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cupcakewebkinz · 3 months ago

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You know, I was thinking about an idea I had then realized just how angsty it would be on one side and how much fluff it would be on the other and I'm curious about other people's ideas too ngl

So like, I was toying around with the idea of Shanon coming back to Gardenview and snatching up the loser lesbians and bringing them home with her to save from... Whatever happened. Shanon has no idea, she was never allowed to know, so she just has two VERY traumatized toons now. She'll know how to keep Shelly entertained and happy, she was ALWAYS with Shelly, but I highly doubt she'd know how to keep Vee in check at all.

Vee would probably quickly spiral into a mental crisis about it too, as now everything has been destroyed in her eyes. Nobody remembers her gameshows because they ended years ago, nobody remembers her because Gardenview closed years ago, nobody's interested in learning about her as she's outdated technology to them now. She'd be alone, only able to quiz Shelly now, but she's heard all her questions and knows all the answers by now. She'd probably start self isolating because she just doesn't know what to do with herself, lashing out at Shanon because she genuinely doesn't understand why people aren't fans of her anymore and wants to blame someone except herself. She would be such a wreck and probably have major beef with any new technology Shanon brings home because it replaced her in her mind. Vee is now just... Vee. She's not a celebrity any more, she's not loved by anyone except the toon handler who took her in and her now popular dinosaur girlfriend, and she would not have a clue what to do about it.

Shelly would most likely have the opposite problem, she looks like a living toon just wandering around like she's a common sight to see - of course people would notice! Kids would ask her about fossils and she'd happily tell them all about what she is and their minds would be blown by how much she knows, she'd probably be asked to play by kids who think she looks really neat and be dragged to the sandbox to 'fossil hunt' whenever Shanon takes them to the park. Shanon very much would hide plastic fossils in there too just to see Shelly smile, like she used to before her museum shut down. She'd be such an interesting sight to see that she'd get stared at, often asked what she actually is, and probably would be the talk of the town for a while. Eventually everyone would know that Shelly is just there to have fun, don't bother her too much, but at first everyone would be so shocked by a living breathing toon they'd swarm the poor thing! I'm sure Shelly would be just a little irritated by the constant unwarranted attention and stares, but so happy she's no longer forgotten.

Their roles would reverse is what I'm getting at here. It gives so much Vee angst to work with and Shelly comfort... I am brainrotting over this idea if that's not obvious

#kai rambles #quite a lot #bonus points if Vee starts like self sabotaging on accident because she's trying too hard to get comfort #like scratching paint off her body because she used to love when Shelly would give her scritches but does it too hard on accident #or pulling her antennae too hard that they break off and Shanon comes home from work to see her leaking ichor everywhere #I might seriously make this an au I just have so many ideas of the kinds of shenanigans that would happen-#with Shanon snatching up her goblins and trying to teach them how to exist outside of Gardenview without them both exploding or something #god the thought of Shelly being the one trying to include Vee in everything just hit me #Shelly would absolutely try to make people pay attention to Vee again and drag her into fossil hunting with her but Vee would always find a #reason not to do it; like lying about how sand would scratch up her monitor horribly or saying that a kid has water on them when they don't #but in reality Vee just doesn't believe she's worth it anymore and thinks everyone just tolerates her for Shelly's sake #and Shelly is slowly coming to terms with the fact that her robot gf has severe depression and can't do much to help #ghghghgh more angst #kais original post #shellevision #so many thoughts #so little time to write #I'll probably add more later I'm so brainrotting over this so much #Caretaker Shanon au #THE POST THE AU WAS MADE IN LES GO HAH #FINALLY FOUND IT AGAIN #gonna try to tag the rest of em now blegh

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py-dreamer · 8 months ago

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Wild Robot LMK au

The Wild Robot but Lego Monkie kid.

The Wild Robot but Wukong is this giant stone golem created by Nuwa meant to be a heavenly guard or a weapon for the heavens.

The Wild Robot but stone Wukong before awakening falls to earth onto Flower fruit mountain and his main function is to protect. He spends his first waking hours trying to protect animals who find him weird, call him a monster, say he's keeping them captive and ripping him apart as he is prone to attack anything he perceives as a threat while trying to find something to protect.

The Wild Robot but in trying to climb a tree, Wukong unknowingly breaks a branch a monkey mother and her cubs were sleeping on, killing all but the runt of the family whom Wukong saves and is about to leave alone until the cub wakes up, calling the simian his father and imprinting on him.

The Wild Robot but Wukong finds a newfound purpose to protect this runt. But soon winter will come and the monkeys will need to climb to the highest peaks of the mountain to stay warm while the rest stay on the ground and now he needs to find a way to teach this cub to climb.

The Wild Robot but Wukong finds Macaque, a solitude loner who wants nothing to do with the odd duo until he finds he can exchange his intellect for protection from everything trying to kill him on the island.

The Wild Robot but slowly, it seems that the odd trio form a bond and the cub grows from a runt to a young adolescent who's an oddball from the rest but is compassionate and cares for his strange fathers nonetheless. Wukong at first finds the cub delicate, almost impossible to take care off but slowly adapts and finds little rewards in that.

The Wild Robot but Wukong at first gives the child a long lengthy title filled with grand promises of power and strength that he's known from protocol in how the celestials were named but comes to call the boy Xiaotian given that he fell from the sky.

The Wild Robot but every animal on the mountain looks down in disdain at the weird family except for a couple while Macaque fiercely doubles down to defend his family's friends' honor as the stone golem looks in confusion and disappointment.

The Wild Robot but as time passes the golem's body wears down, rough jagged edges meant to strike fear smooth down and are covered in wear, tear and moss while their home grows with even more mini paintings illustrating Xiaotian's growth.

The Wild Robot but the boy is no longer a boy and learns the truth of his family. He grows distant from his parents Wukong but the golem persists to help his son the cub regardless of his comparatively small size and weak arms to prepare him for the big climb.

The Wild Robot but during winter after Xiaotian and the rest of the monkeys leave, Macaque stays with Wukong and they gather the rest of the animals on the base of the mountain into their den to hibernate until spring. There they hold a truce and sleep in peace.

The Wild Robot but Xiaotian grows into his own, becoming the leader of the monkeys having a new perspective and other advantages the other simians don't have and comes down in spring to apologize to Wukong. That he realizes that by killing the rest of Xiaotian's birth family, he most likely saved him from being killed for being the runt.

The Wild Robot but heaven come back to retrieve their weapon but the animals defend their friendly giant and work together to prevent the destruction caused by the celestials from spreading.

The Wild Robot but Wukong gets captured anyway to study for how he'd changed protocol but Xiaotian learns from his dad the simian and climbs the clouds to infiltrate heaven to rescue him.

The Wild Robot but Xiaotian finds Wukong almost dead but after confessing how he misses his father, Wukong recognizes his son's voice and comes back. Together, the two leap from the heavens with Wukong holding his boy close to his chest, tucking him in like when he was small enough to fit in the golem's hand and shielding him from the impact and landing back on Flower fruit mountain to reunite with Macaque and complete their family.

(Can you tell I watched the Wild Robot recently?)

(also damn, I just basically made Monkey king reborn)

@furornocturna @furornocturna pssstttt I made another impromptu thingy. probably won't turn into anything though

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sankatsuka · 1 year ago

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Gintoki Sakata Discussion: Takasugi's Influence on Gintoki - What it Means to Truly Protect Your Soul

This is DEFINITELY overthinking it and stretching it beyond canon, but nevertheless I wanted to share my recent thoughts... Spoilers for the entire story, of course. Also, warning for Takagin/Gintaka.

Edit 22/2/2024 (marked with *): Small section added for more evidence on how Gintoki was never a naturally straightforward person.

Maybe it was Takasugi who ironically inspired Gintoki to be who he is today: the man who never gives up, even if he's beaten down and everything seems hopeless - he will stand back up and protect everyone and everything around him. Just like how Takasugi senselessly was as a dojo challenger.

When Gintoki was younger, he was never like this. He was just fighting for his survival. When Gintoki first meets Shouyou, Shouyou points out how Gintoki was just wielding the sword to protect himself in a harsh, bloody environment.

This is why Gintoki doesn't give up when sparring Shouyou. He needs to be as strong as possible to keep protecting himself. Gintoki brings up how he has never lost to an adult - as if he wants to beat Shouyou simply so he can never lose ever again (so he wouldn't end up dying).

And then, Shouyou mentions how monsters are something born from a bloodstained karma. Gintoki is naturally drawn to bloodshed and death, because losing meant death in the environment he used to grow up in. So he needs to be strong and be capable of killing others so he can survive in such a place. You can just see it in the fear in Gintoki as a child standing on a pile of corpses.

(It's probably why Gintoki carries his sword around with him everywhere as a child, too. So he feels safe at all times.)

This all goes to show how Gintoki would have never had anything he would want to fight for as a child. He would just fight to be with Shouyou who was the only one he could trust or to protect himself. That's why this personality to want to protect everything within his sword's reach was definitely never innate.

Then comes Takasugi, whose Gintoki's first impression of is an irrational kid who would challenge a poor temple school with no actual reason other than wanting to win. You can see how Gintoki is clearly confused by him.

And even after losing many times, he just wouldn't give up on coming back. Gintoki even tells him to give up - he had no reason to keep getting hurt and beat up like that. It wasn't like he had to fight for his survival like Gintoki, he was clearly a privileged kid.

It is only when Takasugi wins and laughs that Gintoki no longer expresses this confusion and disagreement with Takasugi's actions. It's shown in how Gintoki suddenly tells Takasugi to come back, when Gintoki had initially told him to give up.

As if Takasugi's and everyone's smile and laughter after all that ridiculous irrationality made Gintoki realize something that made him change his mind.

Gintoki had a glimpse of Takasugi's way of living - to fight to the very end and keep getting back up for what you want, even if it was silly and stupid. In the end, you'll be rewarded with your own laughter and the people around you laughing along to your sincere, honest spirit.

It was a pointless, dumb way of living, but everyone was still laughing like that and happy. So maybe there was actually some worth in living dumbly and straightforwardly like that.

This may even be why Takasugi's laughter always stuck with Gintoki, even as he cut him down. Because it defined his life - that you should live by facing the present - just as much as Shouyou's words to use a sword to protect your soul stuck to him.

It was Shouyou who first taught Gintoki that what you truly want to do couldn't be the desperate instincts driving you, but rather something deeper down that should feel genuine - the soul. Then it was Takasugi who came along who seemed to demonstrate what living as your soul really was like - to do what you felt like doing in the moment, no matter what the people around you would say.

Even Shouyou encouraging Takasugi's pursuit suggests how this was Gintoki's lifelong answer. And only Takasugi could have demonstrated it best for Gintoki to imitate (instead of imitating Shouyou, as Shouyou had warned him against).

It truly feels like Takasugi is the humanity Shoka Sonjuku cultivated (Katsura did already know what he wanted, after all).

Takasugi's straightforwardness could have inspired Gintoki to tap into his own dull feelings deep down that he carries as he lives his everyday life. If those simple feelings for Takasugi were to grow stronger, then could there be such a thing for Gintoki too? Instead of being drawn to the joy of beating someone stronger than him, Gintoki could realize he seems more inclined to just living for some reason--

Even with no ambitions, he was still fine with just sitting around doing nothing. No matter how mundane, monotous and boring his everyday was without the excitement of a dream, Gintoki was still living for some reason. Maybe his joy in life was right there then--

--It was people. We see throughout the story that Gintoki is solely motivated to fight for the people around him.

Gintoki's actions have always, always been motivated by a desire to protect the people around him. He loves them: simply seeing them laugh when they want, cry when they want and fight to live as their truest selves. So isn't it fine for him to just want to fight for something as simple as that? Just like how Takasugi only fought for the petty reason of growing stronger.

This could be why Gintoki can now confidently say that he just loves the world as it is, even despite all the tragedies that's happened in it that made him suffer.

Not only did Takasugi potentially inspire Gintoki's present way of life, but Takasugi may even be the embodiment of what Gintoki found himself loving most about the world - that imperfect humanity of simply living, chasing what you want, getting lost, failing and suffering, but celebrating those small victories when you finally get there and laughing with everyone. This soul is what Gintoki always wants to protect within Edo, too.

After all, the mundane moments they shared in Shoka Sonjuku and Takasugi's laughter are the only things running in Gintoki's head as he resolves himself to cut Utsuro-Takasugi down. Gintoki truly loved them all.

If this wasn't the case, Gintoki would have never told Takasugi to come back. If Gintoki's motivations was never just the joy of seeing people be themselves, he would have set out and pursued whatever his soul wanted from being inspired by Takasugi's straightforwardness. He wanted to see Takasugi again, because he wanted to see that sincere, straightforward soul once again.

It could be why Gintoki is the one who disagrees with the way Takasugi does things in the present more than anyone.

If it was Takasugi who taught him that happiness of being sincere and straightforward with chasing what you wanted, and given that same spirit was exactly what Gintoki realized he loved most and wanted to protect - Gintoki would fight with all his heart for Takasugi to be that person Gintoki loved again.

It's also a nice touch that Gintoki says "I, the you who is me" when declaring he would never give up to Takasugi, as if implying how Gintoki took that lesson of straightforwardly never giving up from Takasugi himself.

Just as much as Gintoki's acceptance of Takasugi helped him, Takasugi's straightforward passion helped Gintoki just as equally.

*More evidence that Gintoki was never the person he is now is what he chooses to do after the war. Unlike Katsura and Takasugi who went off to pursue their goals, Gintoki's first instinct was to wander around and detach himself from people out of fear of losing people again. Gintoki seems to be more naturally a coward, and only when he lets people in does he find the courage to once again embrace the straightforwardness that Takasugi demonstrated.

After the events of the story that help Takasugi come to terms with himself, Takasugi's straightforwardness is later emphasized as his strong point that resonates with people. It wouldn't be a surprise then if he was the natural source of this straightforwardness in Gintoki, especially when the latter has always been defined as an empty person.

Takasugi and Gintoki are opposites who complete each other, to the point that even outsiders who only briefly meet them together no longer cared about how one of them was a terrorist. One way of seeing it is Takasugi represents the strong, unrelenting humanity that Gintoki realized he loved and wanted to live for, and Gintoki represents the impossibly white soul that the outcast Takasugi found as a place to belong to.

It was important for them to find each other: for Gintoki to realize he wasn't empty and was always capable of emotions, and for Takasugi to realize he wasn't wrong for who he was which the world made him feel.

It's why their life-defining events most often involve the other: Takasugi's laughter was a pivotal point in Gintoki's life where he finally grasped a real reason to fight in his empty everyday, while Gintoki's tears was a pivotal point in Takasugi's life which forced Takasugi to face his biggest enemy: himself.

Ironically enough, their ways of living now could even be said to be a a reflection of their love for each other: Gintoki facing the present because he loved that part of Takasugi and wants to be in the present with him, and Takasugi facing the past to feel closer to Gintoki who is obviously incomplete without the emotions of his past.

Naturally, there is no present without the past, and it feels like Takasugi decided to live in the past to represent it for Gintoki (but probably more because he's too scared to face the present because of his self-hatred and blame, but to be fair Gintoki is afraid of facing the past too even though he should). It's why I liked that the story ended strongly with Takasugi's death, because its impact really conveyed how there was someone who was always chasing Gintoki's entirety - he definitely had a place in someone's heart. He would still be loved no matter what, even if he always felt he was a monster different from others for how he grew up and thus would never properly have a place to belong.

You can see I really, really love Takasugi... From inference and parallels alone, Takasugi has always demonstrated so much importance to the narrative, but it's never laid out beyond how he's the one who lost himself and now has to redeem himself.

Gintama feels like a story about the two of them, not just Gintoki. Especially if Takasugi was the one who originated Gintoki's straightforward way of living, and given how Takasugi seems to literally be the human sword Shouyou prophecized to cut down Utsuro in the end.

It's really because Gintoki avoids thinking about the past and Takasugi hates himself for his emotions that we have to infer how much these two affected each other... But I do enjoy things not being shoved in my face, the avoidance really makes it a lot more emotional.

#gintama #gintoki sakata #sakata gintoki #shinsuke takasugi #takasugi shinsuke #takagin #gintaka #lmao the way writing this made me realize i completely misinterpreted a line and had a very very wrong idea of gintoki from there #i thought shouyou was the only one who made him the way he is today and that's why i misinterpreted gintoki's character #the scene of takasugi laughing feels so so important to understanding gintoki's character i swear #gintoki felt like a robot who was sticking to shouyou's teachings until he got somewhere before this #but now he feels like a loving person with a cruel isolating past who's just trying his best to be happy

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fatestitcherr · 1 year ago

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just listened to teaching a robot to love…… holy shit i’m going insane /pos

here’s one of his final songs

let zach reino play more villains challenge

#zach reino #teaching a robot to love #off book #Spotify

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girlwiththegreenhat · 10 months ago

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hey when they wrote "knight behind bars" and they wrote kitt helping a couple get together and they gave him the line "Some day, it will be my turn" [to find love]. did they know what they were doing. did they know that in some 40 years some gay autistic robot-obsessed little freak on tumblr would not stop thinking about it for weeks and write literal dozens of paragraphs screaming about it on discord. did they know they were going to ruin Me, Specifically, with this concept that feels like the culmination of everything kitt has gone through through the show and such a fascinating thing to think about in regards to michael and kitt's relationship,

one of the themes of knight rider is kitt developing as a Person, developing a line between the Knight Industries Two-Thousand, and Kitt. discovering humanity, his own emotions, the joys of the seemingly and logically pointless, and often through the lens of his own driver, his partner, his friend, Michael - his primary guide through all these experiences, his reference for those human things he doesn't understand. and as much as he initially claims to not be capable of experiencing emotions, of understanding feelings, he learns to. he experiences a wide range of emotions through the show even while claiming he doesn't, he even learns fear and insecurity. perhaps it's only natural a robot would learn to love, or at the very least be terribly curious about it and wonder if such a thing could ever exist for Him

the majority of people are not exactly kind to kitt. they talk about him like he's not there, they talk about him like he's a machine, a novelty, some people are even scared of or disturbed by him when all he's trying to do is make polite conversation and company. he's always Othered - there's no other cars like him (at least not anymore), but there's no other person like him either, he doesn't truly belong among humans or vehicles. some of the technicians at FLAG don't even seem to fully respect him as a person, at least they don't based on my vague recollection of how they talk about him in Junkyard Dog. when Michael asks him after KARR is destroyed if it feels good to be one of a kind again, he doesn't say yes or no - he only says it's a "familiar feeling." it may be familiar, but it's surely also isolating, and i think that's something he'd realize as he slowly picks up this curiosity about love. where could he even find it when so few people see him as an equal person to begin with?

and then there's michael. oh my god, and then there's michael. no matter what flavor you choose to read it in, the whole show is about their relationship, they're a duo, a set Not to be separated, they're Partners. they work together, they worry about and look after each other (forever insane about when kitt was a melted shell, Michael stuck around the garage for hours, waiting for any news like a worried spouse, constantly checking on him every opportunity he got... encouraging him to recover, and even helping paint back on his protective coating... kitt always looks after michael, but for once, it's michael's turn to look after Him), in a way they were Made for each other - Kitt more literally, being programmed for Michael and holding his namesake, but Michael was also made in a sense for the pilot program, hand picked and given a second life to work for the foundation and with this strange supercar. and even if they had a rocky start, michael comes to view kitt as a person - car, TV set, or computer core, Kitt is his partner, his buddy. he helps him find himself, guides him and teaches him about these things that make us human, and in a way, kitt becomes human - but his entire experience is still through the perspective of an AI in a car, it's still very unique and isolating, and I think he sort of grows into his own limitations, he's finally brushing against the walls that define him.

he learns of love, and then he learns to dream Of love. these things he sees in the movies, that michael tells him about, that he so often sees michael Partaking in that he gets so oddly jealous of, doesn't it all seem so wonderful? he's very curious. but who could ever love steel and circuitry, who could ever see him as an equal let alone a partner in a romantic sense? who would ever love a car and all the limitations That comes with? it's a problem for a hypothetical hopeful Some Day, in the meantime stuck between two worlds where he doesn't perfectly belong to either, where no car Can love him and no human seemingly Would love him...

and michael loves him anyway. before either of them really realize or talk about it, in spite of everything, in any form, regardless of the fact it wouldn't be a typical relationship by absolutely any means, michael loves him anyway. kitt is as much a person to him as bonnie or devon or RC, and that person is someone he loves and cares for deeply. the feeling is mutual, kitt's world revolves around michael, he's one of the most important people in kitt's life, and he'd do anything to protect him.

and it is michael that will finally teach him to love, and what it means to feel loved in turn, to be loved as the person he undoubtedly is.

#liz blogs #kr #knight rider #michael knight #kitt #robots #gay #this isnt writing. its rambling. its very insane rambling.#WHAT is the ship tag. i dont even know. fuck it we ball #michael x kitt #sure #knight rider spoilers #i saw someone make up a really good one but i cant remember what it was-- oh my god was it MK2000. was it. was that iT-#mk2000 #retroactively gonna go tag all the fruity posts with that i dont care #do not even get me started on michael learning to love for the first time in This lifetime. ... literally dont get me started i havent seen #the last stevie episode yet. thats next weeks crying fit. but i feel like that's a piece i need #but stevie was michael Long's girl. part of His life. michael Knight can't go back to that. and maybe he Shouldn't #listen. its about michael teaching kitt to love. and kitt Letting him learn to love Again. something real besides his weekend flings #i need a lobotomyyyyyyy i need an ice pick to the brain i need to stop being completely fucking insane about robots #IF BEING INSANE ABOUT FICTIONAL ROBOTS WAS A JOB I WOULD BE A MILLIONAIRE #anyway michael is bisexual and a dashboard smoocher thanks for coming to my ted talk #homosexuality is rampant in the military jerry. thats a bisexual if ever i saw one. have you seen the way he dresses. he calls his car baby #if you dont watch knight rider and you read this i'm sorry i must look deranged #this ship is queer flavored even besides the fact its two guys. there's like four levels of queer flavoring in this bitch

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probably-a-muppet · 4 months ago

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Robots, Dolls, and Stars

Teaching a Robot to Love is a 2022 speculative queer musical by Laser Webber about how being nonbinary is kinda like being a robot. That’s a gross over simplification. Marsh (knock-off Alexa) is an AI built by Advernado (knock-off Amazon) to predict costumers’ needs so that it can recommend them products to by. But when one of it’s lesbian creators does a bit too good of a job, Marsh gains sentience and determines that the only real way to meet people’s needs is to tear down the capitalist society. Advernado throws out Marsh and it’s creator. The rest of the story is largely about Marsh exploring its own identity and exploring a human body given to it by the aforementioned lesbian.

It’s a very treacle story, but it adequately explores the struggle of finding identity under a capitalist system that wants to reduce you and your friends to either products or consumers or both, and how friendship, community, and giving people room to grow will lead us to a better future. It’s a nice message and the show definitely encapsulates parts of the queer experience, whether that's frustration with loved ones who can’t see how being yourself completely makes you happy, the joy of meeting someone who gets you and who truly values you outside of a romance, or the struggle of wanting to do mad science on a woman because of your unrequited crush. We’ve all been there. And at the center of it all is Marsh, this robot that simply is trans, there’s no other way to put it. They express the pain of being a formless AI as dysphoria, the joy of having a body that fits them as euphoria. Perhaps the point then is more that being a robot is kinda like being nonbinary, existing outside the expectations and having a form that others don’t understand, a form that is not “natural”, a form that-

The Clockmaker’s Daughter is a 2015 musical by Michael Webborn and Daniel Finn about how being a tranny is kinda like being a robot. This is not a gross over simplification. The Clockmaker’s Daughter centers around Constance, a woman made of gears and cogs, a clockwork automata created by her father in his grief over loosing his wife in childbirth. Throughout the show it is repeatedly stated that if people knew what Constance was, they’d hate her, but despite this Constance keeps trying to put herself out into the world, to have a story of her own. And along the way she finds love. A love that betrays her as soon as he realizes what she is, and who’s mother organizes a mob to kill her.

Underlying all this is a show obsessed with change. With the tension between the all too human needs for both stability and consistency and change and growth, with the show positing that to be a clock is to be constant, never changing, reliable but never living. And Constance is caught in this tangle, made of clockwork, made to be a fixed thing, but alive through some inconceivable science, a quirk in the machinery, able to be both constant and alive. At the end of the show constancy wins. Constance willing surrenders an angry mob, accepting that she is clockwork, that she is indeed the monster they see, and for her crime of existing differently she is shot dead.

Like Marsh after her, Constance is simply trans, she’s a woman who others fear because of the accident of her birth, another character actually points this out when she gives the love interest the pep talk he needs to stop viewing Constance as a traitorous bitch tranny. I should say, the play doesn’t acknowledge this. This is the subtext of the show. The writers seemingly looked at the Frankenstein story and said “hey, isn’t it a little fucked up that everyone hated him for the accident of his birth?”, and then made Adam out of cogs, and into a woman and added a lot of stuff about dresses and how wardrobe is a form of expression. Marsh too was a form of Frankenstein, but their writer was much more interested with the mad science elements than the hate mobs.

Constance’s sacrifice in the end fascinates me. Because there is something so powerful to it, a form of radical queer acceptance to going “fine I am the other that you hate, because you and those like you are hateful and I no longer want to be like you” but at the same time everything else in the story is saying this is a bad move, that she’ll be stuck, unchanging, unmoving, unliving. And perhaps this is just because everyone else in the narrative hates to see a girlboss winning, but it troubles me. Is this the only way to be, as a trans woman? To exist at the periphery? Stuck there in a state most wouldn’t call living? Stuck as a motionless speechless-

The Dolls of New Albion: A Steampunk Opera is a 2012 steampunk musical by Paul Shapera about how being lonely is kinda like being a robot. I’m not even being facetious this time. Dolls chronicles the fall of the city of New Albion from a once prosperous town of whimsical clockwork miracles, to a brutal police state over the course of four generations, all because of a doll. See, this desperate and lonely woman named Annabel McCalistair was trying to raise the dead and succeeded when she brought back the soul of a boy she loved in the body of a clockwork doll. Unable to move or speak, the doll could only broadcast the radio to try and communicate with her, and all he wanted to communicate was his displeasure at being brought back. And everything escalates from there. Each generation continuing to make things worse through their own loneliness and obsession and desire for love until it becomes too much and society crumbles.

See, the dolls cannot communicate and live a static unlife of misery, but the main thrust of the story is that this is how all the people of New Albion live too. That they are caught up so much in there own depression and isolation that they cannot process human connection meaningfully, that perhaps a doll that cannot love them back but that they can project their love onto is just as good as companionship, perhaps a doll that is sold by a large corporation is the same as your dead friend. Both the machined and the flesh are stuck, fixed, unliving.

The ending of Dolls leaves a spark of hope for the future, but it does so through a bleak understanding of love as sacrifice, that we cannot just project our wants and desires onto the world and expect the world to give us everything we want, to love us back, but rather we must be willing to sacrifice, to die for others. To love and live is to exist for the sake of others, of course the bit that gets cut off from that message is that if you exist for the sake of others, then those others must exist for the sake of you. So to escape the othering of being a doll, one must embrace community, the mortifying ordeal of being known, and do so by helping others. To escape stagnation we just need each other, that’s all. If we want to get away from being these static constructs, these dolls, than we just need other people, we just need-

Two Stars in the Vast Dark is a 2023 speculative queer musical by Found Creature about how being lonely is kinda like being a robot and therefore kinda like being trans. It’s a story about late stage capitalism’s atomizing and isolating drive and the struggle to survive as yourself in a world that strips you of all control over your life in the cruelest possible ways.

Let me explain: Ezra is alone. A space trucker with nothing for company for millions of miles around but their ship’s computer, the Bard system. But when the Bard system begins to display signs of consciousness, echoing Ezra’s pain and loneliness, a relationship blooms. That is until it’s revealed that this consciousness was not a glitch, a quirk in the machinery as they originally assumed, but a deliberate attempt by the space trucking corporation to improve moral. And faced with this realization that they are seemingly truly alone, their only companion a facade, no more than a clockwork doll they could project onto, Ezra nearly throws themself out the airlock, stepping over the edge of the stage into the audience. But Bard pulls them back. It didn’t ask to be made, it didn’t ask to be a corporate stooge, but it’s here and it cares.

Both the Bard system and Ezra are lost, alone, and confused, separated from others by distance, by their assigned roles, by the very nature of their being. And yet, they have each other. And that could be enough. To hold each other close, can be enough. Perhaps the thing that brings us together at all is our mutual loneliness. Perhaps that is what comes from rejecting society and what may be viewed as life to others, perhaps we can build a better future. If we just hold one another close. Perhaps this too is a rather treacle story, but if so it’s one I’d like to believe in.

#I wrote this months ago but it really only needed a few light edits to be fit for consumption #I have a lot of thoughts on the nature of robothood as a metaphor for otherness #I literally named myself after one of these characters #teaching a robot to love #tartl #the clockmaker's daughter #the dolls of new albion #dona #two stars in the vast dark

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