#overarching plot bullshit

[professor-doc-emeritus]

I caved and bought a subscription to j novel, I've now burned through all official channels of read the apothecary diaries light novels, and finished off volume 11/arc 9 via the web novel tls. Which honestly wasn't a terrible exercise, comparing the two I definitely think the official translation and general light-novel editing bump does wonders for the story and is worth the price of admission. Now the decision I have to make is, do I burn through the rest of the web novel? Or just wait and read 12 as it releases?

[dialalagirl]

I feel so silly I totally forgot that you had answered the question I had asked already lmao!! Here’s another thought that popped in my head tho (sorry if this is annoying tvt) but like if DBL was set in today’s modern age I feel like all the Sakamaki boys would be cancelled ESPECIALLY Laito or would be talked about on twitter AT LEASTTTT once lmfao. Again heavy on Laito because he’s a known player and cheater 😭😭 still luv him tho that’s my pookie

OMG NO don’t even worry about it!! you're not annoying at all—this is the exact kind of unhinged discourse my brain craves at 2am 😭💖

and YES. if DL was set in the modern day, the entire suckamaki bloodline would be on thin ice 24/7. cancel culture would have a dedicated rotation for them

laito would be the first one trending. like you open twitter and see #laitosakamakiisoverparty #whyarewelettingthismanhavewifi

every week. without fail. he’s the kind of guy who would get exposed via anonymous threads, go viral for some vague tweet like “i just think men shouldn’t talk actually,” and still have stans defending him like “he’s just ✨flirty✨ leave him alone”

girl he cheated on you with your cousin and your barista. TWICE

meanwhile, ayato would be cancelled for saying “skill issue” under a heartfelt trauma tweet

kanato would get suspended for threatening a food service worker on main

shu would be soft-cancelled for sleeping through a UN meeting or something

reiji would be cancelled in an extremely niche corner of academia twitter after someone found his 400-page manifesto on tea etiquette

subaru would accidentally go viral for punching a hole in drywall on a livestream and the internet would call him “the hot angry plant guy” for a solid month

laito would be trending weekly but he’d also be in the replies like “i’m not even mad. this thread is kinda sexy tbh 😌”

anyway justice for everyone laito’s ghosted. but also. he is pookie. unfortunately. it’s terminal 💔

[ace-fandom-dumbass]

Me: hmm, I think I'll try watching Elementary, I've heard it does Sherlock Holmes better than BBC Sherlock did, and I liked Sherlock until I read the originals and found them better, should be interesting.

Me, several episodes in: you know, I think what I've heard is right, there's several times where he's more similar to the BBC version than the Conan Donald version but this seems to be pretty faithful to the character, and the self contained episode plots instead of huge overarching ones is definitely more true to holmes and the original stories

Joan, at the end of episode 6: I know about Irene

Me: ............... GOD FUCKING DAMNIT

[psychotrenny]

I really do hate the way people use the phrase "Conspiracy Theory" to refer to everything from "Supernatural Bullshit" to "Technically Possible but all the actual evidence is against it" to "We know for sure that this happened like we have declassified documents and decades of testimony from dozens of people and..."

Like it's just such an actively counterproductive conflation of different phenomenon that mostly serves to discredit actual investigation into the activities of those in power. Because sure, it's stupid to act as though the world is primarily driven by the hidden schemes of the powerful. But it's just as stupid to act as though powerful individuals and institutions don't ever get together and enact hidden schemes. Even though these sorts of entities invariably engage in many more equally bad (if not worse) activities in the open, for certain programmes the maintenance of some sort of secrecy does have worthwhile advantages. The fact of the matter is that high level conspiracies happen and they happen for a reason. Along with all the conspiracy "theories" out there, you'll find plenty of conspiracy facts

And sure, broader structural forces are much much more important than any individual project could be. State and Corporate conspiracies generally serve the ultimate purpose of maintaining or accelerating processes that were happening openly and/or "naturally" (i.e. without large scale co-ordinated planning) anyway. But these sorts of plots are still worth talking about not only because of their direct impacts (the greatest of which can change the fate of entire small countries) but also because of the ways they reflect and reinforce the overarching structures that produced them. At the very least, you shouldn't dismiss them out of hand because you think "A powerful entity did something and tried to keep it a secret" is a claim made only by people who've been watching too much X-Files

[lukecastellanshandholder]

I think that the one thing that I will always absolutely loathe the movies for (other than single handedly screwing up the whole plot of the story) is for making up that bullshit rule about Zeus declaring that no god can have any kind of contact with their children. That’s completely not true but now a huge chunk of people in the fandom believe that rule as canon( because most like to pick and chose what is canon and what is not, and sell head canons as being canon to the books ).

The only rules that are stated in the books relating to demigods and their parents is that 1). Gods cannot blatantly and outwardly help their demigod children during a basic quest (such as help them fight monsters or help them travel somewhere for the quest). 2). That as of the time right after WW2 the big 3 gods are not to sire any demigod children as part of their oath that they made on the River Styx (which Zeus and Poseidon definitely didn’t break ). Gods are still able to spend time with their demigod children and mortal lovers on times out side of quests. However, it’s seen as taboo mainly because the other gods use them having to much to do, and too many demigod children as an excuse to just not do anything for them. Not send them a birthday card, not a visit, and not even being claimed in most cases.

That’s giving the gods too much slack! People like to say "well, they’re gods. They’re trying their best." No they’re not! And this is what Luke’s character blatantly points out!

Hermes not even bothering to visit every once and a while? Hermes not trying to help in even any little way with Luke and May's situation? It’s a main reason why Luke becomes so angry at the gods and even thinks about saying yes to Kronos’ proposal.

And who is the example of what could’ve happened if Hermes would’ve done literally anything? Anything at all? Percy.

Percy didn’t like the gods and Poseidon very much in the beginning ( he doesn’t really like them much now but, you know) but Poseidon at least helps Percy in little ways that can fly under the radar of Zeus and the others. The Pearls to help Percy escape from the underworld? Tyson? Poseidon even crashes Percy’s birthday party ffs! Sure Poseidon isn’t there every time Percy scrapes his knee or fights a monster, but he still shows Percy that he somewhat cares about him.

All Hermes does is tell others how much he cares for Luke and "really truly loves him", but does nothing to prove to Luke that he truly cares. But it’s not just Hermes who does this, almost all of the gods do this! Why? Because they know that they can just say "oh, well I was busy and I tried my best" and others will just believe them and carry on. Or worse, they’ll take what the gods say to heart and demonize anyone who would try to oppose the gods so that it’s seen as a bad thing to hold the Gods accountable for the way they act.

And this is a clear example of the overarching theme that the gods are actually just an oppressive establishment that won’t ever really change unless it’s destroyed or overthrown.

In this essay I will…

[cyber-corp]

While I’m not entirely versed in the lore of June Egbert, I don’t think it takes a lot to realise that she holds quite a lot of importance in terms of how she relates to Homestuck’s overarching themes.

Homestuck from the start was always about freedom, right? It’s called Homestuck, they escape from their respective homes through SBURB, and later on become unbound from the narrative entirely. John also happens to be the first one to defy the narrative through his retcon powers.

In Beyond Canon (specifically the Candy timeline) there are no threats or villains in the narrative, ergo nothing to escape from, and no one feels this sentiment quite like “John” Egbert, who thinks he’s desperately trying to become relevant to the plot again. Such to the point that he wants to start another game of SBURB, which ironically is what placed him in an eternal fixed position as a protagonist.

When in actuality, I think she needs a break from all that. From all the set-in-stone narrative bullshit a certain someone is trying to set up. Some freedom, even.

[butterfly--empress]

And Another Thing...

Because actually, the more I think about it, the more it just pisses me off...

If The main writer wanted this to just be a simple formulaic "magical girl powa" kids show that sells merch. With no overarching story plot.

MLB could've just simply BEEN that. A cutesy Sailor Moon inspired story!

MLB could've just BEEN an all female superhero team with Marinette as leader, Alya second in command, and Chloe and/or Kagami being her love rivals/friends for Adrien's affections.

And Adrien could literally just BE THE DAMN LUKEWARM LOVE INTEREST that she wins in the end. Because the Deuteragonist of this show, sure as shit ain't been him since at least S4, let's be so for real.

Nothing against Alya, I love her, but girlfriend has overshadowed what used to be Adrien's role.

But in this version of MLB, being an all girl team of superheroes with a secret identity. Marinette's absurd 'whacky' antics in this show could easily be ignored/deflected/handwaved away, if we never knew much about Adrien outside of him being a popular, good looking rich kid, whom Marinette crushes on and daydreams about often.

And TA doesn't have to twist himself into a pretzel to defend his poor writing choices, when the only POV that matters is Marinette's.

There would be no need for the lore, or vaguely changing it when he feels like it. Or worrying about the unnecessary drama of the whole 'they can't know each others identities' main plot that has all become meaningless.

The original main plot of the whole secret identities for romantic drama and the reason many of us were drawn to this show to BEGIN WITH, is moot when the writer constantly refuses to do ANYTHING with the setup he writes for himself.

He won't let none of his characters have any real development and growth and only seems to care about ONE-HALF of the original two man team.

And I'm over it. 4 episodes and a lame ass Special that literally excuses the main heroine's reasons for LYING to her One True Love has shown me this show is NOT interested in doing anything beyond what it's given.

All of us invested or holding your breath for any real progress with the romantic/main subplot are going to be waiting for naught.

I was already convinced but now I'm certain:

There will never be a big reveal. And if there is one, it'll be purposely left to the VERY end of the series. And it won't even be satisfying.

Nothing will EVER be done with the Lie. Why should it? Marinette finally has the boy she wants, and even if it ever got addressed, the writer would handle it in the most contrived way possible that somehow excuses Marinette's decision anyway.

How much you wanna bet, he'll just end up retconning his own story to SOMEHOW scapegoat Marinette's bullshit to be Lila's fault?

Or Chloe's? Because even when she's not around, not in the same school, city, or even country, the writer STILL finds a way to hate on Chloe.

No...wait even better! Adrien finally finds out and to avoid allowing Marinette to own up to her fucking mistake/betrayal of trust, she decides to 'sacrifice' her memories and being Ladybug...and oh my fucking god.

......This is why TA had Marinette entrust Alya as the new leader isn't it? He thinks he's so goddamn clever!

Marinette's gonna fuck up big time in this season and then get temporary or semi-permanent amnesia to forget EVERYTHING to avoid owning up to her mistakes?

And instead of people seeing the manipulative writing to handwave away how she's been very selfish and self-centered, and her need to control everything. People are going to praise TA for believing or redeeming her bad decisions/behavior on how much she was finally willing to 'sacrifice' herself for a change for Adrien.

*groans*....god this sounds even worse.

You know what, this post had a point and I spiraled again.

Oh yeah...MLB should've just been another inspired typical 5 teamed magical girl knock off because hoping the writer does anything worthwhile with his Deuteragonist, is just waiting for Levithan to reveal itself from the deep, dank, ocean depths, and in this timeline the world's in rn, that's actually more plausible than hoping for meaningful character arcs after 6 seasons of MLB...

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: きのう何食べた? / Kinou Nani Tabeta? / What Did You Eat Yesterday?

Kinou Nani Tabeta? (which I'm going to abbreviate here to NaniTabe) is a live-action adaptation of a manga with the same name, which tells the story of two middle-aged Japanese gay men as they navigate their relationship, their families, and their professional lives, all while having some good meals.

Do you want something nice? Do you want a show that's just ... nice? Not saccharine, not cloying, not reductive, but just cozy and kind? This! This is what you want. Every episode deals with some events in their lives, and then the action will pause once or twice while someone demonstrates how to make a meal. There's no real overarching plot. You just get to peek in on them every so often and see how they're doing.

...Shit, I'm just going to steal the GagaOOLala second-season synopsis, it's perfect:

Shiro Kakei and his partner, Kenji Yabuki, live a life full of some hardship but mostly happiness together, with Shiro's speciality cooking affordable and delicious dishes. As they turn 50, they begin to experience different changes, but Shiro and Kenji are still gentle with each other as they move on to a new stage in their lives.

So here I am, a middle-aged gay who cooks affordable and (mostly) delicious dishes and treats my partner gently, serving you a five-course meal of reasons that you should watch this show -- especially if you too are a middle-aged gay, in which case I'd say this goes straight from "should watch" to "unmissable."

1. Help, my face hurts from smiling too much

Prepare to get your heart warmed whether you like it or not.

Kakei Shiro, the main character, is a closeted gay attorney in his forties whose main likes are cooking and saving money. He lives with his slightly younger boyfriend, Yabuki Kenji, who is a very openly gay hairstylist. They're an incredibly unlikely couple who somehow manage to make a relationship work, kind of to their mutual surprise.

I called bullshit on the show early on: This relationship is cute, I said, but this is not the behavior of guys who have been together a decade. But as the show unfolded, it became clear that I was so wrong -- their behavior is perfect, because these middle-aged boys actually haven't been together nearly that long. In fact, once you finally get the story of how their relationship started, yeah, it explains a lot of their insecurities and awkwardnesses about one another. Combine that with how Shiro's a neurotic mess who absolutely does not want anyone to know that he's gay, while Kenji lives on eggshells for fear of rejection, and it all starts to make sense.

It helps that the two leads have incredible chemistry. Not in a horny way, mind you (the show is incredibly, and intentionally, nonsexual, but more on that later), but where they genuinely make one another smile and laugh. Nishijima Hidetoshi plays Shiro as an anxious mess who slowly learns to become at least a little more comfortable in his own queer skin. I have a t-shirt that says Oh, Honey and I want to put it on every time he does something.

Meanwhile, it would have been so easy to make Kenji a caricature, but Uchino Seiyou skips right past the stereotype and plays the behavior that the stereotype comes from. He minces his way along as Kenji so perfectly, I was surprised to find out he's married to a lady in real life. He's got to be doing an impression of someone he actually knows, because his faggotry is just too accurate.

Their relationship is far from perfect. They're capable of annoying the tar out of one another, sometimes on purpose. They keep secrets and avoid talking about feelings. They get jealous over completely irrational things. They want things the other person isn't comfortable giving. They get into petty little arguments over petty little shit.

And because of all that, it feels real.

Also, if you're one of those Jane Austen bitches who swoons every time lovers scandalously brush knuckles, well, here you go.

2. Surprisingly educational about the state of gay life in modern Japan!

This is not incidental: Like the manga, the show uses this cute food-based story to present a fairly realistic snapshot of what it's like to be a middle-aged gay couple in Japan right now.

Like the manga it's based on, the show goes out of its way to be incredibly nonsexual, to the point where Kenji and Shiro barely touch, much less kiss or even hint at getting naked together. It is very consciously and deliberately attempting to counteract the stereotype of the hypersexualized, salacious homosexual by presenting two gay men who are delightfully mundane.

It is not, however, homonormalization. There's no attempt here to make an argument that gay people are just like straight people, only with incidentally matching genitals. Every time someone falls prey to the pressure to conform to cishet gender norms, it ends badly for them. While the first-episode conflict establishes that Kenji tops, he's also the fruity hairstylist who does the housekeeping. Shiro's the straight-passing suit-and-tie guy, yet he's the one who cooks and goes grocery-shopping. They have a division of labor based on personality traits, not gender roles. In fact, their relationship as presented challenges a lot of those norms by decoupling gendered expectations from the necessities of everyday living.

(This isn't even just me getting my queer studies goo all over everything! Allow me to be a good academic and send you to two people who've done even more thinking about this than I have: the unfortunately paywalled "Queer Cooking And Dining: Expanding Queerness In Fumi Yoshinaga's What Did You Eat Yesterday?" by Katsuhiko Suganuma, and the more freely available "Queering the Palate: The Erotics and Politics of Food in Japanese Gourmet Manga" by Keiko Miyajima.)

Every so often, one of the episodes' conflicts will have to do with how gay people in Japan do not have equal rights and protections under the law. This doesn't just mean they can't get married -- not having a spouse and children actually messes with a lot of legal stuff, including inheritance and government assistance. Sometimes the show will even take a beat to have one of the characters explain to another what a certain statute says. Changing laws about same-sex partnerships even get factored into the story!

And sure, I don't know these things, but I bet a lot of straight people in Japan don't know these things either. Well, if you watch the show, now you do!

It's important that no one is ever outright shitty to Shiro or Kenji. No one calls them slurs or hate-crimes them or refuses to serve them at a business or anything like that. In fact, the majority of people they encounter are perfectly chill and even outright supportive. The most serious challenges they face are bigger than individual people being dicks. They're about systemic barriers to equality.

That said, there are still plenty of instances of individual people being dicks -- just not maliciously. In fact, most of the homophobic sentiments in the show come from the mouths of people who are otherwise supportive of Shiro and/or Kenji! These nice people seem like they're way okay with the gay ... and then they let slip that, no, they're actually not as okay with it as they think they are.

And I love that the show includes that, because I know that feeling way too well. When these things happen, our boys don't throw a righteous fit or cut the offender off completely. They just ... absorb the blow, sigh quietly, and keep going with the belief that the person in question means well. It just sucks, you know? It sucks to have to know now that your straight lady friend who thinks it's great that you're gay would be uncomfortable if her daughter were a lesbian. You're not going to stop being friends with her, and you're not even going to hold it against her, but it lives in your mind now, and you're going to add it to the I Am A Disappointment To My Parents rotation of intrusive thoughts.

Speaking of parents, Shiro's incredibly fraught relationship with his aging parents is hands-down one of the best parts of the show. They love him, he loves them, but they don't always know how to love one another. As their childless only child, Shiro finds himself having to support them in spite of a lot of hurt they've caused him because of his sexuality. He would in many ways be justified in cutting them off -- after all, many other gay people in the show no longer speak to one or both of their parents! Shiro wants to keep them in his life, though. He'll just have to learn how, for his sake and for Kenji's, to lovingly set boundaries.

This, to me, is the most important lesson a show about boring gays can teach a straight audience: There's always a background level of suck. You can be as chaste and normie and regular as you want, but you'll never be normal, because there's literally nothing you can do to erase the background level of suck.

It's easy to reduce someone else's oppression to Big Bad Events, and then to assume that the absence of these Big Bad Events means that oppression has ceased. That's like thinking there's nothing left that needs to be done about racism because the US had a Black president and you've never personally seen a cross burned on somebody's lawn. Once other people's oppression stops being Big Bad Events, it becomes Everyday Stuff You Can Ignore. And that's worse.

NaniTabe pushes back against this in two directions. The first is to show gays who are not miserable, but are instead living happy, fulfilling, and exceedingly regular lives on their own terms. The second is to give reminders that what gay-related misery they do experience largely comes not from their being gay, but from society's giving them shit for being gay. This misery doesn't destroy the happiness, but neither does the happiness make the misery go away.

By the way, this is true of any non-normative identity! The gays do not have a monopoly here. There's always going to be a level of suck when you don't inhabit an area of privilege, and it's very easy to be unaware of someone else's background level of suck when you yourself do have that privileged status! One of the best ways to become aware is to listen to stories about people unlike yourself! Hooray for empathy and learning!

3. tfw your bffs are straight-up freaks

If you're queer, and especially if you're queer and the vast majority of the people around you aren't, you know all too well that sometimes you wind up being friends with people you'd never associate with otherwise, except that you're queer and they're queer, and buddy, if you thought the queer dating pool was shallow, the queer friendship pool can sometimes be even worse.

That's how you get Kohinata and Wataru.

When I said earlier everything about how nonsexual and normie the show is, I was intentionally glossing over whatever the hell is going on with Kohinata and Wataru, the bizarre boyfriends who become Shiro and Kenji's gay besties. You know that couple where you think, I cannot imagine how this relationship works because if you were my partner I would want you stab you every minute of our lives, but it clearly does, so I'm happy for you both? Yeah, that's these two.

The elder of the pair, Kohinata, is a butch, severe man -- except when it comes to his boyfriend, the much younger and worse-behaved Wataru. Then he's reduced to a complete simp, catering to Wataru's every whim. Wataru knows that throwing a tantrum and being bratty is the way to get anything he wants from Kohinata, so he's just a little shit recreationally. He loves saying bitchy things and pointing out people's flaws, while Kohinata chides him ineffectually.

And I love how much this is totally a sex thing for them, except that when you put it in the context of an otherwise extremely PG-rated show, the kink of it flies completely under the hetero radar. Ha ha, look how generally funny these two weirdos are! While Shiro and Kenji are over here doing the thing where somebody calls their partner "master" in front of you, and you're like, I wish you wouldn't.

Their presence is great for the acknowledgment that gay people can be maladjusted freaks in a whole spectrum of ways! They also make the point that a great deal of your ability to openly be a maladjusted freak is related to your job and your level of wealth. Wataru works from home and Kohinata works with celebrities, both of which bring in high incomes and allow for way more deviance from social norms. They're in positions of privilege that allow them to be themselves, but the price of being themselves is that they're always going to stick out in a society that values harmony in sameness.

By contrast, Shiro's good-but-not-great-paying suit-and-tie job means he has to behave. Because of this, he has plenty of angst about being Not Gay Enough, through which the show reinforces time and again that not all gay existence is about barfing rainbows. You're still a valid homosexual even when you're a dull one.

So just remember: When you feel like you're not queer enough, remember that there are always worse queers out there in the world. Oh, they're not worse at being queer. They're just worse in general.

4. Itadakimasu!

This show, like the Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty and Otoko Meshi, is a food-centered show that is very dangerous to watch if you're hungry, so be prepared! Snack first!

It's also got actually followable recipes! Unlike those other food-centric shows I've done recs for, this show actually gives pretty precise measurements, lists all the ingredients, and walks you through basically the whole process. Aside from a few "add the incredibly Japanese thing I bought premade at the store" steps, Shiro's cooking methods are replicable at home.

...It is here that I should probably put up a warning for the occasional bout of very Japanese-typical and gay-man-typical fatphobia, which can be a heck of a combination. I don't think it's a dealbreaker, but you should be aware of it going in. However, I will say that the show almost always comes down on the side of positive moderation: Sometimes you need to eat like you're an aging homosexual watching your cholesterol, and sometimes it's a special occasion so you should enjoy yourself without guilt. It also never once conflates "eating healthy" with eating disappointing meals. If anything, it's mostly just being honest about what happens to your body's relationship to fried food when you hit your forties.

The other nice thing is that Shiro's not some trained chef. He makes good food, but he's a dedicated amateur at best. There's not a single super-fancy technique in anything he does. Much of the time, he's just winging it, combining techniques he knows with what he's already got in the fridge. Sometimes he uses recipes he found on the internet. Occasionally he cooks alongside other, more experienced people and learns techniques from them. Once in a blue moon he just tries a thing to see how it works. (Of course, he does have the unfair advantage of being fictional to cover for how none of his meals ever turn out bad, which, you know, must be nice.)

Sometimes you even get to see other people cook when Shiro's nowhere around! Some of them follow instructions to the letter, while others just sort of wing it with whatever's on hand. And that's okay! For a show so much about cooking, it is very unpretentious about food. The manga drives home even more strongly the point that you don't need fancy meals and a million perfect side dishes to be content. It's great if you're perfectly happy microwaving a pork bun! What matters is that it works for you and your family.

...Now can we please convince subbers everywhere to translate "Itadakimasu!" as "Itadakimasu!"? Please? I think my favorite bad choice is "Bon appetit!", which, okay, good job, you took an opportunity to teach English-speakers a non-English phrase that has no good English translation, and instead you chose to bank on their extant familiarity with a different non-English phrase that has no good English translation. Just keep it what it is. It's just something you say before you eat. It's obvious from context clues. I promise.

5. Makes you, an aging queer, feel real weird about some stuff!

Over the course of the show, Kenji and Shiro go from their early/mid 40s to pushing/over 50. Their parents age, have health scares, and even sometimes die. They deal with losing eyesight and hair alike. They get promoted. They make household budgets and purchases. They worry about saving enough for the future. They work late. They go on vacation sometimes. They wear the same clothes they wore a couple episodes ago.

However, they do all this while also wrestling with their unequal status as gay men in Japan. All their discussions about retirement are colored both by Kenji's tendency to impulse-buy ice cream and by the fact that they can't get married. The choices Shiro makes about his job rest both on his desire for a good work-life balace and a fear that his profession would react badly to his coming out. They have to make all the normal decisions expected of men their age, and then they have to make all the extra decisions to compensate for how "normal" doesn't account for gay.

To pick one issue running throughout the story: Shiro is an only child who is himself childless. This comes up fairly often, in fact, as various circumstances make him aware time and again that he's not making his parents into grandparents, and he won't someday have someone to take care of him like he does for them.

The first time the show brought this up, I thought it would be a one-and-done thing, where the conclusion of the episode got to be that Shiro learns to be happy without being a parent, the end. Nope! It isn't a constant stressor, but it never goes entirely away. Shiro is happy with his life, but he's also reminded that he's failing to live up to social standards. He doesn't want to be a dad. Or does he? No, he actually doesn't. But he also doesn't want not to be a dad, if that makes sense. He doesn't want to disappoint everyone by not having a wife and children, but at the same time, that disappointment isn't enough to force him back into the closet. But it's always going to be seen as a failure on his part.

As a middle-aged queer with no kids, yeah, I feel that hard. I don't want kids! But I also don't want to not have kids. I know I'm always going to be a little bit of a misfit in my family compared to my siblings, who are all parents now. Besides, I think about all the things I do for my parents, and all the things they did for theirs, and yeah, it kind of scares me to know I won't have that when I get older. And we're just basic-ass white people! Japan takes filial responsibility to a whole 'nother level!

So I really, really like that this show doesn't resolve that tension. Shiro has chosen what's right for him. It just also sucks sometimes. The honesty of that narrative is refreshing. Sometimes your best choice still kinda sucks. Sometimes the only way to get closure is to say, you failed me and I failed you, so we're even.

It's a frequent thing for the show to present the realities of people's lives and choices, and to say, maybe this isn't everyone's perfect solution, but it's the right decision given what the circumstances will allow, and you are still allowed to be happy despite the imperfections. It's not that you need to settle for less than perfection because you're gay -- everybody settles! Everybody makes choices and then has to live with the consequences of those choices. You'll never know if things could have been better if you'd done something different, but that doesn't stop what you have right now from being able to be pretty damn good.

I'm not going to say you must be a middle-aged queer to watch this show, because did you read the whole part earlier where I talked about how you should consume stories from experiences that are not your own? Right? Right.

I will, however, say that if you are a middle-aged queer, a lot of it's likely going to hit real close to home, and often in uncomfortable ways. I've seen a couple people say they had to take breathers after some episodes. I know I've been left chewing over a few things in the days and weeks since watching. There are definitely parts where you're laughing because you know exactly what that feels like, and if you don't laugh, you'll do something else.

But you know what? I like that. It can be nice to see people go through situations similar to yours and emerge realistically happy. It's nice to be able to laugh about things, or to know that you will laugh about them someday. The world is fundamentally hostile, but there are people who love us and watermelons are on sale this week, so instead of despair, let's have lunch together.

bonus: porn!!

I want to make it clear that the mangaka isn't some erotophobic dishrag who fetishizes gay men so long as they don't have any of that icky nasty smex. Oh no. The proof that NaniTabe's sexlessness is intentional is how Yoshinaga Fumi made six fairly explicit pornographic side stories that fill in some of the sexy gaps in the larger narrative. You can read all six volumes scanlated right here! ...though if you want to avoid spoilers, I'm going to recommend you wait to dig in until after you watch the show and/or read the actual manga to the appropriate points.

Enjoy the confirmation that Shiro is a freaky size queen (at least in theory, as is the case with maybe most freaky size queens).

Are you hungry for this show yet?

Tragically, this one's a little hard to watch. If you're in Japan (or you have a VPN that can fake it), you can see the first season on Netflix. Otherwise, the preposterously named GagaOOLala is probably your best bet. The watch order goes like this:

Season 1

the New Year's Special

the Movie

Season 2

While the two movies and the second season require a subscription, the first season is available for free. So if you want to give it a try, you've got a whole twelve episodes to see if you like it!

Maybe it'll get a third season someday? We can hope! After all, there's still much more manga left to adapt! All I know is that I'm very sad that I've run out of new installments of it to watch, and I look forward to going back and starting again from the beginning soon.

...Boy, it's funny to see behind-the-scenes shots and think, wow, they're so much snugglier in real life! That's how not-snuggly the show itself is! You think I'm joking but I'm not!

[stable-gremlin]

You know whats funny to me is that SSE has no idea what the plot is…and that’s great because it means we can have fun and do our own interpretations and bridge gaps. 

Now, SSL, the books and SSO the game are considered by others as like, completely different media even though there is a referenced history of the SSO Soul Riders and the Dark Riders (the Katja James incident being pivotal evidence for this). 

Is it canon to you? Is it not? IMO who cares. 

Hell, the SSO lore has been re-written so many times over that it doesn’t make sense and thus, in a way, no-one's headcanons are completely true or completely false. 

It’s called nuance and multiple things can be true at once. 

The Star Stable lore is sooooo contradictory and incoherent, you kinda have to bullshit things and that is amazing. The things people come up with get me so excited and happy like yes tell me the weirdest, obscurist thing you’ve managed to link together. 

What I have issues with is when people double down and call others wrong. That is not fun and goes against the entire overarching plot of kindness and community (and also saving the world but I digress). 

Multiple things can be true at once.

Me? I believe in both human Dark Riders and alien Dark Riders. I’ve consumed all the media I can get my hands on and none of it makes sense but…I can tailor it to my will. 

In one fic, I have the human Dark Riders (Undisclosed Desires). In another, they’re immortal harbingers of doom (Gothic Hearts and RoFD).

Multiple things can be true at once. 

Let people have their fun because we sure as fuck need to have some joy in our lives. 

In the wise words of our mother, Chappel Roan: “You’re not fun! Be fun and try!”

[txttletale]

can you elaborate on the reasons ? what criticisms do you disagree with?

criticisms i disagree with:

"they character assassinated jane" amiguita there was no character to assisnate.

"they character assassinated dirk" dirk is at his most interesting and likeable ever and is just about the only redeeming thing about these

"they were just written to spite the fans" if true tht would have been Epic, and Based. but they very obviously werent

"its too violent and sexual for cheap shock humour" did you. read homestuck, the web comic? what were you Expecting... also like it or not the sexual content isnt just random or gratuitous it is obviously trying to be a conclusion to the whoel coming-of-age theme of homestuck as a work.

"so-and-so is out of character" homestuck characters are malleable little dolls that can be rearranged to suit the narrative at a whim. this is true about all fictional characters ofc but it is like explicitly textually metaphysically true in homestuck

my criticisms:

the heavy-handed political messaging is fucking tedious and awful and so profoundly of its time in a bad way. its clearly a reaction to trump but it doesnt have anything interesting to say about him or fascism or racism or anything, really, except, um. Cheeto in the white house?. the whole Evil Jane plot is too stupid and contrived for the sake of the satire to take seriously but also its awful satire written by liberals who think fascism as invented in 2016 by the orange man

god can we fucking talk about how fucking embarassing the obama shit is. jesus fucking christ. for a start it's a callback to a running jhoke in homestuck that is straight up just super racist. and they decide to pivot from the joke being 'its funny that theres a black president', which is good, but they pivot it to 'obama seems so heroic and magical now that we're stuck with the Orange Man', which, admittedly, is better than Being Racist, but also sucks shit. he killed people amiguitas.

'post-canon' is cheap bullshit. like, the work makes a big deal about tryng to talk about What Canon Is, without ever acknowledging the concept of, like, IP law. claiming to just be a non-canon continuation like any other when it's made by people with the Official Exclusive Legal Rights just feels hollow and detooths any liberatory/deconstructive potential there. unironically my opinion of it would go up like tenfold if it had been actually published in AO3 instead of just joking about it.

in general i think that all of the attempt to deconstruct fiction or storytelling is rooted in a really weird and flawed model of storytelling. a lot of it seems to be taking an extremely long route to writing something bad on purpose and then saying 'see, if you wrote something like this, it would be bad'. Okay. i like deconstructive collapsing narrative shit in e.g. if on a winter's night a traveller because i think calvino has trenchant and interesting insights about literature and storytelling. i do think hussie also has those but they essentially dropped and explored all of them in homestuck and the epilogues just seem like an attempt to connect ohomstuck's disparate and contradictory approaches to Narrative into one overarching schemata and then crtiique that schemata, which i think is a doomed project that results in little of interest to me.

[gwensy]

Did Spiderverse age down gwen? I thought she got her powers in high school??

Gwen Stacy in the sony spiderverse films was aged down, yes -- despite getting her powers at around 14/15 years old, the movies open with her already having killed Peter, with the second one opening with her identity being revealed to her father. neither of these events take place until she is seventeen and eight/nineteen years old respectively. [& her own comics don't even open until she's at the very least about to turn nineteen, the only times she is shown to be younger are via flashbacks.]

and another issue I take with Gwen Stacy being aged down for Sony's Spiderverse (aside from the obvious surface issues surrounding this, I find it crazy that she is fif/sixteen years old and has already murdered Peter and revealed her identity to her father.), it puts a massive gash into her storyline's continuity [along with the continuity of her personal growth-- why in god's name is already this skilled in her own abilities at fifteen.] and ultimately changes the overarching plot of Latour Spider-Gwen for the worse. [under the assumption that they're intending to loosely replicate [REWRITE] this run, which they seem to be given that Latour is working as a writer on the movies and multiple callbacks and panels from this run have been used within the Sony films.]

I think that alot of what makes Gwen Stacy-65 an interesting character can be attributed to the fact that she is a very traumatized person and a very emotionally immature adult with severely unchecked PTSD during the Latour run [& beyond this] -- the mistakes she made were *during* her teen years, she gets her powers in her young teens in what she later describes to be a nonconsenual alteration to her body and a curse that she can never shake off, she goes attention seeking with her newfound powers as the Spider-Lady with Jennifer Walters at sixteen, she kills Peter at her senior prom.

aging her down removes the impact and subsequent fallout of these events from her continuity at best -- and at worst, it erases them all together, flattening her into someone who has done no real harm and was simply just a misunderstood tween with good intentions. ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ [& I do think it's important to acknowledge that despite any status of her behavior being a trauma response, she has done some morally dubious bullshit and hurt several people as a result. like a multitude of times This is a reoccurring thing]

-- and for Awhile within the Latour run she really doesn't see much consequence for her actions, thus reinforcing her already selfish and reckless behavior into her adulthood. she goes from [mostly] not knowing any better to being a destructive young adult that represses and justifies her past mistakes with an intensive self-hatred. and that is Interesting !!!!!!. Gwen Stacy spends her nineteenth ignoring all of her own actions and refusing to acknowledge how they affect other people until they begin to Affect Her. she is treated like both a grown woman and a child by the people around her, all while the world around her scrutinizes and demeans her for the decisions she made in high school. she is like twenty-two years old and horrible at it. she is a control freak. she is obsessed with being seen. she is avoidant to a detriment. she is so scared all of the time.

which is all to say that I seriously just don't think that opening on her character at fifteen years old is smart. at all. it dampens so much of what she has gone through and destroys so much of her mythos + her Spiderverse iteration doesn't even act the way she did at fifteen-- which is an issue in of itself that I already vaguely went over here. I think it contributes alot to the misunderstanding of her character by people who only know of her through the Sony films, too. shrug

[seriouslycalamitous]

For no particular reason, if the parkour civilization characters were in a superpowered au, what would their aliases be?

Hypothetically, of course, if I were to be back on my bullshit (ie turning everything I love into a superhero/villain au) what would people's powers be?

Listen, I love canon-compliant as much as the next guy. All I'm saying -- this fandom needs more alternate universe stuff. It's hard because most of the beauty is in the world, but surely it's possible to some degree, right?

Come come, imagine with me:

Evbo standing atop a roof, a glittering cityscape below him. It's beautiful, a world all his own, and one he must fight to maintain from day to day. His power of jump-boost is unmatched by any other figure, allowing him to effortlessly navigate the city skyline without breaking a sweat. The people call him Champion.

Alongside fellow heroes, such as an old mentor figure, and a hero draped in darkness, Evbo must face villains that threaten to topple everything he loves, and aim to chain him permanently to the ground.

As expected, there is an overarching villain, but the second-in-command is a pillar of questionable morals. I am also absolutely not opposed to throwing in a rivals-to-lovers or teammates-to-lovers plot line, all I'm sayin.

IMAGINE THE COSTUMES!!

Evbo with something akin to netherite boots, maybe modified sneakers to help break his fall when he lands his sick parkour jumps. Master Friend (EMF) with gold-plated armor covering his shadowy-figure. Seawatt with a veil over his face to hide his identity - just barely see-through enough for onlookers to tell he's got some dramatic makeup going on behind there.

If people are interested, I can expand it into a full AU I'm really having fun with this idea :D

[dontfearthereaper96]

Season it and stir it up. Mmm itchy tasty

Were you ever in the news or something? Maybe that's when i saw it. Or maybe I'm confusing you with someone on facebook

I bet you 30$ worth of mozzarella sticks that I'll win

@chosenone1960 tell your husband to shut up i can hear him singing Helana from outside

[beneathsilverstars]

i love themes. i love when i'm writing and i'm like ughhh i have to come up with some filler bullshit details to go here because it's necessary to the rest of the plot but not actually very relevant to it, and then i'm like wait. i know how to make it relevant. i just have to make the details echo the overarching themes of the piece. and suddenly it stops being filler bullshit and starts being, like, foreshadowing or allegory or some cool shit like that ^w^

[plaidos]

Okay that sounds pretty decent then. I didn’t know Roiland was fully off the show so maybe I’ll check it out again sometime! I don’t mind the meta stuff it just felt like it was dragging sooooo much when I last watched but I’m also super willing to admit Im biased against “evil twin” plots haha. Thanks for answering!

also tbh its another one of those things where, if you’ve been waiting two three years for a new season & you’re less interested in the overarching plot stuff, & then you get a season that revolves around the plot stuff a little more it’s gonna be a let down from that perspective even if the episodes are good & the filler is spectacular etc.

i was definitely getting tired of the Rick Prime/Evil Morty stuff the more they wheeled it out but not only did the more grating half of that plot get wrapped up, i felt like towards the end they managed to keep it a really fresh, entertaining take on the trope. i know everything is cashing in on multiverse bullshit right now (in no small part due to Rick & Morty’s success, i’ll bet) but i feel like Rick & Morty is one of the examples actually exploring the idea of a multiverse in an interesting & compelling way, as opposed to, say, the marvel films etc which are just adding these elements to aesthetically make their stories seem Larger and More Important. R&M is ultimately very character focused narratively speaking and this makes for a compelling story about people desperately trying to prove to themselves and their loved ones that they aren’t meaningless

[charcubed]

Saw a post on the dash I so strongly disagree with I have to make my own post without interacting with OP... but if this makes it back to OP or anyone who agreed with their take, know this wasn't meant as hate or shade

I do genuinely think that in 15x11 when Dean says "Lady, I'm Tolstoy" to Fortuna he means it and believes it, and I think that's also important to the themes of the episode overall in the thematic context of the season.

Dean certainly has some semblance of self-worth by season 15 and it's kind of a misread of him and his character development to say he doesn't ("I’m good with who I am. I’m good with who you are" in season 14 weren't empty words). But aside from that, Fortuna calling him "sexy, but skimmable" and a "beach read" was about her saying he's simple and that there are no further depths to who he is. Therefore he's uninteresting to her and not a fun challenge. But Dean knows that's not true because he knows himself and his own complexities. He's well aware that he's deeper than people sometimes assume at first glance in several senses.

Which brings us to this: what Fortuna says to Dean acts as commentary on what people often assume about Dean's character in-universe and out of it. How often throughout the course of the show do villains hit on Dean and underestimate him because he's hot? And how often do parts of fandom paint Dean as simply sexy, the womanizer jokester, and/or the dumb one in comparison to Sam (in a well-meaning way or otherwise) when Dean's actually well-read, has a wide range of knowledge from pop culture to survival skills, and is extremely clever plus emotionally intelligent? Some of those misconceptions stem from earlier seasons when Dean's self-worth was lower, and/or just when he'd make jokes about Sammy being ~the smart one~ since he went to college and tends to be the research nerd. Y'know, the classic shit from when they were younger that people took at face value or didn't realize their characters shifted away from. But we're not in the earlier seasons anymore, and all of those old assumptions about who Dean and Sam are as people or how they see themselves don't apply in the narrative by season 15. They hadn't for years.

The reason why Fortuna's comments are also meta commentary is that nearly all of season 15 is. That's the nature of the overarching plot of Chuck as villain and the fight for free will. And that's extra true in 15x11, which deals with a god who steals luck (as Chuck stole their luck), misunderstands them, and therefore underestimates them. Sam wins his first game against Fortuna because she was distracted by the conversation, and as she says to Sam, "You got me talking. You're good." But Dean's the one who primarily distracts her while she's playing by asking her the questions; Sam even catches on to what Dean's doing in the middle of it (they exchange a glance) but he barely says anything. Which is why Sam pointedly replies to Fortuna, "I learned from my brother."

Dean knows ~he's Tolstoy,~ and he demonstrates how he got a read on Fortuna by cleverly playing the fuck out of her as Sam's backup in the first game. Because he knows it'll work, and it literally does. She loses because he distracts her!

Beyond characterizations, the importance of this is that the entire situation in Fortuna's pool hall is structured to reflect the rigged "game" of Chuck's narrative that Sam and Dean are trapped in. In regards to the importance of Dean saying "I'm Tolstoy" specifically... Again, there's more to Dean as a person and he's being underestimated. That's key in the context of their fight against gods, aka both Fortuna and Chuck. Dean further proves this by calling bullshit on Fortuna's "double or nothing" offer: "That's how the cowboy died." The cowboy challenged Dean to double or nothing and Dean took that bet because importantly he knew he had what it took to win it, but with Fortuna, he hesitates because he's astute. Plus, there's the fact that he and Sam are true "heroes" and the importance of that.

The takeaway for them and for us is that Sam and Dean had what it took to defeat Chuck. (Especially Dean, who Chuck is now obsessed with vs how Sam was originally the chosen one, just like with Fortuna.) They won a game against a goddess! But the key? Don't get baited into continuing to play.

Metanarratively, Dean is also the "cowboy." Going double or nothing in the overarching story – Sam and Dean not walking away when they get the win of having Jack back, but instead still playing Chuck's game and going up against him in a way he ultimately orchestrated rather than changing the game (with Cas' help) – is how/why they lose and Dean dies in 15x20. If Sam and Dean had taken Fortuna's advice of "Don't play his game. Make him play yours." – if they hadn't challenged Chuck within "his own joint" aka the confines of his storytelling Framework – then they wouldn't have lost. But they didn't do that, and so they didn't win.

"Lady, I'm Tolstoy" -> Dean's underestimated -> Dean and Sam have what it takes to defeat a god.

They didn't quite manage it with Chuck, but they (initially) did with Fortuna to win both their luck and her advice, and that still counts for something.