hey, so it's hellfire gala month again
So this is your (hopefully yearly) reminder that Cyclops still has sex with Wolverine on the moon. This is canon, y’all.
Last year, Patricia and I started to watch queer media for Pride, but because I’m really extremely effing busy this month (so is she, plus we’re already watching Ms. Marvel - which is AWESOME - weekly) we haven’t been watching that much… yet.
So this is what we’ve watched so far:
- Love, Simon
Maybe it’s the fact that I’m very nearly approaching a minor burnout, maybe it’s the lingering anxiety from the last mercury retrograde, but I still just wanted to watch something happy. And this was in last year’s itinerary that we never got to, so we finally got to cross this off our list! This is basically a normal teen romcom, which means I enjoyed it, liked the best friend character so much more than the main character, and was annoyed by the decisions made by the main character a lot of the time. So, you know, fun times.
And, er, that’s it so far, for the stuff we watched together. We did plan to watch some other stuff which may or may not include:
- But I’m A Cheerleader!
- Nina’s Heavenly Delights
- Pride (the 2014 film)
I did watch some stuff by myself at home while doing chores:
- First Kill
Normally this wouldn’t even be in my list because of the vampire thing, but it’s based on a short story by Victoria Schwab. And… this was actually fun! It’s a cheesy 90s teen horror style series that does away with the horror bit (seriously, it never even gets Buffy-level scary) and is all about the drama. I don’t feel particularly excited about the next season (if there is one), despite enjoying it, though.
- Pride (2021 documentary)
I watched the first two episodes of this 6-ep docuseries. It focuses more on the personal experiences of chosen individuals rather than the sociopolitical situations of the years it was documenting (I think I love Alia Shawkat as Madeleine Tress), but the latter still shines through from how they affect the individuals whose stories are being told. Some would probably criticise this docuseries for it, but one of the things I liked about it is the way it showed how queer people weren’t just isolated and closeted in the past, and how there were so many queer people in history who found family and community - and how a lot of this history was just ignored or erased. I hope to watch a couple more episodes tomorrow.
I haven’t even been reading that much this month (have been too busy and exhausted!) but I can’t wait for my next wrap-up to talk about my current read, A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland. I’d put in a review copy request simply because the cover screams gay historical fantasy, but I wasn’t too sure I would enjoy it, because I haven’t been much in a fantasy reading mood and historical fantasy, I’m even less eager for. But I was granted an e-ARC, and I made myself read the first chapter, and now I’ve placed a pre-order for the hardback.
It gives me The Goblin Emperor/Queen’s Thief vibes, if Sophos was the main character and Attolia is his scary sister, and his attendant is more like Costis who is all by-the-book honorable etc etc and thinks he’s an embarrassment to the throne. I love it.
Earlier in the month, I finished Peta Lyre’s Rating Normal by Anna Whateley, which is basically the only non-Percy Jackson novel I finished in June so far. Peta Lyre is an Australian YA contemporary novel featuring a queer autistic & ADHD MC and there’s a lot more infodumping on terms and treatments etc than in the only other ND-focused books I’ve read (Helen Hoang’s romances), but I liked it and the rep is great. I need more?
A third queer book I’ve read so far is the manga, I Want to Be a Wall Vol. 1 by Honami Shirono. All I knew about it before starting was that it’s about a lavender marriage between an ace woman and a gay man (who is in love with his childhood friend.) It sounded interesting, so I wanted to give it a try. Turns out that the ace woman is aro/ace (yay, although the actual term ‘aro’ was never used) and a huge fujoshi.... which, er. As someone who have described myself as a fujoshi before, I don’t necessarily think fujoshi always = bad. But. This woman seems to be the kind of fujoshi that made me start to avoid using the term to describe myself, and made me averse to a lot of popular BL books - she’s a little delusional and unrealistic about “love”, and seem to fetishise gay men without making any attempt to understand the reality of their life experience/situation. I can’t imagine how her husband might feel about this, had he been a real man instead of a BL-trope type.
And of course, the aro thing. It doesn’t bother me because I’m aware that understanding about the difference between types of attraction isn’t really a thing (yet) in Japan, and they tend to conflate being aro with being ace. I mainly mention it because I can see this bothering some readers, or worse, giving some readers the wrong idea about aro/ace identities.
Despite all this, I still liked it enough to place an order for a hardcopy, and plan to continue reading this series to see how everything unfolds. It’s hard enough to find any rep in manga outside of BL, beggars can’t be choosers, etc etc. Besides, BL is more complicated than just about fetishising queer men - even though that’s the basis of most cishet readers’ interest, there are almost as many queer people who use the genre as an escape from reality, myself included. The fact that more manga like this, and BL Metamorphosis (about a teenager and an old woman bonding over their love for BL), and Our Dreams at Dusk (about a suicidal gay teen whose life is saved when he finds an intergenerational queer family), and I Think Our Son Is Gay (title is self-explanatory, no?), exist, give me a lot of hope for the future.
Oh, I’m also reading Marvel’s Voices: Iceman on Marvel Unlimited, and it’s giving me life. Bobby’s relationship with Christian Frost never felt real to me, and this miniseries follows up on his adventures post-Marauders where he left the team to “discover himself”. And, well, discover himself he did - having various feats, flings, and flirtations across the globe, occasionally returning to Krakoa for drinks with the other local queers (mostly Northstar and Rictor).
And! DC Pride: Tim Drake Special #1 which I probably should have waited to read when it comes out in next year’s anthology, but I couldn’t because he’s Robin and I love BatFam stories. This special mostly has Tim figuring out who he wants to be - both as a superhero, and as someone who recently came out as bi. After avoiding Stephanie/Spoiler (his ex-gf) in the main comics for awhile, they finally have their much-needed talk, and he introduces her to his current boyfriend Bernard. It’s all very sweet.
I guess that wraps up my Gala month so far! There are still a couple more weeks to go, so I hope to watch and read more stuff, but I’m glad I’ve been avoiding most news and pride related social media posts for now.
Stay safe!