grace, who has been alone for five minutes: oh my god. an alien! im not alone anymore! i hope he wants to be friends :)
rocky, coming up on 50 years of solitude, imprinting on grace in ways baby ducklings can only dream of: if you leave me to sleep where i can't watch your heart beat i am blowing up this tunnel with us both in it
My memory of The Birdcage (1996) is always that it's more dated and more difficult to watch than it actually is. You hear "drag-themed comedy from the 90s based on a musical from the 80s based on a play from the 70s" and you brace yourself just a little, right? But the film has a strong gay perspective, so the fruity fag jokes mostly come off as warmly affectionate. There is a surprising amount of poignancy in Robin Williams' portrayal of Armand, grudgingly agreeing to his beloved son's request that he go back into the closet for an evening ("do me a favor and don't talk to me for a while"). The drag club's staff attempting to redecorate the apartment with stuff straight people might like (a taxidermy moose head, an enormous crucifix, and Playboy magazine) is extremely funny. Albert's histrionics are a point of tension because he does often come off as a stereotypically pathetic/comic figure, but towards the end of the movie he makes it very clear that he's aware of how people see him, and asserts that trying to copy a stoic masculinity he doesn't possess for the sake of social approval would be more pathetic. In the 1983 musical adaptation, they give "Albert" (Albin) the only good song in the whole show, "I Am What I Am", which Gloria Gaynor covered to the delight of gays everywhere. Apparently Nathan Lane wasn't (publicly) out yet in 1996, which is amazing because it means that at one point in this movie you're watching a gay man playing a straight man playing a gay man playing a straight man, in a movie about how it's important to be yourself, an absurdity that does seem to encapsulate the state of gay America in the 90s.
I'm seeing a couple of posts circulating about the gay 90s and this movie. The above is a very good summary, and I think it's worth adding a few other points.
This movie got made because Robin Williams said yes to it (and it's important that Gene Hackman did as well). Williams in the 90s was a mega-star of a type that's not present in the current media environment (maybe Tom Cruise, but I personally think that's echo from his salad days). Even his flops made money on the back end in the video rental market, which also doesn't exist anymore (streaming is different). Hackman was on the other side of his A-list career but still Hollywood nobility if not full royalty.
Playing gay was considered career suicide in the 90s. There had been a number of actors who put lie to that belief stretching back decades, but this was Williams and Hackman (yes, being on screen next to a gay character was enough to get you blacklisted) saying "screw that" and doing it anyway.
Being gay and out was career suicide in the 90s.
Nathan Lane had a really nice gig going for himself. The Lion King put him into the Disney rep company with people like Williams, Bette Midler, and Whoopie Goldberg (check their IMBD list from the 90s--they were making bank at Disney).
Lane didn't come out until several years later (nice summary: https://deadline.com/2024/06/nathan-lane-robin-williams-advice-coming-out-birdcage-1235975010/).
I don't want to imply that this was a Sorkinized moment where everything changed because of one thing, but this was a very important movie that caused real movement in the needle on queer acceptance.
It also proved that there was a market for films with gay characters, which had the knock-on effect of gay filmmakers being able to find distributors of their gay-themed films. Which meant that more people than ever (queer and non-queer) got to see representation on-screen.
assorted concept art for my cyberpunk/scifi lesbian romance comic crossing wires (2023) about two bitter exes stuck together. you can still grab this one on my ko-fi if you'd like :3
Tala is a bounty hunter carrying in her mind the consciousness of Sheda, a business woman she shares a certain history with. On a quest to g
For those who don't know: Ikumi Nakamura is the woman who was senior artist on Bayonetta, and designed the titular character along with Hideki Kamiya. Their greatest moment of bonding was over their insistence that Bayonetta keep her glasses on at all times.
Nakamura cannot go to horny jail. She is the warden.
"A sovereign is not a martyr," she whispered, her voice hissing-sharp, not beautiful at all. "A sovereign forges many into one, forges people into a nation; a sovereign is an enchanter, too, for she can make real what her people only dream of. I am not going to die for your border, or for my real. I am going to live for them."
Katherine Arden does it again, artfully combining fairytale and history into a beautifully intricate, moving tale full of magic and duty vs. love and characters that you will remember long after you close the book.
Our main character is the young besieged duchess Anne of Brittany. With a mind as sharp as a knife and a gift for schemes and politics, she has held France at bay for years now, but even with all her guile and smarts, her options are rapidly dwindling.
If years on her wobbling throne had taught her one thing, it was that the power of good governance was beyond most men's gifts, however high their birth. It was not beyond hers.
Anne is my favorite kind of protagonist, torn between duty and love, but knowing always that no matter her own desires, the good of her people and nation and family are bigger than her, and so she forges on. She's loving and caring to the people she loves, bantering and worrying over her half-brother Henri and her younger sister Isabeau. You'll grow to love the side characters almost as much as the main ones, and I do think some of the strongest scenes in the book are the scenes between Isabeau and Elsebed, with the two children squabbling and plotting together to try and protect Anne. (And of course, there's Butters! The best and smartest cat in all the realms!)
To her surprise, he laughed. "Rage at me by all means, Highness; better than sweet words with hidden thorns."
We must of course also talk about the male lead of the novel: Louis of Orleans. Formally an ally of Brittany, Louis was taken prisoner by France, and is now working with France for his freedom. This does of course elicit a frosty response from Anne, but the yearning, old affection, and burgeoning feelings build up into a beautiful romance between two nobles who were brought up in duty but also long to steal some time for themselves.
And without the fantasy setting, Anne and Louis would be stuck, but with unicorns, mad sorcerers, and kerrigan involved, their fates get to change. I really loved the description of the Lost Lands and magic in general, all shadow and light linked to memory, and the dreamy quality of the Lost Lands themselves. And the satisfaction of Moreau's dead wives getting to decide his fate in the end.
Would she give up the chance of a realm for this newborn love? The answer, deep in her bones, was clear. No, she thought, Never.
I absolutely loved seeing the lost kingdom of Keris and cheered so much when Anne confronts the queen and brings the kingdom back into the human world. It's so moving and beautiful.
This is a fairytale that hits all the beats of an epic and lands the conclusion with such a poetic and satisfactory ending for these wonderful characters.
This is definitely going to be a reread, and maybe one of my favorite books ever. Go ahead and preorder it here!
Soulmate AU where the soulmate thing is in fact totally fake and a conspiracy.
Turns out that there's this ancient society of wizards who perfected the means of telepathically linking up two individuals. While early uses included stuff like espionage and such, early on there was an incident where a wizard accidentally synced the wrong targets up. It just so happened that instead of syncing the crown prince to the intended informant, the mistaken target was a young lady who was a shrewd political match, and both their parents had been looking to arrange the matter (but were struggling with the reluctance of the relevant parties).
With sudden telepathic bonding on the table, the couple took it as a sign from the gods that they were meant to be, and got together of their own accord.
The wizards realized the potential for matchmaking as a means of manipulating the political landscape, and abandoned their prior attempts at subterfuge (a limit of the telepathic bond is that it's two-way, so the target also gains your secrets, which meant a lot of them had to be assassinated after the fact.)
So the wizards converted their lair into an ostensible temple of the Goddess of Love, where people could come to pray to find their soulmates. Wizards were also sent out to arrange matches that would advance the interests of their cult, as well as some random ones just to help cover their tracks. As the influence of the Goddess of Love grew, new branches of the temples sprang up. The cultists were soon divided into two categories: wizards who still knew the truth and pretended to be priests, and actual priests who weren't in on it and genuinely believed they were helping soulmates find one another.
The culture around it goes something like this:
Not everyone has a soulmate, and not all soulmates are destined to be together in every lifetime. But if they are, the Goddess will bless you with the ability to hear one another's inner voice, if it is your fate and/or if you pray hard enough. Some soulmates know each other from their first meeting, but others take time to recognize the bond and open their hearts to the possibility of connection. If you're wondering why it took like eighteen separate meetings with someone before the bond manifested, do some introspection and consider why you might have closed your heart off or whatever. Like it's definitely a you problem, and it's rude to blame the Temple of Love, which is only trying to help people and has no other agendas whatsoever.
Also consider donating more money to the temple next time. Higher donations mean more priests can petition the Goddess on your behalf, and she's a busy lady, sometimes it takes a lot of petitions to get her attention. 👌
How would this factor into a plot?
My thinking is that a pair get setup as soulmates, and they are just absolutely both adamantly convinced that they are not. Like not in an enemies-to-lovers sense or anything, they just get the psychic bond thing and it's like, no. I don't know what's up but the Goddess of Love has definitely made a mistake. So they set out to gain an audience with her, but along the way they uncover the truth about the cult and its manipulation of generations of political marriages and business alliances.
It could be a metaphor for amatonormativity. Like some of the priests argue that even if it's a con, it's one that's been running for so long it's already steeped into the culture. How could the main characters bring themselves to expose it? To tell people who think they've found their soulmates that it's not really the case? Think of all those bonds they'd be threatening!
But then like, wait a minute. That's bullshit. This whole format for relationships has so many problems, and it's all working in service of manipulating and controlling people anyway! Why should they let the cult go on hooking up individuals that suit it? Shouldn't people know that it's possible to CHOOSE to make a telepathic bond with someone they actually want to? Shouldn't they be able to decide to manage their own relationships as they see fit, without some misleading pressure of fate or gods? And what about the ones left feeling excluded and unlovable because they don't "have" a soulmate? It's not like people are going to stop loving one another or finding themselves if they aren't being led around to do it this specific way!
So they upend the whole thing, and upset a lot of people, and then have to deal with the fact that they're still telepathically bonded until one of them dies.
the concept of being lavonte and feeling like you don’t know hj anymore, like you’re losing him - he’s buying sweet potatoes and giving you basil plants and he’s mellowing out and you’re starting to worry he is NOT the guy you signed up to eternity with - then he snaps back to himself for a moment and he’s wild and crazy and recognisable to you and he tells you to get rid of the basil plant that he left you in your coffin.
If I had a nickel for every big name Harry Potter fanfic writer who started their own cult, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice.
Snape wives (or as they called themselves, Snapeists) were an online cult made mostly of middle-aged women who believed the following
Severus Snape is an omniscient, unkillable entity residing on the astral plane.
Snape is the one true god.
Snape possessed JKR to write the Harry Potter books, but she got several things wrong; most importantly Snape dying.
The spirit of Snape abandoned JKR because she wasn’t good enough for him and created the Snapists instead.
Snape chose several Snapists that have a special connection with him to lead his religion.
Snapists can serve Snape by marrying him and becoming sister-wives (there was lots of debate on if they could have boyfriends/husbands other than Snape in the real world).
Snape contacts his followers who are worthy, both in dreams and by possessing real life people.
To be worthy of Snape, you need to be… basically a tradwife. Obey Snape in all things, never question him, don’t be independent, be pretty, be thin, only have feminine hobbies, etc.
The snapewives wrote a crazy amount of fanfiction about Snape, both erotic and otherwise. Plus they had their own prayers, ceremonies, shrines… shit was wild. The whole religion fell apart when one of the leaders criticized Snape and was subsequently bullied out of the community and another decided that the one true god was actually Jethro Gibbs from NCIS.
in a way john watson is a fantasy (what if you had this brilliant enigmatic friend and what if he liked you in particular and what if he offered you the excitement of youth and adventures and a way out of boring society life and all without having to actually give up your status as a gentleman so you could have the best of both worlds) and in a way sherlock holmes is a fantasy (what if someone never got tired of you despite your various strange habits and mood swings and instead of simply tolerating you they genuinely liked you and what if you didn’t have to live alone forever and what if you never had to give up doing the things you love) and of course there’s the most fantastical part of it all (what if you could afford london housing prices)
when the persona you made eats you; when the performance youve been putting on eats you; when the name they gave you eats you; when the image people made of you eats you; when the role you were assigned eats you; when the you that other people see or even made for you or you made for them takes over the you that you know and eats you alive.
For all the many flaws of the tagging system on this hellsite, it is so perfect for Sending Home. A man's not dead while his name is still spoken, and what are the tags but the Overhead of tumblr? They aren't the posts themselves, but they are metacommentary on posts, notes to friends, info to be passed on. The message has been logged and is continuing to be sent on. GNU
Blade-to-blade, they were identical. After thousands of hours in lightsaber sparring, they knew each other better than brothers, more intimately than lovers; they were complementary halves of a single warrior.
OBI-WAN KENOBI and ANAKIN SKYWALKER
Obi-Wan Kenobi - Part V (2022)
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
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