#tldr MORE TRANS SUBTEXT

[longhandsart]

Big bold letters in my WIP that just says

MORE TRANS SUBTEXT

[shopcat]

there is, Obviously, fundamentally a difference between headcanon and an analytical reading of text, and treating the two as exactly the same is not only wrong but devalues both, but funnily, i've found people tend to forget that both of these things are the product of referencing our real life experiences and applying them where we see fit to make a more interesting way to interact with media. and you can't just like, forget that it's not JUST about headcanons and meta analysis and whatever, because people in real life also still matter. and in real life, there are different stakes and EXPERIENCES, and those experiences lead to thinking the way we do because that's how you Be a goddamn person, which is why it's ironic is all 😭

like, saying zuko atla has to be cis in order to be "properly" gay in order to be Truly Compelling narratively is fucking ridiculous. textually, zuko is not actually gay. he never was intended to be, he never will be intended to be, he was never even subtextually. the assumption otherwise is already rooted in fantasy, and the tongue in cheek assertion that it isn't, which means it has more credence, is ... dumb? childish? admitting to at least yourself that the things you talk about wrt character analysis aren't the intention of the creator is literally half the point of doing said analysis – you're MEANT to throw away the intended interpretation in order to give it a new life through different keyholes without entirely divorcing itself from the text. (in the same breath, insisting the creator truly meant One Thing when they absolutely would not have/don't care at all, and ignoring that the people who made the piece are going to put their own biases and experiences and background into the media itself and actually MUST be taken into account for things like this is just ... well. Stop That.)

i've personally never been someone to ever claim that The Writers All Along INTENDED to do something that they obviously didn't, like make a character from a 2005 cartoon lgbt+. this doesn't mean that reading doesn't have any substance or cannot possibly hold any meaning, or that it's wrong. if you can't be objective about your own readings what's the damn point... leaning into it being fiction, which changes just by being observed by a different person, is why it's fun or interesting to do in the first place. and yeah there are some basic cookie cutter headcanons people like to fling around, and there can be criticism for that otherwise, but claiming headcanons themselves AREN'T an offshoot of this way of thinking is fucking stupid. like it's plain wrong.

our own thoughts on why a character acts, what they do, what their presentation is, why their personality is what it is up to and including their sexuality, gender identity, religion, JOB, whatever, are made to fill the gaps the text can't or won't provide, and in the case of lgbt ones as long as it's not actively harmful (as in like insisting a lesbian character is bi or something) it is literally harmless seeing as it is fairly solidly a "won't", along with a whole bunch of other hc material that usually don't see the light of day on-screen nonstereotypically. people seeing themselves in characters isn't new but more than that, saying that you know this but then pushing it aside because The Analysis Means More when it's Realistic And Plausible is fucking dumb. and rude. bc the entire point of drawing the line of connections this way is how WE see them. being all like "oh well, your own personal identity is still valid otherwise, don't get your feelings hurt bc it doesn't matter," is moot if you've already asserted there's only One real way to be... plausible 🤨. which is to be NORMAL ! duh.

like, the read that zuko IS gay (and cis) relies on extracting parts through the lens of our own gay perceptions and is why cishet fans don't pick up on it, but you can ask pretty much any other lgbt fan and they'll agree. zuko's narrative arc IS compelling with the read that he is gay, from the way he is ostracised by his family, neglected and abused, the "punishment" he receives and then continues to become his own warden of, the order of his death and the banishment itself, sozin criminalising homosexuality, his inability to connect with others especially his own age, his inability to seamlessly interact with girls, his literal externalised viewing of seeing himself as someone with Two Sides, them being good vs evil, realising he can change the damn world through love and acceptance, striving for peace, being the face of change for his nation, relearning what it means to be who he is once he is free from his past, the shame and humiliation rituals, the claim of his father that he is worthless as a prince and person, AND MORE... and i cannot express enough here how fucking little it matters if he's specifically gay or WHAT THE HELL EVER 😭.

to claim in no small way that it's impossible for a trans person, or a bisexual person, or anyone else lgbt, could ever line up his narrative with their own personal one is so beyond ridiculous it gives me a headache. no, "plausibly", i don't think zuko is like, transmasc. yes, plausibly, he could be gay. plausibly, he could be amab nonbinary but no one seems to actually give a fuck about that for some reason (i wonder!). nothing would change in both cases, because he's not actually either, so i really don't see the point in making fun of or being frustrated by one to lift up the other because you want cisgender boot soles to brush the back of your throat THAT badly. the implausibility of thinking any way about a fictional character should be taken into account to an extent, sure, but at the end of the day neither of us are doing anything truly worthwhile, and no one is claiming that it's the intent from the beginning to say otherwise, so what's the point here. why are we doing this. let's go skip in a meadow together before i kill someone with this rock.

[fancy-fangs]

I have now finished "I saw the TV glow" and will leave my thoughts about it because uhh that's why

(obviously spoilers for I saw the TV glow below the cut)

(TLDR: it wasn't what I expected but I still enjoyed it and found the story very interesting)

First of all some general stuff.

I love like most movies A24 produces they're always a joy to watch for me, so I had high hopes and they didn't disappoint. It was obviously very A24 but I think they did a good job with the movie in general.

I enjoyed all the shots and I thought the lighting was super cool and worked very well for the general mood of the movie. Again very A24 but the scenes were set up in a super captivating way.

Didn't expect to see justice Smith as the main character in this, I feel like he's been stalking me since the Quarry but honestly he's a great actor so I'm not complaining. Just didn't see him in any of the promo stuff so I was surprised to see him again lol.

I found the breaking of the fourth wall super interesting. It was a very surprising element to me but it worked super well with the themes and it brought a meta element to the storytelling that was super interesting in context of the rest of the story.

Now onto the stuff everyone actually wants to hear:

I actually thought the storyline was super interesting. It had a very slow buildup and it took a while to get like anywhere but I think that works perfectly with the themes of the movie and where it ends. I understand why this made it rough to watch for some ppl tho.

A lot of that beginning gave a sort of uncertain and almost uncomfortable vibe, which again I think worked great but I understand why someone wouldn't like that. Personally a great buildup to the later story tho.

Now I'll be real, I didn't quite understand the aggressive trans themes everyone was putting on the story until like after they were at the football field and Maggie tried to convince Owen to bury themselves together. Like I understood the story obviously and I got some hints but I didn't get for most of it how it was meant to be so much Abt being trans.

Once it hit it hit tho, like once Owen talked about it and once you were confronted with it more it hit and I think it worked really well and was super interesting.

It definitely wasn't what I expected it to be and that makes it even cooler in my opinion. I was slightly worried it would just be a movie about a trans kid and then they figure themselves out and yippee. A part of me was glad it wasn't that.

Because - and now this goes into the actual theme - but I feel like so rarely there's a point made out of "okay but you will have to kill who you are to become the person you're meant to be". Most of the time in pop culture when there's trans representation it's still "oh this is great and awesome you're gonna become awesome and you're life is gonna be great and nothing will change that you don't want to change" which I get but it's also not really how it works.

I thought it was super refreshing as a theme to talk about how yes sometimes you have to kill the person you have been all your life and it's scary and awful and you obviously don't want that but you have to if you don't want it to forcefully kill you in the future.

Obviously it's in the themes and the subtext and the interpretation and there's gonna be a lot of (especially non queer) people who won't get that from that movie and that's okay. I wouldn't be mad at someone if they didn't pick up on that. But to me it was super interesting and I thought it conveyed a lot.

Now still, and maybe this train will hit in the next hour or tomorrow or whatever, but it didn't make me feel any sort of big emotion. Like for me personally, I have been dealing with this for two years, this isn't a new conflict for me. This isn't some realization of something new that sent me down an emotional spiral. And that's okay but I just didn't sit there crying sobbing like some people said they did.

I thought the ending of the movie was really interesting and gave the viewer a great moment of reflection. I really liked how sudden it was and how cut off it felt. Both in story and with the themes that just worked super well and like I said I feel like that gave an extra push to the viewer emotionally.

[idontchara]

hey there my beautiful lovely wonderful people who r mutuals/follow me this has nothing to do w yall dw. I just need to yell for a moment bc I'm annoyed ONCE AGAIN at fandom nonsense

terfs/truscum fuck off you're not wanted here and will be blocked, id rather not waste either of our times

for the love of fuck can we stop headcanoning literally only the characters that defy gender roles trans-the-"opposite"-gender-they're-defying-the-roles-of because I'm at my wits fuckin end over here. or can we headcanon them as trans the gender they identify as?????

I'm not saying trans headcanons are bad, the character of the day this is about  I actually headcanon as a trans man (though it's grossly pervasive in fandom space with so many more I can yell about). But can we not look at a man with long hair and go "ah woman." or a man/enbie person who wears specifically ambiguous styles and refers to themselves mostly ambiguously as something other than they self ID bc "oh well obviously their gender is blah blah blah." like those r two different characters who I've seen people just immediately gone "oh trans woman" over nothing but surface characteristics (ok the first applies to like 7 different men tbh). one was even canonically a trans dude! I've seen it happen to transfem and transfem coded characters albeit much less, but I'm not denying it happens, just that I can't really think of any specific ones rn.

ah fuck wait I thought of another non-binary canon slew of characters. there's one fandom that's really notorious for assigning genders to different characters based off of the pronouns they use in Japanese DESPITE the series being very clear in telling you that the "species" (it's complicated without naming the media) has moved so far beyond human society and everything we know that they DONT have genders. them using Boku or Ore or watashi is a subtle way of pointing to how they feel about themselves not in a gender way. Boku and ore pop out more when they're being tough or arrogant. but no, everyone constantly misgenders damn near the entire cast and it suckssssss

please I'm begging u to stop the fucking gender essentialism especially in media that specifically tries to avoid making characters fit in a gender box

I'm gonna bite some fucking fingers off I s2g

TL;DR u can headcanon whoever u want as whatever u want but like also please take a moment to look internally from time to time and self examine. if u literally only ever put characters into boxes that are stereotypes of gender/sexuality/race pls consider your biases and maybe consider reevaluating. men can have long hair. women can have unshaved legs. men can wear dresses/skirts. women can wear suits only. nonbinary people don't owe you androgyny either while we're at it. let people use pronouns that don't "fit" their gender! stop parroting gender essentialism into your trans headcanons bc that's also terf shit! let people express gender in ways that doesn't force them into a neat little box. thanks for listening

edited tldr to my tldr bc I'm bad at being succinct; there is a difference between subtext/coding of a character and just going "oh so and so has surface level traits of x so obviously they're x duh"

[thepunkmuppet]

There is no canon set up for tedbecca, though? The writers, the actors, nobody was ever planning on tedbecca. There is no set up for it that isn't you with your cishet "the main man and main women must be love interests" goggles on. The fact that you feel it's cool to come into the tedtrent tag and basically shit on the shippers and say there isn't anything there and then turn around and ask us to explain it to you is REALLY fucking presumptuous and arrogant and SHITTY of you. Writing a whole ass essay about how you don't get it, these younger, hotter actors or this basic cishet ship is better, that's fucking rude and you can fuck all the way off.

Like. We don't care if you don't get it. We don't care if you're so basic and unimaginative and boring that you can't see the subtext that makes Ted and Trent great. We get it.

And you're a Spike fan. You stan an abusive rapist. So why does your opinion even matter?

hi, I’m genuinely sorry that I offended you, I really truly didn’t mean to! my tone must have come across really badly, reading it back I can absolutely understand that I come across a bit shittily but you are reading WAY too much into things here and being really rude yourself over a post that’s literally about a slash ship from a football show

I never said anything bad about the ship or the shippers, and the ships I like are just my personal preference, just like yours. there’s no insidious deeper meaning behind it like you seem to think there is - it’s a tv show, it’s all chill in my book! also I can’t speak for writers and actors, just what I personally saw and interpreted on screen. if you didn’t see the same thing, then that’s fine, it doesn’t matter to me at all! we can like the same thing but disagree on stuff that’s fine and good and normal

again my tone must have come across REALLY badly, because I didn’t think anything was “cool” and I wasn’t trying to be arrogant, just asking a genuine question to prompt a conversation is all. I’ve got loads of sweet and interesting responses telling me all about why they like the ship. I like the ship! its cute! people’s responses have made me like it more!

also and most importantly it’s not that deep!!!!

“fuck you” and calling me basic and boring is completely unprovoked and really weird and inappropriate considering the subject matter. you clearly do care. a bit too much lmao

all that being said I feel like I have to clear this up. I am trans and pansexual there is not a cishet bone in my body just to make that abundantly clear!!

tldr please calm down my guy. I’m sorry you thought I was being rude but I wasn’t and this is literally a non-issue :) I like tedtrent. kind of a lot actually after reading other people’s comments. everything is fine I promise

also also sorry but it is so fucking annoying that this keeps coming up so I have to include it. I don’t “stan” anyone, I just think spike is a good character like most people in the buffy fandom. emphasis on CHARACTER, he’s literally a fictional demon murderer with no soul who sucks blood, enjoying him as a character obviously doesn’t mean I endorse his (FICTIONAL NOT REAL) actions in any way. I really don’t think that’s a hard concept to grasp 🤦‍♂️

[n7punk]

Would you ever write a fic with trans catra? 👁👄👁

hmm... that's actually a hard question to answer. the tldr is no, probably not. i have said that im not writing more trans fics in general because its too raw for me (we'll see how that holds up), with a possible exception of one that i came up with a long time ago but that would have been so hard on me to write that i scrapped it and still am unsure of putting myself through it.

after writing lgp i said no more trans fics. and then i wrote three makes two, but there is very little focus on the fact that adora is trans (in fact, im not sure that the word appears within the fic itself, though its certainly not subtext) in that fic so i only consider it a partial exception. i do kind of want to round it out and do trans catra, but at the same time, approaching trans issues is still hard on me, even through the veil of fiction.

writing lgp was so fulfilling. it was healing. but i have to have the mental energy to do it, and i really don't need to voluntarily add any extra tax on my energy. i also feel that there are some things in adora's arc, like her learning to choose for herself, to choose love for herself, that make her a prime candidate for trans fics to me. i assume thats why trans adora seems to be more popular in the fandom as well. i like trans catra too, but trans adora is definitely what i gravitate towards just because of those aspects of adora's arc and how they resonate with my own experience of choosing to accept myself.

[jamesbi-canonbarnes]

Going mad ok so I understand Bucky is not the white wolf in the comics and has nothing to do with the person who goes by that moniker in the comics. If I thought we were going to get the actual white wolf story from the comics in the mcu it might make me feel Bucky can’t be called white wolf, but the thing is they have already been calling him white wolf, which leads me to conclude already either 1) they will never introduce comics white wolf anyway, whether they keep it a shallow nickname or possibly let Bucky take more of the story of white wolf and subsume/replace that character (thinking about Arnie Roth hours) or 2) they will treat it as a mantle that can be shared and passed on like the cap mantle and others. I find option 1 much more likely as I don’t see room for the comics white wolf in the mcu. If either, I have no problem with them expanding Bucky’s identity as white wolf, as this is a completely different universe than the comics, and they have ALREADY NAMED HIM SO. (Not that we can’t judge the mcu for choices we think are bad, we can. But divergence alone is not my problem).

I think the thing certain tfatws viewers are hitting on is that the show seems like it’s setting him up to take on a new name. In the first ep he literally says “I’m no longer the winter soldier.” Just from that and the strong subtext surrounding it, in order for him to properly hit his development/arc he would *have* to either *himself* choose a new “alias” name or explicitly/verbally accept that name again as his in healing but he does NOT, he’s called only “Bucky” and “Sergeant Barnes” in the last episode, and throughout the show he calls himself and is called “white wolf” (in the context of healing-restitution-reconciliation/invoking peace and rehabilitation/acknowledging his own goals) plus being called Bucky/buck/James/barnes etc. in varied but mostly neutral or at least averaged out to be neutral context. He is only called Soldat/ws by zemo and by strangers in madripoor iirc, and certainly not in the context of healing. And while I believe he either does call himself the winter soldier or strongly implies that at least in ep 5, it is again not in a context of healing but of self hate and fear, showing how he sees himself and how he has NOT reclaimed the name. His last statement on the fact is to Yori, where he says “he was murdered by the winter soldier.. and that was me... I didn’t have a choice.” *was* and “I didn’t have a choice.” But now that he does have a choice, what is the choice???? Closing the chapter on that era??? Seems like (sunset, right?). But it never textually hits either of the conclusions earlier laid out (choosing to reclaim the name or choosing a new name). This makes it feel like his development is unfinished, and IMO it feels like it doesn’t really make sense to leave it unfinished if he was going to continue using that name because he would only have to say like one sentence to tie it up, whereas any other name would take more than that. So it only makes sense narratively to leave it unfinished if he still requires further development, like a second season or a movie worth, to figure out his name (we know his name is very important to him- “it’s Bucky” “my name is Bucky” “my name is James Bucky barnes” “you don’t get to call me that” etc.) he has his chosen (reclaimed) person name, now he needs to choose (and/or reclaim) his hero name. We just saw him realize that saving ppl is what he wants to do (“[free] to do what?”->”be of service” -> “thank you for saving us”) (he now NEEDS a hero name/hero identity) and on the other side we saw him retraumatized when he stepped back under the winter soldier name in ep 3. The show frames his completing his amends as putting his past behind him (literally getting rid of it in the form of leaving the book and not returning to therapy) but it does not answer the question of what’s in front of him (besides Sam). We have seen him subtextually reclaim his prosthetic arm(using it for good in the last two eps and finding joy from it) AND his “white wolf” nickname(verbal reinstatement from Ayo and a happy physical response from Bucky), but NOT the “winter soldier” name. Even the arm is not the same prosthetic he used as Soldat but one that is inextricably wakandan, and therefore is not enough for me to be a symbolic stand in for the name.

Yes I agree that him reclaiming the name in the comics is healing and meaningful and could be the same in the mcu if they actually put in the work to draw that explicitly (which IMO they have not, and I don’t trust that they will) but it is not the only way to heal and move on, the same can be done by choosing his own new name, his own moral grounding, his own chosen family. (Ayo’s “you chose us. Chose me.”) there is not one right way to heal.

The thing is, the show did not address the name, and the arc feels unclosed due to that. It is annoying that they have him say he is not the winter soldier at both beginning and end (and middle w zemo in ep 3) and yet the title calls him that throughout. If he had specifically reclaimed that name in the show I would be perfectly happy with that, but he did not. The fact that they changed Sam’s name but not bucky’s when their journeys of healing through choosing heroism and finding a new identity are purposely paralleled feels off. It feels off because of the way they framed the show, and not bc I personally have an independent desire for him to change his name. (Although I do think a lot about chosen names from the perspective of trans healing, and I think that’s something to consider here). White Wolf is the option presented, and I can certainly see why people are hitting on it based on the text of the show.

If he eventually takes the name “White wolf” as his hero name I do agree it should have more build up/development and for me personally to accept it I would require a much deeper connection with wakanda than Bucky now has. Possibly we will get it in cap 4, possibly there are not plans to give Bucky real further development, only to keep him on as a sidekick. I don’t personally see him “earning” that name as IMO it would require a major shift away from being cap’s sidekick and into his own separate (distinctly not America-centered) storyline which is what I don’t see happening. But at the same time, mcu has already demonstrated a willingness to give shallow development for its choices, and this could be another example of that being telegraphed. Or who knows, maybe the above points that make his arc feel unfinished are just due to sloppy writing. I won’t rule that out, but I will appreciate if comics readers stop trying to gatekeep mcu fans excited about the possibilities of a universe that is literally not the same universe! It’s an au! The creators can and will change whatever they want. While we can of course judge those changes, I’m much less comfortable judging viewers for reading possibilities presented by the canon text just because the possibility represents a change from the comics.

TLDR MCU-only fans are not stupid for reading what was given to them in the text of the show they’re analyzing and coming up with a desire to have Bucky choose the name White Wolf as an alias. The choice to incorporate comics in your reading of an mcu property is a *choice* that is value-neutral and not a necessary step for either consumption or commentary.

[isagrimorie]

[initial reactions] Raya and the Last Dragon

TLDR: I really, really liked it! Also, Raya and the Last Dragon should’ve been a limited series.

I liked Raya a lot both the movie and the character despite the very obvious Disney-fication of some character and plot things. Unfortunately, this movie being a movie is one of my biggest nitpick about it because this feels like it would have fit better as a limited series.

There’s so many things going that needed to stop and take a beat before breezing through things. But one thing this movie didn’t fail at was Raya herself, this movie very adeptly dances around the issue Liveaction Mulan found itself in. Raya is a strong character from the start and her motivations are strong and her flaws are real and also very understandable because of her life experiences. Kelly Marie Tran is great as Raya!  

I really liked the lore too, also the eyes issue of the dragon? It kind of disappeared for me while watching because I was engaged with the story. Also, the fight scenes were amazing and clear. Raya’s clear fury near the end was real and raw. She’s ‘a someone who looks and can kill you’ meme at the end and then setting aside that fury to give her trust fully to Namaari, who finally helps bring the world back together.

Seriously, I can’t remember a Disney Princess with such fury and murderous intent before and it felt so cathartic, also Raya is an amazing fighter.

And now the not so great stuff: This movie’s run time is 1 hour and 70 minutes give or take and the most this affects are Namaari and Virana’s character. Because of the lore building, the quest and the heist the writers didn’t have time to pull a Catra and Zuko atonement type character arc.

They do try and I do find the imagery and Raya’s decision to trust Namaari doing the heavy lifting to get to the atonement they want for Namaari.

We needed more time with Namaari. See more of their hesitation and motivations why the Kingdom of Fang did what they did.

Namaari betraying Raya and taking the gem was very much a “You broke the world but I’ll fix it.” Adora and Catra Portal moment.

And, of course, since I mentioned Adora and Catra there’s that question and my answer... Yes, yes, it does feel very gay, folks. As one Rupert Giles once said: “This subtext is rapidly becoming text.”

Especially by the end, but also how there’s the constant feeling while I watched Raya and Namaari trade blows and insults and I get this sense from Raya, where she views Namaari as an enemy and definitely blames Namaari for breaking the world but also: “Oh no, she’s still hot.”

Honestly. 

Unfortunately because of the runtime Namaari’s character felt under cooked.

As I mentioned before and will keep hammering in order to sell Namaari’s misgivings and atonement, we needed more time with her.

I can imagine how Namaari and Virana’s character would’ve been retooled Raya was turned into a series -- where we can go deeper into the other kingdom’s problems and desperation, and why Virana decides to break treaty, and essentially, the world.

And that maybe we could set up more of Raya and Namaari’s friendship before the coup and looting happened. As it is and how everything that happened it took me a long time to get on board with Namaari, it wasn’t until Raya gave up her gem stone and gave it to Namaari that I shifted on her.

Like, I was still on the “You broke the world!” anger but I’m supposed to hit the switch and I suddenly should be Bow and Glimmer welcoming Namaari to the Best Friend Squad? At least Adora had a whole season of distance to stew on her anger and Glimmer punching Catra in the face, and the whole other stuff in Corridors to get me where I needed to be with Catra emotionally.

Sadly, I am not that fast to flip that switch but the story did try and by the end I mostly got on board with it just not the part where the other people in the group are suddenly being Bow and welcoming Namaari to the group.

(Bow is definitely Sisu).

Also, I would not have the con baby there, it’s one of the cutesy Disney things I’m meh on. I’d age up the Con baby to Boun’s age, and age up Boun a little too.

This is honestly the queerest

Other than those nitpicks I really, really enjoyed this movie! 

[emptymasks]

I’m Me. First, Last and Always: Genderfluidity in Film 🌈

Boy making a letterbox list for genderfluid representation is more depressing than I thought. I've got 8 films, 3 of which are short films, one is technically a miniseries (Good Omens), one is a live musical (and not the exact version where the character is the most genderfluid but I’ll take what I can get from Letterbox), and the other 5 are all Marvel films that have Loki in them.

So, please help:

Title quote is from Loki in the Marvel Comic Loki: Agent of Asgard #14.

For years and years in the Marvel comics Loki has been canonically pansexual and genderfluid and that representation is the only reason I managed to finally figure out my own gender. Genderfluid is something not a lot of people understand and some have never heard of, even within the LGBT+ community. And even with the community there are those who think it isn't a real identity, or that we should choose a label and stick with it.

But I'm not static. And I cannot become static. You may see me call myself a girl one day and a boy the next. Whoever I am; I'm me. First, last, and always.

Why a film is on this list:

If the film has a genderfluid character in it. Even if the character is only confirmed as genderfluid by the director/writer/actor though wasn't really shown as genderfluid in the film, it will still count. Marvel films are on here for Loki, despite the films not showing his canon genderfluidity from the comics.

If a director/writer/actor is genderfluid, even if there are no genderfluid characters in the film and even if the character the genderfluid actor is playing isn't genderfluid.

If the character isn't canonically genderfluid, but there is a very strong interpretation/subtext that they could be.

If I don’t end up adding the film you suggest it’s probably because it’s not on letterbox. 

Also I am talking specifically about genderfluid characters. So sorry but trans/non-binary/agender/genderqueer characters aren’t going to count on this list. 

I’d also love people’s thoughts on putting A Heist with Markiplier and Who Killed Markiplier on here? To me Darkiplier is genderfluid, but I don’t know how popular of a headcannon that is, so let me know what you think.

TLDR; Give me some films that fit this criteria in the replies please! I’ll take animated shorts, short films and miniseries and stage shows as well as feature films because honestly while it would be cool for it just to be films, I’d like the list to be as long as possible. Also documentaries are a-okay as well.

https://letterboxd.com/emptymasks/list/im-me-first-last-and-always-genderfluidity/

[dorkshadows]

I just watched Journey to the west: the demons strike back and I know that gif set is old now but you're the only I found that even mentioned the somewhat gay subtext. But the other things that happened in the movie? Did I read those wrong or were they actually gay or just used for jokes? I've been going nuts to find any discussion.

Hi anon! I’m always down to talk JTTW, so I hope you enjoyed The Demons Strike Back (it was my fav adaptation of 2017). From memory, I think 90% of the gifsets I made had gay subtext lol. To preface, I was shipping Wukong/Sanzang before the movie came out so I admit to being biased when it comes to them, but I hope what I say helps you form an opinion.

It’s up to you how you want to read all the other moments. Just keep in mind that JTTW 2017 was a big budget, high profile Chinese New Year film aimed primarily at domestic audiences based on an IP that everyone and their mother knows. With that in mind, it’s impressive that Hark and Chow managed to get away with as much gay subtext as they did. 

I could never find a source (as in, a transcription or recording) for it, but once on Weibo, I saw someone say they attended a live Q&A with the cast and when Kenny Lin (Wukong’s actor) was asked if he’d have a love interest in the movie, he said Wukong suffers from “unrequited love.” 

There’s the mystery of this image here and the second part of this trailer gif set. These were filmed but removed from the final movie, and general speculation leans towards the censors not wanting these moments on the big screen (maybe they were cut for time? But who knows. They were very short scenes anyway). 

Also note that Tsui Hark (who usually does fantasy dramas or wuxia flicks) directed this one and he’s never shied away from LGBT themes. In his adaptation of the Legend of White Snake (Green Snake 1993), the narrative’s pretty explicit about the female leads being into one another (if you google the summary, it refers to the leads as “sisters”- they’re not related. They’re sworn sisters in the same way that Wukong and the Bull King are sworn siblings). In his adaptation of Swordsman, he’s explicit about bisexuality and trans-identity as well.

Of course, there are general jokes all over the movie (Chow wrote it after all!), but to me at least, being gay was never the punchline of any of them unlike The Monkey King 3 because holy shit that film. Wukong’s feelings for Sanzang are teased the same way as a straight person’s feelings for another straight person’s would be and vice versa. And if we want to dig deeper, there are shades of the Green Snake/White Snake dynamic here too. 

And I almost forgot this moment when Sanzang takes Wukong’s twig and puts it into his own mouth while he’s angsting over Duan. It’s a more subtle moment that doesn’t lean into any jokes, which tells me Hark (or Chow) did want to imply a deeper relationship.

TLDR; There’s no official statement (and even if there was, we’d need both Chow and Hark to agree for it to be considered “canon”) so you’re free to think whatever you want, anon! But I hope my answer gave you some more context and makes you feel better about the way you read the movie. In the end, I think it’s safe to say there are a lot of genuine moments between the 2 leads but it gets lost in the fray since the film loves blurring the lines between jokes and seriousness so much (because it basically had 2 directors lmao). 

[youngbloodbuzz]

hello! Your blog is really cool, just wanted to drop by and say that. And um ... you could say I'm kinda pretty heavy questioning right now (I'm a girl) and ... if that's not too personal, maybe you could share how you knew you were bi? For real, only if that's okay... thanks a lot!

HELLO! thank you so much, a handful of you told me this recently it’s hilarious

and of course! i’m pretty open about being bi on here so it’s no trouble at all :D

sO STORY TIME:

 it all started way back in the day when i was 15/16 and i started watching xena again thanks to tv syndication and i became oBSESSED. this was before my tumblr days so my only options for fandom was the popular xena online community forum. i spent so much time on there making friends and the majority of them fell in the lgbtqa+ spectrum. 

in the middle of obsessing about every detail about the show aND the ‘subtext’ (oh how the days of old fandom terms pass us by), it was really easy to fall into fangirling over xena and gabrielle along with everyone else, and over time i realized my gay ass crushes on them lol 

oh WAIT NO actually i first thought that i was just a big ol lesbian but then i started dating a guy and still had crushes on male celebs and i realized i was just bi lol

i was lucky that it wasn’t such a big deal for me. it was just an “oh well that makes sense; oH so that’s why i was obsessed with this one female character when i was small.” being in an online community that was so open to being gay (and even trans) was a small blessing too. i didn’t feel any conflict about it and i had so many close fandom friends at the time who were bi or gay (YAY REPRESENTATION; also ps if any of you still follow me hI HELLO IT’S BEEN 84 YEARS)

but yes, then i tragically got into glee and fell in love with dianna agron and it was a uphill bi party from there. 

BUT PLOT TWIST, being simply into people of either gender (or any gender and inbetween really i think; i guess that’d…….make me actually pan? i prefer bi though) wasn’t exactly 50/50, over time i began to understand how my attraction to people really worked. especially last summer where i had the epiphany that i also fell on the ace spectrum, so really i feel different sorts of attraction to different genders. like say, i feel more romantic attraction to girls than boys and would like to take them on dates first before anything physical tbh (i am like…honestly incapable of watching nude/sex scenes with agron like CAN WE…GO ON A DATE FIRST?? THAT WOULD BE GREAT). meanwhile with dudes it’s like “oh he can get it” most of the time ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

SO YEA THIS GOT LONG tldr: i happily fell into a hella openly queer fandom and through integration and having my first gay otp, realized i was also hella queer