mariathechosen1 · 1 year ago
Text
“Ofmd, heartstopper, wwdits, RWRB, good omens, The Witcher; Queer representation is at its very best right now!”
Where are the women though-
“The world is healing!!!”
What about the women-
“Diversity in television has never been this good!”
Y’ALL, THE WOMEN-
36 notes · View notes
gins-potter · 3 years ago
Text
Casting Thoughts
Yes, I did a long post when the rumours first dropped but hey now it’s confirmed plus we have characters descriptions, and I’m bored so let’s do this all over again people.  Under the cut because it got long
Sisi Stringer as Rose Hathaway
I said this in my other post but I’m pretty happy with Sisi as Rose.
Visually I think she’s a great fit, I love that they casted a WoC in the main role, and I think if she can bring Rose’s humour and sarcasm to the role, she’s going to do great.
The character description mentions Rose being “fiery and outspoken”, happy to jump into the action, and the strongest fighter in her class but struggling to toe the line, which is all very Rose-esque, especially in the first book.  It sounds to me like they have a good grasp on her character.
I’m a little disappointed we didn’t hear more about Rose as a character since she is the lead - it felt like the descriptions for Lissa and Dimitri both gave us a little more to go on - but it is only a very preliminary description so I’m happy to wait for more.
Daniela Nieves as Lissa Dragomir
Daniele is another one who I was happy with straight away.
She’s probably not what I imagined for Lissa visually but that’s not a bad thing either; I will be interested to see if they dye her hair a lighter colour (like a caramel-blonde) but personally that’s not something I need to see for her to be a great fit for Lissa.
I think she has a very sweet face which works well for a character like Lissa but I think she’s also going to be able to stand up in Lissa’s more fiercer moments which is nice to see as well.
The character descriptions mentions her as being “carefree and kind-hearted” who “coasts” through life until a death in the family thrusts her into a new role.  That sounds a lot like pre-series Lissa so I wonder if we’re going to see a bit of that in the show before Andre (and her parents??) die and see that change.  
It’s curious though that she’s described as the younger sister of the heir apparent - which would be Andre - so it sounds like they’ve changed it so Andre was supposed to be King.  Obviously a deviation from the books but I don’t hate it?  I don’t think it would change Lissa’s arc all that much because obviously she was always going to grow up to be an influential royal figure, this just slightly changes the dynamics of it.
The description also specifically mentions that she’s uninterested in “political machinations” and the “hypocrisy of the moroi royal society” which sounds very accurate to book!lissa as well.
All in all I’m very happy with what they’re doing with Lissa.
Keiron Moore as Dimitri Belikov
This is one who’s really grown on me since the rumoured cast list started circulating.  At first I was kind of eh about him but I can really see him as Dimitri now.
I will be curious to see if he grows out his hair or not though.
As far as I know Keiron is not Russian, there’s not a lot about him online, but there’s some instagram activity on his account linking him to UK based companies so that would be my guess as to where he’s from.  They’ve kept Dimitri’s incredibly Russian name so I guess we’re to assume Keiron might be doing an accent and they’re keeping Dimitri’s backstory relatively the same?  I’m not gonna be super mad if they change it just because I think it’s doable for him not to be Russian (I know, I know a whole book is set in Russia but lbr here they could make him from anywhere and just send Rose there in that book).
The biggest thing for me will be his chemistry with Sisi, Danila and Zoey had great chemistry (imo anyway) which saved the move a little for me, so it’ll be important that Sisi and Keiron do as well.  They’ve interacted a few times online which is cute so I’m hoping they were able to do some chemistry reads and that will translate on screen.
The character description mentions Dimitri as being “lethal, disciplined, discreet, and totally committed” as well as living by “a deep moral code” but with more going on “beneath his stoic, watchful surface” which sounds exactly like book!Dimitri to me.
They don’t really specify what his role at St Vlad’s is going to be but they do mention that he is a guardian so I’m assuming they’re keeping some sort of age gap between him and Rose.  They also don’t mention anything about their relationship in the description, be it student/teacher, platonic, romantic, whatever, but they do say he has “an expansive spirit that could threaten to expose the underlying tension between his sense of what’s right and his formal duty to the Moroi.” which seems like a nod to their relationship.
Andre Dae-Kim as Christian Ozera
This was one of my favourite casting choices from the original rumoured cast list and I still love it.
The idea of a non-white Christian makes a lot of sense to me and I think Andre could do a great job of Christian’s aloofness (in the first book) as well as his sarcasm and growing confidence across the other books.
His character description confuses me a bit though: “Intelligent and thoughtful, Christian is the pariah of the school and royal court, due to his parents’ unforgivable societal sins.” sounds accurate enough to the book (although idk if thoughtful is quite the word I’d use for Christian - maybe they mean it in the sense that he’s quiet and keeps to himself?).
Even “Well-read and hungry for knowledge” doesn’t sound that far off, idk if he was *that* particularly studious in the books, but it doesn’t necessarily not make sense either you know?
But “he searches for faith-based answers and discovers a kindred spirit who is also looking for the truth” ??? My cynical, irreverent asshole Christian is now a man of faith? I’m assuming Lissa is the “kindred spirit” (again weird word choice but maybe they mean she’s feeling lost because of the death of her family?) but I just cannot see Christian as being particularly religious.
I’m trying to keep an open mind about these changes because you never know they might play out totally different on screen, but I really hope they didn’t make these changes, particularly that Christian is studious and religious, just because they cast an Asian actor as him (because they feel a little like Asian stereotypes).
J August Richards as Victor Dashkov
This is one that didn’t appear on the original rumoured cast list (as far as I saw) and it’s so different to his description in the books that I kind of don’t have an opinion about it as a casting choice.
I’ve never seen him in anything before so purely on a visual level I think he could be a great fit for Victor, I just think it’ll really come down to how he plays it.
As for this character description: “Victor is a Moroi noble vampire with a heart of gold who’s highly regarded for his role as advisor and political strategist to Moroi dignitaries.” as well as mentioning that he has intelligence and influence, sounds pretty accurate to the book.  Obviously if Andre was the heir to the throne, Victor had to be shifted out of that role, but I think his book 1 arc could still work if they wanted it to.
The “heart of gold” bit obviously made me chuckle and I really hope they threw it in there as a kind of decoy to throw non-book-readers off the fact that he’s actually the villain in book 1/s1.
As for giving him a husband and two daughters, my thoughts are: why the fuck not? He didn’t have a love interest in the original books and I’m always down for more lgbtq+ rep.  My only concern is it maybe playing into the trope of evil/villain characters being queer-coded.  And as for having two daughters, well as long as one of them is Natalie I don’t mind.
Anita-Joy Uwajeh as Tatiana Vogel
Okay this is the most bizarre one imo, not because of the casting, but just the character description.
I mean “Tatiana is a Moroi vampire and political underdog who slowly takes the royal court by storm. Motivated by love and a sense of justice, Tatiana has a unique skill of making herself seem of no consequence until we realize much too late that she was always the one to watch.” sounds extremely Tasha Ozera to me, so like why not just make this character Tasha?  Nothing about this sounds like Tatiana, and Tatiana wasn’t even a Vogel anyway (well Vogel wasn’t even one of the 12 royal families), she was an Ivashkov.
In terms of Anita-Joy herself, well I mean we don’t really have a character to compare her to, is she supposed to be more like Tasha or Tatiana?  She looks fairly young, so my guess is actually on Tasha, but we’ll have to wait to see I guess.
Mia McKenna-Bruce as Mia Karp
This is another one that I was instantly a fan of.
I was so not a fan of Mia’s casting in the movie (I can’t even remember who played her tbh but I really didn’t like it) so this Mia is a lot closer to how I imagine her.
I think she’ll be able to carry Mia’s transformation from bratty social-climber to badass fighter really well.
The character description is interesting though.  “Witty, cutting, and just the right kind of ruthless when necessary, non-Royal Mia has a long-term plan to social climb her way into the ranks of royalty, with all the privilege and freedom that entails.” sound pretty bang on to Mia in the first book.
“A plan complicated by her instant chemistry with Meredith, a Guardian-in-training, as Mia struggles to reconcile her attraction to Meredith with her lowly status.” is an obvious deviation though, and one I kind of love???  Give me all the queer rep, and if we get to see Mia confront the issue of comp-het I’m so here for it.  
It’s kind of funny though because I’ve seen theories that Meredith is a replacement for Eddie and Mia/Eddie has always been my sort of rarepair ship.
The last name Karp is weird af though.  Is she supposed to be Sonya’s daughter?  And if that’s the case I wonder if we’re going to actually see Sonya turn Strigoi in the show’s first season or something and that triggers the change in Mia?  Interesting concept but I’m not sure how the timeline will work.
Rhian Blundell as Meredith
So this is another new one, and tbh I hadn’t given Meredith *that* much though in the past but she’s probably close to how I would have pictured her which is cool.
The elephant in the room with this casting is that Meredith’s role in the books was relatively minor - she was just kind of that character that got brought up whenever R.M needed a dhampir who wasn’t Rose/Dimitri/Mason/Eddie.  So clearly she’s going to have a bigger role in the tv show which I don’t mind but I do wonder if we’re going to lose a character - probably Eddie lbr - in order to have her.  They haven’t casted an Eddie yet as far as we know, but I have seen it pointed out that Eddie’s role in book 1 was pretty small so maybe they just aren’t announcing it.  But there’s also the possibility that maybe Meredith will sort of replace Eddie and be the third part of Rose and Mason’s friendship.
I’m very interested by this part of her character description though, “She has little patience for Rose’s volatility or Mia’s elitism, and regularly calls both of them out.”
Jonetta Kaiser as Sonya Karp
I don’t necessarily dislike Jonetta as Sonya but I am confused by this choice.  She looks fairly young, which tbf Sonya was young-ish I guess, but if Mia is supposed to be her daughter she doesn’t look old enough to have a teenaged daughter.  So maybe Sonya and Mia are sisters? Cousins? Just have each other’s last names for no reason? I really don’t know.  They also look nothing alike.
Other than that, I don’t really have an opinion about Jonetta as Sonya.  Obviously looks nothing like how Sonya was described but that’s not new nor a massive concern for me.  
I can’t really tell just from looking at her, and I haven’t seen her in anything, if she would play a good Sonya.  I think with a lot of the characters it’s going to come down to the personality they bring to the part and the writing.
I looooooove her character description though:  “Quiet, careful and decidedly odd, Sonya is not of royal bloodline and sits out on the fringe of Moroi society, preferring to spend her time in the library or her gardens. Not a person who likes a scene, nonetheless she has a quiet but profound power of her own. She is taken by surprise when a Dhampir Guardian named Mikhail shows interest in her, a relationship that will expose both the brightest and darkest parts of her heart.”  It’s everything I would probably want from a description of Sonya and I’m more and more convinced that we’re going to see Sonya’s descent into madness and transformation into a Strigoi play out in maybe the first season which I am so curious how they’re going to work into the timeline.
Andrew Liner as Mason Ashford
Our last one and another one who doesn’t look remotely like his description but again? Not a surprise and not a problem for me.  He looks like he could play Mason’s goofiness really well as well as be a solid contender for a love interest for Rose.
“Charming, loyal and popular, Mason is Rose’s main competition in the quest to become the No. 1 Guardian-in-training. Though their relationship is casual on her side, he is hopeful she will finally look at him and see him as something more.” His character description makes a lot of sense, maybe him being Rose’s main competition is a bit of a deviation? But I think that’s more an indication that he’s supposed to be a strong fighter which isn’t inaccurate to the books.  The rest sounds great.
Other Thoughts
Descriptions of the show specifically mention friendship and classism as major themes which I am very happy to hear about because those are the two parts of VA that I love the most.
Am a little more worried about it being described as “sexy” though, if they shove a whole bunch of meaningless sex scenes in it just because it’s a YA show I’m not gonna be happy.
Seen the show compared to “Game of Thrones” and “Bridgerton” which at first had me like oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck not good not good not good.  But thinking about it more and trying to understand where Plec’s coming from with that description I wonder if means similar to GoT as in the cut-throat nature of the Moroi/Dhampir society cause I can kind of see that.  And as for Bridgerton I wonder if she’s referring to the kind of social-climbing aspects of it, because again that makes sense and it seems like a theme she really wants to concentrate on.  I hope that’s what she means by those comparisons, or that she just wants to compare it to popular shows to get people to watch it.  The worst would be if she tries to throw in a lot of unnecessary sex scenes to make it like those shows, because I hate when they do that, especially when the characters are teenagers.
Interesting to hear that Plec has known about the series since before Twilight or TVD - not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
Seems like it’s actually mostly (or all??) written by Marguerite MacIntyre which is interesting because I know people were worried about Julie Plec - I’ve never watched anything by either of them so I’m neutral at this point.
54 notes · View notes
hakasims · 4 years ago
Text
The Most In-depth Analysis of Luca Marinelli’s Characters You’ll Ever Need
You’d think I was done with classifications, but I’m not! There’s so much more I can say about Luca Marinelli’s oeuvre and his magnificent roster of characters. And yes, I’ve made this post before where I highlighted specific tropes that show up in a lot of his movies, but that was surface-level shit. This is an actual exploration of what makes a Luca Marinelli character besides being a kinky little whore. And don’t worry, it’s still in that user-friendly question-answer format because I love you.
Here’s the thing: Luca is a chameleon but he also has a type, and this type is:
✨ a (likely) queer repressed addict with daddy issues ✨
That’s the skeleton. Let’s see how many of his major roles possess that skeleton at all and what flavors they add to the picture.
Disclaimer: I excluded characters with little screen time and Joseph from Mary of Nazareth because he doesn’t deserve rights. Also, instead of going in the boring chronological order, I’m gonna start with the least typical character for Luca and end with the crème de la crème. The results may not surprise you.
Nicky (The Old Guard)
Tumblr media
Is he queer? Undeniably.
Is he repressed? No.
Does he have an addiction? No.
Does he have daddy issues? I know we’re all deeply affected by our shitty father figures but I would genuinely question Nicky’s sanity if he were still on that shit at the ripe age of 951. A little tip for daddy-hating immortals out there: just do what Angel did and kill your shitty dad. Problem solved.
Is he violent? Despite doling out tons of violence, he doesn’t have a violent nature and seems uninterested in hating his enemy or delivering retribution.
Does he need a good night sleep? I’m sure nothing helps one sleep better than a Joe-shaped big spoon.
Does he need a good cry? Doesn’t seem like it.
Flavors: A perfect immortal warrior bean in a healthy relationship.
Conclusion: Ironically but unsurprisingly, Nicky is the least Luca-like character.
Guido (Tutti i santi giorni)
Tumblr media
Is he queer? I don’t believe so but who knows? If someone told me he’s demisexual, I’d believe it.
Is he repressed? The movie may disagree, but I say yes, obviously.
Does he have an addiction? Not unless you count his romantic relationship.
Does he have daddy issues? His family is so supportive and wholesome it’s almost parodic.
Is he violent? He’s the opposite of a toxic macho dude, but then he has a violent outburst out of nowhere because the movie is bad.
Does he need a good night sleep? He doesn’t like sleeping at night.
Does he need a good cry? Naturally.
Flavors: An adorkable awkward nerd with flowery speech.
Conclusion: I can forgive straightness and wholesomeness but I can’t forgive lack of complexity.
Martin (Martin Eden)
Tumblr media
Is he queer? I don’t believe so.
Is he repressed? Yes.
Does he have an addiction? No.
Does he have daddy issues? Not to my knowledge.
Is he violent? When he deems it necessary to be.
Does he need a good night sleep? Sure.
Does he need a good cry? Cry your little heart out, Martin!
Flavors: An arrogant, pretentious, politically confused writer.
Conclusion: A little too straight for your typical Luca, but he makes up for it with being complex and complicated.
Loris (Il mondo fino in fondo)
Tumblr media
Is he queer? I don’t believe so.
Is he repressed? So fucking repressed!
Does he have an addiction? Nothing beyond his savior complex.
Does he have daddy issues? He has a shitty dad he’s spent his whole life trying to please, and also his mommy left, so like yeah, obviously.
Is he violent? He has his straight dude moments.
Does he need a good night sleep? Definitely.
Does he need a good cry? Oh yeah, let him cry, it’s good for him.
Flavors: A casually homophobic mother hen.
Conclusion: Ruined by heterosexual agenda.
Lui (Ricordi?)
Tumblr media
Is he queer? I don’t believe so.
Is he repressed? Very.
Does he have an addiction? No.
Does he have daddy issues? A big sack of them.
Is he violent? No.
Does he need a good night sleep? Oh yes. To sleep, perchance to dream about anything other than his traumatic memories.
Does he need a good cry? So much.
Flavors: Up-his-butt and pensive.
Conclusion: Leave it to Luca to take a guy who would be an absolute nightmare in real life and turn him into someone I actually want to watch for two hours and see happy by the end.
Gabriele (Waves)
Tumblr media
Is he queer? There’s evidence he might be gay.
Is he repressed? I’d bet on it.
Does he have an addiction? Doesn’t seem like it.
Does he have daddy issues? Nobody knows.
Is he violent? No.
Does he need a good night sleep? He probably will with how the movie ended.
Does he need a good cry? At least one.
Flavors: A sweet introverted guy who loves boats.
Conclusion: While not particularly complex, Gabriele has layers and nuances. Also give him a big muscular daddy.
Fabrizio (Fabrizio de André - Principe libero)
Tumblr media
Is he queer? I don’t believe so.
Is he repressed? He was before music became his only career.
Does he have an addiction? Alcohol, cigarettes, sex, cheating - take your pick.
Does he have daddy issues? Not as bad as some of the other guys here but he’s heard his fair share of “I’m not mad, I’m disappointed” speeches.
Is he violent? He’s soft.
Does he need a good night sleep? He’s an artist, what do you think?
Does he need a good cry? He’s an artist, what do you think?
Flavors: Fabrizio de André is the flavor.
Conclusion: Even though it’s a biopic, there are still many Luca-isms there. He’s just that kind of actor.
Milton (Una questione privata)
Tumblr media
Is he queer? It could be argued that he is bisexual.
Is he repressed? Do you even need to ask?
Does he have an addiction? About half of the breaths he takes are filled with cigarette smoke.
Does he have daddy issues? He seems to have a good and loving relationship with both his parents.
Is he violent? Not by nature.
Does he need a good night sleep? Yep.
Does he need a good cry? He certainly does.
Flavors: A repressed bisexual feeling powerless in a horrible world.
Conclusion: This is proof that Luca can carry a whole entire movie on his sexy shoulders, alone. Also Milton needs a safe and loving triad.
Mattia (La solitudine dei numeri primi)
Tumblr media
Is he queer? I personally read him as asexual. Though assigning asexuality to characters who are traumatized is a dangerous path so don’t quote me on this, okay?
Is he repressed? Just the most repressed.
Does he have an addiction? It’s debatable whether self-harm and eating disorders can be considered addictions, but they’re part of his character, and I thought you should know.
Does he have daddy issues? His parents played their part in messing him up which then led to the big thing that really messed him up, though other than that his dad is barely a presence.
Is he violent? Not at all.
Does he need a good night sleep? At least 17 hours.
Does he need a good cry? Oh, so much. He needs all the cry.
Flavors: A quiet genius with lots of guilt.
Conclusion: Can you believe this was his first film role? Our boy is talented af!
Fabio (Lo chiamavano Jeeg Robot)
Tumblr media
Is he queer? Undeniably.
Is he repressed? You could argue that he is repressed by being limited in his place in social hierarchy.
Does he have an addiction? Amazingly enough, no. He has fixations, though.
Does he have daddy issues? Thinking his father was a loser and not wanting to end up like him is textbook stuff.
Is he violent? Very.
Does he need a good night sleep? Yes please.
Does he need a good cry? He needs to purge his soul from all the bottled up stuff.
Flavors: A campy psycho.
Conclusion: Luca’s most iconic character, so of course he scored high on the list.
Paolo (Il padre d’Italia)
Tumblr media
Is he queer? Undeniably.
Is he repressed? I can’t even start listing all the ways in which he’s repressed.
Does he have an addiction? He smokes a lot.
Does he have daddy issues? His issues are more of a mommy variety.
Is he violent? Not in the slightest.
Does he need a good night sleep? He’s the poster boy for needing a good night sleep.
Does he need a good cry? A good cry, a good weep, a good sob, a good bawl, *googles more synonyms* a good wail, a good squall...
Flavors: A self-loathing gay orphan in need of some life goodness.
Conclusion: What can I say about Paolo that all of you aren’t already thinking? Decent film, great character, excellent portrayal.
Mickey (Die Pfeiler der Macht)
Tumblr media
Is he queer? Undeniably.
Is he repressed? It’s Victorian England, you guys.
Does he have an addiction? He smokes casually but other than that... eh. And don’t tell me he has sex addiction. He uses his body strategically.
Does he have daddy issues? If what he has isn’t daddy issues, I don’t know what is.
Is he violent? He’s got tons of bottled up aggression.
Does he need a good night sleep? It would be great if he could use the day’s darkest hours for sleeping.
Does he need a good cry? Undeniably.
Flavors: A conniving slut extraordinaire.
Conclusion: A major player in the book (says me who managed like 50 pages), Mickey Miranda was turned into such a nothing character in the miniseries that they needed a truly extraordinary actor to make him memorable. And guess what, Luca delivered.
Cesare (Non essere cattivo)
Tumblr media
Is he queer? Not explicitly, but come on.
Is he repressed? Lethally.
Does he have an addiction? He’s an addiction textbook.
Does he have daddy issues? *Jake Peralta voice* Yeah, the guy without a daddy is the one with daddy issues. Explain that logic.
Is he violent? Oh yeah, he’s a rabid little trash goblin.
Does he need a good night sleep? So much.
Does he need a good cry? He’s had his fair share of good cries, but he could always use more.
Flavors: A aimless junkie.
Conclusion: The quintessential Luca. Beautiful.
Primo (Trust)
Tumblr media
Is he queer? Listen, just because we don’t see him fuck a dude on screen it doesn’t mean he isn’t a motherfluffing queer icon. It’s not subtext; it’s TEXT.
Is he repressed? Where do I even fucking start?
Does he have an addiction? Oh yeah. And a coke nail to prove it.
Does he have daddy issues? I would need a whole separate post to unpack his daddy issues.
Is he violent? So very violent.
Does he need a good night sleep? Yes, please. On an actual bed in an actual bedroom.
Does he need a good cry? You can just tell.
Flavors: A ruthless criminal with a strong mafia boss potential.
Conclusion: The pièce de résistance of the Luca Marinelli filmography. Not only does he tick every box, he gets bonus points for the excellent wardrobe choices that emphasize Luca’s best features. Primo Nizzuto is everything great you want from Luca, except singing. (Though in my headcanon that whole white car in a snowstorm monologue was a musical number.)
230 notes · View notes
fansofvow · 4 years ago
Text
Interview with Eve Golden Woods!
Tumblr media
Many of you know who is Eve is. She's a writer and artist, a part of Dreamfeel studios whose beautiful game If Found won Best LGBTQ Narrative and Best LGBTQ Indie game at the first ever Gayming Awards presented by EA games. I am really excited I had the chance to ask Eve some questions about herself, her time at Lovestruck and her creative process.
Congratulations on the two Gayming Awards (Best LGBTQ Narrative, Best LGBTQ Indie Game) for "If Found" from your game studio, Dreamfeel. What was the inspiration behind making the game?
If Found... was a game that emerged out of a collaboration between Llaura McGee, the founder of Dreamfeel, and artist Liadh Young. Liadh's background is as a comic artist, and so when they started working together Llaura had the idea of showing off Liadh's art by making a diary game, and using an erasing mechanic she had previously developed to let the player move through the diary in a fun way. By the time I came on board at the start of 2019, the game had already been in development for a while, so in some ways my work on that game was similar to the work I did for Voltage, because it was taking existing characters and concepts and writing a lot of scripts for them. Unlike Voltage, though, my work for Dreamfeel was a lot more collaborative and I had a lot more creative input. I really enjoy taking something and helping to make it the best version of itself that it can possibly be, but I was also really happy that I got to reflect a lot of my own experiences in If Found. Llaura and I both grew up on the west coast of Ireland, and although If Found... isn't autobiographical for either of us, it was definitely really meaningful to be able to tell a story that reflected our own experiences of growing up as queer teens in a similar kind of environment. Since the game came out we've had fans reach out to us and tell us that they also connected to the experiences of the main characters, and as far as I'm concerned, that makes me feel like I achieved everything I wanted to.
You are a writer and a visual artist. Does one come easier to you than the other?
I used to think of art and writing as talents, and I always felt like my art was at a very mediocre level (that's probably still true, lol). So when I was younger I focused a lot more on writing. It was only later that I started genuinely trying to improve as an artist, but when I did, I think I had a much healthier mindset, and approached it as a skill I could learn with patience and effort. Because of that, even though I still have a lot more confidence in my writing, I find art more fun and relaxing, and I don't stress about it as much.
Did you always know you would follow a creative path?
Kind of? Both my parents are artists, and I grew up surrounded by artists and writers, so it was something that was always very familiar and accessible to me. On the other hand, I didn't exactly have a clear idea of how to make it into a career, or what kind of work would be involved. But there's never been a point in my life where I wasn't doing something creative, even if it was only writing fanfiction.
What did your path to working professionally as a writer/artist look like?
I did a creative writing masters in college, but after that I spent years teaching English as a second language. That was really fun and I got to live abroad, but it was so busy and tiring that I didn't have time to do any writing outside of the occasional fanfic. I only started to take art seriously again when I became interested in games and comics as ways of telling stories. I did some critical writing, which led me to speak at a few local events and get involved in zine fairs. That was how I met Llaura, the director and lead of the Dreamfeel studio, and it's also what gave me the confidence to start applying for actual writing jobs.
Is there any work of art, visual or written, that you look to for inspiration?
So many! I try to read and watch as widely as I can, although there are touchstones I always return to, like the works of Ursula Le Guin and Terry Pratchett. Right now I feel very passionate about the actual play podcast Friends at the Table, which manages to combine really thoughtful worldbuilding and storytelling with cool, fun characters and great action scenes. I'm also reading a book called The Memory Police by Youko Ogawa, which has extremely beautiful prose.
Do you have a favorite piece of your own art, whether it is something you’ve drawn, a screenshot of something you’ve written or something else?
My favourite piece of art is usually whatever I finished most recently (I think that's true for a lot of people). Especially with visual art, once a bit of time has gone by you look back on it and start to notice all your mistakes, which is very annoying. But actually I do still really like the first piece of Fiona fanart I did last year. I managed to use some effects to give it a kind of nineties anime quality that I find really fun, and I think it conveys an emotion pretty effectively. That's always one of the hardest things to predict with visual art, whether the different parts will come together to create the exact mood you're looking for.
Tumblr media
I also really like the compass I did for Bycatch. Krissy (@xekstrin) was the one who suggested filling it with fingernails, which was such a good, gross idea! As soon as I heard that I knew it was perfect and that I had to try and draw it.
Tumblr media
Many people who read this blog know you as a writer for Lovestruck. When you look back on your time there, what stands out in your mind?
Lovestruck was very important to me when I first started because it was my first ongoing, regular, paid writing work. It gave me a lot of confidence and helped me to get into the habit of writing consistently and rapidly, which is a really useful skill to have. I know I was right to leave when I did, though, because I am just brimming with energy to work on my own projects, and channeling that power into something that you can't control will always end up disappointing you. Also, I made a ton of incredible friends, through Lovestruck itself but then even more so through VOW (@vowtogether), and that is more than worth all the difficult parts.
Is there any character that you would have liked a crack at writing?
Oh gosh, what a fun question! There are so many, but one I do sometimes think about is Axia, just because I know there are a bunch of fans who want her route, and because I had fun writing her as a villain in Zain's route. I can see in my head the shadow of a storyline that takes place after Zain's route is over, where she's in prison and trying to understand how she lost the battle with Zain and MC. I think there's, like, a gap there, where you could see her downfall forcing her to reconsider her assumptions about power, and that could build into a very interesting redemption story. But maybe it's for the best I never got to do that, because I would have wanted full creative control over it, and also I think the story in my head is very different to the sexy, in control, menacing version of Axia that her fans enjoy.
Do you have any upcoming projects you can talk about?
Most of my current work is under NDA, but I will say that I'm doing something very exciting with other VOW members that we should be able to talk about soon(ish). Maybe I can even give a little teaser... It's not a game, but it is something you can read, and my part involves cakes, swamps, and a museum.
Do you have a favorite quote or song lyric?
It's a big long, but there's a section from The Dispossessed by Ursula le Guin that has stayed with me ever since I read it:
"For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think."
It's such a profoundly radical way of imagining the world, so different to everything I was raised with, but whenever I think about it I feel like I can see something very beautiful and powerful that I hope to come closer to understanding some day.
And of course, "Solidarity forever, the union makes us strong."
I was a big fan of the show Inside the Actor’s Studio. Host James Lipton asked every single guest the same 10 concluding questions. I’ve picked 3 of them:
-What is your favorite word?
My favourite word: for sound, I like words you can really roll around on your tongue. Chthonic, alabaster, insinuation. For meaning, I think simple words that encapsulate big concepts have a kind of power to them. We use them so often we forget how big they are, how much weight they really have, but they give us the space to imagine new possibilities. Love. Freedom. Revolution.
-What is your least favorite word?
I've heard that "moist" is a lot of people's least favourite word but it doesn't actually bother me. My least favourite word is probably one where I feel like the sound doesn't match the meaning. One of the Irish words for rain is báisteach, which I feel has a much weightier and more onomatopoeic sound than rain. Rain is just very flat and uninteresting.
-What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
Oh, so many! I love history, and I think being a historian/archaeologist would be fascinating. Or something that had a physical component to it, like being a potter or a carpenter. I don't think I'd be any good, but I'd love to take the time to learn.
What would be your advice to anyone who wants to pursue a creative career?
All the work you do matters. Even the failed experiments, the things you hate when they're finished. It all helps to make you better. Also, creative career paths are often really unexpected, so chase any opportunity that seems remotely interesting. Don't work for free for anyone who can afford to pay, but work for yourself and put it somewhere. On a blog, twitter, whatever. You'd be amazed how many people get noticed and get offered opportunities because of something they made in their spare time. You'll probably have to work another job for a long time, so don't be hard on yourself if you're too tired to devote much energy to creative work. Try to make art consistently, but don't feel like that has to mean every day. Don't chase after celebrities. Make friends with your peers.
50 notes · View notes
itsbenedict · 4 years ago
Text
I didn’t post about everything I played this year, so here’s my opinions on the stuff I played that I didn’t make a rec post for:
Raging Loop 
Tumblr media
Raging Loop is one of them twisty meta Zero Escape-y branching-path visual novels where an ensemble cast is trapped in a mysterious circumstance where people are dying gruesomely, and you have to find out what’s happening and stop it by looping a bunch. 
I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it, because... it tries to have its cake and eat it too with the supernatural elements. Clearly magic is real and has important impacts on the scenario, but then other parts are trickery you’re supposed to see through, and it’s entirely uninterested in cluing you in to how that trickery was accomplished. Not exactly a fair play mystery, in that regard- you have to kind of just be along for the ride, rather than try to figure it out.
That said, it’s a good ride- pretty strong character writing, and the central conceit of the Werewolf/Mafia-style murder scenario creates really interesting drama. It’s more concerned with making itself feel clever than letting the player feel clever, but it’s still well-paced and gripping and has a pretty decent resolution.
Detective Grimoire
Tumblr media
I recommended Tangle Tower, the sequel, pretty strongly- and this one, while obviously a little rougher around the edges with the art and mechanics (the suspicion tracker system is a total dud; I didn’t even realize it existed until I realized I was missing an achievement for using it), it’s still pretty darn good. Really fun character designs and animations, fully-voiced, and a solid whodunit backing it all. Plus- while the two are more or less self-contained, the continuity threads with Tangle Tower raised some really interesting questions.
Contradiction - the all-video murder mystery
Tumblr media
This one was pretty fun, largely on the strength of the actors. The main mechanic of interrogating people on evidence and using their own statements against each other was some good stuff, too. Definitely had that Phoenix Wright quality to the deductions, and Jenks is a really fun character. (Had a few points where progression was just linked to standing in a certain previously-abandoned area of the map where a clue was suddenly there for no reason, there- good thing it had a hint system.)
As a mystery, it could use a little work- most of what you end up finding out is sequel bait (for a sequel that never actually came together, unfortunately), and the actual whodunit is just sort of hiding in the cracks of all that. And... cornering the culprit just sort of happens out of nowhere once you’ve got your hands on the right piece of evidence, without much fanfare. You’re following up on leads like usual, you find a little lie in someone’s testimony, and then- oh, shit, they’re just confessing everything! Unlike all the previous times you questioned them and they were super evasive like everyone else! And then the game is over. 
All in all, it’s pretty meaty and entertaining and I’d recommend it, but unfortunately the creators have moved on to other things, so there’s not going to be any follow-up on the stuff it left unresolved.
Ikenfell
Tumblr media
Ikenfell is a tightly-designed RPG about kids at a magic school, with Paper Mario-style action command mechanics and a battle system that makes a big deal out of careful positioning and movement, which was really enjoyable. The difficulty’s a little high (I recommend always always always speccing into max damage because killing things before they kill you is worth more than any amount of defense, speed doesn’t work, and healing is cheap), but I found it really satisfying.
There’s... something... off? About... I don’t know how to put it, it’s... doing that “yes, everyone is queer and mentally ill, deal with it” thing, which, sure, okay. But for a lot of them it’s such a background thing, like... half the playable cast is unambiguously nonbinary, but like... I don’t know if it’s trying to make some statement on how there are no rules to being NB and you can 100% perform a particular binary gender presentation but still count, or if they wrote the whole story and then changed the pronouns of some of the characters for Representation Points, or what. Probably the former? I dunno, it just feels weird. Maybe I’m just not woke enough to Get It.
(unrelatedly: why the heck is the official art they use everywhere so... off-model? none of them look like they do in-game- they look like the creator commissioned someone to draw a group shot with one reference image each and didn’t tell them anything about the characters. how much you wanna bet they commissioned a friend and it came out wrong but they were too polite to say “sorry, no, this is wrong, can you do it over?”)
Trails of Cold Steel IV
Tumblr media
Hoo boy. It’s... not great, and it’s not great in a pretty predictable way for an even-numbered entry in the Trails series. It happens every time- first there’s a game in a new engine with new characters and a new world to explore, and it’s really nice and does interesting things... and then it ends on a cliffhanger, and then there’s a sequel game in the same engine with the same characters and the same world, reusing as many assets as possible. Also the League Of Generically Evil Anime Supervillains is there causing trouble for reasons they refuse to explain, and the plot is a storm of magicbabble and macguffin-chasing that makes little to no sense. 
Cold Steel IV is that for Cold Steel III, full stop. Welcome back to all the same places you visited last game, except this time there’s some stupid magic apocalypse happening (not that it stops you from taking the time to do random sidequests constantly, of course). The whole “oh, the evil curse mind controls people and that’s why they do stupid bullshit that’s in no one’s interest” plot point is leaned on super hard, and it’s just a big yawn the whole way through.
It’s still really fun, though, because the battle system remains really well-designed. (The same battle system that was just as fun in Cold Steel III, mind you, but it hasn’t gotten old.) And- though they’re struggling to square it with the dumb mind control apocalypse plot, the NPC dialogue continues to make the world feel believable and lived-in. They don’t slack on the parts that make Trails good- it’s just the parts that make Trails bad are making themselves more evident than ever.
did finally get to date Towa though so that’s a win
One Step From Eden
Tumblr media
OSFE is... uh. It’s fucking hard is what it is. It’s sort of a deckbuilding roguelike, and there’s this combat that takes place on a grid, and- wait, it’s like Mega Man Battle Network, it’s exactly like Mega Man Battle Network. Man, I forgot about that, but the mechanical influence is extremely obvious. It’s MMBN meets Slay the Spire.
Except it’s super duper hard as hell, because unlike MMBN you can’t pause and swap out chips or anything- everything is just always happening so much, all at once, everywhere, and you have no recourse but to git gud and learn all the enemy patterns and the behavior of your own spells and develop the twitch reflexes necessary to not fucking die from all the shit that’s on the screen always.
(What’s the story? Uhhhh, there was some kind of magic apocalypse, and some anime girls are trying to reach a city for some reason that doesn’t really get explained ever. The game doesn’t really care to build its world at all- it’s all mechanics plus a little token character dialogue that doesn’t say much.)
The point is it’s really frickin’ hard but I am an epic pro gamer and I got ALL THE ACHIEVEMENTS, MOTHERFUCKER. If you’ve played it, I expect you to be really god damn impressed with me, okay???
A Short Hike
Tumblr media
This one was really relaxing! It’s a platformer where you explore an Animal Crossing-y island of cartoon animal people, collecting mobility upgrades- but like, mainly it’s about straight chillin’. The flight controls are fun and there’s lots of little secrets to find and it’s just a nice time that doesn’t drag on too long. Not too much to say about this one.
Pokémon Sword
Tumblr media
Ehhhhh.
I’m not here for the hot takes about how Dexit is good actually. Development hell happened, they had to make cuts for time, I get it. It’s disappointing and makes the game a little bit worse, but it’s not the end of the world.
Apart from that... perfectly serviceable? The Wild Area could’ve used a little more technical polish (as could most things in the game, really) but was a step in the right direction, giving the player a wider array of early-game team-building options than ever before. No HMs is good. Story and characters were kind of nothing, but that’s par for the course. “At least this time they’re not shoehorning in some kind of stupid evil-team-wants-legendary-pokemon-to-destroy-the-world apocalypse plot”, I thought to myself before they managed to shoehorn one in at the last minute with zero buildup- but, hey, beats wasting half the game on it.
It’s nothing special and it’s missing a lot of polish, but its problems are mainly due to being rushed, and presumably next gen they’ll be able to reuse a lot of the models and animations (maybe even improve the animations so they’re not so boring??? a man can dream) and make something interesting. SwSh seem like they were testing the waters for something else, and not taking too many chances in the meantime. 
(yo why would you sell all these cosmetic items and then turn them all off during gym battles, though) 
Hades
Tumblr media
Hades is- oh, who am I kidding? Everyone knows Hades, it’s the game of the year, greatest thing since sliced bread, Supergiant are heroes, yada yada yada. I’ve played almost 300 hours of it and I’ve completed everything except all the Resources Director levels (currently a Sigma Wraith), it’s extremely fun and you don’t need me to tell you that.
Petal Crash
Tumblr media
It was that thing the Paranatural creator helped on? It’s, uh. It’s a block-sliding puzzle game thing, sort of in a Puyo Puyo vein. It has fun character designs and some good dialogue, like you’d expect from Zack’s involvement, but it didn’t really leave an impression otherwise (besides how got dang infuriating some of its Turn Trial puzzles can be.) The story is... kinda heartwarming, kinda didactic, kinda childish, not especially deep or interesting. Hard for it to be, when it’s told through little bits of fluffy character dialogue that exist to set up a puzzle battle as quickly as possible. Not super recommended unless you really really like block-sliding puzzles.
Hollow Knight
Tumblr media
Man, why’d I sleep on this for so long? It’s a metroidvania platformer with heavy Dark Souls inspiration, in terms of tone and difficulty and death mechanics and environmental storytelling. And it’s... apart from all that, just really good as a game, with tight controls and juicy movement and great animation. Progression is linked as much to mastery as it is to upgrades collected- I found myself in lategame areas facing down things that would’ve killed me ten times over at the start- not because I had the best gear, but because I’d learned the game’s language and understood how to move in ways that wouldn’t get me killed.
(Usually. Sometimes I’d walk into a room and sit on a bench and suddenly there’d be a boss fight and I’d get slaughtered. Ain’t that just the way it goes?)
Anyway, on top of all that it’s just charming as hell, with a really unique and well-realized world full of little bug people. I love how, like, your character is clearly some kind of eldritch abomination, but it’s small and cute and so everyone (besides enemies that attack you on sight because they’re possessed by some kinda evil mold) is like “awww, who’s this little guy? want some help, little guy?”
(except Zote, who is just an ass hole. i love him.)
39 notes · View notes
silver-and-stars · 4 years ago
Text
9-1-1 4x08 Winter finale
[Warning : I dislike Taylor Kelly. She was okay this episode but I’m the resentful kind. Also my brain works funny at 4am]
I know that flight attendant, Molly, from somewhere! Camille in The Originals, wasn’t she?! Eddie flirting over math??? MATH??? whatever rocks your boat man but MATH? I’m don’t like the “Edmundo” thing. Maybe because it seems like only his parents/grandma/aunt call him that. OR just because I’m not used to it. Afterall, for 2 seasons and half everybody called him Eddie or Diaz. THANK GOD FOR THE BEDTIME ALERT. At least, I won’t have to see them kiss until 6 weeks. Buck being very domestic in Eddie's home, saying “You’re late”, welcoming him at the door, putting Chris to bed. “Christopher is already in bed?” gosh that’s such a domestic question. 9-1-1 why do you to this to me?! “You’re a miracle worker” *ugly sobs smearing my clown make-up*
Okay so we have: Chim and Eddie betting with Hen. Buck talking about his problems to everyone now. I like this. Go my boy, talk about your feels. LOL Eddie starting the “jump” thing and the camera panning to Bobby saying it too. Eddie getting parental advice from Bobby and Athena. Buck befriending Taylor Kelly?? "Be patient, let the universe come to you", the same universe that "doesn’t scream" according to Eddie? (if this is a message to us TOO BAD I’M ALL OUT OF PATIENCE)
Does… Albert have a job? (I mean he buys groceries so he has some money) A job that would allow him to get his own place and not bring his date to his friend’s apartment?? Omg no, Buck, you're going to bring Taylor Kelly to the double date? Taylor "Let's film the firefighter captain when he is about to jump off the building and after the illusion of his dead daughter" Kelly? Aww the discussion between Athena and Maddie was really sweet and OH god Karen u okay? I would have fainted! How is the stabbed guy not dead? also Athena PLEASE stop getting alone in a place where potentially murderers are without calling for back up! It always stressed me up but it does even more now, since the assault.
So Eddie likes Ana “a lot”? Okay well, good for him. He deserves nice things.
Okay I’m not being sincere here. Like, hey maybe it doesn’t have to be a girl? Though it’s obviously going to be, cause they are not going to make the two allegedly straight guys date each other, are they? Not the dad who was in the military and the manly lady-killer. What would the viewers think? The cis viewers not wanting yet another queer relationship in their show about badass firemen. Look at what all those disappointments did to me. Made me so jaded. I may be getting a bit bitter here. I just dislike seeing good potential throw out the windows for those kinds of reasons. Anyways, holy shit I didn't expect Chris to get THIS angry. It's gonna be okay Eddie, eventually.
[long post so rest under the cut]
RIP Buck, looking so dejected in his little armchair I dislike Taylor Kelly (for her morality) a lot but she does look good in that red dress... and it seems she didn't knew it was a double date? Yep. #awkward Yeaaah, Buck that wasn't thought through, was it? Also, no Taylor, you and Buck didn't click because you’re here for a hook-up (though he doesn’t seem uninterested in the idea) while he seeks a "more meaningful relationship". [Buck I’m gonna shore you’re head in front off Eddie’s and maybe you’ll have some kind of revelation then.] "You're so needy" how shut up Ma'am "I'd had no qualms wanting to give a bad image of the 118 as long as it gave me views". I don’t like you enough to tolerate you speaking poorly to Buck. It's true, he should have told you, he f*cked up and he doesn't want to not be like (we have his unloving parents to thank for that) and I get your feelings are hurt but hey! I don't care about your feelings. I care about Buck's. (as Hen said to Chim : “She is you’re ex, I’m your friend. You get to move on. I get to hold a grudge until I died.”)
You know Ana is nice, like she is ready to take a break for Christopher’s sake and yet... I don't care about her. Maybe it's because I ship buddie and she pales in comparison with Eddie and Buck's chemistry. But I don't think this is it. I mean we already have a nice caring girl in Maddie (who was more likeable from the start though) so maybe this is why. Like Ana feels redundant, personality wise. I should like her, she is pretty, nice, intelligent, she cooks it seems, she makes Eddie smile, she was an elementary school teacher and yet she doesn’t interest me. I can't get invested in her character or Eddie's relationship with her. She is too much of a satellite love interest. I'm fine with that if she isn't meant to stay. But if she is meant to stay (noooooooo) then you better strengthen her character. You better make her the Maddie to his Chimney, the Athena to his Bobby. Make me like her.
Christopher sneaked out?! WTF?! How? And he went to Buck's house? Called himself a uber?! (hmm this was in a fanfic I read) Did he manage to pass Eddie without getting notice or did he go through the back door? Anyway, here comes the talk and this is not going where we hoped it will. I knew, yet I’m still disappointing. This is why I’m a clown. To be honest I wished tv writers could just spoil us about ships to come, at least when it concerns queer ships (you know, like Roswell New Mexico did, Roswell New Mexico where a soldier date a ladykiller cowboy hmmm). Should I keep hoping for buddie or not? Tell me. I'll wait if I should and move one if I shouldn't. I just don't like wasting my time and energy on queerbaiting, if this is what it is.
OH NO CHRIS! He thinks everybody leaves! (Btw where IS Carla? Who keeps watch on Chris when he is homeschooled and Eddie is at work?) Damn! Buck is DEFINITELY the right person to talk about those feelings! (wow you two have so much in common, you could be related! By law. Through your dad. A June wedding for buddie). Awww Buck promised to be there for Christopher! OH MY GOD FORGET EVERYTHING! RIGHT NOW NOTHING MATTERS! MADDIE SAID "I LOVE YOU" !! THREE TIMES! I'm so happy for her and Chimney!
So was the tweet alluding to Buck moving in Eddie's house playing with us OR are we going to get it later this season? Doesn’t seem like it. I’d me more hopeful if I hadn’t been queerbaited so many times before or seen perfect gay ships never come into fruition because of the “no homo” rule. And why Taylor "Walsh"? I like seeing Eddie as a medic. OMG NOPE TAYLOR KELLY YOU DON’T PULL OFF YOU MASK ON A VACCINATION SITE TO KISS A FIREFIGHTER ON THE CHEEK. YOU TWO HAVE BEEN AROUND PEOPLE ALL DAY! SOCIAL DISTANCING! THAT MASK STAYS ON TO PROTECT OTHERS FROM YOU!
As expect, we've been clowns! Buck didn't, and won’t, move in (he doesn’t need to since Albert and Veronica broke up), Eddie did introduced Chris to Ana. Chris is now okay with it (his reaction was cute) although STOP HUGGING PEOPLE OUTSIDE OF YOUR FAMILIAL CIRCLE, VICE-PRINCIPAL. YOU DIDN’T EVEN WASH YOUR HANDS BEFORE HUGGING HIM! SOCIAL DISTANCING DAMMIT!
Tumblr media
We really are in for Eddie/Ana to stay this season (I mean he introduced her to Chris, so it is pretty serious) and maybe Buck / freaking Taylor Kelly (like hook-up to friends to lovers). Buck you can date anyone but please find yourself someone better.
OH HELL NO! This is the mid-season mean cliffhanger? Don't take cutie Nia away from Karen and Hen. I mean, sure this is what they signed up for and if the mother is now a decent person she should see her daughter again, but the baby doesn't even remember her mother (she was too young) and she is already calling them "mom" !
And now we wait. 6 weeks.
4 notes · View notes
cakeandcrows · 5 years ago
Text
I remember this one time I was watching some documentary about a white actress, I can’t recall who. One of her first roles was something like... a German lesbian with some kind of drug addiction (I think cocaine?). Point is, in her interview segment about it, she said something like, “When my mother heard about the role, she said, ‘if I were you, I would have told the director to pick just one of those things, not all of them at once.’” And all I can think about is how like... so many of us on here are more than one kind of minority or ‘invisible’ identity, or neurodivergent, or in some level of recovery from one thing or another. 
Like, this isn’t huge news, y’know? Yeah, privilege is a thing. And people are so absolutely unaware of it when they have it that it makes me want to scream. I’m even unaware of my own privilege a lot of the time and I won’t go into a moment of how I feel when I realize I’ve forgotten, because my guilt on the matter is irrelevant. I just need to get better at keeping myself in check and that’s that. 
Yeah I’d love to be cis some days because of how much easier it would make my life (and honestly for not many other reasons, I’m pretty happy being trans... if it just... y’know, weren’t for how people react to it). Sometimes I think, “Man, straight people are fucking insane; how on earth do they function,” while looking back on the days when I thought I was straight and realizing that even back then I was lost as hell, but some days I’m just like, “If I were straight, would life really be so much easier?” And it would. It really would. If I were also cis at the same time. Etc. 
And I don’t want to make this into an us vs them sort of thing for even a minute, either, because everyone has common ground somewhere. Does that common ground always matter as much to one person as it does to another? Probably not. Jeff Be/os probably shares a home town with a fuck ton of people but I’ll bet he doesn’t give a shit about a single one of them, or that commonality, while you could see a popular rock band and never hear them shut up about how proud they are to be from the West Coast. Sometimes it just doesn’t fucking matter to other people what you have in common with them, because to them, what’s different is so much more volatile. And it goes both ways. 
There’s people from my home town, my graduating class, and even old friend groups that I could never see myself talking to again because of how we’ve split paths in beliefs and lifestyles. Or, maybe they’ve stayed the same and I’ve changed, or the opposite... and I’ll bet they’d see how I’ve changed and think the same things of me. “Wow, I want nothing to do with that person.” 
I’m just... constantly having little wake-up calls over and over again of how some people seriously think that I’d choose a harder life on purpose. And I’m not ashamed of living as I am; I’m very proud of who I am and what I’ve overcome to get here. 
Customers at work, where I feel like I live 2/3rds of my life these days, are always just like... a window into the world for me sometimes. Most people don’t mention my pronoun button. Some people don’t notice it outright and misgender me because they’re looking at my face; entirely being polite and engaged, and not at all aware of how they’re upsetting me. I let it go a lot of the time. It’s not worth it.
There’s the few good folks who listen carefully and patiently and are seemingly brought to a new awareness by my gentle explanations. They’re polite and they honestly revive part of my faith. Like the guy who opened his coffee order saying, “yes, miss,” and left the store tipping his hat to me saying, “thank you very much, sir.” God or whoever does things fucking bless that guy.
Then there’s the people who decide to look at my pin, and ask about it. So far, it’s either people who are just reading it aloud for the sake of it, and then becoming confused but not actually wanting to understand so much as they’re just desperate to make some kind of conversation with a Youth (which is wild because I’m 25??). They don’t actually care, so I don’t really put effort into explaining. They either cut me off mid-explanation, or listen and don’t say anything further. 
Then there’s the people who look at it and laugh at me. Or the woman who decided it was a good idea to read it, listen to my explanation, and say, “You know, my daughter tried to explain that to me. I just don’t get it. I think it’s silly and too complicated. People should just stick to the old ways.” Like... lady. What the fuck do you want me to do about it. Why the fuck do you think telling me this will make me happy or even... want to engage further. I straight up just don’t understand where these people get off. They’re just as rude and uninterested in me as a human being as the people who start rattling off their order and refuse to wait for me to get it all down before shoving their credit card at my face. They do not care. They do. Not. Care. And my patience is starting to wear extremely thin. 
I had a new coworker, who knows I’m trans, the other day stop mid-sentence to say, “Oh, you know, sister? Oh! Also, I call everyone ‘sis’, boys or girls.” “Not me, you don’t.” “...oh?” “You don’t call me that. Ever.” 
“ >:/ tch. Glad we got that out of the way.”
It’s not cute. I don’t think it’s endearing. I don’t think it’s funny. And I don’t give a shit if you call other people that. If you thought about it for five seconds you’d realize how insensitive and fucked up it is. If anyone, anywhere, I swear to god, just thought about ANYTHING for five fucking seconds... I wish... I hope, that they’d be better human beings than they are. 
Like, god, what a horrible inconvenience it is for you to have to stop and think about what to call another human being. To use their name. To use the right pronouns. To avoid nicknames or pet names that would be inappropriate for such a person. Heaven forbid you have to do that for anyone, right? Why am I different? Why are you trying to step on my toes and see if I’ll just sit here and take it? I know why. Everyone knows why. And I’m so sick of being the dog under the table who gets kicked every time it whines about having no escape or being surrounded by the feet of people sitting around the table. 
I don’t hate being trans. I don’t hate being pansexual. I don’t hate being poly. I don’t hate myself. I hate the people who hate me for being myself and intentionally or ignorantly go out of their way to make my life an extra level of hell Just Because They Can. , 
I have been bullied and abused all my fucking life by one kind of person or another and not a single excuse I’ve been given justifies it. Humans are better than this. I want to have faith in humans. And there are good humans; I surround myself with them. But if I have to pry yet another motherfucker’s eyes open to yet another goddamn social issue they were too thick-minded to notice, and then have them turn around and bless me and hail me for some kind of... Joan of Arc bullshit, calling my suffering and my existence some kind of blessing, like my life had to be this hard to spread words and messages across time and space to reach their Oh So Important Ears, I’m gonna choke. Or... even the people who mean well that just straight up make me think that they actually believe that the queer people in their lives are some sort of Manic Pixie Dream (gender) who’s come into their lives to teach them something new and advance their own character development. That’s what it fucking feels like! Being reduced to someone else’s educator and being placed as a Background Character in their own fucking Growth Arc. 
If there’s some sick destiny where I’m lined up to be some kind of flogged messenger to idiots for the rest of my life I want a motherfucking refund. Ship me off to the next incarnation. I don’t care if I come back as a ladybug for two days and die under somebody’s shoe. 
And I’m not somebody’s teacher. I’m not somebody’s martyr or savior. I’m not somebody’s free fucking Queer Almanac and Seasonal Guide to the Experiences of Not Their Own. I’m so fucking tired of explaining myself. 
I’m so fucking tired of People ™ But I also want to have so much faith in People ™ that I think I’m just setting myself up for disappointment. 
Sometimes people prove me wrong and it’s okay. Other times I write a several paragraph long rant at one in the morning. Fuck me honestly, just, fuck me and boy howdy do I wish I could pluck one or two things off my list of identities if only for the sake of not having to Explain Shit To People ™
And at the same time, I very clearly care about people. I want people to understand because fuck, I was there! I used to be some Jacked Levels of Crazy and I was hugely homophobic when i was a teenager. I look back on the way I used to be and I can’t feel proud of who I was and what I believed. I know a lot of it was internalized hatred and disgust. I know all of that shit now. But I see myself in some people and that’s the mistake I make sometimes. Most of the time, I’m fine; I help other folks learn something new and it’s good and I feel fine about it. I just hate feeling like other people assume it’s my motherfucking duty to tell them and speak on behalf of all non-cis, non-straight people everywhere. I sound like a goddamn Gender and Women’s Studies textbook. 
Fuck, I’m going to bed... 
2 notes · View notes