I love hearing what people are into and love the rare moments when queer storylines are so visceral and true to life that you can tell queer people were behind them. Even better when they're not relegated to subtext, though I'll take a visceral and real subtext plot over cheap tokenism any day.
What was the storyline? How did it fit into the overarching narrative of the piece? What did you like about it? Is there anything you'd change?
Witcher season 2 gave Jaskier a gay breakup song about Geralt, does that count?
last night i watched But I'm a Cheerleader. Super charming and stylish gay comedy from the 90s.
I absolutely adore that movie, it's a sapphic classic for a reason! Natasha Lyonne and Clea Duvall do such an amazing job in it, it's wild to see them in that towards the beginning of their careers and compare to now lol.
I saw it for the first time on New Years Eve going into 2020 after getting hot pot with my wife and some friends, so it's like cemented in my brain as one of the last normal date nights I can remember having lmao
what other films have Natasha Lyonne and Clea Duvall been in that you recommend? They were both so good I'd love to see more of their performances.
Natasha Lyonne's most notable recent roles are television — Nicky in Orange is the New Black and Nadia in Russian Doll. I think she's also in The United States vs. Billie Holiday but I haven't seen that one yet. I know Clea Duvall has been in a lot of other stuff (I wanna say Veep?) but mostly I recognize her from a guest part on Broad City, and from directing The Happiest Season
Its good. Loved the books, and while the TV adaptation has lots of flaws, I have been loving their attempts at writing out RJ's weird misogyny, and more fronting of the queer character's instead of the books mostly nudge-nudge implication of gay people existing.
The wheel of time book series is populated by exclusively queer people who NEVER do gay shit, also season 1 of the show is way better than the EotW, which is by far the worst book in the series (anyone who says EotW is their fave WoT book is a reactionaty 98% of the time)
Interesting. Its actually been like a decade since I last read the books, but my partner is reading through the series now, after watching the show so far, and she GREATLY preferred book 1 to season 1 so far (she only just finished EotW). Not that she doesn't also have some problems with RJ's weird misogyny, but I thought it was funny that she actually liked the show less than I have been, despite watching about half of it before reading any of it. Generally she said the pacing of the book, and the worldbuilding, hooked her way more in writing than on screen, which I can see, since episode 1 and 2 I think have been the weakest so far.
I like eotw as a travel story, and it fills that role well. That being said it is NOT a story made for a visual medium and I am glad they have made changes to make it more watchable while keeping the spirit of the narrative there.
I don't mean to be that person, but people gotta remember that the first book was published in 1990, so was probably being plotted and written for a few years before. In that context what is now read as sexism was pretty progressive. Now this isn't an excuse for it not being better, but it does kind of situate it in time over 30 years ago. Jordan may not have been a visionary but he sure as shit wasn't a Niven who was just an open fascist.
Oh, I agree. Compared to contemporary fantasy, Jordan even acknowledging gay people exist makes his works less sexist than the majority of fantasy at the time.
However, he unfortunatly chose to bake some gender and sex stuff into the core backbone of the books. The Saidin/Saidar tropes, and the men vs women stuff was chosen to be included. Compare to, say Lord of the Rings, where its certainly not progressive, but also it doesn't say much one way or the other about gender differences, other than in the passive way that general tropes of stories fit into a cultural impression of what what men and women 'ought' to be.
As a result, although RJ was progressive for his time, at least compared to mainstream, his choosing to focus so heavily on gender, not only as a plot device, but as a worldbuilding feature, means that we today read a pretty non-nuanced take on gender-relations and gender essentialism. He's kind of bitten in the ass because he chose to tackle these concepts, rather than not focus on them. Its hardly the worst, but add in the weird stuff, like how often powerful women get spanked to embarrass and punish, and some of his comment about sexuality that come off as bi-erasure today, and its pretty uncomfortable.
I do believe he had good intentions, and its absolutely something I myself am able to look past to enjoy the phenomenal story, but it also absolutely does make me uncomfortable.
A pretty fair and nuanced take. I just get tired of people reading the books in today's context and pin them as irredeemably sexist and not worth reading. Like shit has change dramatically in the 30 years since the original was published, hell shit has changed dramatically in the past decade. As static as the world seems on a day to day basis, it really does move quite fast; and I think people,and not just younger people, underestimate the pace of change that has happened in their lives and that which came before them. I think the sense of the world being static in spite of the rapid pace of change is exacerbated by the sterile replication of culture. We seem to get the same cultural crap cycle after cycle because capital is so desperate for returns that innovation seems to be entirely squeezed out of the equation.
I getcha. Online discourse seems to often dump things into either the good bin, or the bad bin. And it can be hard to criticize things you like without coming off as 'canceling' them or whatever, or conversely even just enjoying things you know are 'trash media'. But I'm a huge WoT fan, despite the fact I do think it's also flawed and sexist, and I'd still call them great books.
I generally think of the sexism as a sigh-and-eyeroll moment; same kind of response I'd have to a boomer co-worker saying some outdated shit. But its not irredeemable at all.
I just watched the k-drama "Nevertheless" which is available on Netflix and probably on torrent trackers near you. It's a fairly light drama set in an art school, primarily focused on the students navigating their romantic relationships while they occasionally work on their project pieces. There's a main couple that are painfully hetero and not really worth watching, but the side characters are super excellent and entirely worth it.
In particular, the relationship between Sol and Ji-Wan is really incredible — they're two best friends who've been extremely close since childhood and have reached a point where it's hard for them to ignore that the strong feelings they have for one another are more than platonic. The premise and setup are standard WLW fare: a little unserious comphet (and/or being so genuinely oblivious to men so as to not recognize that you've been going on dates), jealousy, pulling away to keep from getting hurt, so much TGTGT (totally gratuitous, totally gay touching), not wanting to ruin a friendship by escalating to something more — but the execution is really something special. The acting is phenomenal, the camerawork and directing really highlights the actresses' performances, and every single scene with either character adds new layers of depth and emotion to their relationship, even when they're just in the background.
Some of my favorite things about it: it's overt from the beginning, they're given similar amounts of screen time to the het side couple, there's a tremendous amount of emotional nuance, when they're used for parallels between the other het couples on the show it mostly serves to emphasize how much more interesting and compelling they are. There's also a refreshing reversal where the more femme of the two girls is the one jealous of dates with boys that the other goes on — I feel like I haven't seen much of that before. The pacing is excellent, practically every scene with the two of them is an emotional heavy-hitter, none of their screen time is wasted, and the complications in their relationship are never frustrating as a viewer. It really hits every emotional beat just right in a way that feels familiar but brand new all at once.
(Mild spoilers below)
The only thing I'd change about their storyline is letting them kiss at the end. In every other way they were treated as well as (if not better than) the straight couples, though, so this isn't really a big complaint — especially since there aren't a ton of queer characters (and virtually no queer relationships) in kdramas.
If you do end up watching it, you can fast forward through any scene with the male lead, he's an asshole but in a tiring way and he never improves.
Really been liking the long webserial Practical Guide to Evil , which is finally coming to a close, approaching I think 2 million words, and is in the final arc.
In general, the series has numerous queer characters, presented in a casual way; notably, the main character Catherine is Bi, and known for kinda eyeballing everyone. But also has ace, poly, and trans representation, though for the last one, she's a very minor character. But overall, I really like how its presented in casual way. Like, I also enjoy when queer characters are presented 'realistically', which is to say, depicting their struggles with a prejudiced world and coming to terms with themselves. But I think I do get more enjoyment from depictions without any of that, where there isn't prejudice against queer people baked into the world, and they get to just be themselves, while also doing Fantasy Things.
FWIW, if someone wants a brief intro, its Fantasy, but also kind of Cape Shit; Stories hold weight, and people can gain Names, like the White Knight, the Wizard of the West, or The Ranger. These names give power, but are also a rut carved into the world, that's hard to shake, and these stories and names can be manipulated by basically being genre savvy. Its somewhat a rationalist deconstruction of the genre, taking a lot of cues from works like Worm, or Malazan, and while there's a lot of focus on stories, there's also a good deal of focus on politics, armies, and running nations. It's certainly not overtly leftist in any sense beyond being queer friendly, but I'd say its also pretty critical of cults of personality, and definitely isn't horny for monarchies the way some fantasy is (looking at you LotR).
Like, I also enjoy when queer characters are presented ‘realistically’, which is to say, depicting their struggles with a prejudiced world and coming to terms with themselves. But I think I do get more enjoyment from depictions without any of that, where there isn’t prejudice against queer people baked into the world, and they get to just be themselves, while also doing Fantasy Things.
Hell yeah I'm right there with you. I'm so sick of, like, coming out arcs and the main conflict being other characters being openly bigoted and hateful towards queer characters, especially for anything fantasy or sci-fi or with any amount of world building component. Like, you created this whole world that doesn't exist and left the mundane bad shit in? You couldn't even be bothered to make some fantasy metaphor for it?
That webserial sounds like a great time, I'm a sucker for any kind of genre deconstruction and stories that get meta about stories, even if the genre isn't always my number one!
If you are looking for a trans fem narrative, dreadnought and its sequel by April Daniel's are fantastic. They are YA novels but I loved them.
Umineko is incredibly queer, but the actual extent of it includes massive spoilers for the whole game, which I highly recommend reading for yourself. As a mystery, the spoilers will take away some of the fun, though it's still enjoyable even if you're spoiled. There's some other stuff with side characters, but the really big stuff involves the culprit and isn't made clear until the end of the 7th episode of 8, though a lot of it can be guessed at before hand.
Major Umineko Spoilers
Sayo is the most important character in the game. They were (probably, it's never explicitly stated) assigned male at birth, but were thrown off a cliff as a baby due to the Ushiromiya family being awful. One of the servants found them, they were assigned female by the family doctor and raised as a servant. They mostly present as Shannon, a female servant, but also spend time as Kanon, a male servant. No one but the servants who helped raise them know about any of this. After finding out their backstory (which includes some more fucked up Ushiromiya family shit) they end up setting up a plan that kills the entire family, in different ways every episode. What really clinches it is the time we meet Lion, who is their idealized form from a world where they didn't get thrown off a cliff as a baby. Lion is pretty explicitly non-binary.
Also relevant are Lambdadelta and Bernkastel, who are some wonderfully awful witches who are also super important to the story, but their romantic relationship isn't. Plus some implications, but I've said enough.
I just read Interview with the Vampire for the first time, and it's more bisexual than the movie would have you think. Every so often, there's some wonderful description of the protagonist falling for some other guy, which makes for the most touching and hopeful moments of the book. Even if it's all a bit kitsch and terribly chaste, I really enjoyed it.
I gotta self-promo here for Urasaria Academy @ WebNovel (free!); it's a terrific lesbian series where superpowered ultraviolent lesbians engage in anime-fights with violent criminals, with much excellent character drama. (It also has what I'll claim as one of the best-written transgender characters in all of fiction in Serena Kunst.)
For a storyline I liked, I won't spoil any of the first 4 years with Mia Schultz, but instead Year 5, featuring the second main-protagonist, Iris Valentine. This is shit that hasn't even been posted yet, so you know it's special.
spoiler
Iris is first set-up as a butch, former-mechanic with oppositional defiance and a teenage history of getting into fights & committing crimes with her superpowers.
To Iris's mind, sympathy was often a threat; the bits of weakness it exposed in her stabbed at what she was at the time, her inopportunity to prove that she was strong and others were weak. These fights with other hosts, these crimes and theft; they were Iris's attempts at creation, to make her will an objectified thing that she could name herself, a bit like when a child has their own term for a tree or a toy. She felt that life was unfair; innate in its design was this unfair randomness.
Though she grows in empathy as the year rolls on, she is almost quintessentially grey at first. Her first romantic interest is another student, Amelie, who she meets at a lesbian bar near campus. Amelie is a mentally unwell artsy/former-gifted-kid type, and seems to be indicative of the type of women Iris attracts. Here is how they interact after killing a host together:
Amelie smiled, then turned to look at Iris a little coquettishly. "So, aside from all of the gore dripping down my body, how do I look?"
"You look great. Especially with the blood." Iris sidled up closer to her, tentatively wrapping her arm around Amelie's waist. She didn't move away.
"Well, I was about to say: I noticed that you've been eyeing me the entire afternoon. Was I seeing that correctly?"
"Is that alright?"
"It is." Amelie smiled. "If I was looking at you piece by piece, Iris, then maybe I would find you to be a little too rough. But you're another student with a sense of kindness, and you have this intensity that I find attractive. I'm just not quite sure yet what I'd like you to do with that."
"Can just acknowledge it for now."
"Mm. Maybe that would be best."
Over the next months, Iris visits her frequently and is sexual with her, along with much characterization for Amelie in their pre-coitus dialogues. Iris does, however, deny to others that this is a relationship and has difficulty viewing it romantically.
"So, are you thinking of dating her?"
"…I'm not sure yet. Sex, yes, if she'd like that. But a relationship?" Iris frowned. "The longest one I've had only went a couple months, and even then, I had to stop it after... death in the family. Lack of personal intimacy's something I've found fairly manageable so far."
"Every lesbian says they just want friends with benefits. Two days later you're standing at the altar."
The prose reveals Iris's desire borne of loneliness to control Amelie, which she later confesses, yet has such difficulty interrogating her own thought process logically that she is forced to rely on emotion to explain it.
Near the end of the year, someone in Iris's life dies, and this combined with the memory of her own parents dying when she was a teenager causes her to withdraw entirely, including Amelie, who is out on an investigation when the death occurs. For a time, Iris embodies Krzysztof Kieślowski's Blue: I don't want any belongings, any memories. No friends, no love. Those are all traps.
After a month recovering from the death, she returns to regular contract work, where Urasaria's student-president unwittingly assigns her to an investigation with Amelie. Iris thinks at first to cancel the contract, yet is pressured by her mentor to reconcile, and there is a terrifically awkward conversation that follows between her and Amelie, where both attempt to feel out if the other is still as they remember.
While on the contract, they work together well, though there is no reference to their past romance nor any new. Yet, the way they interact is still tinged, such as when Iris cracks jokes: "They laughed at that, but not too much." Amelie is busy dealing with her mentor, whose alcoholism has become an increasing issue and eventually leads Amelie to abandoning her entirely, but whom she is not thinking of at arc's end:
'What happened happened. I don't…well. But of course, I have thought about what else may have happened. When you came to talk to me, I thought perhaps there was something I could construct out of what we had once shared. I thought perhaps that by touching your cheek or holding you, I could do some sort of transformation to you -- a little bit like Superman to Clark Kent. And I feel you've lived that out in a rough way for most of your life. It was why I found you attractive. And I still do. But that I can't do anything about it makes me feel almost impersonal towards it.'
They remain good friends for the rest of the series. Amelie recovers, and Iris does eventually date someone else, with several possibly-flirtatious encounters with others on campus. One is the pacifist German medic who works for the academy, Emilia, who is non-binary. Their superpower allows them to weave Cronenberg-esque patches of flesh/bone/blood that heal when applied, and while several jokes are made of the 'fucking abominations', there is a great moment with them that sums Iris's character:
"Here, have a little souvenir." Emilia smiled and handed Iris the half-finished Flickendecke patch; it had not yet been given the flesh finish that coated its blood.
Iris looked over Emilia. They were an attractive person and Iris's age, yet to Iris their most attractive trait would be that they did not fight; thus they could not die... But she blinked these thoughts from her mind for now and left the infirmary. She would keep the half-finished patch on a shelf in her bedroom, as a reminder of Emilia, even though she knew they were an employee and she a student: there could be nothing beyond professionalism. But to Iris, the patch was an expression of the divide between the possible and the probable; in times of grief, she would imagine its unity as a way to draw together her more frayed natures.
