Cross Guild Plays Uno

As someone who has watched a few Arthurian adaptations, I was immediately intrigued by „Gwen & Art are not in love“ by Lex Croucher.

I mean ur telling me we get the Arthurian myths in combination with a medieval queer love story ?!

Even though I nowadays tend to have problems starting printed literature this one flew by and I finished reading in the span of a day and a bit.

To start not only is the story great but I’m also a big fan of the cover art <3

We get not only the exploration of the queer love stories between Gwen & Bridget and Art & Gabriel but also growing Friendships and some battle action fitting for the Middle Ages.

Next to the fighting it does also have some minor alcohol abuse and partly deals with death. And since it’s the Middle Ages and people just love hating other people, the mentions of queerness etc are not always positive.

Im personally a big fan of how all the relationships evolve and the people change :)

Spoilers for the plot of the book!

Little rant from me :|

Although it was a great read and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it, I must admit that the typical plot of:

character a either did something accidentally wrong or is said to have done something wrong (although that’s false) and character b immediately believing that and now judging/having a grudge against/hating character a. Which then only confuses character a who doesn’t get any information from anyone around them to what they’re said to have done wrong and is jsut lost and hurt. Especially after things are jsut starting to look right between the characters.

It’s not that it is that unbelievable that it happens (it’s here and there) but more that sometimes it just annuls like every character growth the two or more characters had together and after there is never really a apology or an acknowledgment of this being hurtful to character a, since it jsut confirms taht character b would be easily able to believe this about character a. And my biggest fight with this trope is that the friend of always tend to just side with character b although they’re often both they’re friends or even character a‘s friends.

Luckily it’s not that big of a part on the book but it tends to really ick me when reading something which is really great.

Personally I just loved how Arthur helped both siblings more or less take some responsibility and self control for their own desires and life wishes. It was interesting to see the differences in how they acted around being queer, since they were raised very similar but oh so different.

Also just some special mention of my boy Sidney: he’s not only the most loyal person in the story but also is just a really amazing best friend to Arthur all while he also has his own little love story :)

It may be extremely simple but I loves the conversation Art and Sidney had about the pendant („it’s cold and black jsut like my heart“ „no, your heart is soft and yellow, like marzipan“😭)

Some other favourites of mine: we have a map of Camelot :), Bridget’s witch friend, the court magician, Excalibur nine 🙂‍↕️, everyone in the castle thinking Gwen and art were getting intimate, Gabriel’s more or less obsession with birds, background gay King Arthur/Lancelot, Agnes <3

Sometimes it was really frustrating how oblivious and sheltered Gwen was but seeing that she had not had any friends (not sure if it was explained) and also did not leave the castle, it seems realistic enough that she turned out like this. Still hard to read at a few instances. But I could definitely see how she and Gabriel are siblings as they both are really afraid of dancing out of line.

Also Arthur definitely had enough self loathing and alcohol issues for the both of them. Like, my guy, when are u sober. And also they both were immature when they were younger since they’re were children (duh) but also like how should gwen have known taht ur dad is a fcking ass (just my opinion )

I definitely do love all of the main cast so that is not meant to bash any one of them. They’re just realistic and all have flaws (although I’m not sure about Bridget she is pretty perfect :3 only female knight, noble ladies tend to fall in love with her, strong and capable, knows her boundaries (especially with not wanting to be treated like a secondary thought by her lovers)and she wields Excalibur nine) and good features. :)

Not always the biggest fan of open endings but I think here it does work well although I would have loved to see the speech and followed reaction 🤷🏻 maybe we would have seen Merlin and Morgana get back from their sabbatical hm

Spoiler ending here!

So I know it sounds negative at a few instances but do read the book it’s great. I think it’s a very easily enjoyable story that really pulls u in and makes u feel as part of the group. :))

Thsi is not eloquent or the best review in any way just me somehow bringing my feelings and thoughts to screen :) 🪼🪻

I absolutely love Legally Blonde (the musical). Elle is such a great character!!

The audience is introduced to her in such an amazing way, with her mathematically trying to figure out what to wear. “It may be perfect for a blonde, but I’m not that blonde. I may be in love but I’m not stupid, lady, I’ve got eyes.”

Elle in general is so good. She’s so smart and she’s legitimately the most interesting character to follow.

But!!! The best!!! Part!!! At the end of the musical, when she says she’s leaving, Emmett confessing that he loves her isn’t what convinces her to stay. Instead, it’s the other female characters showing their support for her!!! The way the girls in this movie support each other!!! The “Greek Chorus” is perhaps my favourite example, if only because they’re so supportive of absolutely everything Elle does!!! It’s so sweet!!! “We came to see our president be legally blonde”? Best line, I love it, it’s so good.

But also, the romance between Elle and Emmett is so fucking good. Emmett supports her through absolutely everything. Emmett is such a great person, but also his musical cue is an oboe, which means I’m biased to like him anyway-

“They laughed at me like they’re laughing at you. We can’t win if we don’t follow through.” “Though it’s hardly my business to say, could it be the real thing in your way is the very man you’re trying to impress?” “But I know it’ll all be worthwhile when I win my first lucrative trial, and buy my mom that great big house out on the cape.” “As I hugged my mom and told her, with the chance I’ve been given, I’m gonna be driven as hell.” All of Emmett’s lines are so good, all of his songs are perfect, Emmett is the best character ever.

I love the ending, when Elle proposes to Emmett. It’s the character coming full circle. She begins the musical by planning an outfit that will be perfect for Warner to propose to her to; “This dress needs to seal the deal, make a grown man kneel, but it can’t come right out and say bride.” “I’ve got t leave Warner his pride.” She’s fulfilling the stereotypical idea of the woman having to be proposed to. She can’t propose to him or look too desperate to be proposed to, because that will ruin his “pride.”

Elle proposing to Emmett at the end shows such an amazing character growth. She knows she doesn’t have to fulfill the stereotypical female role in their relationship. She proposes in a room full of people, proving that she is no longer concerned with her partner’s “pride.” She proposes by saying “Emmett Forrest, please make me the happiest woman I know.” She proposes in the stereotypical male style, but it’s so fucking sweet because Emmett is so excited and they just love each other so much-

But the best way to portray the character growth is two specific interactions. To set it up, the Greek Chorus mentions, in the very first song, that being married won’t come between Elle and their “sacred bond of sisterhood.” Later in the same song, the Chorus sings: “We love you guys.” And Elle responds: “No, I love you guys.” Note that she specifically says “I,” because presumably, Warner doesn’t actually care all that much about them.

Now, in the finale, the Chorus repeats the line, this time to Elle and Emmett: “We love you guys.” But, this time, Elle and Emmett respond together: “No, we love you guys.”

Emmett supports Elle’s interests to the point that she feels comfortable sharing them with him. She feels comfortable introducing her best friends to him and he actually likes them. It comes full circle. Elle finally has someone who supports her completely, just like she supports Emmett completely, they make each other happy. It’s so sweet.

Also, it’s kinda funny because Emmett is Elle’s sugar baby-

Transmasc Shawn, except he grows up in the 80s, with no vocabulary for this in his small city cop household childhood, so he's a tomboy demanding to be called by the male version of his name because it's "cooler" and wants to play with the boys. And his dad always wanted a son to step into his footsteps and trains him and pushes him to sharpen his skills. And both of his parents, wellmeaning but misguided, think it's just a phase.

And he doesn't grow out of it, and puberty just makes it worse. He becomes angry, rebellious. He dates girls, like Abigail, but he knows that he needs to leave to find himself, even though he's still missing the precise vocabulary for it.

And then he leaves for a while, takes odd jobs, travels through America, and meets another trans person for the first time in his life. Maybe at the dance group in Buffalo. Or in rural Argentina. He doesn't tell anyone when he begins to transition. He's somewhere halfway across the continent and he's fully himself for the first time.

And, meanwhile, Gus is doing an internship and he gets introduced to the concept of "sex changes" (it's the late 90s or early 00s) and he has so many questions, enough that the doctor thinks he's mtf, but Gus is just figuring out that his friend was "born in the wrong body" (again, 90s-00s) and that there's solutions for that.

And then Shawn turns up again and he's just. A guy now. Gus takes a second to recognise him on street but when he does he's overjoyed. His father needs time to process it. He's not overtly transphobic, he's just processing that his kid never felt comfortable enough to tell him this. And Shawn tells him he tried telling him, but he didn't know how. And Shawn tells him he always wanted to have a son anyway so what's the problem. And there's a bit of tension between them but Henry realises his son is a lot happier than his daughter.

And then Psych happens and Shawn has to juggle several secrets and identities at once. But it's fun to say things like "when I was a girl scout" and "when I got my first period" and "when I was a little girl" and have everyone laugh because it's so unbelievable to everyone that he's not just joking.

Gedanken meinerseits zu die drei ???

Falls die drei sich je fürs College oder so trennen müssten, gibt es zwei Optionen:

1. sehr dramatische Situation, viele Tränen, viel Depression, viel alles, sie gehen zu dritt zur Therapie für mehrere Termine, löst sich freundlich und einigermaßen gut

2. auch Drama, Streit, Schuldgefühle, schlechte Kommunikation und die ganzen schlechten Seiten von deren basically co-dependency, reden vllt für eine längere Zeit nicht

In beiden fällen gibt es deren weirde co-dependence aber in einem Fall klären sie dies bevor es zum brechpunkt wird (weil co-dependency nicht healthy ist auf langzeit)

Am realistischsten ist es aber sowieso dass die ne WG machen und zumindest in der gleichen Stadt College/Arbeit haben (finde ich zumindest). Aber auch da müssen sie natürlich irgendwann ihre Probleme ansprechen 🤷🏻

Noch ein Gedanke

Habe die Rewe Edition Die drei ??? Bücher gelesen, welche jetzt nicht super charakterisieren aber

Man hätte zum Treffen zwischen Peter und Jeffrey auch Verabredung oder halt Treffen sagen können aber es wurde explizit das Wort Date genutzt

Ich spreche nur das aus was auf den Seiten steht (don’t boo me, im right)

Weiß aber auch nicht wie Canon diese Bücher sind . But still they exist with very queer undertones✋🏻

Und auch zu den Editionen: ich liebe Ellen, sie taucht zwar nur kurz auf aber sie ist so relatable . Sehr viel Liebe an Ellen und an Mandy die drei Sätze hatte und im Customer Service arbeitet, es ist nicht einfach🫶

Das war’s für heute

Disclaimer: Ich weiß nicht doll viel und bin müde also falls was nicht stimmt… der Mülleimer steht neben der Tür (/j)

It’s also basically all @emiko-fan-2podcasterin fault so… :)

finde wir sollten mal super spezifische deutsche AU prompts einführen.

- star crossed lovers meet in der Schlange vorm Pfandautomaten

- du triffst deinen soulmate in der bahn, eure augen treffen sich, der himmel voller geigen. ihr nickt euch kurz höflich zu, keiner von euch sagt was, du steigst die nächste station aus weil du noch zu aldi musst, ihr seht euch nie wieder

- enemies to lovers: wir haben uns auf ner wg-party getroffen und streiten uns bei club mate welches Bundesland besser ist (titelvorschlag: dein lokalpatriotismus ist nur ein stummer schrei nach liebe)

- Kaffkinder AU: sie sind zusammen bei der freiwilligen Feuerwehr, teilen sich ihr erstes radler an einem sommerabend um halb acht aufm Bolzplatz und hören sportfreunde stiller auf nem mp3 player

- Zwei Referendare bonden weil sie realisieren dass Bundesjugendspiele auch als Lehrer scheiße sind und gründen eine unheilige Allianz gegen das Kultusministerium

- found family trope: ihr seid die vier einzigen Leute unter 50 beim CSD planungskomitee eurer kleinstadt

- nochmal enemies to lovers: ich bin tempolimitverfechter und du fährst nen BMW :/

- du bist ein cop und ich hab seit 2014 keine Rundfunkgebühren bezahlt, secret identity, heavy angst, organised crime au, 400k, rated m for violence

feel free to add more

An underrated aspect of But I'm A Cheerleader is that the butch, hairy, gnc woman is the only character who has a Conversion Camp revelation that she is, in fact, NOT gay. People just see the way she looks and put her in that box, so she simply feels like she HAS to occupy it. (This is exemplified by Rupauls immediate next insistence that she IS gay, and "who is she fooling?" Which comes off as very ironic from someone trying to con these kids into becoming straight.)

Much of the "conversion" in this film is just reintroducing strict gender roles, which does happen in conversion situations but this is obviously a very campy, over the top example. Of course the POINT is to show that the fact youre gay has nothing to do with your adherence to gender roles (both Dolph and Megan ARE picture-perfect images of the Man and Woman- even if they are gaslit into thinking they arent. Yet they are still gay!). But I think its oddly nice, in an older movie too, to see it put so plainly that the opposite is also true.

Your lack of adherence to strict gender roles doesn't determine your sexuality- but you'll be lumped in all the same and punished anyway, because that's how heteronormativity works. And that was always the purpose of gender roles to begin with- to keep people in line.

Sometimes it’s just late in the night and im suddenly convinced that I can start any hobby at the same time with the right level of commitment and have it all go well.

I’m setting myself up for doom and also kinda ignoring my studying

But yeah, I’d be a great dm for a original dnd campaign

Maybe it will make its way out of my notes and dreams lol

SENSHI would want you to get enough sleep and have nice nutritious meals

CHILCHUCK would want you to know your worker rights and what your labor is worth

LAIOS would want you to embrace your passions and try new things

FALIN would want you to take care of your health and treat others with kindness

MARCILLE would want you to practice necromancy and have gay sex

Just watched the Friday the 13th and the first Mr.Yang episode of psych with my friend (@emiko-fan-2podcasterin ). And I must admit as a disliker of horror, the first of these episodes was already nerve striking and a bit too much for me ( I’m extremely jumpy), but then on top of taht the emotional turmoil of the Mr.Yang episode with the awkward conversation between jules and Shawn in the end. That. That killed me, like I was mentally exhausted after that. So yeah… I definitely adored the Yang episode for the turmoil it gave me but also I need some time to recover from that.

And of course my friend was just very amused by my scaredness and inner turmoil at all of this

Anyway watch psych ppl

Bernard Dowd and the Art of Recontextualization

I'm what you might call a "fake Batman fan" - that is, I've only watched most of the Batman animated series', all of the live action movies, most of the animated ones, played some of the video games... so, you know, probably thousands of hours of my life in Batman related media. But not the comics! Fake fan!

Frankly, I find the comics medium the way DC and Marvel do it to be really hard to follow. There's the fact that you can't really follow an individual solo character without them getting caught up in massive crossover events that ruin their arc and pacing, there's the soap-opera-iness that encourages cheap and revolving conflicts inherent to the longform monthly release schedule, the writer roulette, and there's also just that going back to try and thread a particular continuity or character is an exercise in frustration. Oh and the retcons. Everyone hates those. They've (basically) never been good. Don't remember this part it will never come up aga

But, you know, despite this - or maybe because of this - comics is a breeding ground for ideas. Because of the quick turnaround and the demand for novel conflicts, comics just churn out idea after idea. Good ideas, bad ideas, doesn't matter. Get it to print. Retcon it later if we write ourselves into a corner. Comics are often soooooo first draft coded. This is why I personally prefer adaptations - they often reimagine ideas and retcon them into new narratives where they can serve a more coherent plot. But what happens when a character is picked up for a second draft ... without actually contradicting the earlier material? While enriching the earlier material, even?

(SPOILERS for Tim Drake: Robin and uh... 20 year old comics under the cut!)

So, uh, quick disclaimer - because I have very little overall knowledge of DC's Comics continuity, there may be more interesting examples of times that what I'm going to point out was done. But I love Bernard and from a writer's POV I'm impressed with the way they did it so we're talking about Bernard lmao

The Beginning (Robin 1993) - Reading comics from the 2000s hurts in a way I can't describe

Okay so I heard Tim Drake is dating a guy now? (Penny Sonic voice) Whoa he's bisexual I didn't know that! I'm sure people on the internet are being very normal about this. Cool let's find out more about his new bf. I like starting from the beginning... so like yeah hold on while I crack open the Robin comic and take down what this guy's deal is.

😬

So basically the TL;DR of Bernard in his original appearances is that he seems to be an attempt to introduce some normal stakes teen drama into Tim's life. He has all the Funny Guy Friend Classics - he's got an inflated sense of his proficiency at pulling girls, he's inexplicably drawn towards the protagonist (who is cooler than him), he wants to date the most popular girl in school, and he wants to get down with older women!

This might just be me but while I was going through this I thought like, he almost reads a little uncanny, like he's been filtered through a Disney Teen Special. In practice he mostly serves to introduce Tim to the Real Plot, Darla Aquista, and be one of his ties to civilian life, which is, like, fine. He's ultimately just a background character and he's so unimportant that he only has one appearance after their school gets shot up(!!!), which is, again, to be more of an accessory to the Darla plot.

After this display of "wow this guy's kind of lowkey insane for offering to his resurrected bestie supervillainess to be her manager actually", he's dropped forever. Comics! We're not gonna unpack that.

The Sequel (Batman: Urban Legends) - We're Gonna Unpack That

Until almost two decades later when he calls Tim up for a date. And while I'm trying to skim over a lot to get to the point here and I don't really know the FULL context, it is notable that Tim is in the middle of an identity crisis / the cusp of adulthood when this happens (I think he just lost a spleen or something. That sucks dude). It's pretty implicit that part of the reason he's going to see Bernard is because he's someone familiar in a time when he's facing a lot of new and scary stuff.

And at first blush, he really does seem like the same dude. The familiar arm over the shoulder, the banter, it's all very casual and similar to the ribbing from high school -

- and I guess nothing has happened to Bernard in the interim haha he's just the funny friend guy right?

I really like the way they did this. I'm just unambiguously going to praise how good this is if you just came off the 2000s stuff. Comics have kind of breakneck pacing by nature but they really manage to condense down and then pull off a neat sleight of hand over the course of like four pages here. They re-establish Bernard as a silly guy and then wham you with the fact that yeah actually we ARE gonna unpack that. Fuck you Tim Drake life is ever changing and nothing stays the same

So the TL;DR on the rest of the Urban Legends storyline is that stuff like, HAPPENED to this guy while our focus was elsewhere. He learned martial arts, presumably so that he wouldn't be so helpless in the next school shooting level event, he got into a pain cult, he's just Not Doing Well. We find out, reading between the lines, that calling Tim on a date was probably one of his last attempts to reach out to someone when the cult stuff was getting really bad.

I've heard people complain that Bernard is uninteresting or not a character or entirely focused on his relationship with Tim, and I think that criticism is really weird considering that his entire re-debut focuses on the point that he's been having his own life and making his own (often wild) decisions - ones that really changed the course of his life - while Tim was gone. And it's also notable that this story is about how the fact that he's his own person and has changed and has made the nerve-wracking decision to take action and call Tim inspires Tim himself to take a leap and fling himself into the uncertain waters of young adulthood.

Me when I have my bi awakening and call to get out of a rut simultaneously because Cute Insane Guy Inspired Me. iconic

So that's how Bernard has changed. But that's not recontextualization, that's just the writers taking a guy and making him do another, cooler thing. Well hold the fuck on because we're not goddamn done.

What did he mean by th-

The Recontextualizerrrrr (Tim Drake: Robin) - Bernard is the funniest person in Gotham City. I'll not be taking constructive criticism on this

Tim Drake: Robin is the followup to the Urban Legends story and Tim is the main character fr. Obviously. but Bernard is also a major character. Later, he even gets to be a POV character. But they don't do that for several issues, instead treating us to his shenanigans from Tim's point of view as he solves a bizarre serial murder case and like, they're cute! And neither of them are normal in the slightest. I love that for them.

Again, TL;DR, there are a lot of interactions where Bernard talks to Tim both in and out of costume, but we don't get to see his POV until they go out to a restaurant and meet Bernard's parents there by accident and Tim has to run off to do Robin stuff. And like... a lot of stuff happens in this one bois. Whammy after whammy

We're suddenly introduced explicitly to a lot that was only implied or just completely unavailable before. Bernard's parents are ragingly homophobic. Probably were never great even before that. He suffers from depression. All that is a lot to. wait. hold on a second

he knows?????

HE KNOWS????

Okay so if you stop at this point and reread the entire run so far you find out that Bernard is in fact the biggest troll in the entire universe. This is the moment that cemented him as my favourite, by the way. Like I had a feeling that he knew and I was just laughing my ass off when my suspicions were confirmed.

But this is really interesting on top of that because Bernard has been revealed to be, at this point, a guy who you should look deeper than the surface to understand. Someone who masks his true self and whose true motivations you can only uncover if you're really looking past the facade. Even with Tim, he sort of offers Tim and Robin half the story each, taking advantage of Robin's "distance" to give out information he wants Tim to think about but that he's reluctant to talk about frankly while at the same time almost daring Tim to open up about his identity.

Absolutely most normal way to tell your bf about your cult trauma. You'll always be famous to me Bernard Dowd

This is a really neat trick by the writers. It makes Bernard a multifaceted character who got to quietly develop while we were mostly focused on Tim, and there's some clever clever foreshadowing they set up in this run to achieve this. If it were just this, I would call it good writing.

But it actually goes one level deeper than that and becomes something really really special. because as we all know, Bernard was not conceived to be this way, he was a one-off guy who was kind of annoying and he was essentially retconned to be, like. Gay? Have depth? Be funny? All of those things?

The Seamless Retcon (Robin 1993 Again) - We took your guy and we gave him gay subtext and it worked astoundingly well

This is not a new observation btw, I've seen a ton of posts to this effect. But oh my god. Some of these panels really hit different with the new Bernard lore. Like holy fuck just read this back to back

There are tons of moments like this. There's SO MUCH that the revelation that Bernard is queer adds to his initially extremely underwhelming tenure in the Robin comics. A reread almost begs the question of what Bernard must have been thinking at any given moment! BRO YOU SAID YOU WANTED TO FUCK HIS STEPMOM. That's completely believable as a next-level closeting move and goes from kind of annoying to turbofunny.

Like yeah of course he's acting like a douche. His father is a status-chasing asshole and he's five racks deep in the closet. Of course he gravitates towards Tim - his gaydar is pinging and he thinks Tim is cute. And it's also pinging that Tim is like. You know

None of this would hit as hard if the writers had not set up Bernard as someone who masks so much. They worked it in that character trait to mean that you could always glean information deeper than the surface from his top level interactions.

Because of this, Bernard is really fucking interesting and he's a good character and he's one that gets better on reread. Like I said, that's a set of observations that are not new to me. But something that really gets to me is how seamless and intentional it is. It really feels like the writer sat down and took their time devising a guy that is believable as that other guy, but only if you read back with certain context.

The conclusion - Comics. Man.

So is this just about how Bernard is really fucking interesting and he's a good character and he's one that gets better on reread and that he can exist independent of Tim and all the haters are wrong. Yeah of course. 💖

But also like, I have thoroughly proven to myself that I was kinda wrong to just reject the published comics medium out of hand. I see now that there's room for the writer's roulette to hit the jackpot and that something I mistook as an outright flaw, the winding and unfocused and often improvised nature of it, can be ridden like a wave if you're skilled enough to do it. Meghan Fitzmarten is a goddamned genius.

I guess I have to read comics now. Fuck