Y'know, there's this gripe I've had for years that really frustrates me, and it has to do with Love, Simon and people joking about it and calling it too-pg and designed-for-straight-people and all the like. (A similar thing has happened to Heartstopper, but that's another conversation.)
I saw Love, Simon in theaters when it came out my senior year in high school. I saw it three times, once with my friends/parents on opening night, once with my brother over spring break, and once with my grandparents.
On opening night, the air in the room was electric. It was palpable. Half the heads in there were dyed various colors. Queer kids were holding hands. We were all crying and laughing and cheering as a group. My friends grabbed my hands at the part where Simon was outed and didn't let go until his parents were saying that they accepted him. My friend came out to me as non-binary. Another person in our group admitted that she had feelings for girls. It was incredible. I left shaking. This was the first mainstream queer romance movie that had ever been produced by one of the main five studios, and I know that sounds like another "first queer character from Disney" bit but you have to understand that even in 2018 this was groundbreaking. Getting to have a sweet queer rom-com where the main character was told that he got "to breathe now" after coming out meant so much to me and my friends.
But also, from a designed-for-straight-people POV (which, to be frank, it was written by a bisexual author and directed by a gay man, this was not designed for straight audiences), why is it a bad thing that it appealed to the widest possible audience? That it could make my parents and grandparents see things in a new light? My stepdad wasn't at all interested in rom-coms but he saw it with me because it was something I cared about and he hugged me when we came out of the theater. My very Catholic grandparents watched it with me and though my grandpa said he still didn't quite understand the whole 'gay thing,' all he wanted was for me to be happy and to have a happy ending like Simon did. My Nana actually cried when Simon came out and squeeze my hand when his mother told him he could breathe.
And when Martin blackmailed Simon, my mom, badass ally that she is, literally hissed "Dropkick him. Dropkick him in the balls" leading to multiple queer kids in the audience to laugh or smile. Having my parents there- the only parents, by the way, out of my group of queer and questioning friends- made multiple people realize that supportive adults were out there. That parents like those in Love, Simon do exist in real life.
When people complain about Heartstopper not being realistic or Love, Simon being too cutesy, I remember seeing Love, Simon on opening night. I remember my friend coming out and my stepdad hugging me and my mom defending us through this character. I remember the cheers that went through the audience when Bram and Simon kissed and the chatter in the foyer after the movie was over and the way that this movie made me understand that happy endings do exist.
Queer kids need happy endings. Straight people need entry points to becoming allies. Both of these things can come together in beautiful ways. They can find out about more queer culture later, but for now, let them have this. Let them all have a glimpse at a better, happier world. Let them have queer joy.
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Luke being given a quest at 17, feeling like there's no glory in it because it's a quest someone's already succeeded before, but then failing that very quest he considered to be beneath him, getting a permanent scar, "ruining it" for the rest of the campers because now no one else can go on quests and earn glory in the eyes of the gods, so he turns to Kronos, and years later here comes a possible candidate for the great prophecy, 12 years old, gets the first quest the camp has done since Luke's fucked it up, and Luke is actively ensuring this quest is an impossible quest!! he's literally rigged it so Percy's gonna fail (the shoes, the bolt appearing in his bag) and then this kid somehow succeeds still??? and not only that, Percy got the unique quest Luke wanted in the first place and achieved feats no one else had and earned glory in the eyes of his father, all because Luke created the circumstances for that to happen??
oh my god yeah I don't think I'd ever recover from that either
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I’ve always gone back and forth about whether to picture Martin stabbing Jon in the front or the back because there’s such beautiful symbolic potential for both.
Like on the one had you’ve got the image that they’re cradling the knife between them, both holding it during perhaps the closest thing they’ve had to a true act of free will in a long time. Jon can’t press the knife in, but he can ease the blow for Martin. He can tell him it’s okay, that he forgives him even though there’s nothing to forgive. It’s horrible and painful, but it’s also setting them free. The blood would get on both of them as they held each other, and, at first glance, you wouldn’t be able to tell whose it was.
But then on the other hand you’ve got nothing coming between them, not even this, not even now. It’s Jon being killed by the same person in whose arms he’s currently finding comfort—and those two things are not at odds. It’s the potential that, if the knife is long enough, Martin could cut himself as well, but that doesn’t matter because his heart already broke with Jon’s anyway. It’s two people who have always found it so hard to trust taking the ultimate symbol of betrayal and turning it into a symbol of loyalty.
And I don’t know which I love more.
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I’ve been in the tmnt fandom for a while now and I have come to the conclusion that every version of Mikey is either a sweet baby boy or a pothead
To clear things up a bit I made this.
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Thinking about the line in the trailer, “no one rests till this doll is back in a box” thinking how a part of Barbie is about empowerment and represents that women can do anything, thinking about how it was just businessmen trying to stop her, with Barbie running past them all trying and failing to catch her. Just. Thinking about it.
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