it feels silly to say I'm proud of her but I am.

Arrnodel: my Arrnodel feels mainly come from the legacy game, after the total breakdown of her relationship with Aaron at the climax of the story (it was a long time coming) the fact that they decided to stay together, to start over, to go to couples therapy and work on their communication. Wonderful. Also Arrnodel being the one who takes no damage in combat? Queen.

Sawyeh: Sawyeh's development from naïve and trusting (her terrible insight checks) to no we have to kill Rem otherwise it will come back to bite us, she had to learn the hard way and it's brilliant but also it hurts me cos the bath scene in Faelyn "In a sense I think of her as a sister, I mean we are sisters[...]I just want to understand and I want to listen, I want to know why she did what she did,[...]and understand what she's going through" she held onto her hope that Rem would reach out, that she would trust her enough to tell her what was going on, even after Rem rejected her she still wanted to help. Then Rem slit her throat at The Veil.

Fera: I am here for I worship the gods of fate cos it means that what is meant to happen will happen and I can just chill to as insurance I'm going to grab myself a demi-god and use their powers in case something happens to mine, fuck the gods of fate, fuck you for using me. Yass queen gain your independence and take control of your life.

Rem: I spent nearly a year whining to myself, my cats, and occasionally my mum that I knew something else was going on with Rem, that given what we had seen from her before it made no sense that she was actually evil (sidenote: the complex morality in VM is awesome). Freeing mortality from the control of the gods would always make Rem the villain, was she aware of what she would have to sacrifice? (I have no doubt that she genuinely loved Isolde and she must have known that Isolde would suffer so much for this, and the feels that she asks after her at the end, my otp, I should probably rant about them in a separate post). How long had she wanted to destroy fate, was it while she was still working for her father or after? What had she gone through that she decided that this was her only option? When did it become an actual possibility? Was it for the best? This is just a load of questions, we shall move on.

Overall feels: the whole story and the finale especially feels like a parallel with how society tells people (anyone who isn't a cishet white man) what they have to/should do/be and what they can do and (Celeste saying men have told her she shouldn't advertise she's a woman so much with her dnd work) the main characters choosing to say fuck no to their fate, to what they were told to do and that's so. Fucking. Powerful. The whole thing is about deciding your own path, not letting anyone control your life or tell you what to do and it's just what Celeste said in the kickstarter launch party vid

"You are powerful. You live in a world that constantly tells you you aren't but you are"

The finale was such a good ending (although it was left very open and the legacy games are a thing) because I wasn't dissatisfied with anything that had happened, all the character arcs worked. I don't find that many things empowering but Venture Maidens really really is.

#good for you if you read all that #i hope that was somewhat enjoyable #venture maidens #ramblings #musings #venture maidens podcast #spoilers #venture maidens spoilers #legacy game spoilers #venture maidens meta #venture maidens fate #fate spoilers

[rivieta]

things i figured out this summer:

- the reason you keep seeking out relationships (of any kind, including friendships) w people who are emotionally unavailable is bc you're going to be drawn to people who are like your mother. 

- stop seeking out, and stop falling in love with, emotionally unavailable / hot&cold people. l**** was the last one gdi. 

- you're always going to try to crack emotionally unavailable people open, because that's who you are, but don't expect anything from them. it'll just make you feel small, like you already do all the time. you don't like having friends that don't ask about you or who aren't willing to listen to you talk. no one does.

- find friends who will ask about you. if you're asking 100% of the questions, something is wrong. look for people who listen.

- stop being afraid of people who ask you about yourself. that’s where you’re supposed to be making friends, ya dumbass.

- part of how you end up in these one-sided friendships is because you're afraid to be yourself, so you poke at them to make them keep talking. don't be afraid to talk about yourself. 

- your fear of men is valid, bc they haven't earned that trust yet (as per the therapist). you don't like being hit on, you don't like being sexualized, you don't like being touched without your approval, you don't like being asked out. you want to be seen as a person.

- stop talking to men about why you don't like cishet men. f** won't ever get it (despite not being cishet) so stop trying. 

- if their friends ignore you & act like you're not in the room, get out. mutual friends are not supposed to treat you like that, especially if you're their friend's girlfriend. remember how ross' friends treated you like a person, & how wootton people treated you at that party, where you didn't really know anyone. that's what it's supposed to be like.

- if you hate all their friends, get out. 

- if they refuse to listen to you talk about your feelings, get out. don't put up with it, because nothing will change, & suffering is trying to change other people.

- if they are the primary cause of your misery, get out.

- be direct and confront people about things before it gets to a tipping point, where the friendship/rship is no longer salvageable. 

- be honest with people about what you like about them. 

- you've always been demi. you just never noticed bc boy's friends kept complaining that n**** didn't put out, so you thought you had to. (+ you needed to work through all that christian shame.) & then it worked out, bc you grew attached to boy. but looking back, you never really saw people as sexual beings, & you don't see yourself as one now. 

- your being panro & demi makes so much sense. like..............so much sense. it explains why you don't enjoy hooking up, for one. you also enjoy platonic affection, & as much as he tried to shame you for that, it’s okay to accept that part of you.

- you might view yourself as a concept & feel like you don't have a physical existence sometimes, but remember that other people don't see you the way you see you. 

- radical acceptance does not mean that what you are trying to accept has to be something you like. it just means accepting that something has happened, and nothing can change that. 

- you are inexplicably hard on yourself. chill the fuck out. 

- keep seeing people for who they are. see yourself for who you are. 

- keep being positive. you’ve been really good about seeing things as not black/white. keep doing that. 

- despite all the bullshit, this is the best you’ve handled your mental health in 6 months or so (maybe the best ever). keep it going.