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last night was the first night since the surgery that I adjusted my sleeping position in my actual sleep as opposed to waking up and shifting the pillow; as a result my leg was not elevated the whole night, and actually I slept facedown part of the night which is ?? seems to indicate the surgery is healing well enough it doesn't bother me to have the site be in contact with things, we'll take that as a positive, I guess? beginning to be resigned to the fluid reservoir bulge, which seems pretty constant even with elevating and icing. If it doesn't wreck my patella, I don't care. I wish I could walk for long enough distances to make determinations about how the patella's gonna float, hopeful I'll get permission to go back to normal activity after my post-op appointment tomorrow. I have a scar just above my ankle from an old car accident that's been hurting lately, can't figure out if this is related to the knee surgery or the lack of walking or what.
I want to do some cooking and baking and am trying to decide how much standing in the kitchen I am really up for.
I read a comment about the queer/sexual/romantic identities of Magicians characters that got me thinking. The comment I read said most recent canon is not news on the Quentin is bisexual front, he's been bisexual. And I was contemplating that and the meta problem of fictional characters' self-identities. Like by his behavior alone: yes Quentin's bisexual, he's done sex with persons of various genders. But like, if he were a real person you couldn't make a declaration like that, Quentin's identity would rest on his own perception of it rather than purely on his behaviors. And I can't decide the extent to which that matters with a character, but we do have some indication of how the character reads his own identity--in the flashback to the mosaic episode postscript, when Eliot is noping out, one of his arguments is Quentin is not [fill in the blank. this is an interesting blank actually? is it "gay," is Eliot's perception of himself "gay" despite occasionally having sex with women like occasionally having Thai food? is it "bi" because arguing Quentin is not is a bit harder? is it "queer," ie, any non-straight identity?] and Quentin asks does it matter rather than insisting that he does identify as queer in some flavor, which would suggest Quentin agrees with Eliot in seeing himself as straight, a straight person whose exceptions include a whole lifetime of wing jello*. That doesn't mean that Quentin's conception of his own identity might not be evolving. People do change how they perceive themselves over time. But people also shorthand; I say I'm a lesbian because it's exhausting to enumerate the specific circtumstances under which I might find a male person attractive, and because I don't think I'd ever be with a guy, so I think lesbian is more accurate than bisexual, and probably queer is the most accurate.
I could see arguments for all kinds of characterizations over the timeline of Quentin's character. Maybe he thinks of himself as still mostly straight, but maybe like, heteroflexible. Maybe he's like yup I'm bi now this is me. Maybe he always knew he was bi (in which case why didn't he argue with Eliot about not being fill-in-the-blank? Unless he thought Eliot meant "gay" and thought there was a significant gap between the experiences of gay and bi people? like you could MAKE that argument, but). Maybe he's like "welp, gay for Eliot anyway."
And I'm torn between wondering does it matter what the fictional character thinks his identity is, his behavior is bisexual therefore he's queer representation; vs, you know what, wallowing around trying to figure out what your identity is is a really common queer experience, especially if bisexuality or pansexuality is in play and both straights and gays are expecting you to "pick a side," so it would be neat if the show went to the place of Quentin trying to figure out which words are his words, what identity he wants to claim.
*"wing jello" is how i pronounce the fairly terrible old trope, we're not gay we just love each other (WNGWJLEO)
I want to do some cooking and baking and am trying to decide how much standing in the kitchen I am really up for.
I read a comment about the queer/sexual/romantic identities of Magicians characters that got me thinking. The comment I read said most recent canon is not news on the Quentin is bisexual front, he's been bisexual. And I was contemplating that and the meta problem of fictional characters' self-identities. Like by his behavior alone: yes Quentin's bisexual, he's done sex with persons of various genders. But like, if he were a real person you couldn't make a declaration like that, Quentin's identity would rest on his own perception of it rather than purely on his behaviors. And I can't decide the extent to which that matters with a character, but we do have some indication of how the character reads his own identity--in the flashback to the mosaic episode postscript, when Eliot is noping out, one of his arguments is Quentin is not [fill in the blank. this is an interesting blank actually? is it "gay," is Eliot's perception of himself "gay" despite occasionally having sex with women like occasionally having Thai food? is it "bi" because arguing Quentin is not is a bit harder? is it "queer," ie, any non-straight identity?] and Quentin asks does it matter rather than insisting that he does identify as queer in some flavor, which would suggest Quentin agrees with Eliot in seeing himself as straight, a straight person whose exceptions include a whole lifetime of wing jello*. That doesn't mean that Quentin's conception of his own identity might not be evolving. People do change how they perceive themselves over time. But people also shorthand; I say I'm a lesbian because it's exhausting to enumerate the specific circtumstances under which I might find a male person attractive, and because I don't think I'd ever be with a guy, so I think lesbian is more accurate than bisexual, and probably queer is the most accurate.
I could see arguments for all kinds of characterizations over the timeline of Quentin's character. Maybe he thinks of himself as still mostly straight, but maybe like, heteroflexible. Maybe he's like yup I'm bi now this is me. Maybe he always knew he was bi (in which case why didn't he argue with Eliot about not being fill-in-the-blank? Unless he thought Eliot meant "gay" and thought there was a significant gap between the experiences of gay and bi people? like you could MAKE that argument, but). Maybe he's like "welp, gay for Eliot anyway."
And I'm torn between wondering does it matter what the fictional character thinks his identity is, his behavior is bisexual therefore he's queer representation; vs, you know what, wallowing around trying to figure out what your identity is is a really common queer experience, especially if bisexuality or pansexuality is in play and both straights and gays are expecting you to "pick a side," so it would be neat if the show went to the place of Quentin trying to figure out which words are his words, what identity he wants to claim.
*"wing jello" is how i pronounce the fairly terrible old trope, we're not gay we just love each other (WNGWJLEO)
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ilu and heart all of that, I don't know if I have anything coherent to respond!
i keep thinking of Willow from Buffy, and I recollect that there was fandom disagreement on whether Willow was bisexual (dated both Oz and Tara) or lesbian (the character marked a sharp delineation in her identity, but was that realistic or was that because Joss Whedon cannot nuance?) I keep hoping we can expect more from our media these days.