award season! please consider for your ballots, “Stellar Evolutions in Pop Idol Artistry," my speculative love letter to the kpop panopticon—eligible in the short story category at 6640 words & available in the July 2024 issue of Clarkesworld!

evocative cinematography of happy together (1997)

I am headed to worldcon tomorrow! no programming this year I will just be floating around the con and saying hi to people, so if you will be there & want to hang out, give me a shout!

it's totally cool if people don't like the specific het pairings that have become published novels but i find that aspect less concerning than the fact that just 13 of the top 100 pairings of all time on ao3 are m/f but all the successful published novels that were fics are m/f

https://t.co/sVbiGnrVH5

Lesbian Lovers Kissing In Tiananmen, 2006

happy 32nd anniversary to "farewell my concubine", the first and only chinese film to win the prestigious Palme d'Or at the cannes film festival.

happy together cast at the cannes film festival, 1997

We’re live! From #LoveIntheBigCity to #StrayKids and #BTS livestreams—Issue 002 dives into K-drama revenge, Cold War snacks, fan activism, murder rom-coms, diaspora, and more. Read now at https://t.co/gm9oyTMqFl

i am curious to see where these threads go, if anywhere! but you know, again, not to be Me but my kingdom for fantasy drugs that do not have their potency and meaning sublimated as something other than drugs 🙏

but what bix takes has no sublimated purpose, no alternative meaning, and so even though you have a possible metaphor of her use reflecting the necessary self-repression and discipline of revolution, when luthen encounters her use, he dismisses it wholly. he does not approve.

one that highlights that substance can be conducive to revolutionary change, can be the spark, can be the fuel—there is still a dichotomy happening here i think where rhydo is not *only* a drug and therefore we can have that nuance

it gives you powers! it connects you to gods or demons! it's medicinal! this very much echoes the real world—prescribed hydromorphone is supposedly not the same as street fentanyl—and while i do think the rhydo speech is in part brilliant bc it *is* a more nuanced depiction

i always think the depiction of substances that have potential alignment with substances of abuse in SFF is interesting because so often when depicted somewhat positively (or at least in a nuanced way) the substance has some property to it that justifies its use & existence

but even luthen, who understands darkness & subterfuge & the necessity of numbing yourself to the pain of your actions in servitude to the greater good, sees no metaphorical benefit to her use of this drug; the dreams come back worse after, he says

so i think the point of comparison between rhydo & whatever bix takes becomes clear: bix's drug is choice has no revolutionary spark, it has no purpose. it's a sleeping aid that can be abused to put you deeper to sleep. to me, the obvious metaphor is obvious

but the thing that i do find interesting is that rhydo is also a fuel, that the partisans need for some mission-related reason; it is not a substance of abuse primarily, it has another purpose/meaning

which is a rare take on something that is depicted as a substance of abuse—to frame rhydo as something dangerous but something necessary, an aid in the common fight for freedom—while at the same time showing it as potentially corrosive, dangerous to inhale in and of itself

and a notable thing about the monologue to me is in relating his revolutionary fervour directly *to* rhydo—he and rhydo are one and the same, because neither of them can abide by the steady state, the littlest friction will spark brilliant insurrection!

love saw's monologue as a counterpart to luthen's s1 monologue in that it touches on the same themes of sacrifice, participating in rebellion that you will never see the end of, but luthen speaks of shadows & darkness whereas saw speaks of wanting badly to burn, to explode

not to be too myself, but i am thinking about the drug/substance use in andor & the compare and contrast case you can make re: the unnamed stuff (if there's some star wars name for it pls let me know LOL) that bix is shown using versus saw gerrera's monologue on rhydo