for your serious consideration

22 born to hate, forced to love Not my main

[vincentpriceofficial]

to me niall is telling the truth when he says alby is the only man he's ever had feelings for and when he says his love for ruben is the only thing he's ever felt. these statements are contradictory and both true. dialectics

[cavernposting]

Anywayyy the final nail in niall’s coffin has nothing to do with their love, it’s that ruben felt he had been cuckolded and that in the end masculinity always came first

[nimfeach]

There’s a brusque pragmatism among working class women from certain uk communities/demographics that is exceptionally well represented in the writing of Lori Kennedy. I see her and I think of my mother and aunties and their familiar refrain when asked why they’re not more upset about something. ‘that won’t buy the children a coat’. The family female motto. What use is crying if it won’t alleviate the work that still needs doing. Every woman in my family does the same thing when she’s boiling over with rage. She cleans, silently. Being emotional is a distinctly male luxury, one often witnessed and endured. not something afforded to the women, who had to make sure the children were washed and clothed and the meals were cooked and the house was managed. I think of my cousin, overwhelmed and 25 at the time, crying in her mother’s living room because of work stress. My auntie’s sharp voice cutting through, ‘I’ll not be having you crying in my house on a Sunday evening. If there is a problem, then do something about it.’ I think of my grandmother’s intolerance for any hint of indecisiveness, no matter whether it was about major life choices or what biscuit to choose from the tin. ‘Shit or get off the pot, girl.’ I think of sitting, heartbroken and wounded by a man prone to dark moods, as my grandmother said ‘when it comes to men, you either keep a core of steel deep inside yourself that they can never touch, or you don’t bother with them.’ There’s a stoicism among the women where I come from that is borne of generations of poverty and misogyny and exhaustion and suffering. We learn young that being crippled by emotional distress is an indulgence. Losing your shit is for fellas, with their rages and tantrums and their weeping over footie. The women have to get on with it.

[madagascarskin]

Half Man's approach to sexuality is incredibly brave and it's especially rare to see it executed at this high a level. Every sex scene is uncomfortable, and there's a lot of sex. It's not just the sexual violence or the compulsory heterosexuality, even Niall's forays into the homosexual underground are a clear act of self harm and in trying to compromise his desires by playing the role of a domtop daddy, he only works to distance himself further from his identity. The show perfectly manages to capture what it means to be disembodied. Nothing is satisfying not sex or drugs or relationships. There's 2 key moments in this show that I think really compliment eachother. When Niall tells Ava that he had sex with a male prostitute he says he came, but he wasn't relaxed. According to himself, being raped by his father was one of the most intimate experiences of Ruben's life, so what does that say about his sex life after the fact? Is intimacy even possible after it's caused you so much harm? Childhood sexual violence steals something fundamental from within us and we spend the rest of our lives trying to reclaim it. As the title suggests, for Ruben it made him a 'half man'. Emasculating Niall through sexual assault gives Ruben a power that was taken from him at a young age. Putting Niall in his place by suffocating him with his body weight and enacting unrestrained violence against him, asserts Ruben's place in the pecking order; but it's also proof that he can conquer his own weakness. A punishment for a disempowered version of himself, projected onto Niall.

Having a gay awakening potentially as a result of a sexual violation will complicate your relationship with that identity and how you fit into it. If you do fit into it, if your experiences count. Can you really be proud of something that's brought you so much pain? It's really interesting that when Niall tells him how difficult Ruben made it for him to come to terms with himself, all he mentions are the slurs and not the he fact that he sodomized him with a hood ornament while telling him he likes it. Taking something pleasurable and making it as humiliating and painful as he possibly can, fully taking advantage of how being on the receiving end of a gay interaction is considered shameful. All the more fascinating that when Niall discloses his gay identity, Ruben seems to open up and relate to him by trying to share his own gay experiences. Those experiences being father/son molestation. How sexual violence shapes your sexuality is a difficult subject. Even for our main characters this is all 'too much' for them to consider. It's not something a lot of people dare to broach and I think it's commendable that this show tried to tackle these things in earnest.

[cavernposting]

listen we came to the violence and sex show looking for violence and sex and thats what we got and its good. But i do want people to stop seeing alby as an obstacle to their violence and sex desires and start applying their well thought out ideas and masterposts about homophobia and repression to alby as well. How is alby affected by the repression of those around him, by a world that shames desire and transform its only outlet into graphic violence? The one out man visibly bearing the effects of other men’s repression and inability to cope. But still he offers an alternative, non violent free life.

Starting to ramble now, but i think what gets lost in the outing discourse is that, while it may be taken as a singular act of imposing his will, in the grand scheme of the show, characters from Ava, Lori, and Alby try to convince Niall to find acceptance (in varying ways to varying degrees of understanding and success) so that he can take control of his own life. Niall’s dependence, his lashing out, the fallouts of his life stems from his inability and perhaps refusal to acknowledge his own power over his life.

anyway my original point is that alby is not a conduit for ruben and niall’s passion and violence, he is a victim to it just as they are as well and i want to see people discuss what that means!

[roman-roy-apologist]

alby can do whatever he wants forever btw

[lovelikeafuneral]

charlie and ​anjli on set of half man

[xalatath]

Has anyone ever thought about telling a story in a video game?

[pulsingvoid]

characters like alby are collateral damage to gay panic stories way too often so seeing him at the altar at the end of episode 2 was so promising and refreshing i was like omg are we finally going to have a story like this that actually explores what living with this sort of male violence does to gay men of color? how someone like alby would be drawn to niall as the person that almost perpetuated the same sort of systemic oppression onto him but chose not to? the complex love-hate bond that would form between the two of them as a result of very nearly damning each other (because alby is quick to want to out people the way he himself was outed, that's like the one nuanced trait gadd gave him)?

and then half man was like no... no sorry that's still not getting explored it's just about the white men forever. which is such a shame because i see a lot more untapped potential in the alby/niall relationship than anything else this show skirted around in its limited airtime.

but then again would a story this queer at its core have even gotten greenlit if it was about anything other than the misery and destructiveness of the two leading white men? seems like we still aren't allowed to explore anything else with as much nuance

[cavernposting]

can we start getting into the half man racism discourse i think its time please someone start

[ashenmind]

“Living weapon” covers a lot and all of it is hot

[ashenmind]

[madmensideblog]

pour one out for reluctant intimacy

[cavernposting]

i almost miss going into the jean vicquemare tag and seeing hate rip an era </3

[cavernposting]

Just started “ask not: the kennedys and the women they destroyed” and one thing im already just so taken by? In awe of? Is the immediate and vindicated anger of the author. Ive read a couple recent articles about the abuse of women (specifically royal and prestigious women in recent weeks) and one pattern is this tone of laying out the facts: the daily routine of misogyny-including when it graduates to horrific violence-and there is certainly a sense that the reader should be incensed or appalled, but the author themselves sort of has a detached tone. Not a horrible way to tell the story of course, it provides the air of journalistic integrity and its not like theyre hiding the perpetuation of injustice and oppression. But Callahan…its just a breath of fresh air to see both the facts of oppression and have the author argue more pointedly and with passion that this is wrong

[weepingwidar]

Helen Haskakis (Swedish, 1992) - Liggande Hund (Lying Dog) (2024)

[cavernposting]

charlie and pim. like grimmons 2: reloaded

[cavernposting]

saw beth wants the d yesterday wow as someone who only listens to their work i didnt know she was so hot