i've been meaning to make a more substantial post in this thread, but my thoughts are unorganized and besides that i'm not a particularly good writer. but far be it from me to call out a post for not sparking discussion, then not spark any myself, so here goes:
what does everyone else have to say about the intersection of music and queerness? this is a hard one to talk about without just drifting into "here's why i like this music" which is a topic for a different thread entirely, but i'll do my best to explain what i mean here.
for me, i think a good place to start is
drowning in the sewer by sewerslvt. this music is kind of a stereotype among transfems which i find really interesting because of how totally out there it is. it's like how did all of us end up at this weird place in the middle of nowhere?
drowning in the sewer can easily be read as an album about depression; one such construction is that the album's progression represents a story about an average internet gamer becoming a pedophilic porn addict with no prospects in life and eventually committing suicide. but even this is suspiciously not too far off from right-wing stereotypes of trans women. at any rate i think this interpretation only scratches the surface anyway, so let's dive a little deeper.
one thing that really sticks out to me is this album is how light many of the songs feel, including "squids", "hopelessness", and "blacklight". the young transfem life is wispy, unstable, and ephemeral, not securely anchored to a state of being. even abusable or disposable. sewerslvt,
doll twitter,
hot allostatic load. it feels like they can just blow away in the wind at any moment. this of course is especially amplified when you consider the internet (another major theme of the album): many transfems, being lacking in irl community, are especially reliant on the internet for social relations. all of us are familiar with the internet friend who just disappears one day, and even without going to that extreme it's abundantly clear that you need to be there for people in real life, and they need to be there for you.
another thing
drowning in the sewer does well is characterize conflict. a great example of this is "cyberia lyr2", a big, brutal song with drums, bass, and an uncaring vocal sample that beat down the listener. i see this song as the subject of the album fighting back: "i may be light, pathologized, and disposable, but i'm
alive, god damn it! i can be tough too!" even later on in "death & humanity", a song well past the event horizon of the album, we see the reaffirmation of life even in the face of death: fighting a battle you know is unwinnable, but continuing nonetheless. "there is no 'real woman' to become."
drowning in the sewer ends in a haunting, devastating way. the death, plain and non-spectacular, is very clear in what it represents: annihilation. "it's over." literal death aside, assimilation--the 'trans dream' in the eyes of the vast majority of people--is also an annihilation: going stealth, abandoning your siblings, leaving it all behind in order to "make it". it seems in nearly all cases, trans joy cannot survive in a sustainable state. this is well expressed through the song "junko loves you", the last stand of unadulterated love for the world before the album enters its greatest spiral; love unreciprocated cannot be healthy.
but this joy is also something worth keeping alive at all costs. to illustrate this point, i want to bring up a song from another sewerslvt album: the appropriately named "
slvtcrvsher". i fucking love this song. the cruelty of the world is stripped down to its barest form and spelled out to the listener: "stupid girl / you don't have a chance", yet the opposing trans voice rises up to meet it. to "shut your fucking mouth", it replies "fuck you!" all within an insanely manic, intense, oppressive song. fighting an impossible battle, but this time winning.
so what's the difference? i think that
skitzofrenia simulation is despite the name a much more "healthy" album compared to
drowning in the sewer. many of the songs are very hostile and negative in nature, with messages such as "i fucking hate antidepressants! i hate being a bad lover! i feel like my brain is broken! i hate what they're doing to the environment!" (listen to ecocide suite btw BANGER) the difference is that there is an i, a more stable entity capable of having these feelings, and capable of working through them. she's here, and she's chosen to be in it for the long haul.
in "blooming iridescent flower" and "with you forever", the last two songs on the album, we see the same joy as before, but no longer in a self-sacrificial way: loving everyone means being responsible, not spreading yourself too thin, and celebrating yourself as well. this is expressed through "blooming iridescent flower" itself being a lot more structured and energetic of a song; a being with clearly defined borders. "with you forever" tests the limits of these borders by exploring the concept of relationships, but that's a topic for another post. i even think "slvtcrvsher" is a joyous song at heart, although maybe that's just me being competitive game brained and being like "fighting is awesome".
(note: even with all of this there's still a lot i didn't cover, like the roots
drowning in the sewer has in 4chan and more generally the internet "anon", and the ways its idealized and "pure" anime girls reflect onto many online transfems, though that phenomenon extends outside of anime. i wanna talk about those but im stupid and i have some funny blue pills to put in my mouth)
so yeah! my only rule for these music posts is that you have to have fun while making them. but music is awesome and is one of many ways to make "theory" less dry. so i welcome more of these kinds of posts. or you can also ratify my status as Neo-Amazonia's Biggest Pseud (Two-Time Award Winner) (Erin Makes "Worst Post Ever"; Asked To Leave Gay Pokemon Thread)
uhhh fuckin uhhhh stream
machine girl - scroll of sorrow and tell me about your favorite gay music
