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beanghostprincess · 3 months

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Finding hilariously ironic how most of Sanji's perv jokes end up being extremely trans-coded to some extent only because the joke is longer than it should be.

The "guy with a woman's body" joke has been a thing for ages now, but it usually ends after the "haha I have booobs" joke. Sanji extends it to "I want to stay in this body forever. It feels right. I don't want to give it back". Which could still be read as some perverted stuff, but I don't think any man would agree with that. No matter how much of a pervert he is. Because usually being perceived as a woman is something they refuse to go through although they like being in possession sexually of a woman's body (a type of excitement Sanji actually shows, not by being that much aroused by it but being comfortable with it? Which is... A different approach to the joke).

Sanji has made the typical "going into the girl's changing room/bathroom" joke a couple of times, but in Egghead he goes all the way to be extremely frustrated about not being able to do so? And it is obviously different than wanting to keep Nami's body forever. It can still be seen as frustration for not being able to see girls naked. But. But. The fact that the length of the joke increases? The fact that it's way longer than it should be for an average "haha boobs" joke? You know what I mean.

Not to mention his whole arc during the time-skip and how a simple (both transphobic and misogynistic, by the way) joke, goes all the way to show us that Sanji is indeed comfortable in more feminine clothes and environment, until he's pretty much forced to snap out of his fantasy to go back to the crew. But he wasn't having a bad time at all. And it is intended to be a joke, but it's... Longer than it should be to be considered only a joke and to not pay attention to it.

This isn't meant to be an analysis of any kind because if it were I would've worded it differently and would've mentioned how his childhood is also extremely trans-coded, but we all already know that. I just find it extremely funny how all of these jokes that intend to be directed at straight perv men are actually too long to not be taken into consideration as something deeper than a joke. But, aha, yeah, these are just jokes and definitely not proof of Sanji's perception of gender and his issues with it.

#i KNOW these are just jokes but i'm just saying that increasing the length of a joke doesn't make it funnier it just makes it canon and real #the only one i consider to be a reach is the bathroom thing tbh but the other two??? sanji in the time-skip and punk hazard??? peak trans #also his whole backstory but we already know why that's trans coded #like-- finding extremely funny how so many cis straight dudebros keep wanting to project on him when sanji is sooo made for the queers #i am sorry but that's my bisexual genderfluid traumatized cook don't touch her #one piece #black leg sanji

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rottmnt-residuum · 1 year

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Any other LGBTQ+ Headcannons that are canon is the comic??;)

*patiently awaits Cupioromantic Donnie*

hmm... had to think about this for a while and talk about it with co-author, but here's what we got. we mostly base this stuff on how plausible it is in show/if there's evidence for it. with a dash of personal experience. This only applies to residuum, btw. I have different personal headcanons for these characters outside the comic.

april: lesbian. this is mostly based off of the fact that most aprils get with their caseys & the comment she said to dale. which could be taken as disinterest in dale specifically, but she seemed more concerned with impressing that popular girl earlier and that reads as more... saphic, i suppose. or at the very least homoromantic.

raph: raph is just raph. we look at him and basically just *tv static*. go crazy. all we got is jokes or stuff that has too little evidence to support. so, yeah, he's whatever you want him to be i guess?

leo: trans. already said my reason in the other post. also, gay. if gay were a power source he could power the entirety of the united states for five months straight without a single power outage. failing power grid notwithstanding (< thats the actual word. its supposed to be mushed together like that. wack.).

donnie: as much as i'd like him to be ace/aro spectrum rep, he just doesn't have the evidence in show for us to apply it to him in this comic. it's funny, for being hc as ace so often he sure is the most outwardly romantic/sexual turtle in the show lmao. one! cherry: "you're so cute, but you're so mean! why do i always go for your type?" two! astrogirl?? (whatever her name is) he is very very romantic with her. he has a type y'all. also just look at those two, he's a leg man lmao (bootyyshaker9000 anyone? ha!) anyway. and with the bromance/instant chemistry he had with that one guy in the purple dragons... Pan. or possibly Omni as he does seem to favor... cute brutal femme... Yeah. Omnisexual.

(you have no idea how fucking bad i want this boy to be ace spectrum. hes got the colors y'all!! The Colors!!!!! but alas... i am bound by my canon plausibility creed for this comic)

mikey: ace. possibly ace/aro. he shows interest in literally no-one. we're aware that the common hc is pan but... we know a pan 13 year old, and let me tell you ahahahaha, kids going through puberty are very uncomfortable to be around sometimes, especially around their partners. or crushes. and mikey... well, that boy is ace behavior personified lmao. aces in the back you get what we mean right?? right??? anyway commiting to aroace

#residual asks #rottmnt #i really get a kick out of he/him butch lesbian raph and ghostbear-sexual raph #but i'd never use those seriously. or at least in this comic #co-author says what they get if they really had to choose for raph is ace homoromantic #but otherwise...#he's just raph #like we can't apply any identity to him. and we really mean ANY identity. not even straight or umbrella terms like queer #its a very odd feeling #i also really like trans april but we don't have enough evidence for it #in fact there's actually counter evidence- but don't let that stop your dreams y'all. it just stops ours :P #sorry for stepping on your donnie dreams anon #but honestly i think that label applies more to 2012 donnie imo #i really do personally prefer ace/aro donnie. but i'd make everyone ace if i were able lmao #co-author would also do the same thing ahaah #i just don't like depicting romantic relationships. or attraction ahahaah #with mikey... we get why people hc him as pan... but like its a fandomism stereotype #that literally every fandom applies to optimistic friendly characters. and honestly i really don't like the fandomism stereotypes #i just find them... unenjoyable i guess #cuz like y'alll... your sexuality isn't inherently determined by your personality or vise versa #cuz like i know for sure that in fandom spaces- if i were a character- i'd be stereotyped as pan or a hypersexual cis het #to which i am neither. at all.#and co-author would be stereotyped as the demure femme book lesbian #which they are VERY much not #and i know this because i've been fandomified by people in my life more than once #it is a very uncomfortable experience y'all #whoops rant in the tags #residuum #rottmnt residuum #residuum wb

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chirpsythismorning · 1 month

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Fun fact: In the original pitch for Stranger Things, El had a little brother.

After being rejected by almost 20 studios for the Montauk pilot, the Duffers were finally green-lit by Netflix. It was at this time that they began casting and then writing the first season officially, which included reworking a lot of that first episode.

This led to the removal of the brother reference, and with it, removing any sort of arc El could have had about her apparent brother.

But the thing about this moment, is that it might not have been scrapped entirely...

Going into the final season, no one can explain why or how El recognized Will back in 1x02. And while there are plenty of things on the show that are left unexplained, with a small portion likely left that way with the intention to uncover it later, what sets this moment apart from the rest is that there are very few possibilities here.

Because for starters, the story presents El's ability to see people in the void in s1 as requiring either a picture of that person for reference, or having met that person before.

But when El see's this picture of Will, she's never met him before. Or maybe she has, but we wouldn't know because they never showed us. They could have just not done this scene at all, given that it's clearly a copy/paste/edit of something scrapped from the pitch. Or they could have even still included it, but explained it.

One explanation could be that the lab had shown El a picture of Will before, similar to what they did with the Russian agent they wanted to spy on. But then that begs to question, why would the lab show El a picture of Will? Why would they want to see what he was doing? That alone is incriminating in and of itself, implying that Will is more connected to the lab than we realize.

The only other, and frankly most likely explanation, would be that El stumbled across Will at some point on her journey between escaping the lab and Will going missing. This is actually something that happens in The Other Side comic, which explores all the things Will may have experienced during his time in the Upside Down.

Though it’s worth noting the comics aren’t technically canon, and I highly doubt they would outright spoil everything in relation to Will’s time there, years before it was intended to be revealed. But still, let's humor this for a moment given that I do think Will's time in the UD is going to be very relevant in s5, which means it's highly likely they will finally address how exactly El saw him.

Basically, in the comic, Will see’s El walking through the woods, almost apparition like, glowing as she passes by, while also sporting the Benny’s burgers shirt. This means they would have crossed passed within a short span of time, between when El escaped Benny’s when the agents arrived, but before she was found by the boys.

Though it’s worth noting that we’re seeing this all from Will’s perspective. This means from the UD, Will was capable of seeing El on the other side, despite them being on different sides. And not only that, but she also looks back at him.

What confuses me about this, is that it doesn’t make sense for El to be in the woods, only to randomly decide to pop in to the void for a moment. She was trying to escape the lab and everything that came with it. I doubt she had any desire to lurk back there for some reason, not until someone encouraged her to. Not to mention, it would make no sense for her to go there and see Will if she wasn't even looking for him in the first place. And so this would mean Will and El could see each other, with Will being in the UD, and El being on the other side.

While it does seem pretty far off, given that you would think Will and El wouldn't be able to see each other from different sides, it is true in the story that El not only recognizes Will, but knows that he is in danger. She mentions that he is hiding specifically.

Which means she has likely seen him within the last 24 hours regardless.

This, in combination with Will being able to respond to El in the void at the end of the season in Castle Byers, when no one else outside of Terry and flayed-Billy have been able to, seems to imply that there is indeed something special about Will that makes him capable of communicating with El from the UD. Not only that, but El also seems to have an ability to be in this constant knowing state of how Will is doing, without even checking again to confirm. She's just certain of it. And she seems terrified about it.

Going forward, El never uses a picture of Will to find him. She never did. And more often than not, they don’t show us what she see’s either, not until the very end. And that’s the moment they reveal that he was able to communicate with her.

Again, there was really no reason to have El recognize Will. If anything it complicates things. But the fact that they chose to introduce this concept, with a scene from the original pitch that was related to El’s younger brother, with her pointing at his name cryptically, startling Benny, only to revamp it and have El not say anything at all while pointing at the picture of Will, startling Mike… It just really makes you stop and think.

Which brings me to the other aspect of this that might have people doubting, which is that El’s brother was originally younger than her.

We know Will is not younger than El, so how could this apply to him?

Well, it might be helpful to consider that in the original script, El was actually 10 years old, while the boys were always 12. Meaning that for some reason, they decided to age her up to the age of the boys, aka the same age as Will…

Ever since @erikiara80 shared this brother discovery with me, I have been sort of reeling. It then led to other little discoveries of changes they made between Montauk and Stranger Things.

It’s important to understand that the Montauk bible and the original script precedes what we ended up with in the final product, with it finally changing and evolving months, maybe even a year since that original vision. Even casting occurred before writing started for the first season. We know this because casting announcements were made in June and August of 2015, with writing not starting until August going into early 2016, simultaneously while they were filming.

And believe it or not, what I've discovered is that a lot of the changes they made between their original plans and what we see in the final product, have to do with not only Willel, but also Byler.

If you've read the original script for Montauk, you'll know that Mike's crush on Jennifer Hayes was focused on right from the jump, along with the birthmark on his face being focused on, which was the main cause of the bullying he experienced.

This has actually been talked about recently, and some of the claims people make do fit with what I am genuinely starting to consider here, which is that the initial plan for what makes Mike an outcast shifted.

I think when they completed casting, and started actually deep diving into what they wanted this world to look like, both from a short-term and long-term standpoint, they were presented with some pretty interesting discoveries, arguably already hiding in their initial plans without realizing it.

And this is where it sort of becomes a 'chicken or the egg' situation. Because which one came first? Byler or Willel?

I can't say for certain, because obviously this is all just speculation. But in the case that Willel came first, I think Byler would come very naturally after that.

The Duffers themselves are twins. Then they hire Noah, who is a twin. Then they're thinking and planning for El's past and how her family all fits into this, and they're thinking... wait a damn minute... We could totally Star Wars this bitch!

And then when they think it couldn't get any better, they uncover another layer that they hadn't planned or really considered in their initial plans.

While Will was always going to have sexual identity issues according to the Montauk bible, meaning that the writing process for him likely involved sitting down imagining scenarios that encapsulated this arc for Will from the beginning, they were simultaneously now finding very interesting aspects of Mike's character that made it hard not to at least consider the possiblity that Mike is not exactly straight.

Just think about it. The Byers and Wheelers are basically polar opposites on the spectrum of what a family looks like. While Will's discovery and acceptance of his queerness is interesting to explore because he comes from a low-income, single-mom household, all while having been bullied for years based on his perceived queerness, he also has a mother and brother constantly reinforcing that they will accept him no matter what. They've been sort of hitting us over the head with it for years, and so it wouldn't be very satisfying for his entire arc to merely lead up to something we've known all along. It's pretty much a given at this point.

On the other side of the spectrum, Mike comes from a more upper-middle class family at the end of a cul-de-sac, more aligned with what a nuclear family looks like. Mike's family is also presented as being more conservative, and while Karen does give that very queer-coded speech to Mike in s1 (I'm convinced they only wrote this after deciding to explore queer-coding more heavily with Mike), it also comes with comments from Ted and even still Karen that hint that they are probably not as open-minded and accepting as Will's family is to him. Which means Mike's arc would be a lot more about acceptance around him from his loved ones who we have been led to believe might not be as accepting of his queerness in contrast to Will.

And so as they're putting this story together, and they're being presented with something very interesting. Two similar experiences that play out in different ways because of the characters circumstances.

Will goes missing, and his twin sister with a buzzcut pops up and has the ability to help them find Will.

This leads to several moments where El is being compared to as not only a boy, but Will as well.

Now suddenly, their initial plans to have Mike's arc be about having a girl be interested in him and to hopefully have his first kiss and feel like less of a loser, starts to look a lot like what the experience a queer kid in his position might encounter growing up in the environment that he did.

And if you don't want to take my word for it, just hear the Duffer's themselves hinting at what they initially planned for Mike and the fact that it changed.

The changes don't stop there.

Believe it or not, 'It was a seven', did not exist in the initial pitch. When the boys went outside bickering over Nancy, they leave right after that.

Another thing that changed from the first script, was Scott Clarke's introduction:

And so you might be thinking, who cares? What does that have to do with anything?

Well, it's interesting because the line we end up with on the show is arguably one of the most on the nose Twelvegate proofs to date. Mind you, this is from the first episode:

Why chuck the original version, which was arguably more interesting and fascinating in terms of it hinting at the mysteriousness surrounding this story, only to replace it with him listing off tips about their upcoming test?

Well, I think it's the irony of it all. Here Mr. Clarke is practically telling us where to look to figure stuff out for ourselves what is going on, with all the kids filing out and ignoring him...

I relate to Scott a litttle too much in this shot here, any time I try to drop Willel evidence.

And the changes go on, as they obviously would.

Things like Terry Ives not even being El's mom, but actually a man who more so aligns with the characterization of Murray.

And one very interesting one I almost overlooked was in Hopper's introduction, where instead of a kids drawing done by who we assume to be Sarah, we actually see a picture on the wall of him and his wife and daughter... Interesting that they decided to switch it something that is a lot less definitive in presenting what Hopper's past looked like...

If you've made it this far, congratulations.

If you still think I'm out of my mind, just remember that El was going to have a brother in the original script, but they scrapped the scene and gave a near identical one to introduce her connection to Will instead 😘

#byler #stranger things #willel twins #twelvegate #montauk #as you can see #i am out of my mind #and i'm okay with that #i've spent the last couple months trying to make a video going over all the willel twin evidence #and i can't decide if it's even possible to do without going over an hour #like there is just so much shit that fits too perfectly into this family being ripped apart by mind control and time shenanigans #i hope to have it done soon #trying to make it less than 20 minutes #but it's probably going to end up being closer to an hour #especially with this stuff from the montauk pitch being added to the mix now #anyways #willel and byler are the curtain behind the curtain #if you are open to one of them #you are bound to stumble across the other #and they don't want that to happen #stay tuned for the inevitable twin imagery to continue in s5 related to willel leading up to the big reveal #bc it's arguably the most consistent thing about this damn show #and tbh this all just makes the queer-coding for mike in s1 a lot more concrete to me #them exploring will's queerness through his dad's expectations for him to do more 'manly' things like play baseball #and jonathan saying he shouldn't like things just bc people telll him he's supposed to #how they connect that narratively with the boys being at a baseball field when mike's being pressured about his supposed feelings for el #with the bullies showing up and literally being homophobic seconds later #the fact that jennifer hayes did in fact exist in the original pilot and was the girl mike had a crush on #only for them to scrap that and just make it about her having a crush on will...#never once introducing this idea of mike liking her...

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mintjeru · 2 days

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companionship and understanding happy pride from my beloveds!!

open for better quality | no reposts

#kaveh #alhaitham #kavetham #genshin impact #fanart #myart #doodle #at first i was like 'i hope yall don't get tired of me posting so often' and then i remembered this other artist whose art i enjoy-#and they post often too but i love having so much of their art to scroll through so. i'm not worried anymore hahaha #i actually struggled so much w/ the composition here!! but i let it sit for a day and came back to change the frame and now it's fine #and i know i've drawn angst before but when i draw smth like this i always make it a point to depict a kaveh that is exuding happiness #it can be hard to accept yourself and your identity and at least in these pieces i want kaveh to be proof of queer joy #or more specifically. aromantic joy #bc sometimes it can be hard to believe it exists but maybe seeing it can help you believe it's out there #i also don't think i've ever went into detail about my kaveh and why i hc him as arospec? maybe i should do that sometime

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zerodaryls · 6 months

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Pete Burns of Dead Or Alive in the music video for Your Sweetness (Is Your Weakness) [1990]

#pete burns #dead or alive #i made this for myself just so i can look at him O_O #the amount of PRETTY. the amount of GENDERFUCKERY. stop i'm already queer 😭❤️#i'd heard You Spin Me Round and seen the video which is iconic of course.. but i didn't realize how fucking GORGEOUS he was #like holy fuck i'm so. O_O #also he's quoted as saying: '[people] always want to know... am i gay bi trans or what? i say forget all that.'#'there's got to be a completely different terminology and i'm not aware if it's been invented yet. i'm just Pete.'#unlabeled queerness makes my heart soar #he's just Pete <3 #ANYWAY.. WHY THE FUCK DON'T MORE QUEER PPL TALK ABOUT HIM????#he was doing this shit in the 80s and 90s???#HELLO???? j'adore <3 #my posts #my gifs

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ingravinoveritas · 21 days

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Just wanted to share a few thoughts on the BAFTAs today, now that I've had a bit of time to process the day's events (and am no longer running around cooking Mother's Day dinner)...

I feel like this was a sort of roller coaster of an event, as so many of us were hoping/expecting to see Michael on the red carpet, given David's nomination for playing Crowley in GO 2. In many ways, it was strange and even jarring to see David without Michael, especially while wearing such a gloriously Crowley-coded suit, but mainly because they are now truly a group of the two of them, a packaged set, peanut butter and chocolate.

And yet, seeing David talking about Good Omens and Michael (referring specifically to the Michelle Visage interview, which I adored just because of how they vibed together, in much the same way that Michael was vibing with Sir Ian McKellen on Graham Norton a few months ago), the way he teased the possibility of more kisses in S3 and so effortlessly ran with Michelle saying "Michael Sheen kisses" instead of "Aziraphale and Crowley kisses"...all of that made it feel like Michael was present. Like whatever mark he and David left on each other after the last six months was fully and completely visible without being visible.

I also loved seeing David so brimming over with confidence and self-assurance--something that wasn't there specifically because of Michael or Georgia or anyone else, but because of David himself. I feel like said qualities are most especially apparent in this gorgeous picture:

We talk so much about the suits and how Joshua Kane or Mithridate dress him so exquisitely, but I think something that gets overlooked sometimes is that what makes these suits look as beautiful as they do is David himself. The way he carries himself when he wears them, and how there seems to be such a perfect congruity between how he feels on the inside and how he looks on the outside. Again, this is not saying that David hasn't worn flamboyant or flashy suits in the past (the velvet ones of course come to mind), but there definitely seems to be something special about him wearing these suits, at this specific moment in time.

I also really loved one particular photo of him with the suit jacket off/sleeves rolled up. Again, it's not only the clothes themselves (and how gorgeously they hang on him), but also how it felt like a moment of just...letting go of something. It also immediately brought to mind the photo of Michael with his bow tie undone at the NTAs after party in 2021:

(Granted I'm fairly certain David is tipsy/a bit drunk in the photo on the left, but somehow that damn hint of a bare forearm felt as daring and racy as seeing an ankle in the Victorian era...)

As to what David was "letting go" of, we can't know for sure, but it looked like something was released, and that he was just so fully present and being himself on the red carpet. I'm so proud of him, so delighted by this new, carefree David that I don't think we've ever seen before, but that I absolutely do hope we will continue to see in the future.

Those are my thoughts on the 2024 TV BAFTAs, for whatever they may be worth. I'd love to know what you all thought of David on the red carpet, and if anyone else noticed some of these things, too...

#david tennant #soft scottish hipster gigolo #BAFTAs 2024 #and playing Crowley seems to have had such an effect on him #love seeing him become so much more comfortable in his own skin #and we can see the change in him on the inside and outside #embracing the queer in whatever form it may take #a talented actor and a wonderful human being #also interestingly i got anything but 'carefree' energy from Georgia #which i don't think would have been as obvious if David wasn't standing there radiating confidence #just seemed like there was a bit of disconnect happening between them #but i will leave it to my followers to make up their own minds #thoughts #discourse

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galactic-rhea · 1 month

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Did you have any foreknowledge that Anakin would become Darth Vader? I feel like even if you had Revenge of the Sith must have been quite an experience

Lmao I didn't know that until I came across this gif here in tumblr:

'oh damn'

That said, because of that gif, I did know he was going to be one of the most iconic and recognizeable villains of cinema by the time I started to watch the movies. But, my knowledge of what would happen was very, very narrow, I was very in the dark about it lol

Is easier to point out the things that I knew when starting the movies than the ones I didn't:

-He would lose his limbs (I did not know how, I didn't know he literally burned. And I only knew that he loses his limbs because my partner )

-He kills kids (and that I knew just because a meme that my hubby had to explain to me, but I didn't know the circumstances. In fact, what I pictured was much worse LOL)

-He kills(? Padmé (I asked my hubby if he and Padmé divorced, and he just decided to throw that spoiler at me like "no, he kills her accidentally" without further context and I was like...oh woah okay...I...generally don't like villains that kill their wives but i'll still check that out)

-Samuel L. Jackson is in these movies! :D

-HE IS LUKE'S FATHER OMG OMG AND IS TWINS OMG LEIA?? ...Wait don't Leia and Luke kiss- Oh okay

And sufficient to say: ROTS still destroyed me emotionally, what a trip. But I had a blast watching these movies, and it was also a blast watching the Original Trilogy after that! I was so, so stunned about the end of ROTJ, because seriously I always thought Luke kills Vader even when my interest on SW was below zero.

And no, I still don't know how at 24 i managed to know so little about Star Wars SJNKJNSDF

What I thought would happen in these movies was that my guy here was going to be just this cool merciless villain from about the get-go and we would just met him as an adult already. Like, he would be this dark jedi working by himself ruining the order from the inside, going into murders on weekends and blame someone else for fun, the war would be his doing, and being creepy towards everyone included his wife was probably his hobby, idk, you get it, your basic 'cool lonely villain', like maybe a Sauron of sorts.

And then George Lucas tackled me with... this

Hey, I'm not complaining.

My hiperfixation on Anakin and Star Wars helped me a lot with my depression, truth be told!

#thanks for the ask!#ask #star wars #sw #anakin skywalker #rambling #silly posting #i am so so so so so so grateful that instead of an edgy cool villain i ended with a character so deeply traumatized and troubled #that i can relate he's also very neurodivergent and queer coded to me in a way which also makes him even more relatable to me aha!#i don't go into murderous reality breakdowns but the awful levels of stress and a bad unbringing and not sleeping at all hey i get it boy #sw rots #revenge of the sith #prequel trilogy #original trilogy

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seventh-fantasy · 7 months

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re: jianghu as a queer space in mlc

here to answer @redemption-revenge !! in reply to this post

(also tagging @markiafc @ananeiah <3)

there are many definitions of jianghu, but this is specifically based on the framing of jianghu as the space people retreat to, away from the mainstream sphere governed by the imperial court. in that is a sense of rejection and defiance against the patriarchal, heteronormative values and norms, which had been enforced through a fixation on upkeeping order in the society. as such i guess it's not too much of a stretch to interpret jianghu as a queer space in a way that's characterised by a spirit of nonconformity to the norms. consequently, it makes sense for stories set in jianghu be used to illustrate and navigate queer identities/experiences/feelings - which I came to believe mlc had made really good use of.

there's always kind of a dichotomy between 江湖 jianghu and 庙堂 miaotang (ie. imperial court). like in mlc, there are two separate, distinct law enforcement bodies from the respective spheres - and jianghu strives to keep imperial court from interfering in their affairs. like how li xiangyi firmly stands against getting imperial court involved in jianghu matters. like how fang duobing is actively running away from the grip of the royal court on his life choices. the rejection of the mainstream (very conveniently and broadly put, confucian) norms in mlc also manifests in many of its key relationships being non-familial (in the sense of blood/marriage-based kinship) and there being little emphasis on the main characters' biological familial ties. (anyway this is for a whole different meta on its own... edit: it's here)

it's then actually a sort of irony that the imperial court's institution of law and order is what sigu sect/baichuan court had been formed to be a de facto counterpart to. so when li xiangyi becomes li lianhua, it triggered the process of deconstructing the meaning of installing such an institution and the need to maintain order to a fundamentally nonconforming space such as jianghu. mama fang's seemingly throwaway line of criticising li xiangyi and his mission is in fact the thesis statement in this particular reading of mlc's story: jianghu makes its own rules. nobody should dare to do it in its place.

now deprived of all means to fight like he used to, li xiangyi's new life as li lianhua is essentially a refresh of how he views jianghu. the death of li xiangyi the leader of sigu sect and top of wulin, meant taking apart the idea that jianghu is a lawless arena where the fittest fight to the top for power and control over wulin. and li lianhua then putting together lotus tower, living a life focusing on a domestic lifestyle this time for real far from the reach of the governance both from the imperial court and sigu sect/baichuan court, is him living the jianghu that's defined as a space away from any form of conformity.

with that, there's also a sense of queerness to this particular way of living as li lianhua, if you consider the chinese conceptualisation of gender being more social than biological. if femininity and masculinity were respectively characterised by inner/domestic sphere and external/any space outside of that, dare I say...it actually makes li lianhua's moving house mindblowingly smart as a metaphor for gender fluidity. lonely wanderers are common in wuxia but housed lonely wanderers? he carved for himself a domestic (ie. feminine) space in the wilderness - among a jianghu space that's still dominated by masculine values of aggression and competition. and being freely mobile makes this feminine space more fluid and less tied down than the more rigid, inert domestic, feminine spaces in traditional mainstream society. when you combine it with how his character has been fem-coded - even as li xiangyi (eg. yin-coded powers/energy) (also a whole other meta on its own... edit: it's here now), it speaks to a part of him that has always found appeal in qualities conventionally associated with femininity of stability, gentleness and non-aggression. and a rejection of expectations to fight and destroy. he is defining who he is in his own terms, in the true spirit of jianghu.

#莲花楼 #mysterious lotus casebook #my posts #lhl #lhlmeta #jielin writes something #also ofc the queer reading wrt defiance against norms in the way of choosing jianghu extends to fdb (and dfs?) individually too #fdb. ace. in particular #this meta can go longer. so much more to be said. but i was committed to posting it before i go to bed #but i'll say here first that i think it's the femininity in lxy that is what precisely makes him an unparalleled swordsman. not in spite of #apologies if it doesnt make any sense or just going off tangents in general lol it's 2am #struggled supremely writing this. for hours i was mind to mouth.meme #i sound batshit insane by the last part but at least that idea had been somewhat peer reviewed by my lovely friends...........#mark and ana don't read though before yall finish the show #also this is what happens to ur brain when ur other media obsession is a hardcore confucian critique/deconstruction #of a royal court intrigue story

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