#and time and personal experience have *really* made the 'fairytale queer romance that is a missing stair right into a bottomless pit'

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

[cws: non-detailed discussion of both fictional and irl SA/CSA/abuse dynamics, apologia for the previous, homophobia, fetishization of wlw, and anti rhetoric.]

-

having a lot of thoughts about the wider fandom's treatment of the various abuse dynamics present in sdmi--supposedly in the name of being anti-abuse--and how instead it's propagated deeply anti-survivor/abuse apologist sentiment and behavior through where they choose to apply that rhetoric, and where they choose to look the other way.

(first off, if you're someone who does not and has not done this, thank you from the bottom of my heart. second, this is not at all exhaustive of my feelings on the subject and there will probably be more posts about these dynamics and people's behavior toward them in future. as you can imagine by the length of this post that is saying something lmao)

one of the reasons i feel as strongly as i do about the way both canon and fandom have historically been about pericles, pericky, and shitting on anyone who likes them because it Normalizes Abuse(tm), is that their fans are pretty open and emphatic about the fact that it's Fucked Up. it's why we find it compelling. it is vanishingly rare that we don't.

meanwhile, velma is the UwU Cute Sassy Lesbian Icon whose relationship with shaggy was Cringy and Immature (and mutually so 🙃) at worst, when it directly mirrored such visceral aspects of my experience with CSA that i almost threw up rewatching the second episode.

and that's not even getting into how normalized it is for women to abuse men in a relationship, in broad fucking daylight in front of other people, and how men are supposed to Always Want It and it's an insult if they don't, and how the vast majority of CSA--which it overtly is in shaggy's case, he is implied not to be an adult yet--is perpetrated by other kids.

and it's also not getting into the fact that the ~cute lesbian relationship~ is almost certainly going to end up with the other queer girl in the show also being abused, because abusers are not Magically Cured by True Queer Love's Kiss. how it is incredibly difficult for survivors of abuse in a wlw relationship to be acknowledged or get support because then they'd be a Traitor, or people would rather maintain the feel-good fuzzy feelings wlw exist to give them, or they're closeted and it's not safe to let people know they're in a relationship with a woman. how queer relationships, especially between women, are fetishized as cute pure healthy fairytale romances and not dynamics involving real people who might harm each other or be harmed and need help.

and that's not even getting into the fact that mlm are seen as inherently predatory to an extent that the majority of other queer identities are not. how older queer men grooming boys is a classic homophobic stereotype used to justify violence toward them, up to and including lynchings, and how that is the abuse dynamic everyone in the show and fandom latched onto to revile as the Disgusting Evil Predatory One while giving everything else a pass. how mlm have a long history of forced institutionalization and psychiatric torture and abuse, and the Predatory Gay Man is subjected to decades of--you guessed it!--forced institutionalization and psychiatric torture and abuse, which is framed as what he deserved and where he belonged. how he's supposed to be unattractive (and the majority of the people who do this shit lean hard on that), while people are way more likely to give Charming Attractive Aesthetically Pleasing abusers a pass.

this is just..... normal, to the fandom. it's treated as completely normal. and i think that's a whole lot more fucking harmful than finding emotional catharsis in exploring an abusive dynamic that would not fly in broad daylight irl in a million years.

[metalandmagi]

The differences in Aspec representation

(and why variety is important) I didn't know what to title this, but since it's pride month, I wanted to talk about two books that I just read and the different approaches they take to aspec representation....mainly because no one I know would read these and I just wanted to talk about them lol

Book 1: Attached at the Hip by Christine Riccio.

This is a New Adult romcom where our main character, an extremely co-dependent 23 year old woman named Orie competes in a Survivor type reality TV show to prove to her family that she is totally not co-dependent (and you know, to win the prize money and stuff).

This book is what I like to call "accidental" or "sneaky" aspec rep. What the fuck does that mean, you ask? I call it that because the author includes a scene in the book where Orie is talking to another character about her view of romance, and the other character makes the comment that it seems like Orie is demisexual or demiromantic or aspec. And since Orie is not the kind of person who thought to ever google her sexuality, we're kind of just left to sit with that. So even though the main character never calls herself demi, the readers know that she is. And more importantly, the themes in this book are so attuned to the aspec experience it's not even funny.

Remember how I said Orie is co-dependent? Well, the main conflict of this book is Orie coming to terms with being able to do things by herself and struggling with the fear that her family and friends will all abandon her one day because she feels like a perpetual burden or third wheel. She wants to find her perfect fairytale romance, but she has a hard time connecting with people that way, so for a while she thinks it's best to stay with her boyfriend that she clearly feels nothing for, just because she feels like she's supposed to. By the end of the book, Orie feels like she must pivot into being able to do EVERYTHING by herself because she might be forced to eventually. Sound familiar? I can't speak for everyone, but this is something most aspec people struggle with their entire lives. Yes allo people can have this fear too, but I feel like it hits us differently. Because the world doesn't treat platonic friendships as importantly as it should, and because we don't view romance or sex the same way as most people, we are left with that fear of exclusion all the time!

This book is the aspec experience, whether the author intended it to be or not, and it actually hit me much harder than I thought it would because I was completely blindsided by it. It's a super funny, heartwarming romcom, especially for fans of Survivor. I loved it because it made me feel even more seen than a coming-of-age grapple with sexuality like Loveless did. And I don't even know if it was on purpose. I've followed Christine Riccio for a very long time, and idk if she is some form of demi, but her characters and themes (even in her other books) make it seem that way.

Book 2: Aces Wild by Amanda Dewitt.

As you can probably guess, this book is completely, unapologetically ace in its representation. The plot revolves around a group of aspec teenagers who rob a casino in Vegas. Which means that yes, it's basically a modern AU Six of Crows fanfic where the author wondered, "What if Kaz Brekker grew up as the rich heir to a casino empire?"

I promise I don't mean that like an insult, because I actually liked the book a fair bit, especially the writing style. It's hilarious and fast paced, and as someone who is extremely familiar with casinos, this is the kind of book that makes me angry because I should have written it first.

The thing about this book compared to Attached At The Hip is the fact that the characters are aspec is completely irrelevant to the story. AND THAT IS TOTALLY OKAY! AUTHORS DO NOT OWE IT TO PEOPLE TO MAKE EVERY QUEER STORY A COMING-OF-AGE STRUGGLE WITH SEXUALITY! This book is a fun romp, and the fact that the characters are aspec doesn't really make a difference to anything at all. The main character still has a crush, and there is still romance just like any typical YA romcom. HOWEVER, my only real problem with this book stems from the side characters feeling like cardboard cutouts with no reason to feel like they're all friends. Their interactions aren't bad, but the book relies on the fact that our main group is all aspec to convince the audience why they're friends. We get a little bit of backstory about how they're all nerds who met in a chat room, but not much depth to them. There are too many side characters and too few pages for anyone (except the main character) to feel fleshed out. It's because of this that it feels like the aspec rep is sort of...an afterthought. I don't know if the author is aspec (and it shouldn't matter either way) but I don't like it when characters (especially ace characters) feel like afterthoughts. We get enough of that in real life.

But that doesn't change the fact that this is the only book I've read (or media I've encountered in general) where the majority of the characters are aspec. It's a hilarious good time, and this type of low stakes representation is just as important! It's important to show that aspec people exist without needing to fit a "coming to terms with your sexuality" kind of narrative.

So yeah, this was just my excuse to get my thoughts in order, and to try and convince people to read these 😅

[welcomingdisaster]

2 and 25? 😁

2. a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

oh no my only weakness... i have to be real every single ship i write i imagine switchy. so take this as a "in certain circumstances" kind of thing. i have written fic that contradicts both of these. it'll be compelling (hopefully) but honestly i don't know if i'll believe it. buuut. maedhros is absolutely a control freak that doesn't like being vulnerable, and sleeping with people is already toeing the line a little bit too much. i wrote enemy of good in part about his control issues in bed and i think that fic kind of captures my headcanons about his general vulnerability issues. i'm working on a longer fic about him experimenting with trauma through kink, and the rush that having power over people gives him -- so i lean towards "maedhros has to be in a very good mental state to bottom, which, considering that he wouldn't recognize a good mental state if bit him in the ass, means he doesn't really bottom." also hmmm. miriel is equally a control freak in my mind's eye. she will bottom but she will never stop bossing her partners around. she has an artistic vision for this sexual encounter please stop interrupting her creative process with your leg cramps 25. common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing oh man I do not know if I have a good answer for this. here are two weird ones i know that banning a language is a shitty move but i feel like. the level at which people talk about thingol is a person for banning quenya among his people is weirdly disproportionate to the action, especially considering it was prompted by him finding out he was lied to about the deaths of his own people. like it feels like people assign that action a worse moral value than all the murder. that being said that is such a feanorian assessment of morality i do kind of loop back around to admiring it. i'm also reaaallly over hearing arguments about what tolkien intended or wanted in terms of shipping (i think it's still an interesting question when we interpret some other parts of the text!). "tolkien was a catholic who would have hated your gay ships" has weirdly managed to make it on my dash several times and that is obviously the worst one. but i also kind of find the argument of "no i promise tolkien actually made x ship gay on purpose" kind of... tinfoil hat-y? i've never been convinced by them. and honestly, i don't really like the whole framework of applying authorial intent to ships. my current #1 favorite ship for the fandom was absolutely, 110% not intended, but i just... don't need jirt's permission or intention in this. i feel like the arguments about whether something like russingon or turleg (two ships i really like, mind you!) were intended by canon kind of imply that they would be less valid if they were not?

i have no idea if this makes sense & i do actually find the queer readings/analysis very interesting. but if anything i generally tend to assume that they leaked into tolkien from the (secretly queerer than we assume?) fairytales/myths/epics he was inspired by rather than being there by design. i feel like we can point out things like "hey, x plotline mirrors a romance" without needing to necessarily say "tolkien intended this and meant to hide gay stuff in his works." like i'm just over needing that old man's permission or intent.

this has been the rambliest response yet and i hope it's entertaining/coherent lmao. thank you for your ask!!

[anxiouslyfred]

Is There a Label Like That

for @aro-sides-week prompt of Discovery

Summary: Roman has dreamt of Disney happy ever afters his whole life but never wanted it when he has the chance for romance. A talk with Logan helps him start to understand why.

/\/\

Roman is a romantic. He's always been so and it's something everyone knows. He wanted those fairytale moments of finding true love and staying together forever. Hell, he was likely to do grand gestures for any of his friends that bystanders often through were romantic.

The issue was that he couldn't imagine, nor want, an actual person in his fantasies with him. Roman had tried to imagine people who's style he adored, or who made him laugh if something in their actions seemed flirtatious, but he knew it was fake, forcing himself to believe in emotions that weren't there by magnifying something that was.

Trying to find and make intentionally romantic gestures was just as uncomfortable, leaving Roman wanting to flee, but the few times he'd hooked up at a bar everything had been fine, even great if the other made it clear from the start that no relationship was an option.

Then Logan came out as Asexual and Roman was floored by labels he hadn't heard about before being used.

“What is that?” He couldn't help asking, curious and fascinated, just by the fact there was a new label he could learn.

“It means I don't experience sexual attraction and in my instance do not desire that kind of touch at all. To be specific I'm a sex repulsed asexual.” Logan replied quite calmly.

Roman paused, thinking but not struggling with the definition as Logan's expression made it clear he expected him to. “Is there a label like that for romance?”

Logan nodded after a moment, confused by the question not being something he'd expected to hear. “Yes, aromantic. Why do you ask?”

“That just... That just sounds like how I feel.” Roman muttered, shrinking back a little under the sharp gaze and beyond aware that what he was saying was contradictory to everything he friends usually described him as.

“You mean in regards to romance? I thought you dreamt and chase after romance constantly. Seeking your Disney ending as you once told me.” Logan replied, not judgementally, but merely curious.

“Then retreat as fast as I can from situations like that.” Roman nodded. “It's uncomfortable and forced because I want a happily ever after but that makes my skin crawl.”

“As I feel when in situations where someone expects a sexual encounter with me. I can direct you to a few sites which were useful when I was looking up queer labels and terms if you want to look into aromanticism more.” Logan offered, smiling.

The discussion was dropped after Roman accepted the offer and noted a few websites down to look up later. It wasn't something either of them wanted to linger on at the moment, and it had been clear from the moment Logan cornered Roman alone that his coming out as Ace needed his attention at that time.

Part of Roman felt like saying that he didn't immediately come out as Aro to let Logan's coming out have the attention and acceptance it deserved, but really he just didn't start calling himself aromantic for a while after that conversation. He read and looked up the experiences of aromantics online and questioned where he felt comfortable to.

A lot of questions were just directed at himself and Roman wrote out essays on how he felt and what love or romance meant to him. He'd reread journal entries trying to remember specific actions that made him record dates or meetings as awkward or uncomfortable and wonder if being aro was why they felt like that.

It was still the same feeling though, of dreaming for romance but never truly desiring it which made Roman return to the aro label. He liked it more each time and slowly began accepting in the safety of his mine that he could be aro and still do grand gestures for his friends. They are the most important people to him after all.

It had been a couple of months since Logan first told Roman of the label and all their friends were gathered, playing a few board games and just catching up when an offhand comment by Patton brought conversation to which of them would marry someone they'd just met.

“Are you seriously saying you don't think our very own Disney Prince isn't going to run off with a stranger claiming they're his true love? He's a regular Anna.” Janus was saying, gesturing over to him while Virgil was shaking his head.

That sentence was enough to have Roman blurting out “I'm aro! I don't feel that attraction nor want marriage like that at all. Just let's all be happy ever after as friends!”

Virgil had frozen half way to speaking when Roman exclaimed and now paused, turning to him consideringly. Janus had moved backwards in their seat, blinking but smiling after a moment and nodding, accepting that their comment wasn't welcomed.

It was when Patton started to squeal quietly, leaning towards Roman despite him hunching away that the pause brought to their jokes was broken.

“Sweet, makes life easier for me. No need to worry your extravagant gestures are romantic any more.” Virgil nodded. “Back to the subject, look at Patton. He is definitely the one most likely to marry a stranger. Someone'll feed him a sob story, throw in something about needing a green card to get to safety and they'll be at the registry office before sunset.”

That got the attention off Roman's unplanned coming out happily without any questions being asked and Logan nudging his shoulder to check in was a support he couldn't be more grateful for.

[ankkalinna]

What your thoughts on the lgbt representation in dt17. As a straight person that support the lgbt I think they did alright but they were restricted by Disney. Like violet parents really didn’t have personality and just appeared in one episode. Penny should have ended with della since della is the only duck from the original trio that didn’t have a on screen kiss like Scrooge and Donald. Della have good relationship with penny. When entertainment weekly said magica going to be a lgbt icon they really didn’t do much with it except when she didn’t like it when Gladstone hold her. I don’t blame the crew since they work with Disney. Just what to hear your thoughts.

what LGBT representation nghgng This got long so

Okay so. I don’t go to a Disney show expecting to be represented I just do not trust Disney. Even when they said Violet had two dads I wasn’t sure if I should expect them to even be shown on screen.

But still, times are different from when I was a kid and there have been great leaps when it comes to representing gay and even trans experience in media and even kids’s shows

And when it comes to how DT17 handled it it’s not impressive in the year 2021 nghgn it would have maybe been acceptable ten years ago

Like I said I didn’t go in expecting anything (def not them doing anything with established characters) but I am also not going praise this piss-poor attempt and I think it’s frustrating Disney got attention for including Violet’s dads who were not characters! They didn’t even have lines!!!

Penny being a lesbian barely counts her line about not wanting to date Launchpad was so weird it wasn’t even the usual ‘I am not into men’ which fictional lesbians are allowed to say to sort of imply they are gay without using the spoopy L word. Penny and Della don’t have much of a relationship (which is a problem a lot in this show tbf) and none of it is romantically coded

Magica in the comics is much more queer than she is in the show, she is allowed to be more weird with gender lot of the time (like taking on a male form with magic tho I could say a lot overall about the representation of gender in DT17 vs the comics.... an another post perhaps) and there are even some hints at least in some comics she is into women... In the show she is made to represent homophobic family which I am :/ about but I’d be fine with it if they at least were way more explicit about the actual queer storyline in the show!!!

IMO, Lena is the best queer character in the show and she is not allowed to be explicitly so. But there is enough there that I am sure at least some people in the creative team were actively writing Lena/Webby as romantic and saw Lena’s journey as a queer narrative.

Magica is Lena’s abusive ‘biological’ parent who has a clear image of what Lena should be and tries to mold her into this image, but Lena rebels and finds a new family, she is adopted by an explicitly gay couple and loved by her friends, especially Webby. Webby/Lena is extremely easy to read as them being baby lesbians and the scene in the Night on Killmotor Hill where Webby saves Lena with her tears is the scene that made me go ‘okay this is definitely not all me reading gay into things at least some people who are making this are intending this as romantic’ because of how Webby’s tears fall on Lena’s ‘lips’ and this is the thing that saves her from Magica’s evil magic. The implication of it being a magical fairytale kiss is not an accident, animating it like that was a conscious decision someone made.

It’s very possible it wasn’t originally intended to be gay and I kinda suspect the decision was made to not write romance for any of the kid characters but it did become a thing to some extent (and was then dialed back and the finale made sure to go ‘SISTERS!!!’)

If they actually wanted to give rep and make Webby memorable, make Weblena canon tbh. You don’t even need to ship them as kids just have the same thing happen that already did happen in DT87 but replace Doofus with Lena;

they travel to the future or have a vision of future and Lena and Webby are married. There.

But of course they would have not done this. They never even had Lena’s plotline really in the show when it comes to the whole ‘becoming a part of Violet’s family’ bit. They had some references to it apparently but they were cut and Violet’s dads were not characters. I am not going to speculate on guilt and how much the creative team (or specific creators) tried to put in representation and it was all Disney stomping all over it, but COME ON. You’re telling me they managed to put Violet’s two dads in but it was totally impossible to have them speak? Have them hug their daughter and give them a few seconds of dialogue where they and their relationship to at least their daughter is characterized at all?? Maybe have them hug Violet and Lena stands there kinda awkward and they take her into the family hug and reassure her she is part of the Sabrewing family???

This show had issues with fitting everything they wanted in overall but what scenes and relationships were prioritized was a choice.

They sure had time to put in a scene in S2 where LP hits on Penny. That sure was a choice :)

I know some people expected Drakepad to be canon idk why... LP’s bisexuality is... I would not call it canon. There is one jokey implication in the show I would have been impressed by in the 90′s lmao

TLDR: I did not expect anything so I am not disappointed, not going to praise this piss-poor attempt tho

[qqueenofhades]

If Cursed had asked you, a medieval historian, what to do, what would you have told them?

Ahaha. Ahaha. Hah. Full disclosure, I know/knew absolutely nothing about the show apart from reading this horrible article, but methinks, enough to get a sense of it. And even without the author of this article wildly making up their Blackadder version of history (as my dearest and oh so correct @oldshrewsburyian​ put it yesterday), the quotes from the actors/producers/etc are just... they are just.... SO BAD.

Starring:

"But when we got into filming and the brutality, the mud, the bugs and the blood, I thought, 'I'm not sure I could handle this in reality'.

"I have a feeling I'd get sick and die pretty quick."

"I'd be dead," adds Frank Miller, very matter of fact.

"I mean it was a time of wild plagues and disease and they didn't have much use for people who do the kind of stuff I do."

Ah yes, medieval life. Mud, blood, bugs, and death. “Times of wild plague and disease,” unlike today, where we never have a problem with plague at all. And I’m sorry, the medieval world had no use for artists??? What are you even SMOKING MY DUDE MY BRO MY PAL (and if you don’t know this, WHY ARE YOU MAKING A MEDIEVAL SHOW SUPPOSED TO BE “ACCURATE?”) Have you LOOKED at ONE SINGLE MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPT? HAVE YOU WALKED INTO A MEDIEVAL CATHEDRAL AND LOOKED AT THE STAINED GLASS WINDOWS? LOOKED AT ANY JEWELRY? ANYTHING?????

(Okay I gotta pace myself, there’s a lot to yell at here and it’ll take a while.)

"If I was living in that time, I think I would want to be a witch but you would stink," Devon Terrell, who's taking on the role, laughs.

As would most people, with a lack of basic sanitation and plumbing which meant human waste was often thrown out close to where you lived.

"And I like a good fairy tale but I wouldn't say I was longing for a time that was much less scientific. I'd probably get killed for heresy or something. I'm not great with authority or religious oppression and that sort of stuff. So, yeah, I don't think I'd fare too well."

There’s just... I don’t know where to even.... /SCREAMS

(And I even cut out the especially face-palming quote from the article about “thousands of people burning for heresy” in the 11th/12th century. “Much less scientific,” well, Roger Bacon’s brazen head just called AND IT THINKS YOU’RE A MORON, DEVON.)

The woman playing Morgana Le Fay talks about your life being “very short” and getting drowned as a witch and whatever Bad Guy Du Jour talks about having no dentists or medical care. We get the picture: they.... really did not do their homework. I’m not sure they even touched Google. So basically, we’d need to start by burning everything down and then asking if really, truly, do we NEED to make this adaptation. There are EIGHT THOUSAND MILLION GODFORSAKEN RETELLINGS OF ARTHUR/THE ROUNDTABLE RIGHT NOW. NOBODY NEEDS ANOTHER ONE! EVEN FOR WHATEVER PSEUDO-FEMINIST TAKE YOU SEEM TO BE TRYING TO PUT ON THIS ONE! ENOUGH! ENOOOOUGH! THINK OF SOMETHING DIFFERENT! THERE ARE SO MANY MEDIEVAL ROMANCES OUT THERE THAT DON’T GET MADE!!!

For example, you know what I would suggest? Bisclavret. Where is my lavish beautifully designed historical-medieval-fantasy queer werewolf romance, I ask you? (Answer: just like that novel I stumbled upon yesterday that decided to make some random Vatican maidservant into Cesare Borgia’s ~truest and purest love~, y’all are too cowardly to do it right.) YOU KNOW WHO WOULD LOVE THIS? THE GAYS! THE GAYS WOULD LOVE IT, PATRICIA! We have a central queer love story (Bisclavret and the king). We have a distinct physical and geographical setting (12th-century France). THE GODDAMN THING WAS WRITTEN BY A WOMAN! (Marie de France.) We could develop the character of Bisclavret’s wife and give her backstory and into a sympathetic and complicated but ultimately redeemed antiheroine, blackmailed by the male/patriarchal/heterosexual villains of the establishment, if y’all REALLY want to get into some subversive queerfem medievalism and not your little weaksauce Nimue in her polyester corset. We could LITERALLY MAKE A QUEER MEDIEVAL WEREWOLF ROMANCE WRITTEN BY A WOMAN!!! HOW ABOUT THAT YOU DINGDONGS?!!

You could decorate the sets beautifully by, I don’t know, LOOKING AT THOSE MEDIEVAL ARTISTS WHO SUPPOSEDLY DIDN’T EXIST. You could bring in other medieval monsters, such as walking corpses, and have brawny young men beating them to death with shovels (as various medieval chroniclers matter-of-factly report on). You could do something besides the TIRED ASS “superstitious peasants think woman with vague evidence of a personality must be a witch!!” You could ground your story in the vivid and colorful politics of 12th-century France and the underground queer life for people in Paris (MAKE PETER THE CHANTER THE FROLLO-ESQUE VILLAIN, I’M JUST SAYING!) EXPLORE THE METAPHOR OF QUEERNESS VIS A VIS MONSTROSITY WITH BISCLAVRET THE WEREWOLF! You could STOP ACTING LIKE GAME OF THRONES IS HISTORY AND “DIRTY PEOPLE IN TUNICS GETTING KILLED MEANS IT’S MEDIEVAL!!!”

/takes a deep breath

But alas. As established, they are Cowards. So, if we absolutely HAD to be lumbered with another goddamn Arthur adaptation:

STOP ACTING LIKE SOME RANDOM VAGUELY 12TH-CENTURY SETTING IS ~tHE hISToriCAl ArThUr!!~ IF HE EXISTED IT WAS IN LIKE 5TH-CENTURY POST ROMAN BRITAIN AND A) WE ALREADY HAD THE TEDIOUS BIG BUDGET “ACCURATE KING ARTHUR” WITH KEIRA KNIGHTLEY DRESSED IN WHATEVER THAT WAS, I’M GAY SO I’M NOT COMPLAINING THAT MUCH BUT ALSO ACCURATE MY CYNICAL LESBIAN BACKSIDE!

....where was I...

Ah yes. Post-Roman 5th-century Britain is A VERY DIFFERENT SETTING from the random-ass mishmash of “medieval” tropes you people seem to want to throw in. Or ANOTHER IDEA: junk the idea that “King Arthur” is ever going to be a remotely accurately represented historical concept, and just make it lavish, fantastic, magical, dark, and compelling without yoking yourself to the fuckin’ BORING ASS “must add mud and blood and suffering and misogyny for More Realism!” It’s FANTASY, TREAT IT LIKE FANTASY AND NOT HISTORY LIKE “A FAIRYTALE!” HOW ABOUT THAT IDEA?!?! AND MAYBE STOP ACTING LIKE YOU HAVE PRETENSIONS TO “tHe wAy it ReALLy wAs” because we have established YOU DO NOT!!!

(God Game of Thrones is the WORST, and you KNOW they’re doing this trying to be GoT-lite, and I.... /mutters incoherently)

OR MAKE ANY OTHER OF THE ARTHURIAN ROMANCES IF YOU REALLY HAVE TO DO A CAMELOT STORY! THERE ARE LIKE EIGHTY MILLION OF THEM! PICK A SIDE ONE WITH CHARACTERS THAT YOU CAN DO FRESH RATHER THAN THE ARCHETYPES THAT HAVE BEEN DONE TO DEATH!!! ACTUALLY ASK A MEDIEVAL LITERATURE EXPERT AND A MEDIEVAL HISTORIAN FOR ADVICE BEFORE YOU GET THIS FAR AND EMBARRASS YOURSELVES!!! (OR MAYBE SEVERAL OF THEM!!) ACTUALLY ACT LIKE REPRESENTING THE PAST AS A FULL AND COMPLEX AND BEAUTIFUL PLACE AS WELL AS A DARK AND DANGEROUS ONE CAN STRENGTHEN YOUR STORY AND DISPLAY HUMAN EXPERIENCE MORE ACCURATELY! RATHER THAN “HURR DURR DARK AGES” BECAUSE I AM TIRED!!!

TIRED!!!!

...Anyway. I clearly handled this well. Whew.

[transgirl-catra]

She-Ra and the power of inherently queer stories

uploading my essay here for the anon who wanted it, theres definitely a lot more that I wouldve liked to cover if i wasnt page limited and rushing lol

On paper, queer representation in media is vastly improved from where it was just 5-10 years ago. In that time plenty of high-profile shows and movies have introduced at least one openly gay character.  Although this is, relatively speaking, a massive step from where we were before, many of these feel like incredibly superficial depictions made by and for straight people to feel good about themselves (and to blow way out of proportion in marketing so that the gays will give you money, of course).  Sure the character shows up, talks about his husband, and they might even kiss on screen if you’re really lucky. But all of this is done in such a way that it can be edited out for international markets without disrupting the flow of the film, because these characters being queer isn’t ultimately that important, and whoever’s in charge considers queer and straight characters to be interchangable.  As a result, these depictions often fail to resonate with the queer people who need to see them most, lacking the nuance that comes with queer life.

One show that absolutely smashes this, however, is Noelle Stevenson’s She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018).  A reboot of the classic (but incredibly dated) 1980s cartoon, She-ra at its core is the story of Adora and Catra, two childhood best friends who find themselves on opposite sides of a war and journey from love to hate and all the way back again before they realize their true feelings for eachother, saving their world (and themselves) in the process. To be clear, the show includes multiple unambiguously, canonically queer characters in its recurring cast from the beginning from a married lesbian couple to a genderfluid shapeshifter.  But as Stevenson said in an interview reflecting on representation in the show, she wanted to focus on “Not just the very clear straight-forward, incidental representation but the more complex, subtle, nuanced stories that play out over time and reflect more aspects of ourselves other than just the right to get married. There's so much more wrapped into our experiences."  This definitely shines through in the show.  When Catra and Adora are growing up as child soldiers for the Horde, they form a deep emotional bond to protect eachother from Shadow Weaver, their emotionally abusive commander who serves as the only real parental figure that either of them have.

One thing that quickly became apparent in discussion surrounding the show was the different ways that people interpreted this situation depending on their own identities.  Many cishet people read Catra and Adora as more like adoptive sisters at first (a fairly common misread of lesbian relationships in general), but for others it resonated as it was meant to: an allegory for the way that queer people find shelter in eachother even in situations where it’s dangerous to express themselves openly.  Even though neither of them fully understand the depth of their feelings, over the course of the first episode alone we see both Catra and Adora put themself in harm’s way to protect the other multiple times, both willing to endure the abuse in order to see their goal of taking over together come to fruition.  However, things change when Adora finds out that she’s the heir to a legendary power and deserts the Horde to join the rebellion, unable to convince Catra to leave with her. The tension between Adora’s guilt over leaving the only person she’s ever cared about and the resentment Catra feels for Adora’s perceived abandonment of her and everything they’ve worked for is the driving emotional conflict for basically the entire show.

While Adora is living in the capital city and growing into her new power, Shadow Weaver and others manipulate Catra’s feelings, convincing her that Adora abandoned her because it was convenient and never truly cared.  She becomes convinced of this, slipping into resentment and self-hatred that was very familiar for me as a trans person (Catra is heavily trans-coded, but that would be a whole paper itself), and begins lashing out at both herself and anyone who tries to get close to her.  However, she can never truly bring herself to hate Adora, and realizes that no amount of power will make her happy, but doesn’t believe that Adora could ever possibly share her feelings.  By the time Horde Prime, the final villain of the show, arrives, Catra willingly submits herself to mind control in the hopes that it will take the pain away.  Horde Prime is a fairly blatant stand in for homophobic religious leaders, and as such literally baptizes Catra into his hive mind, declaring that “all beings must suffer to become pure”, providing a very clear link to real life ‘conversion therapy’.  Adora, however, refuses to give up, her feelings strong enough to literally revive a dead Catra after Prime kills her.

The thing that really cements She-Ra as both an explicitly and implicitly queer story, however, is its ending.  These themes of emotional abuse and trauma, both familiar to many queer people, have been built expertly throughout the show, and in the end Catra finally confessing her feelings is what gives Adora the strength to save the planet (mirroring her love saving Catra a few episodes earlier).  Ultimately, Adora and Catra both needed to overcome their own self destructive tendencies before they were able to be together rather than one of them waiting on the other to fix them (although the support certainly helps), subverting many of the harmful tropes typical to straight romances.  As Stevenson says later in the same interview, “we didn’t know if we were going to be able to make it explicit, so In the meantime [we were] trying to build a framework into the very DNA of the show”.  As paradoxical as it seems that the way to get around censorship is to make the show more queer, it makes a lot of sense.  Even if Catra and Adora hadn’t kissed at the end and gotten their fairytale ending, it still would have been an undeniably queer story if you knew what to look for. Ultimately, my hope is that the success of She-Ra and other shows like it will allow for a wider range of queer stories to reach screens.  It’s been really hard for me to avoid turning this into a personal essay, because the show really hit me very hard during a very formative time in my life as I navigated my identity and struggled with a lot of similar feelings to the main characters, which is why its so important to me to analyze how it manages to resonate with that and explore what being queer means and how it affects all of your life.

Sources Cited:

https://www.papermag.com/rebecca-sugar-noelle-stevenson-2646446747.html

[claire-de-macarune]

Get ready kids because somebody called for all the Hayley Kiyoko asks

sleepover: have you ever liked a friend as more than a friend? did you tell them? if it was in the past, do you wish that you told them?

Ugghhhh yea. I’ve told some and not others. The current one is rough because she’s straight (?) and we talked about her boy problems and i just wanted her to be happy, so i worked some fairy gaymother magic and now they’re dating which is… yeah.

I just kinda sucked it up and made a playlist into which i deposit all my sad gay pining. It’s about three hours long and Sleepover is the first track.

curious: do you drink? what’s your favourite drink? what drink isn’t your thing?

I am a connoisseur of fine juices. ;)

I’m a big smoothie girl, so a mango smoothie bubble tea is probably my fave. I like sodas or bitter things, for the most part. I’m a wine mom type and definitely think that it will be my alcohol go-to once I’m of age,

girls like girls: what’s your sexuality? how did you discover it? or have you just always known?

I’m a lesbean. :)

My first crush was Daphne from Scooby-Doo (i’ve given you that information, now use it wisely. by which i mean, don’t use it. please god.), so that was a landmark. I kind of always subconsciously know, but growing up I didn’t actually know what being LGBT+ was because my parents never made a big deal about it. We have straight friends, we have gay friends, so I wasn’t aware that sexuality and discourse around it was even a thing until I was around twelve. 

feelings: how do you think others perceive you? how do you perceive yourself? 

People find me intimidating because I’m confident, intentional, verbose, and organized. That’s how I like it.

I alternate between between our class emotional support animal and class cryptid, and it’s the most fun thing ever. I am both mom and monster muahahaha

gravel to tempo: have you come out to anyone? if yes, who was the first person you told? if no, do you want to? who would you tell first?

I don’t actually remember first coming out to anyone in particular. There was one time when my group of friends (3 other girls) and i were having a sleepover and they were all like, “we’re bi” and i was like “what’s that” and they were like “we like girls too” and i was like “cool. i mean, personally i think boys suck and look like potatoes carved by a toddler and when i entertain the notion of kissing or marrying one i would literally rather eat sandpaper for the rest of my life, but cool” and they were like “how are you so comfortable with this? a lesbian GOD!” and i just went with it.

(for the record, it wasn’t a trendy thing and they were really scared and all felt really gross about it bc their religious families taught them that being gay was wrong and didn’t talk about bisexuality at all so i went out and did some research and came back and assured them that everything they were feelign was valid and okay and we were really safe spaces for each other in that shitty middle school time when everything is just awful. nothing but love and respect for my first priestesses and bi babes!)

pretty girl: who was the most recent crush you had? do you still like them? did you tell them/do you want to tell them?

(see sleepover. this song is also on the playlist.)

what i need: who are your favourite gay artists? what are your favourite gay songs?

Well, Hayley Kiyoko (obviously), Janelle Monae, and King Princess are the big ones. I’m always open to hearing more! Honorable mentions to “Know Your Name” by Mary Lambert, “Crimson and Clover” by Joan Jett, and the soundtrack of Fun Home (even though it’s got some problematic things with predatory gays) because I cry every time I listen to it, especially on “Changing My Major”, “Days and Days and Days”, and fuckin “Telephone Wire” (“Come to the Fun Home” is a whole bop. Only gay in that I, a certified gay, enjoy it.)

ease my mind: what makes you feel at peace? what is your perfect future like? what do you do at the end of a long day to unwind?

Reading, writing (in theory lol), drawing, and singing relax me (dance too, but I’m not allowed to do it anymore cuz I’m broken). I also recently started teaching myself the guitar.

I don’t really have a set perfect future, but honestly, I’d take one in which we avoid nuclear winter, world war III, and climate change. The more I think about growing up, the more skeptical I become about whether I’ll actually get to do it and that’s insanely scary.

let it be: who was your worst heartbreak? have you ever been in love? do you even believe in love?

TW: suicide

One of my best friends (⅓ of my nervous bi darlings) ended her life almost two years ago. So that fuckin’ messed me up.

I don’t know. Usually, I’d say I think I’m kind of young to really even know how, but that’s not quite true. I guess I’ll say that I have loved but I haven’t yet been in love. Theoretically speaking, there’s so much of my life ahead of me that the probability of having that experience so early, especially with a limited romantic pool (being a queer poc in the south), is low.

And I’ve just recently fallen in love with myself, thus heightening my standards. I’ve been awful about getting into relationships in the past because i was afraid of saying no and hurting that person’s feelings, but lately i value my own happiness above the appeasement of others to my detriment. I just feel like I’m still learning and getting comfortable in that space, and the opportunity hasn’t really presented itself yet. But i think that it’s possible, someday. I’m a hopeful hopeless romantic.

cliff’s edge: what’s on your bucket list? where would like to travel? what makes your heart race?

I want to try everything at least once. I want to learn how to be the truest, most fully-realized version of myself I can. I don’t have a set list of life, I just hope it will be some kind of spectacular.

I want to see the world. Everywhere. But beyond that, I want to be a part of it. I want to be a true global citizen, experience a life past myself every day. I dream of having the freedom to continuously explore and grow in hopes of doing some good, internally or externally, along the way.

he’ll never love you: were you ever in denial about your sexuality? were you ever in denial of a crush? do you like to talk about your crushes to your friends?

Not denial, per se, I just didn’t know what was going on. It was a pretty straightforward, comfortable call once I had the information I needed.

I’m able to employ logic in most situations and strip myself of an unwanted crush using that, but most i’m aware of and suffer in silence.

Yesss. I’m bad at making those kinds of decisions by myself and having people who genuinely care ask me questions or even just talk to me about it helps me process. Often, this results in being teased about said crush, but I don’t mind.

wanna be missed: how dependent or independent are you in a relationship? do you like a lot of space, or a lot of intimacy? how do you feel about electronic (vs face to face) communication?

Ummm, I kinda tend to lead, just because that’s what I’m accustomed to. It’s a role I fill because everyone else avoids it in the other arenas of my life, so I’ve mostly been independent and directing in my relationships. This last one actually threw me for a loop because the dynamic was flipped; they were so sweet and thoughtful and proactive in romancing me i didn’t really know what to do with myself. I’ve gotten over the initial shock (now, what, 5? 6 months later?) and found that I liked that too.

I like a healthy balance of distance and closeness. Fun fact: my love languages are quality time and physical touch, so when i’m with someone i pretty much just want to cuddle with them all the time. I don’t know, it really depends on the person and the relationship and whatever is going on with me individually.

I’m cool with digital communication, but i’m also a granny when it comes to technology so I can have a little trouble with more nuanced text/social media culture. Also, my phone is always on silent (not even vibrate, because i’m wacky like that) so if you want an immediate answer, face-to-face is better. Also the physical touch thing, also that way i can read expressions better.

Bonus: i can also hold your hand and kiss your cute face!

under the blue/take me in: are you happy where you are right now? if you could change one thing about your life, what would it be? what’s your favourite aspect of yourself?

I mean, I’d rather not be in constant debilitating pain, I (apparently) have some tangling with anxiety i need to do, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I’m a lot better than I have been, and I’m grateful for that. I don’t know if true happiness is a consistent, determinable state, but I take what I can get.

I don’t think there’s one big thing I would change. It’s more like a handful of small things. But if I had to choose, I’d fix whatever is wrong with my spine/neck/whatever. I feel like I’m on the cusp of my life finally beginning and I’m trapped by something as trivial as my body. It’s exhausting and I really need it to be over. It feels selfish, but I could do the most good for myself and others if I could put this behind me.

Favorite aspect of myself? That’s like asking me to pick a favorite book! Or child! Impossible: that’s a trick question. Sure, she’s a batshit, messy bitch, but I love myself. She and I are in it for the long run. ;)

palace: who is your favourite memory? what’s your favourite story with/about them? why don’t you two speak anymore?

The first girl I ever loved is mostly a memory now. It’s hard to pick a favorite story about her, but our first kiss story is pretty soft and gay, kind of like something out of a fairytale or a tropey fic, so I guess I’ll say that.

We had just finished seventh grade. 

Some background: That April, we went to D.C. for our annual class trip. There were ten of us and only four girls, so we all shared a hotel room (and they were roommates!) We split the beds (we’d all known each other for seven years, it was just like sharing with a sister) and stayed up super late, intermittently playing truth or dare and talking about life. She and I philosophized into the early morning (there was only one bed!!), she told me she liked me, and I fell asleep before I could do anything about it. Apparently, we ended up cuddling, because when I woke up, i was warm because she’d wrapped around me (and drooled down my collarbone, but whatever).

Okay, so, every spring, after graduation, our school had a picnic at the park down by a shallow length of the river where the kids would swim after lunch. We hadn’t done anything about our feelings yet, and I was leaving for another school. She took me around the bend in the river and we swam into the basin there. She wasn’t as strong a swimmer as I was, so she put her arms around my neck, and I held us both up in water deeper than both of us were tall. She said she was going to miss me, and then she kissed me. For a while.

Then, we saw a snake and frantically flailed to shore, laughing until our lungs hurt.

We don’t talk anymore because she became mentally unstable soon after that, and it wasn’t safe for either of us to continue interacting. I’ve seen her a few times since, but I don’t anticipate that we’ll ever be that close again, and that’s okay.

mercy/gatekeeper: what was a difficult time in your life? what did you do/what are you doing to get through it? who has been the most helpful?

&

molecules: have you ever lost anyone close to you? if yes, how did it feel at the time and how does it feel now to talk about them? do you fear death?

TW: suicide

One of my childhood best friends killed herself in the first month of our freshman year. It was totally out of the blue, and the timing was absolutely horrible. I was just getting everything I wanted, I was having the time of my life and then everything just stopped in its tracks. Except it didn’t. The world kept turning and she was gone and I had lab reports due and she was gone and there were play rehearsal and holidays and deadlines and life incessantly barreling forward and she was gone. I woke every morning with a pit in my stomach, I didn’t sleep, I didn’t eat. It was like something had been cut open inside me and life was just pouring out behind me but I couldn’t feel any of it. And no one else around me seemed to care. Every day I felt like I was dying. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t breathe, and everyone else had a smile on their face and laughed like it was nothing and complained about stubbing toes and bad grades and fighting with their parents.

I don’t really know how I got through it. I mean, I went to therapy, but it didn’t really help. I couldn’t talk to people about it, even when I wanted to. I couldn’t cry for the longest time. I wrote about it some. I left her voicemails. I raged through glass recycling. I guess I just trudged on, dragged myself onward because stopping wasn’t an option. Because if I did, even for a moment, I wouldn’t have enough strength to start again.

I’m better now, I guess. I can talk about it and her and I feel mostly human most days, but it’s still a presence in my life I wish I could escape. I still don’t know where they buried her.

I do not fear death.

one bad night: do you like casual or serious relationships? have you ever done anything illegal, wrong, or stupid for the sake of love?

Hoo boy, I’m bad at casual relationships. I get too attached (*feelings plays in the background*), and it becomes serious. Oddly enough, it doesn’t really scare people away. The older I get the further I’ll probably get from playful dalliances, but every once in a while, as the stakes are low, I’m down for just having fun and enjoying someone’s company.

palm dreams: do you like parties or quiet nights in? would you want to/did you stay in your hometown after moving out? what’s your ideal saturday night like?

I am an introverted smol, and big parties make me nervous. I can handle and even enjoy the odd bash here and there, but too many too often wears me out. Smaller groups are better, but my favorite size is a book or maybe one other human.

Nooooooo, man, I am going to college out of state, far away, and I am not moving back here. I love my city dearly, but I need to find my own corner of the sky. :)

I love a night at the theatre, preceded by a quiet dinner with a couple close friends and followed by something sweet, some tea, and reading a good book with my feline.

[laynemorgan]

An Essay about LGBTQ+ representation and art, tied up with a bit of a tribute to Stephanie Rice.

I haven’t written something like this in quite a while. But I’ve been thinking a lot this past month about stories (even more than usual). So please be patient with all the caffeinated rambling I have to do here. 

Needing to tell stories is something I have always known. There’s not a point in my life that I can look back on and not find in my younger self the intense will to put words and worlds, experiences and characters on paper. I’m sure this is a thing many artists and storytellers would say about their own lives. It’s the heart hammering, hand shaking need to find an outlet for experiences, passion, compassion and emotion that answers every “how did you know you wanted to do this” question with a “because I had to.”

Being gay is something that I haven’t always known. And yes, I can look back on my life and point to moments and insecurities and road bumps that came from having always been gay. But I haven’t always known. Knowing came later. Knowing came with combined fear and confidence and the ability to eventually shatter the brick walls I’d built to hold my shoulders upright, in order to look at myself more clearly. And then I knew, and now it’s as though I always have.

I spend a lot of time thinking about my experience coming out and the experiences of other LGBT people around me, and young kids who have come out and are coming out every day, either in quiet moments to themselves, or in one big fight with their families, or again and again each day to that Uber driver or that woman next to you on the plane, or your hair dresser who always asks who you’re dating. I spend a lot of time thinking about how that experience can be made easier, how kids can be received with more love, how we can better learn who we are before the years of self doubt. And no matter how much I think about anything, I am almost always brought back to the same two ways to fix anything. 1. Through giving and compassion and 2. Through art and stories. 

With each generation in the LGBTQ community, the groundwork is laid for the ones that follow. From fighting for our right to live and be seen, to demonstrating that we’re just like everyone else, the generations before mine have laid a foundation that I am fortunate and humbled to stand on. In that light, I really and truly believe that it will be my generation that brings us alive, as a community, through art, that tells stories and writes songs so that generations after us can see themselves a little sooner, can look up to more than just a handful of queer artists, can grow up knowing and with families who know that there is no one normal, no cookie cutter sexuality, no right experience. 

I have few memories of experiencing media that was specifically gay, growing up. But one of the clearest I do have is watching Pretty Little Liars with my mom. I grew up in liberal Massachusetts, outside Boston with loving, accepting parents. Even still, I can vividly remember a time when Emily, a then high school student on the show kissed her girlfriend and my mother explained that she just “didn’t like to see it” that it was fine and she had “nothing against it” but “she’s just a little girl” and she didn’t want to think about it. I’m sure my mom’s response wasn’t different from many others. So often, the world is okay with kids being queer but not okay with showing them a world of experiences like theirs beforehand. My mom is one of the most loving people I know and I tell this story with a fondness. She’s always been accepting of who I am. I’ve always been safe and supported. There’s a chance she doesn’t even remember this moment because she loves me for who I am. But when all is said and done those moments happen all the time and they pile up and they mean something. They mean something because there are young kids, across the country, across the world, in less loving houses, with less accepting parents, who don’t have the word for what they feel for years and years, who are sheltered from seeing Emily Fields kiss girls on TV, who watch their parents turn off movies if two boys are in love. Those kids hear song after song on the radio where girls sing about boys and boys sing about girls. They’re raised on fairytales and animated films about Princesses who marry Princes or don’t marry at all. They flounder, they search, they look for themselves here and there and everywhere and they come up empty handed. They come up with one song by a niche band that no one else listens to, or one sad lifetime movie about a woman’s dead gay son, or one lesbian on a TV show who inevitably ends up dead. 

It’s my understanding that art is never meaningless. That culture and stories are what shape who we are, our worldview, our communities. It’s my understanding that when we diversify those stories we begin to change the world, stone by stone, kid by kid. 

Often, I hear other LGBTQ people talk about not wanting to be defined by being gay or bi or trans. But the more I grapple with it and the more I exist in this world, living in LA, working in television, fighting for my chance to tell stories, the more I want to scream it. I’m gay. I’m gay. I’m gay. I’m gay. Because maybe if I yell it loud enough some kid will hear it and say “hey me too.” Because maybe if I pour that pride and pain and passion into my art it will reach their television some day, their home, their couch, and even if it doesn’t change their dad’s mind, it might make them feel less alone or give them the right words for the pain and passion that they feel. 

I never watched The Voice before last year. I turned on season 11, at random, because I wanted to watch Alicia Keys be a coach. At some point, I stopped. It was fun but these aren’t the kind of shows that feel like they’re for me. They feel like they’re for corn fed, middle America, fighting over this pleasant looking man or that palatable country singer. And while I’m a creative who appreciates the rise and fall and hopes and dreams of other creatives as stories, these weren’t ones I was ever invested in. This year, I again turned the show on to watch season 12. Only to watch the auditions because those are fun and I get one more season with Alicia Keys. I remember the moment the show played Stephanie Rice’s backstory. I was watching it with one of my good friends. I remember we both perked up a little more when we saw her holding hands with her fiancée. I remember watching in an odd, baited breath silence as Stephanie began to tell her story and finding myself choking up just a little. For me, that emotional choked up feeling came from hearing things that I recognized, from watching her talk about the fear of disappointing her little sisters and knowing that exact same fear, to the same hands shaking, heart in your throat need to prove it’s alright, to make your way, to have your voice heard. Even as a person who has been out for years, an adult who is comfortable and confident in my sexuality, that feeling is still there. And as I watched it and watched her speak her truth and kiss another girl back stage I was reminded again that some kid, somewhere on a couch was going to see this, and feel that reliability, and feel seen and understood and not alone. I was driven again to keep fighting to tell my own stories.

There is something significant about pain and diversity and art that isn’t discussed enough. Art is universal and can be interpreted and understood and seen and heard and felt by anyone. But there is a rare and often overlooked feeling that comes when art feels like it understands you. When someone says words or shows an emotion that you can put your finger on and say you've felt. I stuck with the Voice after that. I watched specifically to follow Stephanie’s journey. For one, because she’s an incredibly talented artist, and for two, because I have a distinct understanding of how much harder that fight to make your way is.

Just a few nights ago I was driving, after my last day at my job in the Shannara Season 2 Writers Room, at about midnight down the freeway, and I was loudly singing along to Stevie Nicks with my windows down. On my reverse alphabetical order by artist itunes library, Stephanie Rice’s cover of White Flag comes right after Stevie Nicks’s Edge of Seventeen. So I’m driving and I’m singing and I know every damn word to Dido’s White Flag because I’ve heard it a hundred thousand times before and it was never even a song I cared about or liked. But I hadn’t heard this version that many times. Here I am, twenty-six years old, yelling at top volume in my car feeling my head get sort of swallowed and overcome and numbed by emotion as I do. Because when another gay woman sang that song, it changed. Because when another person fighting and dying to get their pain and emotion out of their chest sang that song, it changed. Because the emotion she sang with is emotion I know. Because suddenly yelling that I wouldn’t put my hands up and surrender became about something different. I can’t tell you what someone else meant by their song or their voice or their story. But I can tell you how it touched me personally. And I grinned like a damn idiot in my car because I felt a little stronger and a little prouder. 

I’m in the process of writing a feature/novel package with the brilliant Dawson Schachter. It’s a romance between two women. And as we work on it we keep having to remind ourselves of the reality that these stories don’t get told often, that the market for them is smaller, that they have to be palatable to the big wigs that will look at them. And that is infuriating and compromising and fucks with every better angel and creative demon you have, let me tell you. That’s the ugly part people don’t talk about. That’s the reality of being an LGBTQ creator. Being too gay or too different or not gay enough, not sensational enough, being martyred to your community when you would love just a little less pressure today, knowing the pressure is the only way, being brave because anything else has never even been an option you were given, feeling like failure means letting down that kid who needs this story, feeling like it means letting down the kid in you who needed this story and now just needs to get it out. But I also know how inspiring all those feelings can be and how it can feel like singing along at brain numbing volume to White Flag with your windows down going 90 on a freeway at midnight in Los Angeles far away from your home and your family. 

To Stephanie Rice, thank you. With as much weight as I can put in those two words, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for so bravely sharing your story and your art with America. Your vulnerability and light brought a story to televisions across this country that people need. And despite that particular journey wrapping up last night, I have no doubts that you will go on to keep sharing your soul through your music. As a fellow woman, as a fellow storyteller, you reminded me why I’m doing what I’m doing and I am so grateful to have gotten to hear your truth. You have a friend and supporter in Los Angeles if ever you need one. I look forward to hearing everything else you have to tell the world. 

To anyone else reading this, my friends, young LGBTQ followers, fellow writers, coworkers, strangers consider this very long ramble a plea for you to continue to back and support LGBTQ artists and youth. Continue to lend them platforms and elevate their voices. Continue to diversify the stories you tell, paint televisions and movies and the radio with kids that look like them, that sound like them, that feel like them. And please, also consider this very long ramble, another in a pile of promises I’ve already made to you, that I will never stop doing everything I can to illuminate your hearts and your souls and your stories. If I have to scream them or deliver them from the ground with bloody knuckles, I will make them heard. I hope that together, we can continue to build a foundation for generations after us, through art where exposure has opened hearts and minds, where stories have saved lives, and art has changed the world. We fight, as we always have, for a better, louder, prouder, safer, and more inclusive future. 

[thesinglesjukebox]

ELLIE GOULDING - RIVER

[3.88]

It's Canaday, starting with a musician who's not Canadian; however, Ellie Goulding's been a liar, been a thief...

Katie Gill: Honestly, the theories as to how this cover hit #1 in the first place are a lot more interesting than the version itself. It's a bog standard cover of a beautiful song that we've had way too many bog standard covers of already. Goulding is bringing absolutely nothing new to the table here, playing this song straighter than a ruler. As such, a middle of the road song gets a middle of the road score. [5]

Michael Hong: Joni Mitchell's classic was always one of the best breakup songs, and with a line like "I made my baby say goodbye," you could feel that self-blame and regret in her voice. It made the former line where she stretches the word "fly" with such intense longing hurt all the more. Ben Platt's version for last year's The Politician was a solemn showcase of grief, empowered by his powerful voice that trembled with regret. Goulding's voice is far too airy to back the grounded context of the lyrics and it's a shame that a line like "I made my baby say goodbye" is delivered with a sad little whimper. Coupled with the way the track is being released, Ellie Goulding has managed to dim the emotional release of "River." [4]

Brad Shoup: It's easy not to fuck up "River": follow the tracks of Mitchell's blades. And so Goulding does, from the piano that I instinctually let tap on my tear ducts onward. Understandably, she enjoys the thought of flying most. But she can't -- few could -- nail the mixture of regret and fascination Mitchell brings to "I made my baby cry". So yes, a decent routine, but one more faithful to the text than the author. Corinne Bailey Rae and Herbie Hancock executed a better one -- over a decade ago now -- that fully apprehended its creator's jazz leanings. I suppose I should be grateful Goulding didn't attempt the same. [5]

Katherine St Asaph: The coalescing take around Ellie Goulding's cover of Joni Mitchell's "River," is the take I hate most, i.e. that it's just another example of conspiratorial prolefeed served by THE BIG BAD ALGORITHMS, specifically the result of moms who don't want to troubleshoot every speaker in every room of the house asking Amazon's Alexa to play Christmas music, for which this technically qualifies. The culprit here is not "algorithms," probably, but payola -- "River" is an Amazon exclusive, which means Amazon has incentive to hustle it past all its recommender algorithms clamoring for "All I Want For Christmas Is You." Indeed, as payola goes, some tranquil, contemplative Joni Mitchell, even in cover form, is an inspired, even counterintuitive song choice. (And if The Algorithms were truly evil, in their vast data collection they will have learned by now there are better songs to play to troll people with.) What's really interesting, to me at least, is that Ellie Goulding was just on an Andrea Bocelli single sounding studiedly similar to Sarah Brightman, and now she's on a Joni Mitchell cover sounding studiedly -- well, not similar, but closer to her than to Ellie Goulding. Given that a year ago Goulding was giving interviews about how her voice didn't sound like anyone else, where now it sounds rather the opposite, what's the strategy here? An attempt to distinguish herself from the hundreds of Halseys and Bebes who share her vocal style? An exit strategy into adult contemporary (and out of having to record singles with Juice WRLD)? Upcoming pivot to West End (uh, whoops, happened already)? Upset, hopefully not still, she wasn't in Cats? Planning to fake everyone out on the UK Masked Singer? [5]

Scott Mildenhall: Streaming has arguably compelled national charts to better reflect what people are actually listening to, so is it a failure or a victory that a number one single has arisen via gerrymandered inadvertent and passive consumption? It's hard to say if that's more or less legitimate than a 911 CD2 with three free postcards, or a label messenger boy being sent to buy all copies of a 7" from one of the few shops used to measure sales, but it does come with greater possibilities. In a few updates time Alexa will be writing, recording and releasing her own material and playing that to the unsuspecting, at which point the entire top 40 will be full of her, metaphysically straddling all conceivable and as yet inconceivable genres with songs that not only target, but also sample the unwitting utterances of individual users. That, or maybe just note-for-note covers of tasteful classics, who knows. [5]

Iain Mew: I'm pretty sure I was algorithmically treated to "River" over Christmas, and even pleased to have something that wasn't the usual turn up. It was definitely well ahead of the time a few years ago when my parents bought a Christmas compilation of knock-off soundalikes without noticing, and specifically the unique horror visited upon "Fairytale of New York" therein. Listening to "River" now in January it tries hard not to do anything interesting, but can't help but sound more stark than plain, which is something. [5]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: If you're going to use your terrifying tech near-monopoly to force a hit, at least make it less boring than this. [1]

Alex Clifton: If you keep the captions on the YouTube video, it begins with "(emotional piano music)", a fine example of subtitle editorializing before the song even starts. It's a bland moment for Ellie, whose normally delicate and distinctive voice falls into generic indie girl territory. At least it's better than this "River." [3]

Alfred Soto: I swear, I published this list of solid Joni Mitchell covers before I endured Ellie Goulding's literalist approach to Blue's most guaranteed tear wringer. Less anxious than Beth Orton's, more okay than Corinne Bailey Rae and Herbie Hancock's. Yet consider: Goulding's matter-of-fact reading teases out Frozen II's queer subtexts. [6]

Nortey Dowuona: Heavy, slipping piano chords are trying to pin down the hem of Ellie's thin, soothing voice, but it slips through and Ellie sees the flowing river, both a little relieved and a little disappointed, settling herself on the riverbanks and thinking about the passed years since "Lights" and wondering how she wound up here, waiting for the river to freeze in the wintertime. Then, Joni Mitchell flies over the river on her way to deliver some presents to kids in Ukraine in a hurry and freezes the river 45 feet deep, with Ellie happily beginning to skate, her future forgotten. [7]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Joni Mitchell's music is striking for many reasons, but one that never fails to impress is how every bit of instrumentation fleshes out ideas presented in her prose. To take a less obvious example from Blue, "A Case of You" is a song suffused with wistfulness and lingering romance, and the guitar chords--swaying rhythmically but nevertheless sturdy--take on the woozy feel she sings of in the lyrics. "River" isn't as understated: it's bookended by the sound of "Jingle Bells" to indicate the longing and sadness she experiences in the middle of enforced, unavoidable holiday cheer. Her desire for a river she "could skate away on" finds motion in arpeggios, but they inevitably find their way back to that variation on "Jingle Bells," signaling her unresolved feelings; the extended outro carries with it something solemn. Goulding's take on this is serviceable, but she doesn't magnify or play on anything that makes the song brilliant and moody and affecting. Its existence is no less meaningful than if you were to sing the song yourself and record it (in fact, doing so would be more personal, more meaningful). Still, the mistakes are glaring: Goulding truncates the ending, stunting the song's emotional heft; her singing is comprised of large gestures, failing to subtly evocate; and there's a sense that in wanting to remain faithful to Mitchell, she's failed to make this song her own. [0]

Thomas Inskeep: I wish Goulding had done something, anything to change up this cover of the Joni Mitchell standard, but she didn't -- she plays it completely straight. So what's the point, if I can listen to the original? A great cover reinvents a song, turns it inside out, finds something new. This does none of that. [3]

Ian Mathers: The backing sounds close enough to the original, so the proposition here is, what? Let's take one of the greatest songs of all time, and instead of having it sung by Joni Mitchell, a legitimate national treasure here in Canada, an absolutely seismic figure in the history of modern popular music and, it should be added, one of the finest vocal performers in the field and replace her with... Ellie Goulding? If anything, you feel bad for her absolutely adequate performance and I'm sure sincere love for the song. But the original didn't somehow fall into a black hole, so why does this exist? [2]

Kylo Nocom: Those runs are rather dry. I witnessed a brilliant rendition of "River" in a talent show tribute last month, so no excuses for a cover so tiring, so lacking in Joni's fragility. A shame Ellie won't even benefit from some Christmas cheer now that it's January. [3]

Will Adams: Charitably, a "faithful" cover; uncharitably, a cover so occupied with replicating the original it's rendered pointless. Perennial cover songs like "Fast Car" or "Hallelujah" or this don't need to be 180'd every time; something simple like the soft rock arrangement Sarah McLachlan gave it works fine. Goulding's version does little more than quantize the vocals and add harsh amounts of treble. [4]

Joshua Copperman: "Ellie, you haven't really changed," I said, "It's just that now you're unrecognizable; sing something else instead." [4]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[recentanimenews]

My Week in Manga: April 3-April 9, 2017

My News and Reviews

Last week at Experiments in Manga the winner of the Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid manga giveaway was announced. The post also includes a list of some of the manga available in print in English which feature dragons. Also posted last week was a guest review by my friend Jocilyn. She was inspired to write about Canno’s Kiss & White Lily for My Dearest Girl, Volume 1, the most recent yuri manga to be released by Yen Press. As mentioned previously, I’m currently working on my own in-depth review of the first volume of The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil, A Rún by Nagabe. It looks like I should be on track to post it sometime next week.

Elsewhere online, Seven Seas has completely revamped its website, adding new features like browsing by genre, launching a newsletter, and so on. It looks great and what’s more, there will be a regular survey which provides readers an opportunity to give feedback and submit license requests. As part of the launch of the new website, Seven Seas also announced a few new licenses: Touki Yanagimi and Youhei Yasumura’s Anti-Magic Academy: The 35th Test Platoon, Shin Mashiba’s Yokai Rental Shop (I loved Mashiba’s Nightmare Inspector, so I’m really looking forward this one), and an omnibus of Fumiyo Kouno’s In This Corner of the World (Kouno is the creator of Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms which is also excellent).

In other publishing news, some of Kodansha Comics digital-only titles were recently called digital-first, so there may yet be hope for print editions of some of the manga. I missed (or maybe forgot about) the initial announcement, but Titan Comics will be releasing Ravina the Witch? by Junko Mizuno in English later this year. (Ravina the Witch? was originally released in French in 2014.) In sadder news, Bruno Gmünder recently announced its bankruptcy (again). I’m not entirely sure what this will mean for the publisher’s past and future comics releases, including the Gay Manga line, but they might not stay in print long. (I’ve featured some of Bruno Gmünder’s releases here before; I’ll be sad to see them go if the publisher folds.)

As for a few of the interesting Kickstarters that I’ve discovered lately: Emily Cheeseman is raising funds to release the print edition of Gawain and the Green Knight, a beautiful webcomic that she’s been working on since 2015. I wasn’t previously familiar with the work of Elise Schuenke, but Living Space looks like it should be another great queer-themed comic. And speaking of queer-themed comics, the initial campaign for the Tabula Idem tarot anthology wasn’t successful but the creative team has revised and relaunched the project. Finally, anyone interested in Weird Al may be curious about Kelly Phillips’ comic memoir Weird Me about her experiences as the webmaster of a Weird Al fan site in her teens. (Weird Al’s music was a major touchstone for me growing up.)

Quick Takes

Dissolving Classroom by Junji Ito. Lately there has been a resurgence in manga by Ito being released in English. In many cases they’ve actually been re-releases, but there have been a few newly-translated manga being published as well, Dissolving Classroom from Vertical Comics being the most recent example. I love Ito’s brand of horror manga and Dissolving Classroom was originally serialized in a josei magazine, so the volume was an obvious candidate for one of my most anticipated releases of the year. As expected, I thoroughly enjoyed the manga, but Dissolving Classroom didn’t end up leaving as strong of an impression on me as some of Ito’s earlier works. The loosely connected stories in Dissolving Classroom follow the demise of the people who meet Yuuma, a young man whose constant apologizing will literally make a person’s brain melt, and his incredibly creepy little sister Chizumi. Neither of the siblings are quite what they initially seem. Yuuma in particular comes across as a troubled but largely benign individual; very few people actually realize what’s going wrong before it’s too late. Dissolving Classroom is bizarre but certainly not the strangest manga that Ito has created. The visuals aren’t as shockingly memorable as some of Ito’s other series either, but they are still successfully disconcerting.

Everyone’s Getting Married, Volume 1 by Izumi Miyazono. While josei manga have recently become more common in translation (a trend that I would love to see continue), there still aren’t all that many to be found. I’ve generally enjoyed the josei manga that I’ve read in the past and I like to show my support for new releases, so I made a point to try Everyone’s Getting Married. Asuka is well-admired for her successful career, but what she really wants in life is to get married and become a housewife. When her boyfriend of five years unexpectedly dumps her, she suddenly finds herself looking for a new long-term relationship. That proves to be more difficult than she expected and unfortunately for her most likely candidate is Ryu, a man who has made it very clear that he has no interest in marriage. I’ve growing a little weary of high school romances, so I found Everyone’s Getting Married to be a wonderfully refreshing change of pace; I enjoyed reading about adults and their lives and relationships for once. I also like Asuka a great deal. She’s independent, knows what she wants out of life, and is willing to work hard for what is important to her. I’m looking forward to reading more about her and reading more of Everyone’s Getting Married.

Ghost in the Shell, Volume 1.5: Human-Error Processor by Masamune Shirow. While I had previously read the first and second volumes of Ghost in the Shell, I had never actually read the manga’s third volume, something that I didn’t realize until Kodansha Comics recently re-released the entire series in a deluxe, hardcover edition. Even though it was the third volume of Ghost in the Shell to be collected and released, the events of Human-Error Processor take place between the first and second volumes (thus being numbered 1.5). The episodic chapters focus almost entirely Section 9 and the cases that group is investigating. A few intriguing new characters are introduced, but sadly the Major only makes the occasional guest appearance. Out of the three Ghost in the Shell volumes, Human-Error Processor is the most straightforward and easy to follow. While that’s something that I would generally welcome, the volume was somehow less interesting as a result even if it was more readable. As with the previous volumes in the series, some of the most interesting parts of the world-building in Human-Error Processor are actually only found in the footnotes instead of being directly incorporated into the manga.

Nightlights by Lorena Alvarez. It was the bold, vibrant colors and gorgeous illustrations of Nightlights that initially caught my attention. Alvarez is a Columbian illustrator; Nightlights is her first comic and my introduction to her work. Nightlights is about a little girl, Sandy, whose imagination takes flight at night. She gathers together small, mysterious, glowing lights and uses them to create anything that she can dream of. Come the day, she spends her time alone drawing what she has seen. It’s an innocent enough premise, but Nightlights can actually be pretty dark and some of the comic’s themes are fairly heavy. Nightlights could be described as an all-ages comic, but some younger readers might find it scary in places. There is also a depth and nuance to the comic and its narrative that only more mature readers will likely pick up on. Although the stories are notably different, Nightlights actually reminded me a little bit of the animated film The Secret of Kells which I likewise greatly enjoyed. Each in their own way the works are fairytale-like, telling stories about imagination, creation, and the unknown. Nightlights was a beautiful comic and I sincerely hope to see more work from Alvarez in the future.

Gone: A Girl, a Violin, a Life Unstrung by Min Kym. In 2010, Kym’s Stradivarius was stolen from her in a London cafe. The violin was an integral part of her identity, not just as a musician but as a person, and its loss was devastating. Her burgeoning career as a soloist came to a sudden halt. The violin was recovered three years later, but circumstances didn’t allow Kym to reclaim the instrument as her own. Ultimately she had to put it up for auction, losing it once again. In part, Kym’s memoir Gone was written in an attempt to process these traumatic events, rediscover who she is, and move forward with her life. Telling her side of the story she recounts growing up as a child prodigy–as the youngest daughter, her family’s devotion to her talent as a violinist was at odds with their South Korean heritage–her development as a musician, and her relationships with the Stradivarius and the people around her. Gone is an incredibly heartfelt and personal memoir but it can be somewhat discursive; Kym’s style of writing is very informal and at times even chaotic. Her voice as an author isn’t as clear as her voice as a violinist, but her passion and pain resonates throughout Gone. Complementing the release of Kym’s memoir is a companion album available from Warner Classics.

By: Ash Brown