#does it?

[michtheclown]

Maybe there was a time when they were okay

[nerdishpursuits]

When the promise of a new episode—or, more painfully, a season finale—stirs dread instead of anticipation, the failure is not subtle: the writers’ room has failed, and their ink has run dry. Disengagement and disappointment hang heavy in the air, trust has fled, and the tank of goodwill has emptied.

At the end of the day, the fatal flaw of SDL is its unceasing, unrelieved conflict. After more than a hundred episodes, tension remains constant and unforgiving, with no release, no respite. Compare it to, for example, Xena, which, episode after episode, always tempered struggle with levity and granted its audience the quiet grace of emotional payoff. SDL, by contrast, keeps viewers submerged beneath a relentless tide, gasping for breath, only to push for a last-minute revival as if hope were a magic trick.

As for Marta, she is denied even the right to herself—denied privacy in her own room, her own diary, her own inner sanctum. She is shamed for carving out an intimate refuge in a world that withholds everything from her, then compelled to apologize—and to pay—for the crime of wanting privacy and the freedom to love, and be with, her wife. This is hardly the flex the writers must have envisioned.

And for the final cherry on top of this narrative? Given what the show has depicted so far, even a single kiss between Marta and Cloe would be indefensible at this point. For Marta to seek validation from a woman who has done nothing but harass her, who treats “no” as though it were “yes,” and whose every act is performative and self-serving, is to diminish Marta entirely. Tell me with whom you keep company, and I will tell you who you are. Anything with Cloe, beyond collegial friendship, collapses Marta's character arc from within. What, then, is Fina to return for? For whom did she sacrifice herself? The answer would be "for nothing, and for no one"—for a woman made of empty declarations and no substance; for a woman who claimed Fina was her raison d'être, and then embraced utter inaction when Fina departed under dire and suspicious circumstances.

Should the story unfold as it currently appears, there will be no justification for such ruthless character annihilation. This would be the final blow to Marta’s narrative, which is already teetering on the brink of irreparable damage. Marta's failures are mounting at an alarming rate, and she has become an expert at inaction. Once a character capable of intelligent thought and swift action, she has now descended into such extreme passivity that she is nearly unrecognizable.

Consider this: in Season 1, Marta took bold risks because she truly understood what was at stake—what, in fact, continues to be at stake—her connection to her authentic self. She gambled everything and fought for the right to be true to herself—for Fina and their relationship—during the pivotal moments of Season 1 and the early part of Season 2. How, then, can this same character now abandon taking any risks for herself and Fina, whom she professed to be her wife and the love of her life, particularly after Fina vanished following a deeply traumatic experience? How can this same character, instead, fall into the clutches of a shallow sexual predator? This would not be just a minor slip; it would be a profoundly troubling and irredeemable regression in Marta's character arc. And make no mistake, Cloe’s actions are undeniably predatory. The mere fact that she wears a skirt does not excuse her behavior; this is nothing less than abuse masquerading as seduction. Are we really expected to sit back, wave our hands, and applaud this so-called development? For some reason, the show seems to take pleasure in humiliating its female characters, and the more beloved they are, the more grotesque the degradation becomes. At this moment, Marta is the primary target, and it is heartbreaking to realize that the punishment for the transgressions against her will never match the magnitude of the crime. e.g., I sincerely doubt that Pelayo's eventual demise will ever feel satisfying, just as I currently doubt the writers' intention to remain true to Marta's character arc. Consequently, instead of being complacent and complicit, viewers should expect and demand more from the stories they consume and stop using the format as an excuse for lazy and subpar writing. The way a story is told matters; the journey a character takes is infinitely more important than the endgame, and the integrity of the narrative itself is fundamental to good storytelling.

Lastly, to avoid drowning in negativity—and clinging to that last fragile kernel of hope—let’s try to focus on the main point. If we set aside any spoilers that diminish our enjoyment and poison the discourse, the show has consistently demonstrated that Fina remains deeply embedded in the very fabric of Marta’s being, in her thoughts and feelings, and in every heartbeat. If Marta were to forget everything overnight, it would feel cheap, superficial, and undermine the message that the show has been conveying to viewers for the past two years. Therefore, there is a glimmer of hope that they won’t discard everything they’ve built up over that time.

Anyhow. Let us assess the current levels of optimism, considering that the last poll showed 65% of voters feeling confident in a positive resolution or an unexpectedly satisfying plot twist.

Clown'o'Meter 🤡

The Marta/Cloe preview is just Cloe’s imagination on steroids, like Pelayo’s 😶‍🌫

Since SDL doesn't go to Comic-Con they will go to RetCon instead 🫥

Voting ended onJan 8

[thegalwhoasked]

Hi. Remember the AroAce Froggers? Well. They came back

(yes, i waited a whole month to make this)

[writingwithoutconfidence]

Why is writing so hard?? 😭😭 I have a whole bunch of WIPs that I occasionally gaslight into thinking I still love them, and NONE are over 40 pages. Not bad, right? WRONG. I've been "working" on one for almost a year now and it has 45 pages. Another has 58. I'm not flexing—I'm concerned. Because tell me why my time-travelling Drarry fic where Draco and Harry are sent back in time to save everyone who shouldn't have died (yes, confusing, I know) is currently sitting at page 195 and going???

My original characters watching me from the sidelines like: 👁️👄👁️ "So we don't get a conclusion but Harry Potter gets a 12-page internal monologue about whether he should warn someone about their death even though it might break the timeline, and mess with the future blah blah blah??"

Every day I open the doc, create a new impossible choice, and watch Harry have a breakdown about something random. Meanwhile my other WIPs are open in tabs, slowly starving, and I go "nah, maybe tomorrow" like I didn't say that EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

The math isn't mathing. My brain said "traumatised gay wizards wrestling with ethics, time travel, and forced proximity get the GOOD chemicals" and my original work gets... the note app. Unfair.

(I should be writing right now but Tumblr was more interesting. On the bright side, I wrote... *squints at words* ...over 100 words today. I've reached my daily goal.)

[aristotletheaxolotl]

[In]Memoriam

[punksdontgetold]

trainspotting not-so-tinfoil-hat theory #977405

I should probably start by clarifying what I lovingly call “tinfoil hat theories” to explain why this one isn't fully tinfoil.

So the other trainspotting tinfoil hat theories are basically my interpretations that are strongly supported by the text, but it’s hard to say whether they represent the exclusive intended meaning or are just some of several possible meanings. According to the death of the author concept, it doesn't even matter, but I'm still curious about intentionality. And I can even allow that one might set out making a movie about growing older / not wanting to grow old and unconsciously add some heavy homoerotic encoding lol But I really struggle to find alternative interpretations for this one.

I have already written about Begbie and Viagra’s mechanism of action (long story short, it doesn’t work if you aren’t aroused, and Begbie only gets a boner after chasing Renton). Which leads us queers to the inevitable conclusion, of course: Begbie has it for our boy Renton. But if we squint really hard and put our heteronormative goggles on, we might come up with another meaning: Begbie gets off on violence, and the arousal isn’t because of Renton, but because of the anticipation of said violence. Seems plausible, no?

ONLY IF WE IGNORE THE SONG THAT PLAYS IN THIS SCENE.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Relax” is a famously controversial sexual song about orgasm by a band with openly gay members, with a video set in a BDSM gay club. If you lived in the UK at the time of its release (which Danny Boyle did), you couldn’t have missed it.

Please enjoy the gloriously gay official video below:

I was thinking so much about the music choices that I went and rewatched the interview Danny and some of the cast gave to the BUILD Series back in 2017. Here's what Danny said about the music: “You’re always looking for a heartbeat of the film, which is for me always music. It doesn’t have to be [the music that will end up in the film] but you’re listening to it when you are preparing, when you are working…” This does not sound like someone who randomly chooses music tracks.

More like someone who was like, OK, AND TO MAKE SURE WE GET THE BEGBIE-HAS-IT-FOR-RENTON POINT ACROSS, LET’S CHOOSE THE GAYEST SONG FOR THIS SCENE. I’m also really curious what else he was listening to while working on the movie, and how gay it was lol.

I mean, we all can probably agree that the Trainspotting movies’ soundtracks are awesome, but also, I think the second soundtrack is noticeably gayer than the first, and “Relax” is just but one example.

TO BE CONTINUED…

[knighthans]

I was always Peter before betrayal I love you but somehow I’m starting to be Peter whenever I love you