#though i do refer to western community

[katyspersonal]

Heyo! How about sharing some Bloodborne ships opinions/ideas? It's been a while since you talked about those!

To be honest, 'Bloodborne ships' is a concept so boundless and infinite that 'bottomless Sea' compared to it is just a pathetic shallow puddle, because in my monkey brain a BB ship is any character + any character out of consenting adults who are not blood related (and even in THAT case you'll probably have ghosts of people who ship Maria with Annalise trashing your pots at night at least once *eyesroll*). So I think, for the sake of this post having a start AND an end, I'll only touch upon "acknowledged" ships.

THAT'S RIGHT FOLKS, time to recall what is POPULAR! OOOooooOOOOoooooOOOHHHH-

WHO LIVES IN THE RESEARCH HALL UNDER THE SEA?

MAAAAARIAAADELINE

Mariadeline - I am always back and forth on this ship. It is shifting between 'it doesn't seem to have came to fruition in canon since Adeline addresses Maria as her superior, and also the ship is better in Adeline's Blood Saint stage since the horror of the Research Hall doesn't fit for some uwu fluff, and Adeline seems to be too carried by Arcane to care for simple human happiness anymore' and 'since WHEN canon "evidence" and timeline could stand in the way of imagination and simply enjoying the ideas?'. A struggle between my brain and my pp..... I think I like pretty much any way to go about this ship, but in my heart it will always be superior as attraction that not only never been resolved, but also has been a breaking point for Maria, with Adeline dying in her arms no less.

I do think they'd make a cute dynamic, it is absolutely the case where one does full autistic ramblings about their special interest (Adeline) and another just listens (Maria). I also do think they both suck at being direct about their feelings and every AU where they DID date needs the third party as a wingman xD

Laudwig (or Holyvicar, as I see often) - I do not have strong feelings on this ship? My engagement with this ship is passive (ie I just see fanart of it on my dashboard/timeline and might like it). It has a huge depth and drama potential, though! Which one became the beast first and how another reacted? How much Ludwig really knew about the Healing Church's nasty secrets; how much Laurence was hiding from him about their impending doom in the name of potential progress? I can say whereas Logarius is arguably a more useful 'pawn' in the grand plans, Ludwig's more knightly, 'naive' honor could more likely win Laurence over. I actually wrote my interpretation of the ship once! Observe:

Not a flawless ship, as Laurence has to keep many skeletons in his closet and Ludwig would have been sick if he learned HALF of the shit Laurence has to hide… Besides, there is no saying if Ludwig would spare Laurence should his precious moon sword call for hurting him. This relationship is more of a game with neigher side being allowed into depths of another's soul. However, despite his higher status, Laurence would be the one feeling more shy, helpless and red in the face because Ludwig is so big and strong and radiates hope and joy, whereas Ludwig would be more of passionate no-insecurity caring lover that had already organized a pretty date before Laurence even as much as had a THOUGHT about one. Alas with canon context in mind, this "ship" works better as a plot device to show messed up things about Church and things people gotten themselves into, to the point of no longer being allowed deep, genuine bonds.

Gehrmaurence (???) - This is canon because Gehrman basically moans his name in his sleep lol

Ok ok or OK seriously tho! I am kind of rooting for this ship and am always happy to see it recognised, I just, yet again, am passive about it and just 'like it when I see it'. It is undeniable that Laurence and Gehrman were close. Gehrman trusted Laurence enough to give himself to the "insidious Moon" in faith that Laurence WILL succeed at his designs while he sustains the Hunt for him, and WILL free him then. I do think that realising he has been failing Gehrman miserably was one of Laurence's most horrible, devastating fears when beasthood was taking him over, maybe even the last cry of his humanity. But it is that situation where character can share very deep and intimate bond without romantic involvement and it is still good; I'll certainly take them as 'friends doomed by the narrative' JUST as willingly as 'lovers doomed by the narrative'.

Gehrmaria - I do not even know whether I want to share my honest feelings about this one... lol OF COURSE I DO because nobody read the post to this point except for you anyway! xD Alright, but upon my arrival in the fandom, when I was digging up my own lore and sometimes comparing it to the fandom popular one, I was content with the idea that Doll creation was Kinda Sus and Gehrman was a bit creepy. Then I found Bellringermal's blog and was like 'OMG CURSED but you go girl!!!!!!'. Then I started to slowly develop the enjoyment of the ship that I desperately tried to deny and suppress because, again, back then I saw Gehrman as a creep, so I just blamed Mal

Yo but do you remember what actually triggered my researcher streak? OH LAURENCE OF COURSE YOU REMEMBER-

Right, I've had that dream about a snow/ice Great One attacking altered Yharnam, several characters gathering in a castle built-in the mountain, Rom being pregnant from Simon (wtf!!!!!!!) and… Maria was there too. There was that brief moment where Gehrman was awkwardly trying to see her from the shadows and someone asked Maria like 'hey who is that guy following you everywhere :т', from which Gehrman got scared and chickened away, and Maria was like '…nobody important'.

So after that time I woke up with the strange +15 Insight effect, because something about her intonation, her face and the context made me perceive the depth to which that bond went, and the complexity of her resentment. You know how in the dreams you sometimes can just... 'perceive' feelings and information that wasn't directly said? Telepathy. Makes sense, because dreams happen in the brain... or... DO THEY? So, I knew I NEEDED to grasp that exact sentiment and find out WHAT Maria was feeling in my dream. It felt significant. So that day I dived EXTRA deep into research and wrote the 'Let's analyze Gehrman, Maria and the Doll' ( x ) that not only is my real, genuine take on the relationship, but also the girls liked it and some changed previously harshly negative opinion on Gehrman.

I still wish I never poked my nose deeper on the matter and things just stayed that way, because this is the only controversial ship in the fandom and it constantly brings out the worst in fans. Letting people enjoy their ship and have their takes on the old man is far too much to ask from a western community, so for every toxic, mean-spirited, disrespectful hiss towards Gehrmaria shippers, I kept discovering new counter-evidence, new ways to see Maria and new redeeming qualities about Gehrman! Until I've lost the sight of whether I myself actually SHIP it, started to root for this ship to pick-up and prosper as a matter of 'cool people keep winning', lost the creepy but so needed 'darkness' of this ship as a concept... And although PLENTY of people thanked me for "saving" Gehrman's ass and the ship as a concept (not exaggerating), sometimes I wonder: would not it have been better to just leave things as they were and enjoy my own thing in secluded, individualist way?

Pfffft LMAO mfw you came to listen about ship dramas, but ended up listening about my PERSONAL dramas XD But yeah, my interpretation here is pretty darn simple. Maria might have had a crush but by now is greatly disappointed - based on Gehrman's curiosity that WAS digging through corpses to seek eyes for Willem, but she is disappointed in herself more than in him, he taught her a great deal but she also got her gentler, sweeter side practically ruined by the hunt, he liked her but never dared to approach her because of age gap and he just felt undeserving, he could not even dream of her because of his own regrets and crashing realisation of how much he failed her - including not being there for her to prevent her Minecraft… Another case of ship that never came to fruition in canon. But in an AU where it did happen, I think it would be bittersweet; Gehrman is older and beaten up by hard life, and is a callous brick in emotional situations at times, so their relationship would know some conflicts; not a bad thing, arguments are normal! They're both tough outside and gentle inside, both are capable of great self-sacrifice but also of great war crimes, lol. But Gehrman is just… a bit dead inside? They have enough in common to get along, but not enough to get bored by each other.

Valmura/Valtmura/whatever - Funny enough, they do somewhat remind me of how Gehrmaria is in my head! The 'dead inside', somewhat cruel and callous murderous mentor figure that Seen Some Shit before and might be intimidating with how far he goes and his sensitive, emotional, slightly naive, passionate student with great knightly chivalry that is effectively broken by walking this mentor's path, LOL.

So the same sort of relationship that is not ideal and almost certainly is canonically SCREWED, only Valtr pulls his big boy pants and sucks the grief up instead of succumbing to despair to the point of madness. I think this is a nice ship, the dynamic is great! Just the perfect balance of 'similar enough to get along but enough differences to have productive conflicts and not be bored' I do not find very often! (Also yes I keep completely disregarding power imbalance of mentor/student for both this ship and previous one, I hope ya'll are still hooked </3 )

Gasgoryk - I used to dislike this ship, actually! No shit, outright going 'grrrrrrr' seeing it because it reminded me too much of my internet childhood during my 12-13 years where the girls would always neglect the male character's canon crush/lover/wife to not "stand in the way" for their gay ship! It just felt like Viola was pushed aside despite being mother of Gasc's children...? And I thought the two ships could not coexist because Henryk MUST be Viola's father (source: younger daughter mentioning 'grandpa'). But I've since seen plenty of good interpretations, justifications for 'grandpa' commentary, and all in all, setting events in the past and AUs still exist! I just don't mind by now, I simply prefer Gascola more! But I think I enjoy the thought that Henryk might have had silent crush on Gascoigne that he never delivered and it was too late when he got engaged with his daughter; but the pain was forgotten when the first child was born!

Gascola - A lot to explore, a lot to speculate (wholesome and not much), doomed by narrative, IS CANON! Everything I love. Will always prefer this ship to Gascoryk or Violeen because... canon... guys this is SUPER canon... and they also have children, guys you don't understand, it is ACTUAL family... (too bad they all fucking die lol)

Micorom/Romicolash/whatever - This, my fellas, was my very first ship when I poked my nose in Bloodborne! I clicked with Rom so much almost instantly, and Mal was my first exposure to the ship, as well! I thought absolutely nothing could be more fun. Back then, my Rom had a different personality (simply she was sassy, bitter and a bit tired from being overworked by Micolash and Willem). I was fully prepared to become a Micorom type of fan and give this ship soooooooooo. muuuuuuuuch. CONTENT. ...but at some point I saw this:

And EVERYTHING clicked into place.

So yes, Rom being his sister is my official idea now. But- honestly, this is still such a great ship as a concept! It feels like no matter how Rom's personality is written, the two could have a great dynamic! And what is the outcome? Does Micolash end up being jealous and resentful because he hates to see the girlboss win- I mean, that Rom ascended and he didn't? Or he simply misses her and hopes to JOIN her when he ascends? I just don't know what a mf would have to do to not make a ship like this work imo, because these characters are just cursed to have The Dynamic TM no matter what. I definitely cheer people who ship it... Do what I can't! *sobs*

Hunter x Doll -

Ok ok ok listen dfhhdshdf With Bloodborne, everything depends on the interpretation, so it is not excluded there are ways to make this work! But this is just certainly not my thing.

Doll is an interesting case though, because like I said before, I think soul of Maria DOES live in her - without memories and sedated by the Moon, and Gehrman probably doesn't even know that himself. But when Doll is asleep - she is awake somewhere else and vice-versa, yadda yadda. However, before a hunter as much as looks at her the attracted way, she still needs to find a decent connection with her humanity. And there is her perception of her role as a servant for those hunters that will just stand and take it if they hit her. This is just... it is such a delicate matter that I can't even begin to cover it. It is not even the same level of delicate as complexities of mentor/student!

Rombrietas and Romurie/Yurrom - Perfect ships, nuff said. Though I feel like they are no longer 'popular' and are the thing of the begone era of the fandom (forgotten like Julie x Imposter). But from what I gathered, fandom of 2016-17 enjoyed them. I think that both of these are so likely that I can declare them canon-plaucible. As in, they could actually happen IN canon, not even in alternative/happier timeline. Ebrietas weeps the petrified corpse that looks like Rom when lyrics of her theme refer to Mensis ritual that Rom is covering; meanwhile, Yurie/Julie irrationally fights you on the way to Rom that even Willem encourages you to hunt... That's just two whole women to care about Rom deeply!

Of course not tryna push anything; Ebrietas could lament something else (maybe fate of humanity in general), and Julie could just be winning time for imposter Iosefka to do her experiments. But... why? x) I am very on board with the idea that Ebrietas worries about Rom all the way, seeing Rom becoming a 'spider' (association with Amygdalae and forbidden knowledge). She, who used to be a pawn of the Moon behind her, got in contact with her human side (as an adult celestial larvae), to the point of crying red blood when 'celestial' Kin have it drained of color normally.

AYYYYY that's why it is called 'Paleblood sky'!

Also an oldie:

She loved listening to Rom's 'epiphanies' and took her 100% seriously before it became mainstream x) Though Yurie was eager - getting angry at anyone that dared to criticize Rom even IF criticism was right! Meanwhile Rom always shared personal info with Yurie before anyone else. Plus they always had many shared interests - singing, nature, stars, bothering teachers long after classes are over with silly questions… Yurie having always been by Rom's side physically and mentally made her by effect keep Willem's teachings at heart even if other former Byrgenwerth students who joined Choir ditched those mostly. When Yurie ends up losing her sanity too, one thing she still holds onto is refusing to agree to harm Rom, completely ignoring Damian's pleading that not only it must be done, but also Rom will come out alright as a Great One.. really sad downfall.

Alfred x Crow - I am not very comfortable with the fact that Alfred... well... listen, it is a rather sensitive topic, so I will try to address it as discreet, subtly and maturely as possible. Alfred, as we can conclude... IS A GODDAMN RELIGIOUS FANATIC THAT THINKS VILEBLOODS SHOULD BE EXTERMINATED AS A KIND BECAUSE OF THE BLOOD HIS RELIGION DEEMS "IMPURE"!!! This ship is just certainly not my thing. I know Crow messed up a little by causing Eileen's death, but I am sure not even he is bad enough to deserve any advances by the guy that dehumanizes (devampirizes????) him by proxy. Sure, ship can fit into hatef4cking territory, but we talk about ship... like, relationship... relationshipies...

Ariadella - Fun fact! Despite this ship being basically the same problem as Alfred x Crow (except worse because Adella DOES kill Arianna), I used to like it initially! These two show the personalities that I can see as type of opposites that can mutually improve and complete one another! ...in a happier AU somewhere. But more often than not I am unhappy with the idea of "erasing" the fact that Adella considers Arianna worthy of being murdered in the scenario where she "dirties" the Hunter with her blood just for some shippy fluff. It is a back and forth for me, depending on how the ship is portrayed, and in what context!

Alfhunter - No strong feelings, it got nice art but I just shrug it off. Like, valid, but that's it. However, I do lay awake at nights and think:

"Man, but what could possibly make people see that psychotic religious fanatic beat a defenceless vampire queen into a bloody pulp and decide this is the most desirable man ever that they want to hook up their self-insert or mindchild with?" And you might ask: "Wait, doesn't line up, THIS is where you draw the line? But then how do you explain your crush on Micolash who's done much, MUCH worse things?". Well, I actually have an answer to that that will clarify your confusion and prove that I am not being a hypocrite! You see,

*gradually becomes transparent upon spinning around and teleports away like Rom*

[casscainmainly]

Cassandra Cain and Asian Stereotypes

So I've seen people debating whether Cass is a racist character or not because she falls into certain Asian stereotypes. While this discussion is valid and important, a lot of the conversation (on this website and beyond) is steered by White/non-Asian people, or people who haven't read a lot of Cass' stuff. This is my take on Cass and Asian stereotypes as a Chinese Cass fan. I do not speak for all Asians, or even all Chinese people, who are absolutely free to disagree with any of these arguments.

Stereotypes I will cover here: Silent Asian, Model Minority, and Hypersexuality.

The Silent Asian Stereotype

The most obvious stereotype Cass runs into is the Silent Asian. I would recommend reading the linked article for more information. Silent Asian characters are Asians who are part of a core cast, but rarely speak. Kimiko Miyashiro in The Boys, Lilly in Pitch Perfect, and Katana in Suicide Squad are all examples of this. The article also mentions Ben from Umbrella Academy, who can only communicate with one character, thus limiting his dialogue.

Why does this happen? Removing Asian characters' dialogue reflects the Western conception of Asians as demure, rule-following, and meek, never speaking up or acting out. It also means writers don't have to spend as much time writing these Asian characters, who are secondary to White protagonists.

The problem with the Silent Asian, then, is not the silence itself, but the consequences of silence. Mute Asians exist, as do Asians who don't speak much; in media, Silent Asians are harmful because they indicate an unwillingness to focus on the Asian character.

This is why Cass, even before she learns to speak longer sentences, is not a Silent Asian. While her conception undoubtedly has unfortunate echoes of this trope, she defies it by being the protagonist of the story. A protagonist cannot be a Silent Asian, because a requirement of the trope is being a secondary character. Cass' feelings and actions are the center of Batgirl (2000), so allegations of this stereotype don't actually make sense.

Furthermore, the trope is about passivity and acquiescence to a White authority. From her introduction, Cass is neither passive nor acquiescent - her origin story is literally about defying David Cain, a White male authority figure. Beyond her not speaking much, she ticks none of the boxes for this stereotype. I think it's time for people to stop mentioning this stereotype in conjunction with Cass, who in every possible way subverts it.

The Model Minority Stereotype

The model minority myth is the belief that Asians are more successful and talented than others, particularly other minoritised groups. Like the Silent Asian, the model minority myth paints Asians as obedient and submissive. This is, in many ways, more insidious than the Silent Asian - there are still people who believe this stereotype (and jokes like 'of course you're good at math, you're Asian') is somehow not racist.

Though this myth seems positive, make no mistake that White people invented this tale for two reasons: to put down Black and Brown communities, and to prevent Asians from ever fully assimilating into White culture.

Cass plays on this myth very interestingly. I've discussed in this post how David Cain and Bruce's assertion that she's 'perfect' is a blatant reference to the model minority myth - by describing her as 'perfect' to them, they are centering their own desires, erasing Cass' individuality.

This is partially why I don't like 'Cass is Bruce's favourite' and 'Cass is an angel who can do no wrong' interpretations when people are just saying it without context. Cass being Bruce's favourite, or Bruce seeing her as an angel, is not a good thing - it is a representation of his biased attitude towards her. He is unable to accept her being a murderer because he is trapped within the model minority mindset. This is not saying Bruce is a full-on racist, but that his actions and perspectives are coloured by his Whiteness.

Cass' abrasive personality, willingness to defy Bruce and David, and very real flaws (her inability to see grey areas, communication difficulties, etc.) make her avoid this stereotype. Additionally, her close relationships with Black characters like Onyx and Duke are essential to combating the anti-Blackness at the core of the model minority myth. Her character evokes the stereotype (perfect martial arts silent fighter), but ultimately defies it through being the star of her own story (and also not being good at math. The fact she doesn't have anything to do with tech is actually one of my favourite aspects of her character, because I am TIRED of tech Asian characters).

The Hypersexual Asian Woman Stereotype

Asian women are often exoticised and fetishised as the ideal sexual partner; think of the term 'yellow fever', which describes men lusting after Asian women. The hypersexualisation of Asian women in media once again goes hand-in-hand with Asians being submissive. They are seen as innocent and child-like, while simultaneously being seductive and sexually experienced.

This stereotype is genuinely perpetuated in Batgirl (2000), mainly by the art in Horrocks' run. Where in Puckett's run there is refreshingly little sexualisation of Cass, once you hit Horrocks' run you get a LOT more shots of her lying down, sexually suggestive covers, etc. People have discussed this already, probably to more effect than I will do here.

However, as I wrote in my Gender and Sexuality posts, the writing is actually fairly defiant of this trope. Cass is vocally uncomfortable with hypersexualisation, and neither of her male love interests stick around. The problem with the Hypersexual Asian Woman is the focus on White sexual interests, where the woman is objectified for the White male gaze. Simply because Cass is the protagonist, the writing focuses on her sexual interests, and in the end it's about gaining control of her gender presentation and sexuality.

Cassandra Cain Vs. Asian Stereotypes

The through-line that connects all these Asian stereotypes is a lack of agency. There's a reason passiveness is the main trait for all of these tropes- the Asian body must be weaker than their White counterparts, in order to be tools or weapons against other minoritised groups.

Cassandra Cain, a character born from a choice that defies White male authority, rises above this passiveness with flying colours. The details of her character certainly fall into some of the above tropes, and the way her character is handled later (evil Cass, New 52), is certainly racist. However, the reason she means so much to me is because at its core, her story is a story of Asian agency. And that in itself is unstereotypical.

[lemonsprite]

𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐨 || 𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐎𝐂 𝐱 𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐞! 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

Summary: you’ve caught Beau’s eye

Word count: 1k

Warnings: Beau’s horny for you but there’s no actual sexual content TT

A/N: reader has he/him pronouns, No use of y/n, reader referred to as Bonito/Chiquito/etc.

cowboy… oc…. 😼😼

In the distance the sound of galloping hooves could be heard as they stuttered to a stop, a familiar albeit annoying voice following after.

It was the middle of summer and the Californian sun burned the back of your neck as your hands continued to hang up wet laundry to dry.

“Hola bonito~” came the low baritone of non other than Beau Tannen, a cowboy who often came by your home for the sole purpose of attempting to charm and flirt his way into your pants.

“How’s the summer heat been treating you Chiquito?” He asked, and even though you weren’t facing him, you could feel Beau’s eyes trail from your tight fitting shirt to your worn jeans.

Beau was a known flirt in your town, he’s had his fair share of flings with women and if you were to walk into any bar almost all the saloon girls would have their own stories to recall.

However, no one had ever seen him steal glances at another man. Not until you came along, moving into a quaint town house in the middle of the small western community.

“Beau.” You replied flatly, not even turning to face the cowboy as you continued hanging the freshly washed laundry. “What brings you to my little home?”

He laughed at you words as if you’d told a particularly funny joke and brushed a loose strand of curly black hair from his eyes, staring back at you a little longer than necessary.

His eyes trail down to the laundry basket balanced precariously on your hip before snapping back up to the back of your head.

“Am I interrupting something?” He asked, inching his way towards you, the spurs of his boots clinking. He looks into your basket of wet laundry, before looking back up at the side of your face, a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. “Need any help with all that or are you too busy to talk with me?”

“Will helping me shut you up?” You asked with a teasing smirk, finally turning to fully face Beau. His smile widens at your movement, glad to finally see your features.

“You’re so strong chiquito.” Beau praises, changing the subject in reference to the monstrous load of laundry. “Is this all yours?”

You raise your eyebrow at the strange question, grabbing a sock and hanging it on the clothes line. “I have friends over… they came into town on that new train.” You explained.

“Two of them brought their kids and now I can hardly make my way through my house without bumping into someone.” You complained with a tired sigh, shifting the laundry basket off your hip before shoving it into Beaus’s arms and grabbing a worn jacket from the pile.

Beau didn’t complain at you shoving the basket into his arms, instead his grin widened- shuffling the laundry basket to get a better view of your face.

“Ah so you’re babysitting?” He chuckled. “Does this mean I’m not going to be entertained for awhile? I might get bored Chiquito.” Beau lectured playfully, leaning in slightly towards you.

He raised an eyebrow, his expression turning more flirtatious. “I know something that’d be far more entertaining than chores…”

“Actually doing your work vaquero?” You asked with a smirk, pinning up another article of clothing as you ignored his innuendo.

Beau huffed teasingly, rolling his eyes. “I’m working as we speak Chiquito. I’m flirting with you aren’t I?” He asked, using a free hand to pair up a two miscellaneous socks in the laundry basket.

Beau folded up the sleeves of his shirt, revealing his muscular forearms as he balances the basket in his hands.

“What could be more work than trying to charm a man with your pretty face, hmm?”

You sighed exasperatedly at Beau’s teasing, running a hand down your face as you surveyed the clothes line in front of you.

“I’m flattered Beau… but with my friends and their families in town I’m much too busy to continue our conversation…” you sighed, taking the basket back from his arms, before pausing. “Unless…”

Beau looks at you intriguingly, crossing his arms. “Unless… what, Chiquito? I don’t like to be teased you know.”

“Prove to me cowboy that I wouldn’t be making a mistake and then maybe- just maybe I’ll give you a chance.” You smirked, hastily hanging up the last of the wet laundry.

He stared at you for a long silent minute, his brain running over the words you’d just said. Was it true? Could you finally bring giving him the slightest chance to court you? “How can I refuse an offer like that bonito?” Beau chuckles, uncrossing his arms, laying his hands to rest next to his belt buckle.

“How bout you come to the ranch tonight? After everyone’s gone to bed…” he smiled, leaning in closer to you so that there was only a mere few inches between you.

You made a show of thinking over his words, biting the inside of your cheek as you thought. Eventually you spoke up.

“I’ll see you then vaquero…~” you smiled with a wave, walking to leave as you approached the steps of your town house. “Don’t disappoint me.”

Beau tipped his hat towards you, his smirk growing as he silently (for once) saddled his horse.

“You’ll be far from disappointed chiquito.” He grinned, flashing a canine as Beau and his horse cantered off.

So this fic has been sitting in my drafts for a year 💀 I’m not kidding. I might make a second chapter with the events of later that night but that all hinges on wether or not I can finally force myself to finish a smut fic TT

[autumnsxxangel]

SandRay are an homage to Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together and in this essay I will..

...actually explain it because I see people catching his homage's to Western queer media, but not really his shout outs to Eastern queer media.

I assumed there would be allusions to Happy Together when I first saw the trailer, but this last episode centered around Ray really cemented it for me. After all, why would P'Jojo reference all these Western queer shows and not talk about what is probably the most iconic piece of Eastern queer media ever?

Wong Kar-Wai & Happy Together

For some background information, Wong Kar-Wai is a famous and insanely influential Hong Kong filmmaker. If you're a film nerd, you probably know who he is and recognize his style. If you like film and metas, I would recommend watching some of his stuff because afterwards, you'll realize just how much influence he still has on modern media, especially in Asia. Stylistically, he's known for rich color grading; thematic usage of music; an unending sense of nostalgia, heartbreak, and missed opportunities; and dialogue that mean nothing on the surface because everything meaningful is boiling just under, left unsaid (If you've watched Everything Everywhere, All At Once, the entire actress universe sequence was an homage to Wong Kar-Wai). His actors always do a phenomenal job because so much of what they need to portray can't be communicated through words. It makes sense why SandRay, aka FirstKhao, were chosen to represent Happy Together as they are the strongest actors out of the group.

Happy Together, simply summarized, is about two men, Ho Po-Wing and Lai Yiu-Fai, who are in a very tumultuous relationship. They end up in Argentina because they wanted to visit the waterfall that's on a lamp that they own. They get lost, end up using all their money, and have to figure out a way to get back to Hong Kong. While there, they break up, get back together, and break up again.

The movie was released in 1997 and is still ranked as one of the best queer movies of all time. The two main characters are played by Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung. You might recognize Tony Leung as Simu Liu's dad in Shang-Chi. Leslie Cheung was in Farewell, My Concubine, and was famously a bisexual man with a long term male partner. This is significant because it was virtually unheard of to be out and open at that time (he made his relationship public in 1997 though he had mentioned bisexuality in earlier years), especially in Hong Kong which was, and still is, very homophobic. Leslie received a lot of hate for his sexuality and androgyny. (If you're interested in learning more about Leslie as a queer Asian figure, this is a good video essay that goes over his work and his life).

Sand as Lai Yiu-Fai

Fai's, and in turn Sand's, character can be summed up by one line, "One thing I never told Ho Po-Wing was that I didn't want him to recover so fast. Those were our happiest days."

Both Fai and Sand are very static, straightforward characters. They stay above board for the most part and work a variety of jobs to survive. They have their morals about what is right and wrong, which unfortunately is both of their downfalls.

In Happy Together, Wing breaks up with Fai because he is bored with the relationship. He basically says, "I'm bored being with you. Let's break up. If we happen to meet again, we can try again." Then he leaves Fai stranded on the side of a highway.

Later, he reappears in Fai's life. The first encounter is a fight, much like Sand and Ray's first meeting in the bathroom. The second encounter is because Wing gets beaten up. He goes to Fai because he knows Fai will feel obligated to take care of him and he does. It becomes the beginning of their rekindled relationship.

Similarly, Sand has a strong sense of obligation. There are already metas out there about how Sand has a bit of a hero complex. He sees Ray too drunk to drive and he had to step in. He doesn't just take the keys and order a taxi. No, he takes the keys and drives Ray. Sand sees Ray being all sad and pathetic and he can't stop himself from helping. It makes him feel useful. It makes him feel needed.

Both of these men are caretakers. They show affection by providing care. Sand ends up cooking for Ray just as Fai cooks for Wing even when he's sick. As an added bonus, they both make fried rice.

Both Sand and Fai are characters that stand completely still. Ray and Wing always know where to find them. Sand can always be found at YOLO and Fai is at his apartment. Because of this, Ray and Wing come and go as they please. They know that Sand and Fai will take them back...until they finally don't.

Ray as Ho Po-Wing

Starting on a base level, both characters are bratty, needy, promiscuous, spoiled, and selfish. But most importantly, they both share a love of fluffy cardigans.

(I also have a theory they keep putting Ray in wife beaters as an homage to the 90's HK cinema style because otherwise...I just don't understand why, as a rich asshole, he's always in wife beaters. By Thai BL logic, he should be in shirts with too many buttons unbuttoned.)

Wing and Ray are both the ones controlling the pace and direction of the relationship. They come when they need someone to nurture their wounds, both physically and metaphorically. They leave when they're bored or have things they deem more important. They both initiate intimacy and won't take no for an answer.

Wing does this by first trying to join Fai on the couch and then chasing after him to the bed and begging him to let them sleep together.

Ray does it by continuously getting Sand to get in the car with him and then using his puppy dog eyes.

They are both also very, very pouty.

Wing's line is "We could start over". He says it every time he comes back after he's the one that ends the relationship. Fai always fights taking him back, but he always does it anyway.

Ray doesn't really have a line yet (unless you count his "na na naa~"s) but he bats his eyelashes and so far Sand has given into him every time. Sand keeps trying to set boundaries, but the moment Ray begs a little bit, Sand crumbles like a house of cards and lets Ray have whatever he wants.

Relationship Parallels

Wong Kar-Wai is known for making movies about star crossed lovers who are meant for each other, but aren't meant to be together.

Like Wing and Fai, Sand and Ray fill in each other's cracks in a way that complements each other. However, because of the nature of the cracks themselves, them complementing each other is exactly what makes the relationship so toxic. One stays and one goes. One takes and one gives. One is steady and one is flighty.

Most of what I wanted to say about the parallels between their relationships is in the character comparison. What I'm more interested in is the future of SandRay's relationship, especially if they continue to parallel Wing and Fai's in Happy Together.

Obviously, Wing and Fai don't end up together at the end. It wouldn't be a Wong Kar-Wai movie if they did. What is interesting is that Fai's relationship with Wing eventually pushes him into becoming something angry and spiteful. Once Wing heals, Fai knows that he'll become bored and want to leave. In an attempt to get him to stay, he steals and hides Wing's passport which is insane because they are both gay men stuck in a foreign country where they don't speak the language.

Wing, of course, leaves anyway.

There is also a third character, Chang, whom Fai ended up liking. These new feelings are what eventually pushes Fai to leave Argentina and move on from Wing and move on with his life.

The question is, if SandRay follows that same path as Happy Together, what will be the passport that Sand tries to hold over Ray and who will be Sand's Chang?

Stylistic Parallels

Smoking

Making Ray and Sand smoke is definitely an homage to Happy Together with the added bonus of being a metaphor. For the most part, we rarely see characters, especially main characters, smoke in Asian media because smoking is reserved for 'bad' characters.

Cigarettes in Happy Together represent boredom. Fai and Wing smoke at the beginning before they rekindle their relationship because they are just moving through life. Once Fai and Wing get back together, cigarettes stop making an appearance. It isn't until their relationship started deteriorating that we see the men smoking again.

This can also be said about Sand Ray's relationship. They started their 'involvement' with cigarettes. However, the last time we actually see them smoking is in ep 2 right before they hook-up. Since then, we have not seen either of them smoking. This probably means that we'll see one or both of them smoking again when their relationship starts to break down.

(In the preview for ep 5, there is an ashtray in the background on the balcony so let's see if Boston finding out about them is a catalyst for them to start breaking down.)

And of course, there is the added homoeroticism of asking for a light.

Ray's Opening and Closing Scenes

Ray's episode is really what made me go "I see you P'Jojo".

Ray's episode starts with a shot of him isolated and in emotional pain. The camera is claustrophobically close and it keeps moving around. He has a little voiceover opening. It's calm, it's contemplative, it's a little existential, and it is irrevocably sad. If that is not a Wong Kar-Wai staple, then idk what is. Even the song that starts playing gives me 80s, 90s Cantopop vibes.

Ray talks about how Mew being his emergency contact and the one he goes to. Fai talks about how Wing always comes back to him and says "Let's start over".

The movie and the episode ends with both of them once again isolated, alone. They've been through an emotional journey and they've technically moved on. But there's always the idea of not being able to fully let go in Wong Kar-Wai's movie. So just like how Fai has physically removed himself from Wing, but not emotionally, has Ray actually fully removed himself from Mew?

Cinematography

Then there's just a collection of scenes that reminded me very heavily of Happy Together and Wong Kar-Wai's style. I would have added pictures from his other movies for comparison, but Tumblr only lets me put 30 images in a post and I don't want to make a 2nd post.

This scene is specifically from the 1st trailer so I hope they keep it in the show.

This one I call the inevitability of falling. Both Sand and Fai realize they're fully committed to their decision to take care of Ray and Wing here.

The end title card

Actually, all of the end title cards give very Wong Kar-Wai vibes. Look at that saturated, neon color grading. Look at the elongated shots. The intense feeling of isolation.

I'm assuming we'll get all the characters at one point, but so far it looks like the end credit cards indicate who the narrator of each episode is.

Anyway, that's it for me! Sorry it was so long and rambling. I tried to organize my thoughts but as I was thinking, more thoughts would pop up and I'd get distracted. If you made it this far, thanks for reading!

[paper-mario-wiki]

i respect you and your opinions and i don’t want this to come across critically, but in your series of tweets about trans women being reduced to sexual objects, you mentioned judeo-christian values being the dominant ones in our society

but i don’t really think judaism has anything to do with it, it’s not really The Dominant Religion in the west, and there are more than two genders in judaism anyway, it doesn’t really seem like jewish values are the ones exerting their influence over us all imo

was it just a reflexive voice to use that phrase (i know a lot of people use it sort of interchangeably), or would you mind elaborating on what you mean?

i think it's okay to be critical about something like that.

truthfully, it may have just been a poor choice of words. though it's true that in the common modern lexicon "judeo-christian values" is used in reference to the abrahamic religions and how they are associated with conservative views, upon doing research on the term, i found that it was actually coined during the cold war in an attempt to unify america under a single ideology so that they could oppose the ideology of communism. in reality, the majority of jews in america are quite socially progressive with regards to LGBT rights and opinions. beyond that, im not familiar with much abrahamic doctrine, and didnt think much about the word choice. i see what you mean.

i'll remember this from now on when choosing words to describe the noxious principles western civilization tends to perpetuate 👍

[whoishotteranimepolls]

This blog is really fulfilling my near constant need for long lectures over fandoms that I never really get to flex out huh? I'm going to start making powerpoints. Alright, time to explain Ivankov and Bon Clay with a quick history of the LGBTQ+ community in Japan. Disclaimer: I am not Japanese, I am from a western country, but I will try to do my best to summarize the history and connotations to the best of my ability. I also do understand that some of the genderqueer characters do seem to be based on stereotypes, but that will be explored.

Okama is slang interchangeably used for gay men, drag queens, gender nonconforming men, and transgender women. It is very similar to the English word "Queer," especially in the idea that current members of the LGBTQ+ community are attempting to reclaim it as a positive phrase, rather than the slur that has been used against them. A large part of Japan still conflates gay with crossdressing or transgenderism, which is why homosexual men are sometimes referred to as okama (literally a 'pot' but meaning something similar to the English word 'queen') and are usually represented as cross-dressed and effeminate. The use of the term okama derives from the slang usage of the term to refer to the buttocks and thereby to anal sex which is considered to be the definitive sexual act engaged in by homosexual men. Homosexuality in Japan has had a fraught history that I do not have the character space to completely include here. Bon Clay is a character that first appeared in One Piece in the year 2000. Now, I know a lot of modern day fandoms do not understand the history of queer characters in media. This was long before we had shows like The Owl House, Steven Universe, Yuri on Ice, or She-Ra (I can't think of a lot of modern queer anime off hand). We had very little canon queer characters, at at the time, it was far more common for queer characters to either be women (Sailor Uranus, Utena), or male villains. And Bon Clay was not only queer, he was an out and proud Okama. He was referred to both as a man and a woman, and sang an entire song "Okama Way/Oh Come My Way." Bon Clay, despite being a villain, got a redemption, he befriended the Strawhats, and helped them to escape from Alabasta, even though he himself was sent to jail instead.

“One may stray from the path of a man. One may stray from the path of a woman. But there is no straying from the path of a human!”

In the end, this world is broken down to men and women But I'm a man who is a woman So I'm the best (the strongest) The best (strongest!) OH COME MY WAY

Emporio Ivankov

As Mod pointed out, his design is based off of Doctor Frank N' Furter from Rocky Horror Picture show and Norio Imamura, a real life Okama and a member of Mayumi Tanaka's acting troupe whom Oda met. Ivankov is gender fluid and uses their fruit to switch between whatever sex characteristics they want to have. Ivankov refers to himself as a "Newkama", as opposed to an "Okama". This is a double pun made by mixing words. It basically goes "Newhalf" (Transgender) + Okama (Crossdresser) = Newkama (Newcomer). Newkama claim to go beyond the concept of gender since almost every one of them has experienced life in both male and female bodies thanks to Ivankov's Horu Horu no Mi. Also, there is a question on what pronouns Iva uses, with in the Japanese text, they appear to use something like Neo-pronouns, always replacing the first character with a V in the pronouns they are using (Vatashi vs Watashi for "I" but I do not know enough Japanese to speak on this or how their pronouns should be translated)

She was the queen of NewKama Land in Impel Down, a secret haven inside of the prison where prisons escaped to. (This is why Mod jokes that One Piece fandom took over Horny Jail, we have a gay club in our jail in source material that was created by a transgirl and maintained by genderqueer okamas. We cannot be stopped). She is also a member of the Revolutionary Army, (MANGA Spoilers: A former slave), and Queen of Kamabakka Queendom, a place where okamas can be free to live their lives with no criticism and to just, be themselves.

Now, I understand why the artstyle turns people off and makes them seem like harmful stereotypes, and they aren't always treated well in the story. While Luffy is extremely accepting of Ivankov and Bon Clay (The only people in the entire story he refers to with honorifics are them, and he uses female honorifics, Iva-Chan and Bon-Chan), Sanji has shown to be pretty transphobic. But I also think that they encapsulate the messages of One Piece: Complete and Utter Freedom. The Freedom to be true to yourself, to live your authentic life, and to live without regrets. These characters are not only strong, respectable, and free, but they fight for that freedom for others as well.

There is no queerbaiting in One Piece. The only canon LGBTQ+ Identities we have are the transgender characters, probably attributed to Oda not wanting to write romance, and thus it is harder to make canon gay/lesbian/bi ect characters. Luffy, on the other hand, is argued heavily whether he's canonically aro/ace, or just heavily coded. We have other queer characters as well, especially in Wano. Kiku is a transwoman, and Yamato is a transman. Bon Clay, Ivankov, Inazuma, and other "Okamas" are genderqueer, although the identies may not translate nicely into English. Some of it may not have aged well as well (The use of "Transvestite" for example). But overall, the LGBTQ+ Identities have been respected by the narrative of the source material if not necessary by the characters or author. (And definitely not by some fans). Its also important to remember, Bon Clay was introduced in 2000. Kiku was introduced in 2018, that is nearly 20 years to learn how to depict trans people. She has no gags, she just exists as she is. Oh, and none of the queer characters die in the series, and Bon Clay even has the quote "Queers will never die!"

(Morley should probably be added to this analysis, as a transgender woman who pretty controversial, but she doesn't appear much in the manga/anime so I don't know a lot about her lol. I'm also not going to touch the "debate" of Yamato's gender here)

Sources: Male Homosexuality and Popular Culture in Modern Japan

One Piece: A Queer Retrospective

For context, they are responding to this post about Emporio Ivankov and Bon Clay

Well done! Great job! You deserve a cookie. Because this is why I love Defend Your Blurbo. Emporio Ivankov and Bon Chan would be proud of you

Fun fact, the horny jail reference actually comes from the bg3 fandom and the narrator outtakes. I just think it's very appropriate for the One Piece Fandom at least when it comes to my blog and what you guys have put me through

[patroxlos]

when next update 😔

...ngl it was supposed to be last week HAHA everyday i end up getting swept up by other things :') but i am still dedicated to mr. ken sato

however! here's a small snippet from the wip chapter!

I have the headcanon that our star athlete/model struggles to read kanji!

I believe he can speak Japanese just fine because it's how he communicates with his mom, but reading is a whole other story. I noticed in my first watch of Ultraman: Rising that he seems to pronounce Japanese words quite well and I thought it was a voice actor trick way to let the audience know that while the entire movie is in English by default, he is still speaking fluent Japanese in that world.

I think he texts in English and can read some basic words in hiragana/katakana but he struggles with reading Japanese in general.

Basic words I'm sure he knows are stuff on his mom's grocery list, road signs and casual conversation texting

He gets away with not reading because surprisingly he's not expected to much when in public lmao and when he does have to read on the spot, he has Mina to auto-translate in a pinch.

dont ask him to write tho then he is a true lost cause

BUT WAIT!! He is seen reading the newspaper/books in the movie! He can definitely read Japanese!

For me, I felt like the parenting advice from Mina/the books he read seemed Western. I get the 5 S's but Asian babies do not get swaddled lmao. Those are English books 100%.

Yet even if they are JP books, I found it curious that he was reading a lot of physical books and news while watching the movie. The explanation I came up with for myself is that Kenji can't read Japanese characters, but he is definitely practicing

I headcanon that Mina is his language tutor, and that part of his practice is that he has to read physical text so that he won't feel tempted to get it auto-translated.

He's getting the hang of it though! look at this boy. isn't he a fast learner. he's getting there

it's just that the thing he has to read in the chapter is highly technical so he doesnt know words

just pls dont ask him to write ok. baby steps he is trying his best

What a cutie. illiterate as hell. we like to think of him as a stroke master but he cannot remember character stroke orders

that snippet isn't final yet! i just wanted to make a really quick reference in the chapter to the Octopimp 50% Off Abridged Series hehe if any of u are familiar :')

Chapter 8 will be out soon promise!

[meraki-yao]

Now I'm curious to know all the "candies" between Nick and Tay 👀 lol I don't ship them but I also find it interesting that some fans really ship real people together and gather evidence or proof of it. If its fine with you to share it pls do 🙏 but if not its also fine :)

Huh...

Actually, sure! I kinda wanted to share some of these at times but again I understand that rps is a complicated subject.

A couple of quick prefaces though:

1, If you’re uncomfortable with the subject, again, please don’t read under the post

2, I don’t have all the candies because I really just view them in passing, so I’m just gonna write/translate the ones I’ve seen, remember and find at least a logical speculation

3, I need to reiterate this in case my position in this gets misunderstood: Me writing about “candies” isn’t because these are MY opinion or things *I* found or *I* believe in them being evidence. I am just a translator and messenger.

4, (this one is gonna sound a little academic lol) Two things I realized when thinking about this “candy eating” culture is that Chinese people have a very difference understanding of platonic/romantic affection/relationships with the Western world, and that they look at the candies with rose-tinted glass. Chinese/Asian people are generally a lot less affectionate with their personal relationships, for example friends wouldn’t say “love you” to each other if they’re just friends, nor would they expand their friend group to the others easily or other stuff. And these people who look for candy go into their “investigation” already with the belief that “they are together”, everything remotely resembling a close relationship will automatically be interpreted as romantic. I thought about it a lot, and honestly among the “candies” I’ve seen, most of them are a matter of interpretation: yes those are things couples will do, but it wouldn’t be weird if friends did it too. So they’re not that seriously or up for further speculation. There is I think only one “candy” that I can’t quite say the same, which I will explain and elaborate on in this post. 

5, Please remember that the people who do this do it in good nature: something I didn’t make clear in my post yesterday, which is on me, is that the fans do want them to be together, but they’re not like… yandere level or something. If they’re just friends the fans won’t be upset or betrayed or anything, they just prefer to see them as romantic. They don’t mean any harm, and they don’t cause any harm because China is physically and digitally too far away for them to actually fuck shit up, and they understand the lines of parasocial relationships: those who met with Taylor during his China trip in December know to, and didn’t bring up this in front of him. They know where to draw the line, and whoever doesn’t and starts becoming a problem gets kicked out of the community. This is meant for fun.

6, Ok Future Meraki here, turns out, there’s a lot to translate, a lot more than I anticipated Jesus Christ and I do want to get this post how within today and make it a reasonable length, so I’m just gonna do two events and the one that I mentioned in 4. If yall want a part 2 let me know.

Ok with that being said, the main event under the cut:

In December they made a whole article about “candies” from December, and to quickly summarise (again noted that all of this is speculation, I didn’t and can’t fact check them, and I’m just a translator) (also this ended up way longer than I anticipated so for photo reference if you can please go to the link of the original article):

Academy Gala:

Nick and Taylor both attended the gala: Since the strike ended up to that point, the two times Nick attends a public event, Taylor’s there too (GQ men of the year and Academy Gala), and for both times he’s wearing Cartier’s Tank Must Watch (remember this watch, I’m gonna elaborate on it later because it is the only candy that even I can’t say it’s a matter of interpretation)

In various pictures of the night’s party that other people took, the boys can be seen together in the background

How the photography worked that night was magazine photographers wandered around the venue and randomly found people to take some relatively candid photos: so people who were walking/sitting/in any way sticking together would be photographed together. So best friends and married couples would be photographed together, which is what happened to Meryl Streep, Greta Gerwig, Saoirse Ronan, and Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy and their wives. With that logic, Taylor and Nick were caught by the photographer together TWICE, in clearly different places. Later Korean fans (with the same “candy-searching” mindset) read the time on Taylor’s watch in the photos: one was 8:30, one was 9:50. The implication is that they were together for at least that period of time (nearly 1.5 hours)

In both photos of the boys together, Nick’s elbow is…straight up leaning into Taylor's chest. In a photo with Kaia, Nick’s friend and co-star from Bottoms (Brittany), there’s visible space between Nick and Kaia but none between Nick and Taylor (… okay I’m gonna pop in with my own opinion on the latter one real quick: I really think that one is just Nick being a gentleman)  

During that night, Taylor re-posted an Instagram post from July onto Little Red Book: but the things is in the comment section of the original Instagram post, Taylor teasingly pretends to not know Nick; and according to the posting time and the time calculated in 3, Nick would have been watching him post that to Little Red Book.

Nick got a photo with Taylor’s friend Jay Ellis (Jay and Taylor follow each other on Instagram, and Taylor comments under Jay’s post), even though Nick and Jay don’t seem to have any direct connections. Kaia and Taylor started following each other on Instagram after the event.

While other people who got photos with Taylor posted them, in Taylor’s Instagram Post for the night: He only included his photo with Nick, the rest are all solo portraits of himself. Not only that: he edited the background of the photo so it’s just them, and proceeded to put the photo in the middle of the post.

a bunch of Taylor's good friends, including Taylor’s cousin went to like Nick’s post for the academy gala night. Taylor’s sister Ash shared Taylor’s post to her stories: 2 photos of Taylor himself, and the one photo of Taylor and Nick. Taylor mentioned in a past interview if he had any emotional or relationship (I don’t know which one is the right translation, the original wording is 感情) issues, he would talk to Ash. (please note that I didn’t not and don’t know how to fact-check any of the things mentioned above except for Ash’s Instagram)

Conclusion/ Speculation (okay the academy gala part alone took me 40 minutes what the fuck): I cannot reiterate this enough: THIS IS JUST SPECULATION DO NOT TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY but under the assumption that Taylor and Nick are a thing, the serious of shenanigans that happened that night, especially with the family and friends stuff in 6,7,8, was interpreted as they announcing it to their personal social circle. AGAIN THIS IS SPECUALTION DON’T TAKE THIS SERIOSULY 

Taylor’s China Trip

On 7th December, Taylor had a photo shoot at the GQ gala venue, but spent the rest of the afternoon taking photos and signing things for fans. Among those, one was the photo of him and Nick from the academy gala just three days ago. He was visibly extra happy and showed off the photo to the crowd, unlike the other photos which he simply gets it, signs it, and then gives it back.

This day was also the start of “Taylor giving Nick/Henry a moustache”: throughout the trip, he drew on four photos of the two of them

(This one is a … really big stretch) among the four, one of them was the GQ magazine shoot, and he first drew the moustache on Nick’s face, giggling “I’ll sign on Nick’s face”, signed his own signature, then just when he was about to give the magazine back he suddenly changed his mind and said “wait wait I wanna do something on my face”, and then drew a crown on his head while muttering “crown prince”. And the thing is… historically, George Villers had a moustache. And then he drew a moustache on Nick and a crown on himself. Also, one of the most popular Chinese RWRB fic on AO3 is called “The King’s Palace”, and the premise is putting Henry in George place as the social climber and the Duke of Buckingham (it is literally George’s character with blonde hair and a different name), and Alex as the crown prince who ascended to the throne and is also utterly infatuated with Henry. So… yeah.

When he drew the fourth photo, which was the piano scene, the fan who asked said “Oh you’re so nice to Nick!” and according to their description (there’s no video), Taylor blushed a little and said “yeaahhhhh” with a big grin

While Taylor was in China people were stirring shit up on Twitter about him, and during the Twitter drama, Nick liked Taylor’s Academy Gala post.

The boys liked the same video on Instagram but from different accounts (a video about a pony in the snow)

During the trip, Taylor was seen wearing a white button-up with blue stripes. Nick has been seen wearing a shirt that looks identical before.

Cartier Watch (aka the one that makes me do a double take)

Taylor used to wear a lot of Cartier watches until he started wearing Tagheuer last July due to a commercial partnership

Nick likes wearing Omega watches. In fact, Henry’s watch in the movie is Nick’s own omega watch. He also has a commercial partnership with Omega.

But then starting last year, both of them were seen wearing matching Cartier’s Tank Must Watches (the silver on with a black surface and a sapphire crown): Taylor can be seen wearing it in the 5th photos of his September post, while Nick can be seen wearing it during the GQ gala, the Academy Gala, in Milan during fan interactions, and last weekend in his TIOY co-star’s Instagram story.

And the thing about this watch is (and here is where I need to reiterate that I’m just translating, I didn’t fact check this) 1, watch is a typical thing to give a lover, and you must be familiar with their wrist size 2, Cartier is a pretty romantic brand 3, the price of this watch is closer to what Taylor’s used to wearing but much cheaper than Omega 4, This specific watch is a popular watch to give a partner/lover, 5, David and Victoria Beckham’s relationship was discovered because paparazzi saw the Cartier watch he gave her and connected dots together

Jesus Christ at this point I should consider getting a part time job in translation

This was fun but this took me so much time, it’s ~2000 words long

Again, all of this was found and speculate for fun, and mean no ill will, and haven’t, and won’t harm the boys, please understand that and don’t take this took seriously. If you find this interesting and want a part two, let me know.

[genderkoolaid]

Hey, do you remember all that "discourse" surrounding the term "Achillean'?

For a while I kept seeing people both dismiss and defend it saying "only chronically online transmasc teenagers use it"

I'm a transfem nb in hir later life, and the term acchillean has given me a way to describe my attraction and it's genuinely a really important part of my identity.

I hope it becomes as common of a term as sapphic, personally.

Oh yeah, I've discussed that discourse a bit on here. I think the pushback is one part political lesbianism (the idea that lesbian culture is special and under attack and needs to be protected from outsiders esp males from corrupting its pure feminism) and one part anti-transmasculine homophobia (gay trans men are cringey teens who don't understand what it means to be gay, whose contributions to gay culture aren't legitimate unless cis gay men approve of them).

& while historicity doesn't make a term more valuable inherently, achillean isn't even a newly-coined word. People have been using Achillean to refer to homoerotic relationships between men for a very long time, it's just that (afaik) gay trans men online were the ones who started to repopularize it, ergo the anti-transmasculinity.

I'm really glad it's been so helpful for you though! I also really hope it becomes more popular. Both sapphic and achillean are good terms for describing queer attraction/relationships that unify different identities. They also don't rely on gender labels, so generally they're good for being able to communicate "attraction in a gay male way without necessarily identifying myself as a man."

Unfortunately they are also very Western, although I've seen some people from coining similar terms based on queer people from their own cultures which is cool! Especially since that adds another layer of nuance, framing types of attraction not as universal but as grounded in specific cultural associations (ofc that's not to say non-White/Western people can't ID as sapphic or achillean).

[citizensun]

Queerness and the House of Usher (spoilers!)

See I just added these Thoughts to the tags in @quecksilvereyes 's post but now I have Feelings too

TFotHoU (or HoU, as I will refer to it here), as expected from a Mike Flannagan show, has a bunch of Queer Rep™ to talk about. HoU is, also, about remarkably evil people - amoral capitalists who'll step over anyone if it means they'll get something from it. And look! Some of them are queer! Kinky too!

That's bad queer representation... right?

The show isn't that clear when stablishing sexualities, but we see that at least three of the Usher kids - Napoleon, Camille and Victorine - have same sex SOs/assistants with curious job descriptions. Prospero's taste for orgies probably implies queerness too, but honestly I don't remember if he gets it going with any guys in the story. I honestly have no idea about Tamerlane's voyerism thingie and Frederick is the only one with a "traditional family" going on.

Unrelated, but: Leo is definitely cheating on his bf Julius. Completely dismissing about his worries for him too. And for his cat. That's objectively evil, clearly. Vic literally killed her fiancée Alessandra, though she didn't stuff her under the floorboard, which is an L when compared to Poe's original. Cam doesn't believe in true love. Perry blackmailed his sister in law. Mean. He's also got a surprisingly high kill count for the family's disappointment, but since unlike Roderick he only killed rich people, we stan. I don't belong in Kinky spaces so I haven't got a big take on Tammie, only that - well, she's completely dismissing of her husband and sees him as a prop, just like the sex worker she hires.

Huh.

See, the nature of a story called "the fall of X family" is that X family is going to be the main character. The title kinda implies that they're falling for a reason, ergo, they're despicable fucking people. And they're queer! They're very queer. Many flavors of gay. They're the main characters, and they're monsters, and they're gay.

No, that's not bad rep.

Queerness as a movement, a community and a theory is very focused on scaping a cisheteronormative society's binaries (ie man/woman, husband/wife, public/private) and creating living conditions to those who fall outside of these categories - mlms and wlws, the trans, the nbs, the aros and aces... we are all queer, strange and estranged from this weird and limited worldview. And so we create a community for ourselves. It's very focused on care and anti-stablishment. Since a cisheteronormative society tends to be very white, rich and western, it's also focuses on anti-racism, anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism. Y'all know that, this is Tumblr and we love leftist Discourse.

I also know many, many gay people irl who are not like that at all. Libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, terfs, completely apolitical people and the like. Sexuality at it's core is personal, not political, so there are gay people out there who are perfectly comfortable with their sexuality on an individual level but do not see the point of getting involved in the broader context. They're queer, but are they...?

Well—

Not to mention there's lots of asshole gays out there! Don't you have a shitty ex? Have you never been almost run over by a drunken butch who blew cigar smoke into your face? I have! Life experiences are just like that. Maybe you should touch more grass. You'll probably find a lucky gift from your neighbour's dog, who is an astrology-obsessed bisexual and also really hot but stopped making out with you at a party once she found out you're a pisces (the neighbour, not the dog).

(Granted, none of this is as bad as implanting an experimental heart contraption into the fiancée you just killed because she dared to have ethical principles and then being so consumed with grief you stab yourself in front you'd your dad but you know how it goes. We're not the 1%.)

My point is, queer people are people. We are complex. We fuck up, and sometimes there's still times to fix things and sometimes... there isn't. We're consumed by jealousy and regret and sometimes we're so locked into our own head we stop believing the rest of the world is real too. Just like any other people, because unfortunately, queerness isn't a sign of morality.

And even if queerness does mean community, kindness and acceptance, tell me... Where the hell would the Usher kids get those from? The people around them are not really peers – they're ass-istants, blowjob-giving apartments, orgy mates, heart surgery providers, hired fitness moneybags, perfect housewives. Even if the partners are all shown to care for the Ushers, there's still a distance, a power gap, that makes the relationships fundamentally wrong.

And the partners? Arguably they're the good queer rep in the show, but look – even when Julius and Alessandra are shown to be good people (or at least people with an ethical boundary), they're not the good gays, they're simply the good SO's to a family of psychos. Exactly like Bill and Morrie, who afawk are straight people.

Which leads us to HoU's parameter of morality - Auguste Dupin. He refuses to drink the Amontillado, symbol of all the Usher opulence over the years. He got screwed over by the Usher twins and by the Raven herself, but he refused to cave in (except for the informant part, admittedly). He's not a good gay guy; he is gay and he is a good man.

The fundamental difference between our show's main tragic yaoi couple isn't that Auggie is a happily out gay man (and therefore is good) while Roderick is a sad divorced hetero (and therefore is bad). Auggie is the richer man because he is a good man; he has a spouse and children and grandchildren he loves with all his heart. He has a family and a community and he has found a sort of happiness no money can buy. Roderick owns the world – but what does he really have? What do his children even have? How could they ever build communities for themselves if they were never in one? Their father made them compete for his love. He never nurtured their bonds, he just showered them with money and excess until it was too much for them to handle. Juno herself pointed out - they were never a family. The House of Usher was only that. A house. It is empty and soulless.

What is queerness without a community? How could the people who represent the relentless corporate normativity and cutthroat capitalism ever be good queer rep? How can they even be queer?

Hear me out: on the most individual, simple level, being queer is still about not fitting in. These kids are bastards. They are are PoC and women in a predominantly male and white dominated space. They're on top of the world, but they're still outsiders to their own House. How could they not be queer?

And yes, I know this discussion takes a different turn when it comes to representation in media, but it's not like Flannagan fell into a Hays Code-era flamboyant villain trope. Queerness is just there. Just like Victorine and August are both black people in (arguably) the opposite ends of the morality spectrum, there are queer characters of many kinds here. The story just happens to be about the fucked up ones.

HoU is a poignant critique of capitalism and a surprisingly funny adaptation of Poe. We'll judge it by that. It happens to be queer – more things should be.

[euniexenoblade]

Question about that post you reblogged with a bunch of poly terms: I'm poly and have known for many years with pretty healthy relationships and breakups overall. However, I don't know most of the terms used in the post, and it also mentioned "books you should read when getting into polyamory". Would you suggest that anyone who is polyam needs to be reading some relevant literature to, in a sense, "do it right"? If so, would you have any recommendations for someone who is having a hard time with heavier reading, for what would be a good starting point?

(also possible that I don't know most terms there because they're more western terms, but it did make me wonder if it's essential to know all those concepts if you're poly?)

P.S. thanks for all your poly posts they're bringing some much needed positivity!

I mean they probably are Western terms so yeah I'd imagine. I don't personally know of books to recommend, I learned my stuff by interacting with the polyamory community and dipping my toes in poly relationships for over 10 years. But, maybe @deepseametro has books to recommend since he mentioned it (also feel free to fix my definitions here).

But definitions in order

Meta: short for metamour. partner of a partner.

Compersion: Opposite of jealousy. Joy from your partner having wonderful experiences with their other partners. Kinda murky in explanation, but it's just having happiness that your partner is happy in other relationships more or less.

Kitchen Table Polyamory: Polycule that operates like a family, it even can include metamours who aren't dating each other. Named such cuz they can gather at the table for a meal.

Triad: Pretty on the nose. Three person polycule. Generally meant to refer to three people who date each other specifically but I've seen other weirder more specific definitions. I've only actually heard it used to describe what I said though.

Solo Poly: very simple concept but hard to put into words. A person who controls their own autonomy, doesn't ask for permission to date people from other partners.

Polysaturated: poly but not seeking new partners, not open to new relationships (generally because of the amount partners and lacking time to devote to new ones).

Parallel Polyamory: when a person's relationships are independent of each other, the partners don't really talk or interact.

Nesting Partner: Person you live with long term. ie. My husband is my nesting partner, we live together and that's the plan for the foreseeable future.

Hierarchy: Again, on the nose. Some partners have priority over others. ie. I'm going to be more devoted to my husband of 15 years than someone i just met and only started dating.

Again, a lot of this I just learned by talking to poly community, ol and irl. Lived experience and all that.

[sophieinwonderland]

Stop Posting Hate and Disinformation in Endogenic Tags!

Does it? Are you sure? Because that's a really bold way to start off a post in a community with a lot of people who have PTSD!

But even bolder is this claim:

I would ask for the source for this, but I already know it.

Now, to be fair, there is a lot of wiggle room where some can argue semantics of what an "alter" is.

Luckily, today we aren't arguing semantics, as they made it clear in a comment that they don't believe endogenic systems are experiencing any sort of plurality! Yay!

Now, back to their claims... it's true that most evidence of any forms of consciousness in psychology is based on believing people's personal experiences.

Psychology is distinct from neuroscience in this way. Hopefully, we can get neurological evidence too. Stanford University was conducting an fMRI study into tulpamancers. But that study isn't complete yet.

But it is worth noting that practically every researcher who has looked into endogenic and non-disordered plurality do believe it's a real phenomena.

As mentioned above, Stanford University has invested anywhere from tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars into a neurological study of tulpamancers.

The ICD-11 by the World Health Organization states that you can have multiple "distinct personality states" without a disorder.

The creators of the theory of structural dissociation have said that hypnosis and spiritual mediumship may create "self-conscious dissociated parts of the personality."

Transgender Mental Health by Eric Yarbrough has an entire chapter discussing plurality, including acknowledging non-disordered and endogenic plurality. Eric Yarbrough is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and this book was published by APA Publishing.

And these are but a few.

Psychiatrists and psychologists overwhelming support the existence of endogenic plurality.

Is there any reason for the human brain to just randomly decide to be a singlet?

Why do the 80-billion neurons in the human brain just decide to be one person? Why is a singlet treated as inherently the default for humanity?

Total side tangent, but not all alters fit neatly into the ANP/EP dichotomy. The thing that defines an ANP is not simply being dissociated from the trauma, but trying to continue on with normal life and avoid it. Hence, being "apparently normal."

Many alters though, just don't fit into that as described. I would argue that a non-traumagenic alter who never fronts isn't really an ANP according to the Theory of Structural Dissociation.

Yup. That's why I'm responding to this. Your post is nothing but misinformation.

Most words have etymology in other cultures. Hurricane, for example, comes from an indigenous religion that referred to storm gods. This is a natural process as cultures interact.

For the record, "tulpamancy" IS created headmates. The term "tulpamancy" is purely Western, with the -mancy suffix originating in Latin. And whether you like it or not, the ongoing studies into tulpamancy will be into this Western practice, not the Tibetan sprul pa from which it draws its etymology.

Maybe you should take your own advice.

Although if you have a single credible source proving that endogenic plurality can't exist, you're welcome to show me.

You: "Stay out of DID/OSDD spaces" Also You: *Tags post as "#endogenic" and "#endogenic systems"*

Anyway, as always, anti-endos coming into endogenic tags means the response goes to anti-endo tags. If anti-endos do not like me posting in their tags, please take a moment to explain to @frenzyborderlines why crosstagging into our spaces is bad (and incredibly hypocritical from someone telling endogenic systems to stay out of CDD spaces) so I won't need to do this again.

[djuvlipen]

Difference between "Romani"/"Roma" and "Romanian"

I decided to make this post because a lot of people get Romanians and Roma mixed up. It's something that's pretty common, even among Europeans who are more familiar with Roma than Americans are.

"Romanian" comes from latin "romanus", meaning "Roman", inhabitant of the city of Rome (Italy). Romanians are a white people indigenous to (Eastern) Europe living in Romania.

"Roma" (noun) and "Romani" (adjective) mean "people" in Romani language. It probably comes from Sanskrit "ḍoma", which refers to a traveling caste of musicians. Roma are a South Asian diaspora that traveled through the MENA region for about two centuries before arriving in Europe in the Middle Ages.

Many people get Romanian and Romani confused because of the following reasons:

the names are similar: this is true but coincidental, as "Romanian" comes from Latin and "Romani" comes from Sanskrit, and both words have very different meanings

Romania has the largest Romani community in Europe: this is true. The reason is that, upon entering Europe in the Middle Ages, the Roma that arrived in Romania were enslaved and couldn't move out of the country. The slavery of Roma in Romania lasted 500 years. After it ended, in the mid. 19th century, the majority of those Roma remained in Romania, though a few of them migrated to America and to Western Europe.

TL;DR

The Romanians are indigenous to Europe. The Roma are indigenous to India.

Romanians are usually Orthodox Christians. Roma can be of any religion, typically converting to the dominant religion of the region we settled in.

Romanian culture (singular) is a unique culture that was influenced by its proximity to Slavic, Greek, Hungarian, German cultures. Romani cultures (plural) are of South Asian origin and were shaped over the centuries by our travelling through the Middle East and Europe.

Romanians live in Romania. Roma don't have a particular country.

The reason many Roma live in Romania is because Romania has a long history of anti-Romani racism and slavery.

Romanians often suffer from xenophobia when living abroad because they are (white) Eastern Europeans. Roma suffer from racism and xenophobia: we are a brown people whose cultures are very identifiable as non-European. As such, we have suffered and still suffer segregation, police brutality, ghettoization, slavery, pogroms, slaughters, discrimination in the workplace and in education. Anti-Romani racism is still the most widespread form of racism in all European countries to this day.

The majority of Roma, especially those living in Eastern Europe, ie around 2/3rds of Roma, are visibly brown, because of our mixed ancestry (South Asian + MENA), though some groups can be lighter due to interracial marriages with white people. It's the case of the British Roma, in particular.

Our traditions, culture and belief system evolved with us from India through the Middle East to Europe. It is thus pretty recognizable as "non-European" and has been used to identify us as "others/foreigners" over the centuries. FYI, there is not one single and unique Romani culture, because cultural beliefs and practices, as well as religion and Romani language dialect can vary a lot between each Romani group. To make it more intelligible, I invite you to think of the larger Romani diaspora as one race that is composed of a manifold of Romani ethnic groups.

Romanian

Romani (adjective) / Roma (noun)

(I have more of these in my "Roma" tag)

Roma =/= Romanian. Romanians are European while Roma are a South Asian diaspora. While Romanians do suffer xenophobia when living in Western Europe and America, anti-Romani sentiment is a type of racism widespread in all of Europe and America. It's particularly important to know the difference between Roma and Romanian, as Romania has a very long history of racism against Roma: slavery, segregation, ghettos, genocide.

[raayllum]

One thing I noted watching The Dragon Prince is that the intro splits the same continent in half with the elves/humans so they started with the same amount of magical animals/plants each. There’s still some magical animals the human side but their presence is far, far reduced comparatively so do you think that’s specifically because of dark magic harvesting leading to more “normal” to our eyes species dominating?

I’m fairly surprised there isn’t a visibly established livestock industry’s for magic animals too (that way say your lunar moths can be renewably hatched each year, or a sheep population equivalent kept etc).

You seem very immersed in much of the lore so thought it’d be fun to at least pose as a query.

I think there's a few different things here to consider (that we'll probably never get a definitive answer on) but this is my best guess + what we do know about how dark magic operates:

Both regular animals and magical creatures can be used for dark magic. We know this because we've seen human blood be used in a couple of spells, Claudia puts grasshopper goop in Soren's mouth (2x08), and then later uses the deer in its entirety to undo Soren's paralysis.

That said, it does seem that magical creatures are more potent and preferred for dark magic spells. This makes sense - while you can use the life essence of anyone/anything for dark magic, creatures with magic inside them (any arcanum) are inevitably going to have more to "squeeze out" than a non magical creature would.

With that in mind, I think canon gives us a few answers and subtextual clues.

The most important one is something Viren refers to 2x05 (which has haunted me ever since), in which he cites that, "After centuries of fighting amongst ourselves, the five human kingdoms finally found balance, an era of peace." The Book 2 novelization gives a little more information about this period on conflict, explaining that "The first summit of the Pentarchy had been held centuries ago, and it had brought an end to the Mage Wars and created the modern order of the human kingdoms" (Ch17).

We don't know, of course, if this is precisely the same period of time. Maybe by helping to imprison Aaravos (and presumably disposing of the last king of Katolis), the Orphan Queen likewise helped put an end to the mage wars. Maybe she only came on the scene centuries after the mage wars! Who knows. "Held centuries ago" could mean three, which matches up with the Orphan Queen / Aaravos imprisonment timeline (and no more mister startouch elf preying on mages) or it could go back closer to 700-800 years. We'll just have to wait and see if we ever get more details!

Regardless, the Mage Wars and the fact they were likely fuelled by dark magic, since it was humans fighting amongst themselves, might answer why we see so few (known) magical creatures in the Human Kingdoms other than maybe glow toads: mages went after the most potent magical ingredients during the fighting, and reduced those numbers to virtually nonexistent or extinct.

I would imagine before the Mage Wars / even before Xadia split, maybe, more magical creatures were held and domesticated as livestalk. (Elves certainly do keep some animals as pets, such as Janai's flying hot cat, though I'd expect something like a Moonstrider to maybe have evolved as a sort of hunting companion.) However, humans on the eastern side and elves on the western side were likely forced to abandon any farms / communities they had in regards to animal care when the Exile / Schism happened. Information and resources might've been lost, as animals on one side of the continent were likely different compared to others, although some humans (who already lived in the west) and some elves (who already lived in the east) wouldn't have had to have moved.

That said, I think the simplest and shortest answer is just that there's not a lot of mages within TDP's world. For each group of people, we see a lot more warriors or diplomats than mages and they don't seem to regularly be employed in the military of kingdom we've seen, Sunfire or Pentarchy troops or otherwise. We can also guess that in the Pentarchy due to the specificity of the ingredients needed, sometimes, that Katolis by virtue of being closest to the Border would be primed to have the most dark mages and dark mage traffic / travellers (although I've HC'd that Evenere due to its isolation has a fair bit of lingering magic more than say Del Bar or Duren). But due to the amount of knowledge and ingredients required to seemingly do most dark magic spells, as well as the toll it takes on the body, I think it makes sense that most people wouldn't have the interest, access, or ability to pursue that kind of path when there's plenty of others that are less gruelling / easier

Magic is everywhere, and small pieces of magic (like Ruthari's moon opals) are everywhere, but outside of the specific skillsets of each primal (Moonshadow illusion spells and forgery, maybe cooking, forgery and healing for Sunfire elves) it doesn't seem like magic is something they readily depend on for food or livestock in their day to day lives. And if that's not the case for the majority in Xadia (only used in times of crisis, etc), I can see that need plummeting in the Human Kingdoms simply because it takes a lot more time/energy to maintain than might be necessarily utilized because of the low demand

This was all long winded speculation and hopefully mostly coherent. If you're interested in more deep dive worldbuilding thoughts I'd really recommend some of @kradogsrats stuff as it's great and a lot more eloquent / all encompassing tbh

[shelandsorcery]

Astronomics Game Art : Designing Mining Equipment!

Gonna talk this week about designing mining equipment for the sci-fi game Astronomics - demo on steam right now! - And I thought I'd start with a little conversation about research and process (...that doesn't really have on a much art in it but just stay with me) and maybe get to tap in a little bit into how someone like me who doesn't do a lot of technical design learned a lot about how to get excited about that whole field through the research stage of this game.

So when I say research I really do mean fairly old-school research — and this is probably gonna be a theme with a lot of the posts about this game in particular, because I don't think you can build sci-fi without some understanding of engineering systems and current scientific realities to then play with, you know?

As you may gather from the trailer, Astronomics is a game about asteroid mining, among other things. Which meant that we had a lot of need for legit industrial feeling props and tools for the player to use, things that felt functional and believable without feeling complicated or delicate. I really enjoy the challenge of adding appeal to something that maybe people don't always think about being appealing or fun or cute (this is never an absolute statement — there's always somebody already able to see more appeal in any given subject and I could ever imagine) so part of the research stage is going and looking for that appeal. So above you can see a sheet of loose rough sketches I did in clip studio paint from reference that I gathered with the rest of the team and by myself that seemed relevant to some of the designs we were pursuing.

If you've had the chance to play the demo, you'll know that it's not just surface mining but we are going to be letting you mind gases and liquids and underground mineral veins as well — these are all things that people do in the real world of course, so process one was taking a quick look at those actual industries and then figuring out how I could condense that activity down into a pretty simple and easy to understand machine.

So turned out what we needed was something that drilled and dug, something that pumped liquids, something that sucked air, and all of these things needed to then produce some sort of container to hold what they had collected.

In a videogame you really need to communicate to the player why each act they do is significant and different from the others, and as the art director it was my job to figure how to do that through visual design of the tools they're going to be using. So that meant that even though you could certainly store liquid and gas and solid resources in the same kind of box, I wanted to try and find ways to keep each thing feeling different. Best case scenario is that you're able to look at a prop we've designed and know in a split second which of these three states of matter it will be containing; in the research stage one of the things I'm looking for is any existing visual language that we have (in this Western English-speaking North American videogame audience culture) that already solves this problem.

The great thing about industrial design is that they indeed have very intentionally tackled this problem. Part of it is purely physics optimization that the field of engineering has been working towards for human history. For example, when you're storing liquid and you want to remove all of it from a container you probably don't want something with corners — that's how you end up with cylindrical liquid storage. When you're storing a gas you're likely keeping it under pressure, which means you need a shape that will withstand pressure evenly, which means you're looking for something with literally no corners or edges ideally — and that's how you end up with bubble-shaped gas storage like a propane canister. And then when you're storing something solid and you want to use the space most efficiently and be able to stack whatever it is that you have packed it into, you have a box.

Real good news is, a box and a cylinder and a sphere are all wonderfully visually distinct shapes in a fantastically strong place to start when it comes to solving the question of storage. So then we get into the challenge of the machines themselves — what distinguishes a drill from a pump from a vacuum?

So that's the beginning of some of the questions that you have to answer when you're designing props for a game — in the research stage is only one of bunch of different ways you start figuring out these answers. But I want to talk for just a second a little bit about how I personally wrangle my research, because I am definitely not telling you this is the only way to do it. It seems like it may be worth explaining what I get out of this process and see if anything here make sense for you!

One of the reasons that I have this huge page of sketches, big and detailed or tiny and loose, all laid out in one place for me to look at, is because I personally learn and remember things more strongly by taking notes. With my hand holding a pencil ideally. And when they're abstract concepts or verbal or numerical then I'll use writing and I won't have a problem with it, but my job at this stage was not to figure out abstract concepts or to find themes — my job was to solve visual problems. So my first order of business was visual research specifically. Now for me, that involves lots of things — I have a Pinterest board for any sort of subcategory of stuff I'm researching to just do enormous broad research with; then I probably bring most of those images into a huge working .PSD file and move them around to create groupings. And then I start drawing.

I really think that drawing is integral for me at this stage. I don't think I could do this without drawing as part of my research. There's so much that I just don't bother noticing if I'm not going to be drawing the thing that I'm looking at; even the worst, fastest, sketchy as drawing makes me pay infinitely more attention to something then I do when I am simply collecting information mentally. I'm phrasing this in a somewhat exaggerated, self-deprecating way, but I really can't exaggerate how much more I get out of things when I sit down and draw them. They talk about drawing is a way of seeing, and for me that's a practice I've intentionally pushed and explored in my life.

The other thing, though, is that visual problem that I need to solve. Sometimes solutions to the problem aren't obvious until they are visualized — it can be very easy to get distracted by things like surface details and miss the silhouette language, or vice versa, but when you are doing the drawing you have to wrestle with the silhouette and the details and make decisions about them. Visual trends appear way more clear when you are drawing something for the 10th time as opposed to simply seeing it for the 10th time. And all of the layers of cultural meaning and context that clutter up a photograph can be simply ignored as you transfer only what you need to a drawing, where you might discover something that everything else hid until then. Beyond that, one of the things you may notice about the sketches is that they are somewhat cartoony — I'm certainly trying to capture important details and be representational to a degree, but much like gesture drawing the human figure, researching this way lets me start finding out what the gestures are of these different sorts of subject matter. This is something that I knew about creature design, and about flora design, and one of the real joys of this game in particular was proving to myself that this gesture approach applied to industrial machines and technology as well.

I mean, I knew that there were cute trucks out there, but gosh.

I think if you are in need of something to reinvigorate a particular piece of subject matter for you — if you're designing something that you are just not that excited about, or if you don't feel challenged by the work in front of you — I really think sitting and sketching from reference can open up the complexities and help push you and your work farther. It certainly works for me and I know that the learning I did on this game is something I carry with me to future projects as well.

That seems like a pretty strong place to leave this post in particular, but I'll be back later this week with more breakdowns and screen caps of the actual design process of all of our adorable mining equipment!

I would really love to hear from folks if you also engage in similar research processes before going into full design mode — or if you have a completely different way to get your mind revved up and ready to go, I would really enjoy reading about it!

In the meantime, if you're curious about mining asteroids but it's cute please feel free to check out the Astronomics demo on steam, I made an awful lot of visdev art for this and handed it off to some incredible game creators who have done some really impressive stuff taking their ideas and my ideas and running to honestly some pretty new and exciting places with them.

[thewrongmoon]

El's Possible Queercoding

been meaning to actually documents my findings on this for awhile, so I'm gonna go over some reasons I think its possible that El is gay, specifically just how I think she may be attracted to girls, whether you think that means lesbian, bisexual, pan, etc etc.

El's interest in femininity:

I think to further understand why El has an interest in feminine things, we have to look at how she was raised:

The children in the lab were pretty much stripped of a gender identity entirely. They all had the same haircut and hospital gowns. They all played with the same toys, most of which were puzzle games which have no societally assigned gender. It's worth noting that these short haircuts do have a masculine association (at least in modern western culture) and the kids also pretty much solely interacted with men. Really the only indication of their gender was the pronouns that they used for them.

The concept of different genders acting differently was probably completely foreign to El when she had just escaped the lab. We can see that she tries to strip in front of Mike, Lucas and Dustin and is confused when they all react negatively.

Being surrounded by all this masculinity, seeing someone feminine like Nancy for the first time (or at least the first time in years) is magical to El.

El takes a very quick interest in feminine things. Long hair, pastel colors, dresses...

What sparks more of a queer connotation is her interest in the feminine form. We see her appreciate the ballerina in Nancy's music box, which would very well just be because she thinks the dress is pretty or something, but she also singles out the figure on Mike's trophy.

Obviously I don't mean anything explicit by pointing this out, but as a lesbian I remember having a similar reaction to things like mannequins of women at a young age.

There's definitely a duality of her longing for a childhood where she's able to express her femininity that I don't want to dismiss, though. There's a shot where she stares at Nancy's childhood photos, and it's pretty clear she's wondering what her life would be like if she were raised like a normal girl. That storyline is further explored when she visits the Ives in season 2.

El was also previously not interested in Mike's nerdier hobbies, but when Max shows her comics, specifically ones with female superheroes, El is intrigued. She assumed comics were just about boys at first. We all poke fun at Mike for having a crush on Superman, but maybe we should stop to question if El had a thing for Wonder Woman?

Fashion choices - Mirroring other girls:

A classic quandary for anyone with same-sex attraction. Do I want to be them, or do I want to be with them?

We talk a lot about how Mike tries to wear and do things Eddie does (this was confirmed by the costume department), and how that totally makes it look like he has kind of a crush on him. But what about El?

In season 1 we definitely assume El wants to be Nancy. Her attempts of mirroring her are clumsy and largely influenced by Mike, Dustin and Lucas. After the wig comes off she just gives up, surrendering to her fate of never being "pretty."

In season 2, she wears mostly boys clothes provided by Hopper. The main makeover of this season is done by Kali, who turns El into her mini-me. This time we see El refer to her new look as "bitchin'" rather than "pretty."

Her new look is very punk inspired. Punk subculture has close ties with the LGBT community. As the punk scene is all about questioning/rejecting societal norms, queer people flocked to it.

In season 3, her makeover revolves around Max. While Max tells El to pick something that she likes, El still kind of chooses to resemble Max. In the beginning of s3, her hair looks like this:

But after her trip to the mall with Max, she chooses to part her hair to the right like she does.

They later have both their hair tied up:

Middle parts for both of them:

This is all to say, she mirrors Max's looks, because she likes Max. Not necessarily romantically? And there's also no way to tell if she's doing this consciously. But I feel like there's something in El's brain that just goes "pretty girl = I have to steal her look"

Which brings us to season 4:

Now, there's no makeover scene for her in this one. Disappointing, I know. But she's had a considerable glow up since season 3.

Her hair is now down past her shoulders. Now you may be wondering who her style inspiration is. And the obvious answer is Joyce, because she looks just like her.

But I would actually like to propose an alternative to her hair style inspo:

We can see that Angela pulls up the sides of her hair but still has bangs framing her face, similarly to how El styles hers.

Angela is an awful human being who bullies her, but she's also everything El wants to be: pretty, well dressed, well-liked by the people at school. This is precisely why she chooses her to lie about being friends with. She thinks Angela is cool, so Mike will think El is cool if he sees she's friends with her.

Let's move on to her fashion.

El's style is dependent entirely on layering in this season. But she has one staple in her closet, which we also see in seasons 2 and 3-- flannel.

The wardrobe department head has stated that they specifically wanted it to seem like she was wearing clothes from Will's closet.

Will has always been associated with flannel, wearing it almost exclusively in every season besides season 3. This is interesting because flannel is generally seen as masculine, and gay men are usually stereotyped as more feminine. He does wear those short shorts in s3 though so I guess it balances out idk, this is besides the point, moving on:

Flannels when worn on women are associated closely with lesbians. There is some historical basis here; back when women were first being allowed to wear pants (1940s), lesbians were some of the first to jump on it. Jeans were seen as most normal for women to wear, and flannel was usually paired with it. Flannel was warm, durable and practical. A lot of women in the work force wore it because it held up well. Usually work boots (doc martens in particular) were worn as well, which is why they are also associated with the queer community today (though it was more of a practicality thing than a fashion thing back then.)

From my research, it seems like lesbians wearing flannel became a stereotype in more popular media sometime during the 90s. This doesn't necessarily mean it didn't exist during the 80s, I honestly wish I could find more info on when exactly it became a well-known signifier of lesbians, but alas, I cannot find any good sources. Doesn't change the fact that we as an audience know of it's existence, though.

Wearing flannel definitely makes El stick out from the crowd. It was probably considered really normal in Indiana, where the temperatures are cold, but in California you really have no use for flannel in your wardrobe. The late 80s was also known for it's focus on loud colors and bold prints, which isn't at all like the muted, practical nature of flannel. You would definitely see waaay more men than women wearing it.

So El being seen almost exclusively in more masculine fashions would have probably been one of the points of bullying for her. I think her neurodivergent coding was also a factor, but that's an analysis for another time.

El's bullying: possibly homophobically charged?

So this is the furthest stretch I'm gonna make in this post. But upon noticing how often she wears flannel, I jokingly said in my head, "I wonder if they just saw her constantly wearing flannel and assumed she was a lesbian and that's why they started bullying her." And then I was like oh wait but what if actually that's what it was.

I'm assuming she was probably labeled as a tomboy for just wearing her brother's clothes. But then I began to imagine her interactions with girls like Angela which would have caused their hatred for her.

El has a habit of calling other girls "pretty." One of the first thing she seems to notice about other girls, actually. So imagine that Angela sees this girl in men's clothing, and the first thing El probably does with her is call her pretty. Would it be a stretch to assume Angela may have thought El was hitting on her?

I don't think she was, I honestly don't know if El knows how to hit on someone at all. But the perception of Angela and the school at large could have just been... "Jane is a lesbian."

We see other girls avoiding her. This would be a good reason (not morally, but logically, especially considering the time period) for them to do so.

There's also this line from Angela: (0:09-0:14)

Now, I first noticed this when editing a completely different video. And I had to rewatch this clip like 50 times to see if I was crazy or not (I still might be, lol.) But, does it not sound like Angela is.. saying "boyfriend" in quotes?

So I went back to rewatch Angela entering the roller rink, and her and her friend group seem surprised that she has a boyfriend. Now this could be just because El is unpopular and has no friends (that they know if.) But just like Ted Wheeler saying "our son with a girl?" could just be a dig at Mike being a nerd, other context makes me wanna look closer into this line.

Did they maybe think El only got a boyfriend to mask her "real" sexuality? It's definitely possible.

Paralleling El to other characters who are queer or labeled as so

This is a point I'm going to need to further expand upon on a later date. But in watching movies off the s4 inspo board, I've found a couple where the characters are meant to parallel El:

Let The Right One In-

I have a whole post on this parallel, if you want to read it.

So basically, El is Oskar in this parallel. Oskar is a character who is bullied for 2 things: being fat (this is better shown in the book the movie is based upon) and being possibly gay (this is also shown better in the book.)

Oskar does end up having a romantic relationship with a character who is gender-nonconforming. Not gonna go into that particular character's exact gender bc it's kind of debatable and their backstory is sad, but the character, in their own words, is "not a girl." Oskar himself seems to be bisexual, again, you could maybe debate this, but he is non-straight at the very least.

The character he's in a relationship with, Eli, has also had their gender identity stripped away from them, which could make another interesting parallel to El, character wise.

Welcome To The Dollhouse-

So this parallel is a bit less concrete, but the only one I could draw from it is that, once again, the main character being bullied is referenced in El's own bullying.

The main character of this film, Dawn, is bullied for two things: being "ugly" and being a lesbian. She is not actually a lesbian, but the kids bully her for being one, and girls avoid her. One goes as far to claim she was "making a pass at her" when all Dawn did was have a conversation with her.

Being paralleled to two different characters who were bullied for being gay is definitely a weird coincidence.

El's relationship with Max:

El has pretty unarguably romantic themes with Max.

It could just be the Duffers trying to break free from a trope, but in S4 Max takes up a damsel in distress role while El takes on a hero role, for like, the 4th time, please give this girl a break omg.

We see both Mike and Lucas attempt to save El/Max, but at the end of the season Max and El save each other. You could say this was with the power of platonic love, but there are some lines that really make you question if it could be something more.

Conclusion:

I feel like El being gay is a theory that has some legs to stand on! You could definitely go even further and find a lot of rainbow imagery with her, maybe some other small details. This was just my own findings.