#still WWI gay people but different characters

[biromanticbookbabe]

Okay, so I had to completely rewrite my scholarship contest entry because the school will own it, if it wins. I was going to use my characters that were in my novel and now I can’t do that. So instead I kept some similar themes and rewrote it. 

[gayalienwilde]

My secret fairy gift to @thomtrebond one of the longest analyses I've ever written until now (so much so that I'm still working on this). Truthfully, I was afraid that The Whole Shebang podcast had already said all there was about the Oscar Wilde references in Velvet Goldmine, and it has been a while since I've read The Picture of Dorian Gray, but while writing and doing research for this (I've studied more for this analysis than I ever have for school lmao) I realised things that I hadn't thought of before so this was a surprise for me as well! Also, since this analysis is gonna be split into different parts I'll link them all once I'm done with them. I hope you enjoy your gift <3

Part one: The importance of being Jack Fairy

When thinking about Velvet Goldmine and Oscar Wilde I'm reminded of the first episode of the miniseries "Queers" (2017), although I can't stand Mark Gatiss (Sherlock trauma) this episode is well written and just thinking about it makes me cry. There will be spoilers for the episode in this analysis, so be warned.

For the people that don't care about spoilers here's a small summary of what you need to know to understand this analysis: in the episode, titled "The Man On The Platform", the protagonist, a WWI soldier, gets asked about how gay men recognise each other, and he answers saying:"A certain liquidity of the eye." Later in the episode, he recalls a story from his teen years, while waiting for a train with his family he sees a prisoner getting taken away, he meets the gaze of the prisoner for a second and he feels seen by him and thinks "He knows me for what I am", after that he learns that the prisoner is Oscar Wilde.

In Velvet Goldmine, it's the pin that creates this connection between the characters and Oscar Wilde, Jack is able to find himself and others quite like him after finding the pin, and later we have all the young queer fans relating to Curt and Brian. The movie shows that self recognition through the other is an important aspect of queer communities, having an example of queerness to relate to or be inspired by makes it possible for people to find each other and learn about themselves.

In Jack's case, Oscar Wilde is not only a connection to queerness but also an inspiration for his art. Jack Fairy is the personification of art, specifically born from aestheticism's idea of "art for art's sake" Jack's persona is just that, beauty that exists simply to be beautiful and reveal nothing, the movie adds to this by never making Jack Fairy speak, even during the Death of Glitter concert he's either reciting a poem or singing, the little we know of Jack's inner thoughts is shown in the flashback of him as a child, adult Jack Fairy is a complete mistery to us.

What's interesting about this is that, unlike Brian, we never feel that Jack's persona is a manifactured one, even if we know nothing of him, and his looks and aesthetics are obviously thought out, he still appears much more genuine than Brian. Following Wilde's idea of art as an amoral creation that never expresses anything other than itself (in true wildean paradox fashion Wilde himself doesn't always respect this rule), it then becomes obvious why it doesn't matter if we know nothing about Jack, the way he presents himself is enough to express everything he wants other people to see, he's being truthfull to himself never trying to justify or moralise his art or himself but simply being, any possible reading or interpretation about his persona becomes then nothing more than the viewer's own thoughts or ideas projected onto him and do not necessarily reflect the truth, adding to the allure of his persona and making it a perfectly malleable art medium, free of bounds or expectations (apart from beauty, which is of course what all art, according to Wilde, should strive for).

On the other hand, Brian constantly trying to add a message to his aesthetic ended up being to his detriment since what he was saying was being fed to him through the record company to attract press, not leaving then any room for interpretation and putting strict barriers around his art, and of course to define is to limit causing his entire act and persona to never be as authentic feeling as Jack's. It's clearly artificial but not in a camp way, even if it might have started off that way, the alien and uncanny later becomes fake the same way advertisement is, planned and trying to get your attention for money, reaching the peak of uncanny valley with Tommy's way too pristine looks and character.

But even after having roasted him I have to admit that Brian's character has a much bigger connection to Wilde's work than Jack does, since Jack's story is more inspired by Divine from Genet's "Notre-Dame-des-fleurs", even having a scene from the book remade almost exactly in the movie, with Jack it makes more sense to compare him to Wilde himself since, just as Wilde became one of the major exponents of aestheticism and homosexuality in England, in the movie Jack is one of the original inspirations of the Glam Rock movement and an iconic figure in the queer community of the 60s and 70s, so of course he'd be the one to find the pin and carry the legacy of Oscar Wilde.

Tune in next whenever I post it to see me roasting Brian more in part two

[patriciavetinari]

What did you think of Downton Abbey?

I do have thoughts:

As a leftist, it is ridiculous to be expected to care if a british upper class family gets to keep the house/title/money. And the show has an interesting attitude towards itself, where it frequently shows working class people questioning the need for aristocratic lifestyle, but then still presents the aristocratic main cast family as blorbos for the viewer to dote over. Characters calling out the aristocracy are presented as both positive and negative.

However, the show gives its whole game away with one character: Tom Branson. He comes to work for the family as the chauffeur, and expresses interest in Marx, talks about Irish independence and Easter Rising etc. But then he falls in love with his employers daughter and starts viewing aristocracy as people. They run away together and get married, he gets up to some based revolutionary shit in Ireland, although gets soft on individual aristocracy again (feels bad for rich people whose house he saw set on fire). He comes back to Downton Abbey for safety, his wife soon dies in childbirth, he stays to avoid arrest in Dublin and to work in partnership with Crawleys. Working with them smooths off his radical leftist views although in fairness he questions his views and what he has become and laments his radicalism and we see some attempts to go back to politics but not really. He then goes off to America for couple of episodes and as a cherry on top, comes back fully capitalist. His character is incredibly frustrating but encapsulates the overall message I feel: try different things, but drop this radical nonsense and accept capitalism. I did not expect a british show about british aristocracy to arrive anywhere else but still, for a character to wallow in vaguely leftist views for 6 seasons then come back in the finale and say 'yay capitalism' is a little on the nose.

That being said, women in the show are mostly interesting, but as soon as any of them gets too independent and strong, they get married off, and not only that, but they get married into aristocracy (most frustratingly Isabel and Edith).

That being said (2), I really liked that the show included a lot of middle aged and even elder characters building relationships very late in life (Isabel again, and housekeeper with the butler, and mr Moseley with the ladys maid etc). Very heterosexual show.

Speaking of middle aged characters worried about relationships, the episode where the housekeeper was nervous about her body and sexual life and expectations of her future husband was very well written, very relevant, very human and very funny in an endearing and human way.

I feel like in general, the show did a good job showing if not the harsh reality but the Vibes (and technological advances) of early 20th century. It did not handle working class struggle well and with that has become meta illustration of itself, it showed women struggling for their rights and battling internal patriarchy, entire S2 dedicated to WWI topic (and in later seasons coming back to it and heralding WWII), it showed woman struggling with the aftermath of rape, frustrations around british justice system and prejudice towards convicts etc. a lot of deep topics, although of course the show enjoyed itself more showing pompous interiors, debutante balls and all this glamour so the message was overall not powerful.

Thomas Barrow character deserved better but his storyline is interesting and I have contradicting opinions on how his storyline was handled. He is Gay which was illegal at the time show depicts and more and more characters find out and suspiciously few of them make a fuss. Which, on one hand, I find unrealistic that no-one did end up ratting him out, on the other hand, everyone was trying to avoid the scandal for the family and maybe working class people were indeed more ACAB about it. I'm glad they didn't kill him off although I did want to slap him more than on one occasion.

On the third hand, obviously, this is fiction, escapism and the one that tries to rehabilitate british aristocracy at that. Everyone in the end I think is far too kind, polite and tolerant about literally every controversial subject of the time depicted. It is very pleasant to watch now and enjoy nice endings but it's important to remember it's Not Real and british aristocracy Would Not Fucking Say That.

I hate flapper fashion. It has good ideas about fabric and accessories but I hate the silhouette I'm sorry. Those fucking cardigans look bad even on thin people. Mens fashion much better, we truly should bring back 3 piece suits.

I don't get the fandom fuss over Matthew as husband for Mary. Henry is an improvement on every level. The matter of looks is subjective of course but I am also objectively correct on this. Also Goode packs more into five minutes of screen presence that Stevens packs into four seasons of being main cast (or however long he was alive). Also Goode has better chemistry with Dockery (as opposed to zero chemistry with Stevens). Matthew has a punchable face and was mostly annoying as a character. His fucking mother Isabel deserved a better son. The show really attempted to make me go 'I can't wait for those cousins to fuck already'.

Mary Crawley is a blorbo definitely. She is also a punchable asshole but she does make it look sexy. Her and Henry are rendering me Very Bisexual. Especially their interactions (very few and I agree it was rushed but still added up to a better relationship than Matthew).

Dowager Violet is an honorary blorbo.

Lady Grantham should have fucked Richard E Grants character. He seemed like he would be fun in bed and an immense improvement on her husband. I can take him if she doesn't want him.

New Era movie is shit and I've decided to ignore its canon, I will accept no criticism because I am correct.

[thebiggaybookclub]

Treacherous Is the Night by Anna Lee Huber

Genres: Mystery, Historical Fiction, Historical mystery, Cozy mystery

A London séance sets a lady spy on a deadly mission across Europe in this post-WWI Era mystery by the Daphne Award-winning author of This Side of Murder.

Verity Kent can sympathize with those eager to make contact with lost loved ones. After all, she once believed herself a war widow. But now that she’s discovered Sidney is very much alive, Verity is having enough trouble connecting with her estranged husband, never mind the dead. Still, at a friend’s behest, Verity attends a séance with a medium claiming to channel sensitive information from a surprising source: a woman Verity once worked with in the Secret Service.  Refusing to believe her former colleague is dead—let alone divulging secrets—Verity is determined to uncover the source of the medium’s top-secret revelation. But her investigation is thwarted when the spiritualist is murdered. As once-trusted Secret Service agents turn their backs on her, Verity heads to war-torn Belgium, with Sidney by her side. But as they draw ever closer to danger, Verity wonders if she’s about to learn the true meaning of till death do us part.   “Huber combines intricate puzzles with affecting human drama.”—Publishers Weekly

Source: Publisher

Pros: I found the writing to be very efficient. It was descriptive, the characters and dialogue was believable, it didn't feel like she was adding a bunch of unnecessary description to reach a word count or have a more intellectual book. Most of the characters are likeable, as far as the protagonists, even the one I didn't like, I still felt on the fence about because of how real and complex the characters feel.''

Cons: There is really only one character I disliked, but it didn't really take away from the story. One scene was incredibly frustrating, because it felt like the characters only acted the way they did to prolong the novel. If they had acted differently (and I feel logically) the book would have been a few hours shorter, but we wouldn't have discovered all of the nooks and crannies of the mystery. I appreciate what the author did for the story of the book, but I wish that scene had been handled differently because it felt like a huge plot hole.

Book Club Question:

Are the characters likeable? What does that mean for the story? Which character do you most relate to?

For the most part, yes. I don't like Sidney though. For me, this makes the story easy to read, as I'm not annoyed constantly by characters I can't stand. I'm not sure I relate to any of the characters. A lot of them had straight-people-problems I just don't empathize with. There is at one point, a spirit that is summoned during the séance at the very beginning of the book who I interpreted as gay. I could see my parents being in the same situation as his, so I think I connected the most with him, even though he only had like one line.

How Queer is it?

I give a 2/5 on the queer scale for the above reason.

Rating

Setting: 4/5

Story: 4/5

Characters: 4/5

Queerness: 2/5

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

[cochart]

I came to think about this less than ideal blur between fandom and academia because I ran across a discussion about whether or not Sam and Frodo was in a gay relationship. And it wasn’t a fandom ship discussion. People were arguing whether or not the actual LOTR text could be interpreted that way in an academic paper. 

The main argument was of course, that yes, Sam and Frodo were in gay relationship. There were dissenters who argued that no Sam is not gay because he clearly ends up in a heterosexual marriage with Rosie Cotton and they have big family together. Then the author (pro Sam/Frodo) commented that still, Sam could be bisexual (because Tolkien never wrote that he wasn’t!). Some others commented that it was common for gay men to get married to women in the past. In short, people would not let go of the idea that Sam and Frodo could be gay in canon. When the dissent persisted, the pro-Sam/Frodo crowd pulled out “what’s the harm” card.

This would not have been a problem at all if the exchange took place in let’s say, Tumblr. If someone wants to ship Sam and Frodo, they should be able to without being harassed by the crowd crying “it’s not the canon.” In many fandoms, I see a lot of needless hate against ships or anything deemed “for female fans” and this is whole another topic to talk about. But if one’s arguing whether or not one could read something certain way in an academic context, (”Is this reading of this text reasonable/able to withstand scrutiny?”) then the person is opening the question up for debate.

Personally, as a (former) academic, I believe that Sam cannot be interpreted as gay from the LOTR text. Again, this does not mean that people shouldn’t be able to enjoy such fan headcanon/ships. Let me quickly lay out the arguments. 1. Sam and Frodo’s relationship was largely inspired by Tolkien’s own experience during WWI and shows positive, deep male friendship. 2. Sam’s infatuation with Rosie Cotton is described very well in the text and an absence of an author’s word on certain topic (”is Sam bisexual?”) does not work as a proof for anything. 3. Tolkien has no history of writing homosexual or bisexual relationships nor has he shown any explicit stance on the topic.

1. Sam and Frodo’s relationship was largely inspired by Tolkien’s own experience during WWI. This is discussed often and extensively in studies of his work. Nor is such close male relationship anything too strange. Portrayals of two males sharing deep friendship were pretty common throughout literary history both in the west and the east. Some people like to argue rather flippantly “see, everyone was gay!” at seeing relationships such as the bond between David and Jonathan. I think the case is more about how the current society, especially American society, grew to pathologize male feelings and intimacy.

2. The LOTR makes Sam’s infatuation with Rosie (and also her affection for him) very, very obvious. Rosie doesn’t pop up right at the end of the book so Sam can be married off. 

3. Tolkien has no history of writing homosexual/bisexual relationships. A lot of people like going on about “Tolkien was a catholic!” and it’s an often misused argument usually employed to shut down any interpretation (academic or just fan) that the person does not like. Regardless of Tolkien’s religion, one clear thing is that writing gay relationship was not his priority. 

Take Oscar Wilde, for a change. There are many male characters in close relationship to one another in his works. The exchange between Dorian Gray and Basil the painter is intimate, and considering that the author himself was gay and dated a younger man, one could reasonably argue that there is some homoerotic tension between the two men. 

Tolkien on the other hand, has no personal connection or history of writing such relationship (Also on the personal note, try comparing how Wilde writes two men and how Tolkien writes two men. Oh boy, you’ll see the difference). 

This is not saying that you have to be gay to write gay relationships but rather considering the context in which he was writing LOTR, it’s very less likely that he meant Sam and Frodo’s relationship to be gay love.

(2/2)

Again, I clarify that whatever my words are, it’s not a justification to be a dick and harass other people with “Hurr durr it’s not canon though.” In fan spaces, let other fans be fans. 

And omake coming soon when I finish this other work.

Oh and yes, I think Sam and Frodo are cute though I don’t ship them as couple.

[i-did]

Do you think trans Neil fics are just a way for people to enforce more heteronormativity into Andriels relationship? From what I’ve seen it just seems like an excuse for writers to feminise Neil more which is really harmful to trans male stereotypes. Not to mention the smut seems like an excuse to write about penis/vagina sex. Idk if I’m overthinking this but it’s the feeling I get and I’d appreciate someone else’s perspective on it

I think the fact that the vast majority of trans representation in fics is smut is pretty telling. I also am unfortunately nosey and back when I still read smut (I rarely do these days, it just makes me feel bad these days instead, haha) I would check out the author, and they were often women, presumably or openly cis since Fandom is an overwhelmingly (but not exclusively) AFAB space.

So far all the trans men I've personally spoken to have mentioned that they can't read any trans fics and actually actively avoid them.

NSFW LANGUAGE

There is also the discussion of language and misgendering of genitals in smut fics, as well as how differently the characters (who are being written as trans) become. Trans andrew fics are dominated by smut as well as writing him as a bottom and very sexual and ... okay I genuinely can't think of another word for this besides "cockslut" so sorry about the informality of language. But they wrote him as a cockslut, and same as neil. Trans men can be tops, and often are because of bottom dysphoria, and anal is still a thing trans men can enjoy, anyone can.

We have a pretty good idea how andrew and neil act during sexual acts together since we are shown andrew jerking neil off and andrew sucking neil off in the books. So when because they're afab they suddenly act very different during sex it can be... suspicious.

Its also important to discuss language used during smut fics as well as what is included and what isn't. Often chests are mentioned, not so often with top surgery in mind, and body hair isn't. Trans men on testosterone are very aware of their body hair and how it has changed, and usually proud of it. I think even a passing remark about how one of them (pre or post op) would have chest hair or a happy trail would be good to mention, when happy trails are often mentioned in cis smut but omitted in trans smut.

Also when having sex with a trans person (yes speaking from experience) it is best to openly and honestly discuss what they are comfortable with and what language they like. Consent is always important to be discussed and when/if your partner has dysphoria that is another element to be considered and discussed. Some trans women get dysphoric about anal, some don't, some trans men keep a shirt on some don't some people keep their socks on some people like some words that others don't. Its best to assume someone doesn't have a misgendering kink! Its not that common and all kinks should be discussed beforehand anyway. Dirty talk should also be discussed, what words are good to use vs not.

A lot of the language see in ftm trans smut (because there is next to no mtf trans smut) ((not that I think it would be much better but who knows I haven't read it)) refers to the genitals with dirty language associated with women (tits, pussy, cunt, etc) but doesn't mention the trans man's erection, in fact I haven't seen any mention T-cocks/T-dicks. Its also best to assume your partner doesn't like those words and use vague terms unless otherwise stated, using general words such as hole is still hot and also not misgendering their genitals. Some people do not see this as a form of misgendering, but not everyone does and the reason people I've talked to about this (and myself) don't read these fics is because the language makes them uncomfortable so we avoid it all together. (As well as the other problems discussed).

The fact that effects of testosterone are hardly mentioned makes me feel like these fics are more so existing for the often afab non mlm consumers of smut fics who use them as porn to get off to and increase their self insertablility. I'm honestly curious about this psychologically, I know some people don't realize they're trans until moments like this, but I also know fully confident cis and sometimes het women get off to gay porn.

Regardless, obviously writing trans neil is not problematic, and same as writing trans andrew fics. But its important to note how you or the author might have changed the characters canon personalities, presentation, reactions during sex and preferences during sex. And also why there is so much emphasis on sex, when people who are trans are trans not just during sex, but also... when they're not having sex, which is most of the time like everyone else. Its also important to note which one you choose to prefer being trans and why, I know a lot of non Americans who only use the word for binder as a chest binder and not a folder assumed neil was trans until it became apparent he wasn't written with the intention of so, but I've also seen people choose to have neil be trans because they think "trans men are just hotter" and if you're not a trans man,,,, maybe. Don't say that. Because that's fetishizing trans men.

END NSFW

Whatmack wrote a good fic where neil is trans and its not just a device for smut, in fact its not about his genitals and sex at all, its about WWI and is really good but mind warnings, its called "in flanders fields" i believe.

Also I'm told I'm an overthinker a lot but honestly? My mind is blank a lot of the time lmao. And then when its not blank I'm just... thinking. I don't think I'm an over thinker regardless of what others have told me lmao, I think they just don't realize how often I'm actually just vibing. Also "overthinking" can be good. Analyzing things and what they mean can be important and questioning stuff is also important. Obviously if you're getting anxious than overthinking isn't good and its overwhelming instead, but a little overthinking is good because some times I feel we under think things and don't analyze what they could mean.

When I have a reaction to something or an instinct idea about something I try to assess why. Do I hate Kora? Why? Do I think she's arrogant and unlikable? Or am I actually being misogynistic and potentially colorist against her, and if she were a white male character would i question her personality and actions as much as I do when she's a woc, much less be annoyed by them? (I love Kora, this is just an example lol)

Also sorry I keep answering these like always 3 am my time which means for a lot of you guys its even earlier in the morning, (whats up Australia, New Zealand, Europe, the Philippines, and other awake places)

[sunflowerdigs]

What's interesting is that, if you look at American history, a lot of those "band of brothers" friendships that Hollywood likes to portray were likely actually gay relationships. WWI is credited with sewing the seeds of the gay rights movement in America because it was the first time that different people from wide swaths of the country were brought together and held in close quarters. And so gay people (and lesbians) who otherwise would have spent their lives thinking there was no one else like them discovered that there was.

So it's just...so telling to me that Minear would write one of those "friendships" where the dudes form this bond and put each other in front of everyone else and end up in relationships with women that don't seem as important as their connection with each other...but then not know how to close it out/think it's fine to call it a friendship. Hollywood filmmaking, like literature, is based on tradition, a building up of certain tropes and norms, and so there's no roadmap to tell the truth about a relationship like Buddies.

Basically, toxic masculinity has been forced on characters like Buck and Eddie for so long by Hollywood that someone working within the Hollywood film tradition might not be able to see them differently. Like, there's a reason cowboy movies and war movies have "friendships" with similar dynamics - many cowboy relationships were queer as well, Hollywood just erased that part for most of its existence.

You can get rid of the Hays Code, but if many of the foundational works were created while it was in existence, its effects are going to reverberate through film and TV for generations until they're actually grappled with and laid to rest.

And guys like Buck and Eddie have never been allowed to just be queer in media. They can literally write each other into their will, want to die when the other is hurt, basically create their own family unit...and somehow still not be gay. It's sort of...mindblowing and infuriating at the same time. Hollywood has straight washed relationships like Buddie for so long that the truth of them doesn't make sense.

If I believed that Tim Minear wasn't setting them up for a romantic storyline and was genuinely confused about why his authentic version of this friendship was being interpreted as gay, this would be my theory behind it. A theory. Just me spitballing.

But, anyway, I think Buddie is a slow burn and most of it is very intentional but Minear can't let on that it is because if you think audiences react poorly to queerbaiting you should see how they react to "straightbaiting"/not having every queer character clearly defined as such from the get-go.

[hopetofantasy]

Culture, parallels & meta - S3 E3

Zaterdag 08:10

Perfect parallel: An upset Robbe being little spoon to Noor this episode, him being a relaxed little spoon to Sander in the last one.

Blink-and-y’ll-miss-it: Moyo has half eaten wafers cookies on his bed. Between the cellphone time and timestamp, it took Robbe five minutes to get dressed and to the beach. The beautiful angel pendant makes its first appearance.

Bonus: This cinematography trick of using a wide shot with nobody else in the sight, makes us actually feel how lonely Robbe actually is. 

°

Zaterdag 08:23

C is for culture: “Vamanos” - As you may have noticed, Flemish has a lot of words that aren’t typically Dutch. These are called ‘leenwoorden’ (= ‘borrowing words’). In some cases, the language has made the word its own, with their conjugation or sound (like barbecue - barbecuet - or e-mail - ge-e-maild), other times the expression is copied completely (like smartphone or laptop). There are various reasons as to why people don’t want to change it: globalization, wanting to be more vague/cool, general laziness, ...

Perfect parallel: 

Sander’s playful “Are you the manager?” and “That’ll be zero stars on Booking.com” to Robbe when they meet in this episode, Sander’s sheepish “Zero stars on Booking.com” and Robbe’s pointed “Where is that manager when you need him?”, when they have their fall-out in a later episode. 

Sander saying “When I booked this room, I explicitly asked for room-service” here and him actually booking a room with room-service for the both of them later on.

Blink-and-y’ll-miss-it: Jens’ keyboard is lying on top of the closet. Sander grabbing his keys (to his car?).

°

Zaterdag 08:44

C is for culture: The option to use self-scanning is pretty common in Belgian supermarkets, especially in shop-and-go city stores. You pick up the scanner, scan the stuff you buy, go to a counter, pay and walk out with your groceries. A sales assistant is still present to help out with problems or do random routine checks. It’s fast, easy and cost-efficient. The downside? Shoplifting becomes a bit easier this way.

That’s character: Sander is putting up a ‘cool guy, devil may care’ facade. He jokes about not scanning everything, dismisses Amber’s list, whirls the shopping cart around and sings David Bowie to this boy. He wants to make a lasting impression on Robbe. If he’s the most charming, chaotic and adventurous version of himself, then he doesn’t have to think about other stuff like his own crumbling relationship. (Also the reason why he doesn’t answer the question about Amber: they simply met through Britt). As the boxes fall down, so does Sander’s tough exterior, as he never intended to hurt Robbe by playing around in the supermarket.

Robbe’s clumsiness meter: +3, he almost topples off the cart twice and drops the chocolate bars on the floor. (The crash with Sander isn’t his fault though)

Oopsie: 

Sander is wearing a leather jacket, but we don’t see it in the previous clip. Either he left it in his car or it’s an ‘oopsie’.

When Sander accidentally tosses Robbe into the boxes, we hear glass breaking. However, in the next shot, the boxes seem to empty (and they were supposed to be filled with chips, which don’t make that sound).

Blink-and-y’ll-miss-it: Sander is wearing black Converse. They bought Jupiler beer. Robbe pulls out ‘Delhaize’ Biscuit chocolate bars and Florentin cookies.

°

Zaterdag 13:13

C is for culture: "Croques” - The word ‘croque’ is an abbreviation for ‘croque monsieur’ (= ‘crunch mister’). These are grilled ham-and-cheese sandwiches, a typical greasy snack at taverns, markets, carnivals, your home, ... Other versions include the ‘croque madame’ topped with a fried egg, ‘croque bolognese’ with bolognese sauce, ‘croque hawai’ with a pineapple slice.

That’s character: It’s clear that Robbe has no idea how to eat properly. All throughout the season he eats unhealthy breakfasts (choco spread with cookies), snacks (chips, cookies) and dinners (Aïki noodles, frozen lasagna). But here we see the reason: he doesn’t seem to know how to cook or work a stove. Exactly why he buys prepackaged or instant food options. So, it’s probably for the best that Zoë helps out his eating habits.

Perfect parallel:

Robbe making an unhealthy breakfast in the previous episode, Sander providing him with an unhealthy snack in this one. (The way to a man’s heart is through the stomach)

Britt’s condescending “Listening to David Bowie again?” in this episode, her calling Robbe his next obsession similar to David Bowie later on. 

Sander’s “Do you know where I can find the coffee?” to Robbe in an earlier scene and his “Was coffee on the list?” to Amber here.

Robbe’s clumsiness meter: +2, he stumbles backwards after Sander touches his shoulder and burns himself after turning the ‘croque’.

Nod to the OG: This kitchen scene is the equivalent of the ‘5 fine frøkner’ scene, as Sander sings his favorite song to Robbe and makes breakfast, whilst both flirt with each other (subtly).

Oopsie: They supposedly went to ‘Delhaize’ for all their groceries, but the ketchup bottle comes from ‘Carrefour’ and the butter from ‘Colruyt’. 

Blink-and-y’ll-miss-it: Sander messes up the first words to ‘Under Pressure’ - it’s ‘pressure’ not ‘under pressure’. He mixes the weed with tobacco for his joint. The conflict on Sander’s face at the end.

°

Zondag 16:34

C is for culture: "What kind of shit question is this?” - They’re playing ‘De Slimste Mens ter wereld’ (= ‘The smartest human on earth’), a board game by the popular Flemish television show with the same name. The quiz is very challenging. People have to solve associative, general knowledge and out-of-the-box questions with multiple answers in different rounds. Points are awarded in the form of seconds, which are used during the game. The candidate with time left at the end, wins.

Blink-and-y’ll-miss-it: The group is drinking white wine out of plastic cups. Sander studied at ‘de!Kunsthumaniora’, the same school as Noor. Sander’s wearing his combat boots again.

°

Maandag 15:12

C is for culture: Aaron is wearing a bunny costume for the paintball game ‘Hunt the bunny’. This is usually played by people on a bachelor party or a corporate team building (with the groom/boss as the bunny). The goal is simple: the bunny has to cross the field from one corner to another, whilst the hunters shoot as much paintballs as possible to ‘kill’ it. Which is... rather painful, especially at close range. 

Oopsie: What they’re doing is actually illegal or even impossible. People aren’t allowed to play paintball in protected environments, like dunes. Unless they’re doing it with a specialized organization who’s trained for these games (and are present at the time of playing) or have the written permission from the ‘Agency of Nature and Forest’, the police, the city, ... There is a whole heap of permissions, administrative papers and laws to deal with. 

Lost in translation: Britt saying “Doe normaal” (= “Act normal”) has nothing to do with her dismissing Sander’s mental health. This Flemish phrase is often used to calm people down, telling them that they’re acting rather irrationally or childish. It’s an angry way of saying “Can’t you behave yourself? Calm down. What are you doing? Be rational!”. 

Blink-and-y’ll-miss-it: The blue and red flags tells us that they’re going to play ‘capture the flag’. Some of the ‘pfff’ gun sounds you hear, indicate that the air pressure needs to be checked. Moyo took off his protection mask, which is dangerous and sometimes considered a foul during the game.

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Dinsdag 20:02

C is for culture: "Do you know how to make s’mores?” - Toasting marshmallows above a campfire, isn’t really a tradition in Belgium. So that’s why the girls don’t know how to make s’mores. 

Lost in translation: ’Smoor’ is a Flemish dialect word for smoke or the act of smoking. It does sound a lot like ‘s’mores’. This is why Luca thinks Aaron wants to hold the marshmallow into the fire. 

Oop, there it is, the homophobia / heteronormativity: Of course Robbe had nothing to lose with Noor, he wasn’t actually interested in her. With Sander, however, Robbe doesn’t dare to do anything.

Blink-and-y’ll-miss-it: Aaron is drinking ‘Bock’ beer. Amber looks at Aaron like she really likes him, when he’s preparing the s’mores.

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Woensdag 20:42

C is for culture: 

“An old german bunker” - The province of West-Flanders as well as its coast still has a lot of remnants left from WWI. From German bunkers to trench-networks, burial sites and museums, the 'Great war’ left its traces. Unsurprisingly, every year, people still find around 300 tons of (active) bombs underneath the fields.

“Around ‘All Souls’ Day’ they come back to life” - ‘All Souls’ Day’ is a christian holiday on the 2nd of November, on which the dead are commemorated. However, since that day isn’t an official holiday in Belgium, people visit the graves and honor of their loved ones on the 1st of November, ‘All Saint’s Day’. 

The group drinking ‘jenever’ shots - ‘Jenever’ (known in English as ‘Dutch gin’ or ‘genever’) is a traditional liquor in Belgium and the Netherlands. Young people usually drink these colored, high percentage spirits at Christmas markets, pre-drinks or parties when it’s cold outside. Different flavors include vanilla, chocolate, berries, lemon, apple, ...

Blink-and-y’ll-miss-it: The wooden panel behind Jens says ‘Volg de pijlen’ (= ‘Follow the arrows’). Aaron and Amber are holding hands after their fall. Robbe downs a chocolate-cream ‘jenever’ shot at the end. 

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Woensdag 21:53

Perfect parallel: Robbe lashing out at his friends in this episode - he feels left out and confused about his sexuality - and blames the pranks. Him doing the same in the next - he thinks his friends are hypocrites by saying homophobic comments to him yet defending the gay teacher - and blames the vlogs. 

Blink-and-y’ll-miss-it: The second living room has a spinning disco light.

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Donderdag 21:12

C is for culture:

“In dat jeugdhuis” - A ‘jeugdhuis’ (= ‘youth house’) is a meeting place, run by young volunteers. All teens and young adults are welcome to hang out, throw parties, drink at their bar, organize concerts, attend workshops - just making the space their own. 

“He sounded like a begging Romanian” - Luca is referring to Romanian Romani families, who roam around in the streets of Brussels begging for some money. These ethnic groups have a mostly negative image amongst the Europeans. Which is why she states this harsh and hurtful comparison.

Perfect parallel: Noor asking Robbe for a playlist so she can listen to his favorite songs here, Sander actually making a Bowie playlist for Robbe in the next episode.

Lost in translation: Luca is mocking the West-Flemish dialect by copying what the boy said, namely “Moe’en julder ok ‘n flyer ‘ennen?”. This dialect is known for blowing their ‘g’ and ‘h’ so that they sound similar, conjugating their 'yes’ or ‘no’, having double subjects, seemingly swallowing some letters, among other things. It’s one of the most confusing and difficult dialects for the Flemish to understand themselves.

Oopsie: When Aaron asks Amber if she needs a drink, Britt and Sander are dancing right behind him. When she answers and walks away, they’re suddenly gone, only to be seen again when Moyo walks over.

Nod to the OG/Wink to other remakes: The ‘call your girlfriend’ kiss, duh! 

Blink-and-y’ll-miss-it: Jana is wearing one white contact lens.

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Vrijdag 08:43

Perfect parallel: 

Sander searching for coffee first thing in the morning earlier this episode and him pouring a cup before any task in this clip.

Sander’s “Maybe I’m scared that I will never find someone” here and Robbe’s multi-layered “I’m so happy that I found you” in the last episode.

Oopsie: When the boys walk to the recycling spot, the lighting changes from sunny to clouded to dark in a matter of seconds.

Funny coincidence: Sander referring to his relationship as ‘ups and downs’, probably similar to his experience with bipolarity.

Wink to other remakes: An almost kiss near trash, remind you of certain Italian boys?

Blink-and-y’ll-miss-it: Amber delegating tasks, but doing nothing herself. Robbe smiles for a few milliseconds, because Sander touched him. The flash of panic in Robbe’s eyes afterwards.

[absynthe--minded]

I'm currently catching up on your fanfics (I really love your writing <3) and noticed that you tend to stay pretty in-universe so I wanted to ask about your general opinion on modern setting AU :) I like them because I can have all of the family related Russingon drama but with like less kinslaying/general death (I'm a little cry baby lmao). (also this is in no way a 'why aren't you writing this???' ask just wanted to talk about the topic)

first off, thank you!! I’m really glad you’re enjoying my writing and I hope it keeps staying fun!! I am so sorry because you’re about to get a whole wall of text.

second off, I have... complicated feelings on modern AUs, lol. though you’re not a crybaby! there’s nothing wrong with wanting Less Death. Eru knows our boys deserve it.

The problem that I run into consistently with a modern AU - as opposed to like, a postcanon modern setting like my fic set in Aspen Grove, where characters either come back East in the modern era or (in Maglor’s case) never left in the first place - is that I genuinely don’t know that any of the characters would be the same people in a modern AU. Their experiences would by definition be so different from what they went through in canon that I, personally, can’t find any basis for their characterization.

Like, Fëanáro won’t be the same kind of force of nature that he is in the book if he’s written as a corporate magnate or wealthy engineer of some kind, because a fundamental aspect of his character is his relationship to the crown and his desire for power and influence to secure his legacy. Maitimo can be a soldier and a POW and a survivor of grim conditions and torture, but he’s not going to have spent decades with a psychic sadistic demigod possessed of reality warping powers trying to break him down by pretending to be his family members or loved ones. Káno might be the best musician in the country but is that the same as an elvish bard? Does Tyelkormo still talk to animals? And these experiences - and the pressures of being nobility that operates under a very different idea of what that means than our postindustrial post-WWI society, and the fact that elvish psychology and linguistic development and approaches to the world are very different than human ones - are what shape the characters into the people we know and love from canon.

The biggest roadblock for me is that I get very stuck in the worldbuilding, in the details. I want to make every moment of one of my stories feel like it’s depicting a world that’s lived-in and full, and I want to make the characters make sense and tie their on-page actions into thought processes that make sense too, and that means I spend a shitton of time thinking about politics and elvish philosophy and sociological differences between the Quendi and the humans. It’s basically impossible for me to translate one to the other, lol. Even if I were to try and scale down to solely the Russingon drama of “you’re gay and marrying someone your father wouldn’t approve of” into a human modern AU (and I’m just gonna try and walk you through my process, how I’d approach this) -

okay, well, let’s assume Fëanáro is like eighteen years older than his younger siblings. Say Míriel and Finwë were fifteen and living in the US when they got pregnant and Míriel died in childbirth and Finwë had to single dad it for eighteen years, and his son’s now got a scholarship to MIT and he’s moving across the country for college, and Finwë is now thirty-three and dating again. He and Indis marry and have kids, except by the time Nolofinwë is old enough to marry and have children of his own, Fëanáro is well into his own career and independent from his father, because that’s how contemporary society works. he might have deep and lasting emotional issues, but he responds to them like a typical American man would rather than like he does in canon. Not to mention the ages - Maitimo would be closer in age to Nolofinwë than Findekáno, and there’s no guarantee they’d even meet except at the occasional awkward holiday dinner. Plus, even though marrying your first cousin is totally legal in many places in the US, it is still seen as sort of culturally weird and potentially worthy of a few mean-spirited jokes, so it probably wouldn’t happen at all. This plotline is nixed.

Try again - Fëanáro is an engineer serving as a senator, and Nolofinwë is a rival politician. They don’t get along, their families see one another relatively frequently, and then Findekáno and Maitimo meet and sparks fly. Except now a major part of the drama is gone - without Nolofinwë and Fëanáro’s intensely personal confrontations and especially without Nolofinwë’s biological relationship to Fëanáro, they’re just opponents in Congress, nothing more. And can we say that Fëanáro the polymath prodigy would want anything to do with politics if he’s not born into a royal family? Can we say that Nolofinwë would enter into public service and be successful when his platform is basically “I do what I must because the people demand it”?

Not to mention that a modern AU would have to deal with historical context that doesn’t exist in canon (if the Nolofinwëans are still black, for example, that carries with it a hell of a lot of history and culture and meaning that isn’t applicable at all to Beleriand, where they’re dark-skinned because elves are genetically diverse). And what about the people who work for them? We don’t view staff and hired help the way that canon elves would view their own staff and vassals. What about their social lives? Being extremely rich and powerful is different now than it was in the First Age, with different connotations and public perceptions. What about the fact that contemporary systems of government are vastly different than the quasi-early-medieval, feudalism-adjacent ones that the Noldor seem to have? What about homophobia? Russingon being gay isn’t really an on-page-confirmed issue in canon, so there’s no reason to assume elves have homophobia, but we humans certainly do. What about the history of LGBT+ rights, and the AIDS crisis, and the legalization of same-sex marriage? Does Ronald Reagan exist in this universe, and how did Finwë feel about him?

The only thing that I could really buy into is a contemporary secondary world fantasy with modern technology and amenities and culture but totally invented countries and systems of government. Make House Finwë something like the real-life House of Saud, where several royal princes all have blood ties to the throne and all are wealthy and politically influential but not everyone is actively vying for a place in the line of succession, and reintroduce the magic, and oh damn, I’m just back to canon again. Shit.

You see my problem. I’m standing at the bottom of a massive hole I dug myself, going “what now?” because I Overthink Everything.

[theradioghost]

I don't know if you're still doing podcast recs, but if you are, I really like dramas, horror, sci-fi, honestly anything that gives you the feels (especially if it has lgbtq+ rep). I am not much of a comedy person though unfortunately. The only podcast I finished was tma and I really loved it.

The recommendations are always on tap here, whenever my askbox is open! You might wanna check out:

Archive 81, for a found-footage horror about mysterious archives of tapes full of encounters with otherworldly horror, dark rituals, cults, and a long-suffering archivist with the same name as the show creator who plays him, which despite all that could not possibly be more different from TMA and yet easily matches it as one of the best horror stories I have ever enjoyed. The sound design on this show is basically unparalleled – where TMA has fairly minimalist sound design, A81 goes all out. Quite a few lgbtqa+ folk also.

I Am In Eskew, for a surreal, Lynchian horror about the city of Eskew, where it’s always raining and the streets are never the same twice, as narrated by a man who is trapped there and the woman hired to find him. Take the most viscerally disturbing episodes of TMA as a baseline for how intense this show is, then imagine the Spiral built a city and invited all the other fears over for a party. Also right up there as one of my favorite horror things ever, and recently ended, so you can listen to the whole thing right now.

Within The Wires, for a found-footage scifi dystopia, telling stories from an alternate-history world. Three of the four seasons focus on lgbtqa+ leads, and the first season, a set of instructional meditation tapes provided to a prisoner in a shadowy government institution, is still some of my absolute favorite creative use of medium and framing device ever.

Kane and Feels, for a surreal noir-flavored urban fantasy/horror hybrid, about a magically-inclined academic (and sarcastic little bastard man) named Lucifer Kane and his demon-punching partner with a heart of gold, Brutus Feels. They share a flat in London, they bicker like an old married couple, and they fight supernatural evil. This show WILL confuse the hell out of you and you will enjoy every second of it.

Alice Isn’t Dead, for a weird Americana horror story about a long-distance truck driver, criss-crossing the US in search of her missing wife. Along the way she discovers that both of them have been drawn into a dangerous secret war that seethes in the empty and abandoned expanses of America, and that inhuman hunters have begun to follow her. Also finished! And as the title kind of gives away, the lesbians do not die!

Janus Descending, for a sci-fi horror miniseries about two scientists sent to survey the remains of a dead alien civilization on a distant planet, only to learn all too well why the original inhabitants have disappeared. You hear one character’s story in chronological order and the other in reverse, with their perspectives alternating, which is done in an incredibly clever way so that even technically knowing what will happen it still holds you in suspense right to the end. Also, it made me cry, a lot.

SAYER, for a sci-fi horror with a touch of dark comedy, and probably the single best use of the “evil AI” trope I have ever seen. Tells the story of employees of tech corporation Aerolith Dynamics living on Earth’s artificial second moon, Typhon, in the form of messages from their AI overseer SAYER. The first season is great, the second season is okay, and the third and fourth seasons are fucking amazing.

Tides, for a really interesting sci-fi about a lone biologist trapped on an alien world shaped by deadly tidal forces. It’s different from just about any other sci-fi I know, focusing more on the main character’s interactions with and observations of this strange new world, where she’s very aware that she is the alien invader. (Also I don’t think any of the characters are straight.)

Station to Station, for a thrilling sci-fi mystery where a group of scientists and spies on a research ship (the ocean kind) discover that the time-warping anomaly they’re studying might be causing people to vanish from existence. Corporate espionage and high-stakes heartbreak abound. (And once again I’m not sure anyone is straight.)

The Strange Case of Starship Iris, for Being Gay And Doing Crime IN SPACE! Or, decades after a war with an alien species leaves humanity decimated and under the control of totalitarian leaders, the lone survivor of a research mission joins up with a ragtag crew of rebels and smugglers to figure out why the very government she worked for tried to kill her, and to stop them from inciting a second war. 100% lgbtqa+ found family in space heist action and it’s glorious in every way.

Unwell, for the horror-ish Midwestern gothic story of a young woman who returns to her hometown to help her estranged mother after an injury, and discovers that there is something just a little bit wrong, not just with her mother, but with her mother’s house, and with the whole town. Subtle and creepy. The protagonist is a biracial lesbian, one of the other major characters is nonbinary, the cast in general is super diverse.

The Blood Crow Stories, for an lgbtqa+ focused horror anthology! The four seasons so far have been the stories of an ancient evil stalking the passengers of a WWI-era utopian cruise ship, a dark Western mystery about a group of allies trying to stop the mysterious killer known only as the Savior, a 911 operator in a cyberpunk dystopia who starts getting terrifying phone calls from demons, and strange and deadly goings-on at a film studio in the golden age of Hollywood. Everyone is Very Gay and anyone can die, especially in season 1.

The Tower, for a melancholy experimental miniseries about a young woman who decides she’s going to climb the mysterious Tower, from which no one has ever returned. Quite short and very, very good.

Palimpsest, for a creepy, heartbreakingly sad and yet incredibly beautiful anthology series. Season one is the story of a woman who suspects her new home is haunted, season two is a turn-of-the-century urban fantasy about a girl who falls in love with the imprisoned fae princess she’s been hired to care for, and season three is about a WWII codebreaker who begins seeing ghosts on the streets of London during the Blitz.

Mabel, for a part-horror, part-love story, the kind of faerie tale where you feel obliged to spell it with an E because these are the kind of faeries that are utterly inhuman, and beautiful, and dangerous. Anna, the new caretaker for an elderly woman, leaves messages for her client’s mysteriously absent granddaughter Mabel. An old house in Ireland has a life and desires of its own, few of them friendly. Two women fall in love and set out for vengeance against the King Under The Hill. Creepy, strange, and gorgeously poetic.

Ars Paradoxica, for a sci-fi time travel Cold War espionage thriller. Physicist Dr. Sally Grissom accidentally invents time travel, landing herself – and her invention – in the middle of a classified government experiment during WWII. As the course of history utterly changes around them, she and what friends she can find in this new time must struggle with the ethics of what they’ve done, and the choices they’ll have to make. An aroace protagonist, Black secret agents, time-traveling Latina assassins, Jewish lesbian mathematicians, two men of color whose love changes the course of time itself, this show says a big fuck you to the idea that there’s anything hard about having a diverse cast in a period piece and it will break your heart, multiple times. Also finished!

The Far Meridian, for a genre-bending, poetic, at-times-heartwarming-at-times-heartbreaking story about an agoraphobic woman named Peri who decides to begin a search for her long-missing brother Ace after the lighthouse in which she lives begins mysteriously transporting to different places every day. I can never forget an early review that described this show as “the audio equivalent of a Van Gogh painting.” Suffice to say it is beautiful, and fantastically written and put together.

What’s the Frequency?, for a Surrealist noir horror mystery set in mid-20th-century LA. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I can really explain what goes on in this show, but it features a detective named Walter “Troubles” Mix and his partner Whitney searching for a missing writer. Meanwhile, the only thing that seems to be playing on the radio is that writer’s show Love, Honor, and Decay, which also seems to be driving people to murder. Fantastically weird, deliciously creepy.

Directive, for a short sci-fi miniseries about a man hired to spend a very, very long trip through space alone, which doesn’t seem all that sad until suddenly it hits you with Every Feel You’ve Ever Had, seriously I don’t want to spoil it so I won’t say anything more but listen to this and then never feel the same way about Tuesdays again.

Wolf 359, for honestly one of the best podcasts out there, containing all of the drama and feels, seriously this show ended over two years ago and I still cry literal tears thinking about it sometimes. It has definite comedic leanings, especially in the first season which reads a bit more like a wacky office comedy set in space, but it takes a sharp turn towards high stakes, action, and feelings and that roller coaster never stops. Take four clashing personalities alone on a constantly-malfunctioning space station eight light years from earth, add some mysterious transmissions from the depths of space, toss in some seriously Jonah-Magnus-level manipulative evil bosses, and get ready to cry.

or, may I suggest Midnight Radio? It’s a lesbian-romance-slash-ghost-story completed miniseries about a late-night 1950s radio host in a small town who begins receiving mysterious letters from one of her listeners, and I have been assured by many people and occasionally their all-caps tweets that it provides ample Feelings! (also I wrote it.)

[blautitlewave]

Mini rant on white K-Pop stans

The only difference between the “Yellow Fever” that swept America in the 20th century and white K-Pop stans today is that the focus is no longer on Asian women but on Asian men. That isn’t a good thing. Y’all are treating these Asian idols and pop stars like they’re cute lil “dolls”. It is clear as day that there is a lot of unconscious racism at work. In the West, Asian men, when not described as being predatory, conniving, and sexually depraved, were characterized as “soft”, “feminine”, “non-threatening” in order to prop up white supremacy (”our men are actually men, theirs aren’t, they’re essentially women”, etc.)  in the 19th century and up until around WWI, thereabouts, though Asian men (Chinese especially) still remained stock villains until WWII. 

White masculinity and | Japanese, Chinese, and Korean masculinity | were not outwardly the same, and to this day their masculinities still hold some differences. It is presently considered out-of-place and somewhat inappropriate to be physically affectionate with another man in the West due to the stigma of homosexuality and this weird underlying idea that all gay men are bottoms and/or effeminate, whereas in Korea there isn’t that stigma because there isn’t this idea that being affectionate with another guy automatically means you’re gay. They could be gay, they could not be, but it isn’t the first thing that’s thought of, unlike in the West. So when I see K-Pop stans gush too much about these guys just doing things that are normal in their culture, like preening or hugging or whatever, I get uncomfortable. You’re sexualizing normal human behavior. You are indoctrinated by your Western culture to perceive any and all physical affection between men to be romantic in nature instead of platonic. Why can two girls be close with each other without thoughts of romantic feelings, but not two guys? Seems unfair for the men involved. And it’s actually kind of unnerving to be “shipped”  by complete strangers when you only consider someone a friend and are actually not sexually attracted to them. 

Now if the people are FICTIONAL, it’s fine. No one is actually getting their feelings hurt. But these are real guys. Real men, and you’re treating them like some of your yaoi characters from a manga and it’s just fucking WEIRD. It will never NOT be weird and borderline racist and sexist. Sexist in the sense that you cannot conceive of two straight men being physically close without sex being a factor or reason for the closeness. Racist in the sense that you see their affectionate gestures and think they’re “soft”. No, you’ve just been programmed by your culture to believe that masculinity means apathy and lack of emotional closeness and physical affection with another person to the point of acting like the Terminator. Newsflash, that isn’t how the rest of the world perceives masculinity. You’re deliberately misreading normal cultural practices of another country because Western men have been made touch-starved for like three generations.

 Your world view has been warped by decades of homophobic Christian propaganda that has permeated all aspects of Western culture, especially in America, and you don’t even realize. You don’t even fucking comprehend how twisted your way of looking at these MEN is.

[cbk1000]

So You Want To Read Literature In a Foreign Language

I’ve had a few language asks here and there and thought I would do a write-up specifically on reading in a second language, as that is A. My specialty and B. Most language courses are going to focus on speaking and listening comprehension. Which certainly isn’t a bad thing, but the vocabulary necessary to carry on a competent conversation in a second tongue is much smaller than what you’ll need to read even popular fiction, let alone books of more serious literary aspirations. I’ve arranged this list in order of approximate difficulty, but of course it will always depend upon the exact book/article/comic you’re reading and whether or not its vocabulary coincides with your own.

I’ll put this under a cut, as it will be quite long.

A few tips, however, before I get on with the list: the more you read, the faster you’ll improve, as with anything. If you have the time and drive to read an hour or more a day in your target language, you’ll be knocking out books in no time. In my first year of Russian I was reading for 2+ hours a day, and by the end of that year I was reading fluently with no help from English translations (as I used in my earlier months) and I could pick up just about any genre I liked. My Russian vocabulary, of course, was still not as advanced as my English, but I was able to read fairly complex literature and to understand the majority of the text.

If a piece is too hard, put it down. I can’t emphasize this enough. Trying to read something massively beyond your reading level is frustrating and will only put you off. There were books I had to set aside in my first year and even beyond just because, stylistically speaking, they were over my head. I could follow the main story, but I was missing enough details/subtleties in the author’s style that I knew I needed to set it aside and try again later when I could fully appreciate it. There is absolutely no shame in this; get a few more books under your belt, and try again in a few months. I have now gone back and read several books I had to set aside; you’ll get there eventually. Some pieces are very difficult; I didn’t attempt Solzhenitsyn’s ‘Red Wheel’ series (which was the series that prompted me to learn Russian in the first place, since later volumes hadn’t been translated) until I had been reading prolifically for over two years. My dude is dense, and also wants to go over every minutiae of the fucking Duma’s every meeting with you. It was also around this time that I started reading poetry; it was just too difficult for me prior to that.

Most of all: have fun! Reading not only improves your vocabulary, it expands your understanding of a culture tremendously, and allows you an access to it that you can’t get through translation. Think of all the history you can read!! The primary sources!!

Anyway, away with this rambling introduction, and onward to the actual useful part of this post.

Adapted Classics: I found a series of these in Russian very early on in my studies, and you’d do well to see whether or not you can find something similar in your target language, especially if you’re a beginner. These are essentially long-winded summaries of well-known classics with simplified grammar, so that you can expand your vocabulary without breaking your head over more complex sentence structure that you can’t yet comprehend. I read a simplified version of ‘Anna Karenina’, ‘Jane Eyre’, one of the Sherlock stories, ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’, and ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ this way. They were extremely useful in growing my vocabulary while not overwhelming me with long, meandering sentences that would utterly lose me in the beginning of my studies (Tolstoy, I love you, but this is aimed directly at you. I REMEMBER THE CITIZENS FLEEING MOSCOW. 200+ WORDS BEFORE YOU THOUGHT TO PUT IN A FUCKING PERIOD). 

Comics: Comics are great. I read some Star Wars graphic novels in Russian, a few manga, part of ‘The Walking Dead’ series, and also some Archie comics, which I used to read all the time as a kid. Not only do you have pictures to help with context, but you don’t usually have challenging descriptive passages to contend with. It turns out that Russians pirate just about everything, so I was able to find lots of sites with huge selections of comics available to read free online. Do a bit of googling and see if you can find something similar in your own target language.

Fanfiction: If you’ve followed this blog long enough, then you know that actually I got my start reading gay Captain American porn in Russian, and it was brilliant, thank you very much, and I bet you I was just about the only beginner Russian student on this planet who could barely introduce themselves but definitely could have had gay phone sex. Fanfiction is not generally written in a highly literary style, so it’s easier to follow. Moreover, you’re dealing with characters, tropes, and plotlines you’re already familiar with, and that familiarity helps enormously. While English is of course the most widely-used language on AO3, you have many language options to choose from, and in a large fandom like Marvel or Harry Potter, you’re bound to find something in your target language. You might check as well to see if any massively popular fics in a fandom you follow have been translated into your target language; I’ve noticed that quite a lot with Russian.

News Articles: News articles are generally written in a simplified language designed to be accessible by the average reader, who’s actually not very good at reading at all. I’m sure this varies somewhat by country and language, but here in the States most clock in at something like a 7th or 8th grade reading level, as that, depressingly, appears to be the average reading level of the majority of the reading public. They’re short and will introduce some new words into your vocabulary in an easily digestible way. Also: most big magazine publications such as Cosmopolitan and People have several  different versions of their websites. The Russian version, for instance, is cosmo.ru instead of cosmo.com. The French edition is cosmopolitan.fr. Figure out what designation your target language uses in place of .com and you’re in business (unless you accidentally get a porn site). Do I like Cosmopolitan magazine? Not particularly. Did it teach me new sex terms in Russian? Absolutely. And that’s what we’re all looking for, right? 

Dual Language: At around 4-5 months into my studies, I started reading dual language texts. I did this first with short stories, and later with full novels. This is not for everyone as it requires you to constantly switch back and forth between your native and target language, and especially if you’re farther on in your studies, this might muddle you more than help you. I found at about 8 months or so I had to take off the training wheels, as my vocabulary and grasp of grammar was good enough that looking over at the English text was actually confusing me, because I had gone from laboriously, awkwardly translating everything in my head to just reading it naturally. But in the beginning, it was a much faster way to check vocabulary, and it also helped me to sort out grammar by comparing it to my native language. All languages are trying to accomplish the same thing, which is to communicate; they just do it in different ways. But you can find a common ground even between languages that are vastly different, as English and Russian are. You can find some dual language texts, or you can do what I did, which is to put the English translation on an e-reader, and get hold of a hard copy of the Russian. I would always read the Russian first, and only if I was confused/missing a lot of words would I look over at the English text. Make sure you compare a couple of translations and pick the one that is most literally faithful, even if it’s not a great translation in and of itself. I used some English translations that I actually didn’t care for as a translation, but they were very literal and therefore very helpful in sussing the original text.  

Books You’ve Already Read In Your Native Language: It doesn’t have to be a book you have practically memorised (though that will certainly help). Anything you’ve read at least once in your life will do. You’d be surprised how much will come back to you, and how much context will help you figure out any unfamiliar words. I picked up the Russian translation of Ken Follett’s giant-ass ‘Winter of the World’ about a year into my studies. His style is neither particularly difficult nor...impressive, but as it’s the second in a trilogy that follows three generations of multiple families from WWI all the way into the Cold War, it has a lot of military and political terminology that you don’t encounter in everyday speech. It’s also over 1,000 pages, so it’s rather daunting in a second language regardless. I had read it once before in English, probably some five years before I read the translation, and going into it I really didn’t remember that much. However, while reading, I found that certain plotlines would start coming back to me, and helped a lot in piecing together unfamiliar terminology, in addition to the words I already knew. Don’t focus overly much on every single word and trying to remember what it is in your native language; trust me, you will absorb a lot from context. Just let go and let it wash over you.

Translations: Translations are almost always going to be easier than a book originally written in your target language, if the texts are of comparable difficulty. For instance: ‘Les Miserables’ is easier for me in Russian than Solzhenitsyn’s ‘The Gulag Archipelago’. Both are massive, rambling texts with long asides on history and politics, and in English I’d say they’re pretty equally difficult reads. Certainly neither is what I would classify as light reading. So why is ‘Les Miserables’ easier? Because in a translation I’m not dealing with uniquely Russian slang and turns of phrase. Yes, some of it has to be Russified in order for the target audience to better comprehend it in their native tongue, but generally speaking it doesn’t feel Russian, if that makes sense. I can tell pretty much as soon as I pick up a book if it’s a translation. Now, French isn’t my native language, but I’ve used it as an example because I’ve read quite a bit of French literature in Russian translation, and fairly difficult authors/texts at that: Hugo, Stendahl, Zola, etc. etc. None of these authors are light beach reads, but they’re also not difficult for me to follow in Russian. And anything translated from English is even more accessible; most texts translated from English into Russian I can follow very nearly as well as I can read the original English. When you’re dealing with a heavy-hitter that’s writing in your target language, they can get up to all kinds of shenanigans and word play; a translation, generally speaking, is not going to be nearly so experimental. 

Dumas: Why does Dumas get his own section? Because you should read him, dammit. HISTORY. SWASHBUCKLING. REVENGE. Dumas is fucking fun. He also has a huge oeuvre to choose from. Additionally, while he does have a lot of plotlines to follow (and this is the difficulty of Dumas when reading him in a second language) and you definitely need to get your historical vocabulary up to snuff, he is not an overly philosophical author. His novels are fun, action-oriented, and someone’s always eavesdropping on a Secret Political Conversation of the Utmost Importance. I’ve read quite a lot of Dumas in Russian (actually more than I’ve read in English) and they are easy, entertaining reads. You might get a little lost in the politics of the era, but unless you’re already familiar with them, you’d probably be a little lost in your native language as well. Don’t worry; people will start dramatically challenging one another to duels again very soon. Also: READ ‘THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO’ SERIOUSLY FOR FUCK’S SAKE DO IT.

[aconissa]

seeing you talk about the burying party made me want to watch some period dramas, do you know any that are similar to that?

Absolutely! These are all films, but I’ve got longer lists including some tv series under my ‘recs’ tag.

Regeneration (1997) is essentially about the same people and period, although it focuses on their time at Craiglockhart Hospital. It’s based on one of my favourite novels (written by Pat Barker) and follows Siegfried Sassoon, Dr Rivers, Wilfred Owen, and Billy Prior (another of Rivers’ patients).

Maurice (1987) is set just before the war and thus has a much sunnier outlook, based on the novel by E. M. Forster (who was himself a friend of Siegfried Sassoon). Follows a young gay man through his adolescence, his time at Cambridge and beyond

Another Country (1984) is inspired by the life of notorious Cambridge spy Guy Burgess. It’s set while the Burgess character in his final year at school, and explores his sexuality and early conversion to communism

A Month in the Country (1987) is set just after WWI, and deals with the lingering trauma and pointlessness experienced by soldiers returning to civilian life

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) is the seminal WWI film in my opinion, just as the original book is the seminal WWI novel. Beautiful but so very, very sad

Journey’s End (2018) is based on the wonderful 1928 play by R.C. Sherriff, who served as an officer during the war. Deals with many of the same themes and experiences as The Burying Party, although all the characters are fictionalised 

The Night Watch (2011) is set during and after the Second World War, and follows several characters during that period, none of whom are soldiers but all of whom were deeply effected by the war (the London Blitz particularly)

Dunkirk (2017) is one of the best war films ever made, in my opinion. Much more sweeping and dramatic than The Burying Party, but a stunning film and deeply affecting. Set, as the name suggests, during the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940

The History Boys (2006) is technically set in the 1980s and has a very different tone to the other films on this list, but it has a similar relationship with poetry to The Burying Party and includes some discussion of WWI poetry

Wilde (1997) follows the story of Oscar Wilde, as you can guess. Another interesting film to watch for its exploration of the literature of its subject, all the more fascinating when you do watch The Burying Party because there are many references to Wilde and all the gay characters are clearly still living under the black cloud of Wilde’s trial over a decade before

Atonement (2007) is another one of my favourite war films, and deals with the same events as Dunkirk although covering a much longer period and a more varied group of characters

Bright Young Things (2003) is based on the satirical novel Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh, although is overall much more serious. This explores the world of the ‘Bright Young Things’, a social group of young hedonists who emerged in the post-war period. Although all the characters are fictional, a major member of the real group was Stephent Tennant, a lover of Siegfried Sassoon.

Creation (2009) doesn’t deal with war, unlike most of the films on this list, but is a similarly intimate and heartbreaking portrayal of one famous historical figure and the tragic events of their life (in this case, Charles Darwin).

[pippin4242]

Wonder Woman: A Marvel fan's perspective

I've just made it back from the local premiere of DC's Wonder Woman and I want to share my impressions with the internet right away! I'll do my best to keep it spoiler-free, because I really want people to go and see this film.

I don't want to be one of those fans who starts a review with I'm not a fan of her music, but, but I think my perspective is very much influenced by my taste in comics, and I want to disclose that right away. I've read maybe a couple of dozen DC trades in my time, including a healthy dash of Wonder Woman, but I'm nowhere near appreciating the breadth and depth of the canon in the way I do with Marvel. I'm the Marvel fan who sat through the credits getting excited over the special thanks given to Lee, to Rucka, to Wein. I nearly fell out of my goddamned chair when I realised the screenplay was credited to one Allan Heinburg. THAT'S RIGHT, TRUE BELIEVERS, YOUNG AVENGERS ALLAN HEINBURG! (And it shows, so if that's your jam, hie thee to a cinema, stat!) So maybe I've missed some stuff or maybe it's given me some insight. I don't know. All I know is it was a fucking great film and I'm usually a judgemental bitch about this stuff, so take from that what you will.

In a sentence: Wonder Woman is an excellent origin movie which doesn't overly linger on the foundations of its story, and which pays credit to its setting and the history of the character whilst managing to make reasonably meaningful statements about the bigger picture in war, through a decently intersectional feminist lens, and almost devoid of the male gaze.

I don't know very much about the decisions made in changing the setting of Diana's origins from WWII to WWI. I wondered if it was something to do with being less on the nose with Gal Gadot's Israeli heritage, but as it happens, there were some strikingly vivid depictions of the German instruments of biological warfare, perhaps more so than I've even seen in WWII films. Perhaps it was merely to differentiate between Diana and Captain America; perhaps it was to show a global war with more immediate physical impact upon civilians and fighting people. I would say this: it worked, it was fine, and the setting it gave to the world outside Themyscira when we got there was rich and deep.

The Themyscira of Wonder Woman was, oh blessed relief, a Paradise Island filled with women of different races and body types, up to a point – they were presented as very much a warrior people, and unfortunately, there were no fat women in the foreground. The geography felt real and lived in, and the island, cut off as it was, seemed to make sense. The costumes were not something I was thrilled about from promo shots, but in motion seemed to work much better: the desaturation of Diana's costume appeared to be to portray it as colourful leather, and it flexed and moved quite well with her body in motion (and boy, did she get a range of motion!). The Amazons of Themyscira, absent of the male gaze, absolutely did practice the art of fighting in skimpy clothing, and wore makeup – some of them, lots of makeup – but the camerawork rigidly avoided the male gaze. They emoted, they argued, they fought and they loved – the only part which irked was the total absence of body hair. But god, at least some of them weren't white! And her mother had WRINKLES and THIN SKIN AROUND HER COLLARBONE and SCARS. These are things I've never seen in a superhero film before.

The fights were excellent to my untrained eye. The clash between traditional and modern weaponry wasn't as viciously overwhelming as I've seen it in some iterations of the comics, but that was probably to the benefit of the film: the Amazons gained in perceived competence when they were able to use their weapons well even when appearing outgunned. This also allowed for the only obviously gay moment, meta aside – subtle enough to presumably get past censors worldwide, but still very clearly a moment between female lovers to any viewer who regards gay people as human. (Look! This is what happens when you let Heinburg write stuff! He's going to stick gay heroes in it and everyone's going to have a good time.)

Steve Trevor – Chris Pine, didn't know that until today – was pretty decently cast (my main issue being that he looked a bit All American to pass for a German soldier) and genuinely well acted. He swayed between wide-eyed innocence and awkward heroics brilliantly, clearly realising from the outset that he represented all of the wider world to Diana, and as such had a responsibility to her. Unlike the dryer DC films, the cinema where I watched, with a full house, was often shaking with laughter – unlike during the Marvel films I've watched, there wasn't one cheap shot. Instead, the humour came from actual wit, not quips – this was war, there wasn't any time for quipping. The wit was inferred by the audience. Here, a small sample: Diana sees Steve bathing. He is embarrassed and goes to cover himself, but not quickly enough. She stares for a while and asks him if he is considered to be an average member of his sex. His palpable despair at the nature of the question got perhaps the biggest laugh of the entire film (he bluffed that he was “considered an above-average specimen” initially, but that streak of toxic masculinity was soon knocked out of him).

Diana, meanwhile, was genuinely a good fit. Again, having seem promo shots, I was halfway to despair – she really does have a slight figure, and I don't think all the hard training in the world would bulk her up all that much. But oh, how she must have trained – she was no stuntwoman like some of the Amazon actors around her, but her muscles were clear and defined, and she carried a weight through the cinematography. A fall from on high would be met with a camera-shaking THUD into the ground. There were loving close-ups showing a lot of bicep when she hefted great weights above her head. Her thighs wobbled! Again, this shouldn't be news in 2017, but it hasn't happened yet in Marvel. Her accent was great – I presume it's her natural accent, and that the other Amazons were supposed to match to her? Unfortunately, some of them slipped into British English from time to time, to my well-trained ear, but it was really pleasing to hear a non-American American icon sounding... non-American. There was possibly a little unintentional humour to be taken from the fact that her key name 'Steve' didn't sound very natural to her tongue, and tended to come out more as 'Stieff,' but it was kind of sweet, the film didn't linger on it, and it wasn't really an issue. Her portrayal of Diana oozed charm and demanded respect. This was a young Diana, certainly – a Diana whose people are still keeping secrets from her, who wants to charge into battle and take the head of the enemy leader – when the battle is World War One – who believes extremely firmly in her gods even when her countrywomen might doubt – but whose groundings as a great leader are being found throughout the film. Gadot was utterly convincing as the ingénue who knows more than every man in the room put together. A balance was found with disarming ease in the script – she knows nearly every language and outfoxes the British government – but she genuinely doesn't see the point in trousers, and just about screeches with delight the first time she sees a baby.

On sex: my partner, who's ace-spec, said she felt a little alienated by the obvious inclusion of a sex scene. Me, I've read some Wonder Woman, and I think I would have been a bit insulted if there hadn't been any explicit attraction between Diana and Steve at all. In every iteration of the story, it's still the story: the first Man to the Island Of Women brings with him War, and the young Diana flees her mother's rule, falling for him and fighting for justice. I believe that the film could have managed without a sexual attraction between the characters, but I think it's a worthy nod to the history and a decent element of complexity for both characters, especially given the minor character reveal for Steve which takes place just as they're getting close to one another. The film isn't lost to slow gazes into each other's eyes – it's more clever than that; it uses small ideas to represent big ones. Sex is here because war is here. Glory is here but so is pain. And there are other joyful nods to her comic continuity: for those who it would really upset, I feel I must make it clear that her traditional origin story is here, but so is her New 52 origin. (I didn't have to dig to know about the conflict there - the Marvel fans heard DC readers screaming over that one). Despite my misgivings the moment it became clear that the film was going to Go There, it wasn't made into something which wouldn't work outside a feminist reading – more that Diana's people are more emotionally complex than she knows, that even the most loving of mothers can keep secrets. It didn't rankle, and I'd really thought it would. And Etta Candy was there! And the named villain she kept coming up against was Dr. Poison! Honestly, to my untrained eye they both seemed PERFECT. Etta was a fabulous blend of side-eying quirky realness, who got to throw out nice little jabs about corsetry and getting The Vote which kept us very firmly rooted in the time period. Dr. Poison was wide-eyed genius and vulnerability – the perfect locus for the film's musing on whether war is inevitable, whether humans are driven to destroy one another by their own ambition and pride. With incredibly few lines she gave a commanding performance. I won't go further into defining roles played by other actors, because there's a nice few surprises here and there – I'll say this: the casting is great, and some Marvel pitfalls of overly screen-perfect costuming and dehumanising armour were deftly avoided.

Where the film truly shone to me was in its intersectionality. I'm SURE they could have done more, they could always do more. But given that this was a Wonder Woman film, and that we were bound to get a pale Diana and Steve, it did so much within that! From the minister played by David Thewlis, who (without comment) walked with a cane, to Etta's charmingly full-figured portrayal – overlooked and overworked by Steve, a plot thread they didn't pull hard on, but which added depth to the characters and their social networks, and which felt very believable. Crowd shots were incredible for this: a sea of soldiers with white faces, and amongst them, near the centre of the shot, a black soldier, for this was England during the war, and not America, and our forces weren't explicitly segregated. His uniqueness in the image made him the focus, not the novelty. There were older women staffing the medical services, there were soldiers in tam o' shanters, there were even Canary Girls for one very distinct shot, and I had to tell my English girlfriend who they even were. And here's something I'm annoyed with Marvel for again – the ease with which this film handled everything, when Marvel can't even get Carol fucking Danvers on the screen after god knows how many box office crushing successes. I don't know if there's any version of Diana's origin story where she and Steve join forces with a ragtag group of international fighters, but my god, if this is how DC are going to handle characters who seem suspiciously like Marvel's Howling Commandos, they can fucking have them. It was great. It never touted American exceptionalism, and there were some fantastic callouts, like Diana trying to find out who destroyed the way of life of The Chief, played by Eugene Brave Rock, and finding, simply, that he could point to his sleeping ally, Steve, and say “his people.” Yes, yes, yes. Saïd Taghmaoui was outstanding as Sameer – the sort of person who flourishes in historical accounts and novels of the time, but who we never seem to get on screen – a highly educated man who manipulates and fleeces others, because he wanted to be an actor – but he was “the wrong colour.” Ewen Bremner – Spud, from Trainspotting, as Charlie, fell a little flatter for me – there was nothing inherently wrong with his portrayal, but speaking as a Brit, I think the world has enough cowardly drunken Scots characters, even if they're brimming with sadness and complexity in response to a world gone mad. DC Bombshells has a Steve Trevor who explicitly suffers from PTSD, rather than transferring trauma into a more minor character – probably this wouldn't have been something they could manage in a two-hour film, but it was a shame, and it was a little dehumanising, as he was the only Scottish character, even if he was totally believable. Steve certainly had his moments of vulnerability, which I very much appreciated, even so.

Cinematography-wise, I think the film fell into some familiar traps. There was an irritating amount of blue and orange, though it wasn't half so pronounced as other action films of the last decade, and there was a wonderful scene where the colour scheme was used as a fakeout and faded into glorious bright golds. Still, the hyper-colourful ending credits were a tantalising reminder of the richer, more fully-realised world we could have had. The sets, however, were fantastic, and felt grimly realistic throughout the war scenes. The single tiny point I thought seemed historically off to me turns out to be something I was wrong on – pebbledashing for the exterior of buildings, iconically used on 1930s homes in the UK, was actually used in the 1910s for outbuildings. There are probably costuming, accent or set design mistakes somewhere in the film – in a production of this scope, there always are – but I couldn't find them, not once.

Score was fine – it's not what I go to the cinema for, but it seemed like it was used well and in all the right places. A couple of bits were good enough that I briefly wondered if it could be Howard Shore – it wasn't, it seems to have been a bit designed by committee, which I suppose is par for the course with these things and why I liked Shore so much in the first place. The ending theme's composed by Florence Welch of Florence + The Machine, however, and performed by Sia! I have no idea if it was good – as always happens at my local cinema, they brought up the lights straight away and everyone started talking loudly.

Essentially, whether it's a perfect film and whether it will stand the test of time is a different question as to whether it's a good Wonder Woman film, which it absolutely is. Were the themes clever? I would say they were consistent, and not guilty of overreach. Wonder Woman is at its heart a narrative about whether humanity and civilization should be worth the time of a godlike figure from a paradise civilization, and, by association, for ourselves. It wasn't hammered home, if that's not your kind of thing, and it's handled better than your average war film. Was it improved by a screenplay written by a gay writer who usually handles the small screen, and who's written for comics in the past? My god, yes – and was it improved by its direction by a woman – Patty Jenkins – known for her work with intense female actors? Yes! Should you go and see it? If you like films or comics, it's definitely worth it.

[cookinguptales]

Wonder Woman (2017)

So I went to a prescreening of Wonder Woman last night and I had some thoughts. For the tl;dr types, I’ll just say that it’s a really, really fantastic superhero movie and one that I think we desperately need right now. It’s a little rough in spots, but I really think it’s one of the best superhero films I’ve seen in years. Perhaps ever.

That said, it’s a pretty emotionally grueling one to get through; the ultimate message is one of hope, but you sure go through some shit to get there. If the goal is some mindless fun, take that into account before you choose this film. Also, though this film is relatively progressive on issues such as race, sex, and sexuality, it was really pretty appalling re: disability. I’ll get into my reasons for saying that at the very end of this review, but I will warn you that I cannot talk about that without reference to Extreme Spoilers. So they’ll go under a spoiler heading a the end.

Quite long -- it’s really an extensive review and a mini-essay about ableism in the film -- so here’s a cut.

I will start this review out by saying I have never been the biggest fan of Wonder Woman. I don’t mean to say I didn’t like her. More that I just never felt a strong connection with her, as much as I wanted to. So I’m coming at this from the POV of someone who was familiar with Diana’s story but who wasn’t a megafan and as someone who wasn’t necessarily expecting to be blown away. That said, I totally was. I wasn’t expecting this to be a movie for me, specifically, but damn it all if it wasn’t the kind of message I needed right now.

To get the necessary out of the way, Diana is absolutely spectacular in this movie. Gal Gadot plays a Diana who is strong, fierce, and kind, with a raw intelligence that’s only tempered by her confusion towards humankind’s seemingly incomprehensible customs and cruelties. She’s beautiful as she learns and breathtaking as she fights and readers, I am now gay as hell for Wonder Woman. (I mean, I can’t say that she’ll make you gay, but if you, like me, are a wlw, this movie will be a treat.) Like, Wonder Woman is honestly a pretty difficult kind of character to pull off if you don’t believe in her intrinsically, but the creators of this movie clearly did. She is a woman who is unapologetically strong, unapologetically kind, and never demonized for her hope. She never, ever veered into corny. She said unbelievable things simply and with conviction and damn it, you believed her. More than any other superhero I’ve come into contact with (and I’ve come into contact with a lot), this Wonder Woman is here to give you strength.

So setting aside that I probably would’ve happily watched a movie that was just Wonder Woman being Wonder Woman for two hours, the plot of this movie was actually very strong. It’s going to get a lot of comparisons to Captain America: TFA, which I think is pretty inevitable, especially considering certain plot developments late in the film, but I sort of feel like WW wanted to do many of the same things CA did but in every aspect decided to go harder. It’s a war film, but it’s also a film about Diana learning about all of the tiny casual cruelties that accompany being human, and her trying to get her head around the sheer senselessness of that while retaining her hope. As opposed to CA:TFA and her first comic book appearances, this is a World War I movie -- chosen, I suspect, because it was a particularly senseless war that used particularly gruesome tactics. There is no one true enemy in WWI, a fact which Diana is forced to learn the hard way. It is, as Steve Trevor puts it, “messy”.

At any rate, the movie opens up in a very different world -- that of the Amazons. Despite having a very limited amount of time in which to do so, the film devises a society that provokes a sort of wistfulness in the watcher. Themyscira, for all its faults, is a beautiful society set in a paradise. Diana’s eventual choice to leave is inevitable, but watchers can keenly feel exactly what she is giving up when she does so. After being raised as the only child on an island full of wise and loving female warriors, only hearing of the world of Mankind through bedtime stories, Diana’s idyllic peace is shattered when Steve Trevor crash lands on the beach and brings WWI with him. He tells her of unspeakable bloodshed in a war that never ends, and she becomes convinced that this is the work of Ares, the god of war and the Amazons’ sworn enemy. So, of course, she defies orders and accompanies Steve to the human world to try and make things right. From there, she’s buffeted in a constant storm of politics, culture shock, and cruelty as she tries to make sense of a war that is much more than just fighting.

As Diana makes her way through Europe, she comes to realize that the human world was far more complicated than she’d initially thought; this wasn’t just a question of helping good Americans and British soldiers defeat the bad Germans. She encounters victims of sexism and racism and learns that bad blood absolutely permeates the human world. She initially attributes this to Ares’ influence, but is forced to confront the fact that things are perhaps much more complicated than that -- and that no nation in this war has clean hands.

In the end, WW becomes less of a war movie and more a question of human worthiness as a whole. Wonder Woman comes to humanity as a savior and a judge -- she sees all the beauties of our world, but is repulsed by the banality of our evil. In a world that for many of us feels increasingly bleak, marred by the constant cruelties and idiocies of those with power, her message that hope remains is so welcome. Does it really matter if anyone “deserves” to be saved? Or is it just the act of saving that’s so necessary to what we are?

The heart of the movie probably comes from the relationship between Diana and Steve Trevor, which fans of the comics likely won’t be surprised to hear. But Steve never defines Diana; he is her guide to the human world, but she doesn’t always like him. The two of them have fundamentally different ideas about war, peace, and the nature of the two. Diana wants to power her way through injustice through sheer force of will, while Steve is very willing to use more pragmatic and underhanded tactics to achieve victories for the greater good. Truthfully, both have some points to make, and both of them make each other better. It’s a romance (though, as fans realize early into the movie, one that cannot possibly have made it to the present day, 100 years later) but it’s also a meeting of two well-meaning minds. The relationship between them is refreshingly egalitarian -- and when Diana sees something she wants, she takes it. (Hell yeah, sex positivity.) In other words, Steve’s a good guy and a damn pretty face, but not a single character in this movie lets him forget that Diana’s the protagonist. lol

I’ve seen Wonder Woman described as “lighter” than the other DC movies, which to me seems bewildering. There are moments of levity in the film, and it definitely got a lot of laughs from our audience. And its ultimate message is one of hope. But good lord, the devastation you wade through to get there. WW takes a largely unflinching look at the horrors of war, and I think it’s only the fact that most of the nastiest violence takes place offscreen that saved this movie from getting an R. Diana sees dead men, women, and children. She sees the wounded. She gets a look at the horrors of PTSD. She realizes that for many, war means no longer having the choice about whether to get your hands dirty. Her cast of characters, from Etta Candy to Steve Trevor to the little band of misfits that Trevor picks up to help them with their goals, is lovable. But all of them have seen horrors just like she has, and many of them weren’t endeared to the world even before it went up in flames. It can, at times, be a very, very hard movie to watch.

All that said, I found the movie to be profoundly moving and something that I dearly needed in these trying times. I came out thinking, somewhat bewildered, that it was probably simultaneously the darkest and most hopeful superhero movie I’d ever seen. Because really, Wonder Woman is the story of a goddess coming to visit our world and seeing every last bit of evil we have to bestow upon each other -- and loving us anyway. She sees how casually cruel, how absolutely awful we can be, and still has faith that we will make things right in the end. And she’ll help us do it. She will just tirelessly fight to make sure we don’t entirely lose our way. And god, do we need it.

I would 100% recommend Wonder Woman (if you’re in the right frame of mind to watch it) and I really, really think this is a movie you should be supporting. This movie proves that excellent female-led action/superhero movies can exist, and it’d be great if we could all make sure the studios know that. It’s progressive in a lot of ways, though it certainly stumbles occasionally, and I think that’s also something to support with your wallet.

BUT. WITH ALL THAT IN MIND. Holy shit, that movie had problems with disability, and I wouldn’t feel wholly honest without delving into that a little bit. But I cannot fully talk about it without some spoilers, so like!! Proceed at your own risk.

SPOILERS!

So here’s the thing. One thing that’s very frustrating in period films is the total lack of the PWD (people with disabilities) who existed at the time. Like damn, they had horrific wars, polio, plagues, and very poor medical technology! You better believe there were PWD walking (or rolling) around, populating society back then. But I’ve come to terms with the fact that most Hollywood movies aren’t going to depict that. This isn’t about that. But it’s a concept that worsens what I’m about to say.

The fact of the matter is that there are really only two big characters with a visible physical disability in Wonder Woman, and they’re both fucking monsters. Wonder Woman doesn’t show that only bad people are wounded, but the people who Diana sees being carted off the battlefield with limbs missing and eyes gone dead are never named and never spoken of again. They are the Unnamed Wounded, and they’re as good as dead. Just victims to feel bad about. Which wouldn’t necessarily bother me -- except again, the only characters we actually see living while disabled are absolutely fucking EVIL.

The first character is Doctor Maru, the poisons expert working for the German military. Now, Maru is based on Doctor Poison, which is a character with a bit of an iffy background in comics; she was originally a WWII-era Japanese villain, and -- I mean, god, you see where I’m going with this. She was reimagined as a white villain in the New 52, which was mimicked in the movie. But instead of using race as a signifier for evil, Wonder Woman now uses disability. Maru has extensive facial scarring that is never explained (and is not present in the comics) but was likely a result of her experimentation. She wears a sort of facial prosthetic to disguise this, and it doesn’t really seem to have much of a point other than making her “creepy”. Later in the film, her evil personality (she is shown to be one of the few characters that takes actual sadistic pleasure in torturing and killing people) is linked explicitly with her facial scarring. Another character forcibly rips off her prosthetic (nooooo), exposing her scarring to a horrified Diana (nooooo) and says to “just look at her”, that’s she’s a perfect example of how rotten and corrupted humanity really is. (NOOOOO.) And Diana doesn’t join up with that person, but she doesn’t disagree with this characterization of Maru, either. She loves humanity despite people like Maru, and that’s made exceptionally clear in this scene. And the fact that, in this pivotal scene, Maru’s villainy is explicitly linked to her facial scarring (her disabled outside is a reflection of her distorted inside) without anyone questioning that statement... God, do I even have to go into why that’s fucked up?

The other character -- AND MAJOR SPOILERS HERE -- is Sir Patrick Morgan, who is the mild-mannered member of the cabinet who helps Diana and her cadre from afar. Oh yeah, also he’s actually Ares, the god bent on destroying literally all of humanity. Ares seems to lose the cane and the limp when he’s in full-on god mode, which seems to mean that the disabled persona was just an affectation -- in other words, the only other disabled character in this movie was just faking their disability (nooo) in order to seem weak and unassuming (nooooooo) but is actually a tricksy bastard fooling everyone (jfc no) and HE IS ALSO GENOCIDAL. Ares isn’t actually a bad character, but jfc. Those tropes to lean on! Why!

Like if there’s one message to take from this movie re: disabled people, it’s “don’t trust them”. And as much as I think this movie isn’t child-appropriate anyway, jfc, what a message to throw into a movie. Not only were the period-appropriate disabled people virtually erased, they were replaced with absolute monsters whose disabilities were either explicitly linked with their shitty personalities or sneaky villains whose heel-face-turns rest on notions of disabled duplicity and weakness. (If you’ve never been accused of faking your disability for accommodations or assistance, you... are a very lucky PWD.)

Wonder Woman takes such pains to be progressive on so many levels that it only seems to make this portrayal of PWD sting even more. It truly feels like we have been framed as the last acceptable target, and that we again have been relegated to the outskirts of social justice rhetoric. And so though I loved 90% of the film, I really do have to offer this caveat: jesus fucking christ, WW, do better with disabled people.

[transstudiesarchive]

Radclyffe Hall and Gender Expression in Fiction

Radclyffe Hall was a writer born in 1880. She was born in England and lived there until she died. For the majority of her life, Hall lived in London, but she spent many years in Rye, East Sussex. Rye is a small town famous for the numerous authors that lived or spent time there, many of whom such as Edith Wharton, H.G. Wells, Henry James, and E. F. Benson were Hall’s contemporaries. Hall described herself as a “congenital invert” which was a term coined by late 19th century sexologists. It emphasizes binary gender roles in its definition of homosexuality, describing a gay man or woman as someone who was internally the ‘opposite’ of the gender they were assigned at birth. This understanding of homosexuality contains elements of gender diversity, which at the time was not conceptualized as a separate aspect of one’s identity. Because of the limited understanding and lack of access to language when describing queerness and gender identity, it is virtually impossible to determine where Hall fell in these intersections. She went by the name “John” for much of her life, but only ever identified as an “invert.” It is important to understand the context for how historical figures identified, we do not know Hall’s gender identity, because in the late 19th century her conception of gender was completely different from ours.

Hall wrote poetry as well as short stories and several full-length novels. She was a rather prolific writer, publishing 15 works in less than 30 years. Her short story “Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself” was published in the middle of her career, in 1926. This was two years before the publishing of her most famous novel The Well of Loneliness. These two works are often discussed in tandem because they are credited as her two works that most explicitly transgress gender binaries and rigid heteronormative expectations. The Well of Loneliness was banned soon after its publication because of the radical way it depicted queer people and their love. Hall’s writing was groundbreaking not only because it was unashamedly open and clear about queer content, but also because she did not depict her queer characters as being at fault because of their identity. She did not condemn her characters, and because of this, her work remained banned until after her death. 

“Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself” Tells the story of Miss Ogilvy, a person who never fit in with her peers, and did not get along with her family. She insisted as a child that her real name was William and not Wilhemina, and had no interest in the feminine socializing her mother attempted to force her into. She only wears pants, and always keeps her hands deep in her pockets. The story moves forward, and Miss Ogilvy is now in her fifties and unhappily living with her two sisters when they learn that England had joined WWI. In reaction to the news, Miss Ogilvy tells her sisters “‘If only I had been born a man!’ Something in her was feeling deeply defrauded.” (Hall 10). She is able to enlist as a nurse and serving in the war allowed Miss Ogilvy to feel free and powerful for the first time in her life. She goes back to England but feels restless and misses the freedom and comradery she experienced with her unit serving in France. She decides to take a trip to a small little known island south of England. Here, the story takes on magical realism elements. When Miss Ogilvy arrives at the island, she learns that the town has uncovered the gravesite and remains of a Bronze Age warrior. Miss Ogilvy feels inexplicably upset by seeing the artifacts. She goes for a walk that night and imagines herself as the Bronze Age warrior. The writing shifts and Miss Ogilvy becomes identified with masculine pronouns. He is a tall, strong, man dressed in pelts. He has a wife and spends the day exploring the land with her and discussing their love. The story then abruptly changes the tone, and explains that Miss Ogilvy was found dead in a cave near the ocean, “with her hands thrust deep into her pockets” (Hall 34).

“Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself” is a complicated short story. Miss Ogilvy is in almost constant movement throughout the story, her mind races and her thoughts jerk, she is fidgeting or rocking on her feet in most scenes. On top of that, she is moving geographically as well, in thirty pages she goes to several different places in England as well as spending time in France. Miss Ogilvy is constantly traveling and is constantly searching for something. She thought she had found it in France, but her unit was disbanded and she was forced to say goodbye to the only group she had ever felt comfortable around. When she travels to the island, she becomes the warrior, and finally finds peace and happiness with his wife. The story ends with her death, hands still deep in her pockets. This is an important image, it comes up several times throughout the story. It can be read as a metaphor for restraint. When one has their hands in their pockets, they are not able to move as freely, they cannot reach out or touch others. It is also a rather masculine stance, especially at this time. Women were expected to wear dresses and skirts, Miss Ogilvy is continually coded with masculine traits, but is also forever restrained. The magical realism elements in the story temper the tragedy of her death. Her body was found with her hands in her pockets, a final image of confinement. But as the warrior, Miss Ogilvy was able to embody the life he had always dreamed of; he was able to play and gesture, he touched his wife and his own face and body. Miss Ogilvy found herself in this fantasy and discovered a peace that she was unable to realize in her domestic life. Hall wrote him a world where he was able to experience joy and love, even temporarily. 

Works Cited

Doan, Laura. “'Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself': The Queer Navigational Systems of Radclyffe Hall.” English Language Notes, vol. 45, no. 2, 2007, pp. 9–22.

Hoad, Neville. “English Literary Sexology: Translations of Inversion, 1860-1930.” Victorian Studies, 2010, pp. 657–658,693.

“Lambs House, Henry James and E F Benson” Rye Castle Museum. https://ryemuseum.co.uk/lambs-house-henry-james-and-e-f-benson/ 

Accessed 6 December 2019

“Radclyffe Hall” Encyclopedia Britannica. 3 October 2019. Web.