#queer reading

[frankieeex3]

Requesting lesbian books from the library like my life depends on it

[jesse-pinko]

It’s literally not my fault that the themes of Breaking Bad become that much stronger if you read Walter as a closeted gay man… like where to even start okay it’s 2008 and this guy is so, so insecure in his masculinity and so, so resentful of his picket fence family life. He’s done what he was “supposed” to do by societal standards and he still doesn’t feel like enough of a man compared to his brodude brother-in-law specifically. He can’t escape the feeling that something is missing, that it’s all a charade, and he finds it hard to believe the rest of the people in his life really are content with this lifestyle. Nobody seems to understand, and he hates them all for not seeing how unhappy he is. He gets his cancer diagnosis and is suddenly acutely aware that he feels burdened and unfulfilled by the life he’s built for himself, and that time is running out to change things.

It’s when he sees Jesse Pinkman fall half naked out of a window that everything changes. He’s pretty, and young, and floundering without guidance or a support system. He desperately craves human connection and lacks the self-esteem to take his life in any particular direction without someone instructing him. He’s grieving his aunt, the only person he had looking out for him, who died of cancer. He already views Walter as an authority figure. He’s alone.

And with Jesse around, Walter doesn’t have to come to terms with anything about himself that might challenge his masculinity, because it isn’t an equal relationship. Because he’s still “the man” in this dynamic, the one with the power, the one calling the shots, the dominant one, the firm hand. Moreso than in his relationship with Skyler, who refuses to be bullied into the role he would assign her, that of the submissive, subservient little wife who looks to him for guidance and permission. As a criminal, Walt can express care for another man in the only way that traditional masculinity would deem acceptable; through violence. His love language is violence. Violence toward Jesse and violence on Jesse’s behalf. He runs over two men with a car for Jesse. He kills Jane and Mike, a romantic and paternal threat respectively, because they were going to take Jesse away from him. He tries on occasion to verbalize their relationship into something more traditionally familial, as if saying it might make it true, but it never quite fits the mold exactly. He reasserts, over and over again in what he later admits is a lie, that he is doing this for his family, that everything he does is an extension of his masculine role rather than deviant from it. He would kill and die for Jesse, he does kill and die for Jesse. In fact, in a story of self-actualization that still has Walt cling to his delusions of grandeur up until the very end (almost as though becoming Heisenberg wasn’t actually self-actualization so much as an escapist fantasy) his arc concludes with him actually self-actualizing by committing one last act of violence on Jesse’s behalf. In Ozymandias, he tells Jesse about Jane as a way of playing into Jesse’s worst fear that Walter never cared about him, that everything they did to and for each other meant nothing. Walter’s last act on Earth is a refutation of that; it’s an admission of care. His last act of self-actualization was a confession of love for another man.

[hermajestythesun]

“john lennon was in love with an immovably heterosexual paul mccartney” my brother in christ this is NOT true. paul mccartney has a high functioning anxiety disorder and acts according to what feels like the safest and most comfortable, straight-forward pathways for the heteronormative aspects of his life rather than what HE actually wanted and truly felt. in paul’s eyes, having an established girlfriend, family unit, and musical universe was essential to his functionality as a person and ultimately led to paul choosing superficial shows of public security over his love for john. in this essay in will-

[cabbitpurrball]

Ria Ami's Swimsuit is Trans Girl Body Goals and She Will Watermelon You If You Disagree

Ria Ami's swimsuit is AWESOME SAUCE, and I need everyone to look at this right now.

Hot pink halter bikini, deep V, tropical flower print on the bottoms, actual flowers in her hair. She is standing on a rock over the sea and laughing and she looks like she has never once in her life had the thought "can I get away with keeping my shirt on."

I have never once in my life not done that calculation. I spent years being self-conscious about my body at the beach, just finding reasons to stay covered, watching other people in swimwear like it was nothing while I'm running numbers in my head. So, when I tell you Ria standing there laughing in that bikini hits different, I mean it.

And for a trans girl specifically this is everything. Because swimwear is one of those categories where dysphoria just lives. The exposure, the way it shows your body from every angle, whether you'll pass, whether people will clock you, whether your proportions are going to betray you the second you stop posing carefully — it's exhausting. A lot of trans girls don't go to the beach at all. And Ria is out there doing beach tennis.

That's the part that gets me actually. The costume story has her doing long distance swimming, beach flags, beach tennis — she's being athletic and physical and taking up space in a way that has nothing to do with how she looks. She wished to be naturally beautiful and then she went and lived in that body like it was always hers, because the wish made it, so it always was.

That's the fantasy. Not just the body. The timeline where you never had to fight for it.

The flowers in her hair and the tropical print are doing something too — she picked those because she likes them, not because she's trying to prove something. There's a difference between femininity as armor and femininity as just. what you wanted to wear today. Ria is so far past having to justify her choices that she just put flowers in her hair and went to the beach.

She's not hiding. She's celebrating. And if you know what it's like to spend years hiding, you know exactly how much that means.

[k-wame]

[kingmaxstatic]

Okay but like. Jenny is trans-coded and I think it's a really fascinating part of her story.

She wasn't born like a human girl but desperately desires to be one. She hates her old name (xj-9). Gets excited when she's called "a daughter" etc etc. Her experience AS a robot girl is OBJECTIVELY different from a human girl's. Yet... that doesn't make her any less of a girl!

And I think with the reading of her story as Trans.. you know what episode (to me) becomes FAR MORE interesting?

Raggedy Android.

For those unaware (aside from this being listed as "one of the creepiest episodes in cartoon history" which. like. IT IS.) In this episode Jenny gets excluded from a hangout spot BECAUSE she's a robot.

Eventually this leads to her putting on her human exo suit. She LOOKS and is TREATED like a normal girl for once!

But there's a cost to this.

The exo suit begins to control her against her will. Forcing her to sit out of fights. Jenny isn't herself.

The suit tells her "this is how normal girls behave"

The episode, of course, ends with Jenny busting out of the suit and being herself!

To me this episode is really interesting in the context of the accidental trans-coding of Jenny because it's something Trans people DO have to face!

"If you don't act super feminine as a trans woman than you're not a real woman!" Some might say.

And if that's how you want to present as a trans-woman that's entirely valid!

But that should be YOUR CHOICE!

Trans-men should be allowed to be feminine, trans-women should be allowed to be masculine! Nonbinary people are allowed to be some other third thing.

Just because Jenny fights crime and is made of metal doesn't make her ANY less of a girl than anyone else and that's why I really love this episode!

[strawberrythighddemon]

Safi, Max, Chloe: A Love Triangle Across Timelines | Life is Strange: Reunion

“Safi Loves Max, and It’s Complicated”

After finishing Life is Strange: Reunion, I realized the game threw a curveball, and instead of catching it, it hit me square in the face. That’s the best way I can describe it. I’m talking about Safi.

Safi is one of the most misunderstood characters in the game, because of her actions in the first game, with shapeshifting into people to get revenge on everyone who was involved with covering up Lucas’s plagiarism scandal, in which he stole Maya Okada’s work. Safi’s best friend. The people involved were Safi’s mom, Gwen, and Vinh. But her focus on revenge was against Lucas.

Safi, throughout Reunion, displays grief. Even within Double Exposure, she carried immense grief from finding out what her mother did. Not only did Safi lose her best friend, but her mother is a huge betrayal. Yasmin was covering up scandals, and she convinced Gwen to email the publishers to retract from publishing Safi’s poetry because some of her works revolved around her best friend, Maya Okada.

But that’s not the focus of this topic. I’m focusing on the love Safi has for Max. The way she acts around Max in Reunion, and what she says, how she says it, and what she wrote in her journal about Max.

Now, Safi said it herself, she’s suffering from intrusive thoughts, and like Chloe, she gets pulled into the “Overlight” world. Moses came up with the name for that world, so I’m going to use it.

Safi and Chloe, because of the combining of the two timelines, both of them experience their deaths as part of their memories. It became a part of them, and it even confused Chloe. Chloe keeps separating the different versions of her who experience the whole figuring out who killed Rachel, and the different experiences with Max. Loving Max.

Safi is going through the same conundrum. She has all those various experiences from the different timelines of Max killing her, and who knows how many variations of Max trying to save Safi or save Caledon. We chose the middle ground of combining all the timelines to save both Caledon and Safi.

Safi loves Max.

From everything I've seen and listened to and read, she is leaning toward being in love with Max. This goes into the territory of a unique love triangle. Because Max is her best friend. And the same situation is with Chloe and Max. They are best friends. So, this is complicated.

Safi shows signs of a bit of jealousy. During the conversation at the turtle between Max and Safi, the question was asked why Safi returned. Safi answers in a more vulnerable tone, no sarcasm:

“The sad truth is, I’m here for you.”

When Max is quiet and just looking at her, Safi gets a bit flustered about it and responds:

“Oh, don’t give me that dewy-eyed look. I can’t decide if it makes me want to kiss you or murder you.”

She hid her truth behind her usual sarcasm in that moment. I think she does want to kiss Max.

However, Safi is defensive because Max told her mother that she was on campus.

It was the same scene where Max gave her students the assignment of talking to people they find interesting and trying to take their picture. It’s also the same scene where Max chooses to set an example for her students and decides to ask the woman sitting by the tree reading, if she can take her picture.

The whole exchange between Max and the Southern-accented woman was charged. I mean, there was a playfulness to it that I read as flirting. Then I realized it was Safi and it made sense if you played Double Exposure because Safi used to sit by that same tree and read intensely. I saw that little detail, but it was the chemistry or flow that Max and the girl had. It was just too much flow for strangers. And Safi is a flirt.

I’m going to be honest, I wish we would get an inner dialogue of Safi in all those moments. I have a hunch she thinks as much about Max as Max and Chloe think about each other.

It’s no wonder when Safi reminds Max of what really happened at the Overlight world. At that moment, Max saw Chloe in the distance, and Safi accused Max of forgetting about her entirely. And that the reason for combining the timelines wasn’t for Safi, it was to save Chloe. That’s why I see Safi as acting from a place of jealousy.

I picked the dialogue that Max wanted to save them both, and she cares about both Safi and Chloe. Max is naïve and a bit selfish, but one thing is certain: she didn’t go through all those hardships in Double Exposure for Chloe; she was trying to save Safi.

Safi has also gotten caught up in grief and most likely wrapped in that jealousy, to realize Max risked herself for her. That whole frozen lake scene in Double Exposure was enough. And in it was the perfect scene to show us how Max’s powers evolved. Safi helped Max’s powers evolve.

And that brings me to what Safi wrote in her journal. The page was dedicated to Max. Her realizing Max is using her powers again. But it was also about asking the question, “What is she up to? And how Chloe is involved.” But the important part is right after that. Safi wrote a poem, and that poem is about Max.

“Taking my hand, you pulled me Out of the frozen lake Into the raging storm. You were the dashing hero. I was the damsel, saved. And I was the monster, vanquished. You rescued me from the rocks Then chained me to them. You made me feel alive, but I know I died (I did) I died”

I was stunned after reading this on stream. Poems are very personal. And this is how Safi feels about Max and how she sees her best friend.

“Out of the frozen lake, into the storm” refers to that lake scene in Double Exposure, which I talked about. “You were the dashing hero. I was the damsel, saved.” That’s how she saw Max after that scene. The choice of words, dashing hero. Damsel. I’m interpreting that as how young girls fantasize about a knight in shining armor saving the damsel in distress. She was playing at that, to describe that moment.

But imagine the feeling she must have had once you realize the context of it. Those are romanticized words. The rest is this back-and-forth frustration of how she views herself and how Max continues to rescue her, only to be trapped again. “You made me feel alive, but I know I died.”

It’s all those combined memories that are fracturing her. She even thinks the better part of herself is locked in the Overlight world. But how she talks about Max is the frustration of loving someone and being angry at them at the same time.

When Safi talks with Chloe, she says it, that Max doesn’t experience any of the consequences of messing with time and reality. Her frustration is real between those two dominating emotions of love and anger. She tells Chloe:

“I know you love Max. I love her, too. But where has that love ever gotten us? Mindfucked, chewed up. Half-dead.”

However, this all happened after Max refused to leave with Safi, when Safi begged her to leave with her and to forget about the fire and trying to save everyone. She’s desperately trying to have someone choose her for once.

After getting rejected, she tries to convince Chloe to choose her. To leave with her. And this leads them back in the Overlight world, where Chloe had to convince her not to unalive herself. Safi wanted to die.

But the scene that broke me wasn’t that; it was the scene where Safi tries to convince Max to leave with her. The desperation in her voice was palpable.

Max is trying to explain why she can’t give Safi what she wants. Wanting to save the people from the fire, because they are going to die. And she says:

“That should be enough for you.”

Safi counters desperately:

“I should be enough for you.”

She continues to plead, stuttering on her words:

“Please? I-I’ll be good. I…I won’t shapeshift, I won’t… I won’t lie. Just please… I don’t wanna be alone.”

This dialogue broke me.

Safi feels so alone.

And Max was the person she truly focused on. She was even compromising on bringing Chloe along. Meeting up with Diamond. And even bringing Moses along to try to convince Max to leave with her. Even though she tried to convince Chloe to leave with her as a last resort an effort to convince someone to choose her, all the real energy and emotion went to Max.

So, is Safi in love with Max? Probably.

But love comes in various forms. And I do think Safi’s feelings for Max are above friendship. Max is probably the person she would ride and die with. However, Safi has to realize that Max has already been doing the ride-or-die bestie thing from day one.

The story is really revolved around the love story of Max and Chloe, but Max and Safi would be an interesting one. Chloe and Safi are so alike, and they love the same woman. Max.

Love it.