Tuesday Top Five: A Peek at Critique
Feb. 17th, 2026 10:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nevannaHere are five pieces of popular culture and media commentary that I enjoyed in 2025.
1. Wizards vs. Lesbians (Podcast)
The best way that I can describe this show is that the podcasters, Isaac and Alexis, have identified a recurring cluster of tropes in science fiction/fantasy, relating to queer desire, patriarchy, and empire, and are exploring how those tropes manifest across different works – mostly literature, though they have discussed a movie or TV series here and there. Their approach to their subject matter seems largely to be “we know it when we see it,” but their discussions are usually thoughtful and enjoyably snarky, even if I don’t fully agree with their opinions.
2. Broken Watch (Blog Post)
Jude Doyle’s essay is primarily about Alan Moore’s Watchmen and its influence on superhero comics, but it’s also about the power – and the failures – of Dark And Gritty Takes on established genres. (Consequently, it talks a fair amount about sexual assault other types of violence.) In this essay and others, Doyle is really good at analyzing why he, and many of us, love and hate certain works of fiction, or find them compelling and infuriating and culturally foundational, at the same time.
3. The Problem With "The Year of Dramione" (Video Essay)
Princess Weekes posts reliably insightful YouTube video essays about pop culture and fandom, with a particular eye toward racial politics and speculative fiction. In this video, she discusses three popular Harry Potter fanfics that were re-worked into original fiction and released by major publishing houses in the same year. This “pull-to-publish” practice has fascinated me for a very long time, and Weekes does an admirable job of examining how those particular authors and their publishers handle (or fair to handle) the problematic origins of their work.
4. Queer As Folk Ran So Heated Rivalry Could Skate (Newsletter)
In this installment of the Fandom Exile newsletter, Monia Ali compares and contrasts Queer As Folk, which was adapted for American viewers in the early 2000s, with recent fandom darling Heated Rivalry. I never watched the former and am newly fannish about the latter, but I found myself nodding along at Ali’s discussion of how both shows fit into the modern queer media landscape and ongoing discourse about what counts as Good Representation, and how audience responses have and haven’t changed.
5. Untitled Tumblr post about Shadow Daddies, Kylo Rens and Dracos in Leather Pants
This post, by a blogger called goblins-riddles-or-frocks, is a sort of analytical neighbor to Princess Weekes’ video linked above. I don’t currently have much interest in the “romantasy” genre, in which all three of the relevant romantic archetypes are thriving, but I am interested in Fictional Boyfriends.
1. Wizards vs. Lesbians (Podcast)
The best way that I can describe this show is that the podcasters, Isaac and Alexis, have identified a recurring cluster of tropes in science fiction/fantasy, relating to queer desire, patriarchy, and empire, and are exploring how those tropes manifest across different works – mostly literature, though they have discussed a movie or TV series here and there. Their approach to their subject matter seems largely to be “we know it when we see it,” but their discussions are usually thoughtful and enjoyably snarky, even if I don’t fully agree with their opinions.
2. Broken Watch (Blog Post)
Jude Doyle’s essay is primarily about Alan Moore’s Watchmen and its influence on superhero comics, but it’s also about the power – and the failures – of Dark And Gritty Takes on established genres. (Consequently, it talks a fair amount about sexual assault other types of violence.) In this essay and others, Doyle is really good at analyzing why he, and many of us, love and hate certain works of fiction, or find them compelling and infuriating and culturally foundational, at the same time.
3. The Problem With "The Year of Dramione" (Video Essay)
Princess Weekes posts reliably insightful YouTube video essays about pop culture and fandom, with a particular eye toward racial politics and speculative fiction. In this video, she discusses three popular Harry Potter fanfics that were re-worked into original fiction and released by major publishing houses in the same year. This “pull-to-publish” practice has fascinated me for a very long time, and Weekes does an admirable job of examining how those particular authors and their publishers handle (or fair to handle) the problematic origins of their work.
4. Queer As Folk Ran So Heated Rivalry Could Skate (Newsletter)
In this installment of the Fandom Exile newsletter, Monia Ali compares and contrasts Queer As Folk, which was adapted for American viewers in the early 2000s, with recent fandom darling Heated Rivalry. I never watched the former and am newly fannish about the latter, but I found myself nodding along at Ali’s discussion of how both shows fit into the modern queer media landscape and ongoing discourse about what counts as Good Representation, and how audience responses have and haven’t changed.
5. Untitled Tumblr post about Shadow Daddies, Kylo Rens and Dracos in Leather Pants
This post, by a blogger called goblins-riddles-or-frocks, is a sort of analytical neighbor to Princess Weekes’ video linked above. I don’t currently have much interest in the “romantasy” genre, in which all three of the relevant romantic archetypes are thriving, but I am interested in Fictional Boyfriends.
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Date: 2026-02-18 05:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-02-19 12:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-02-19 08:02 pm (UTC)Queer as Folk and Heated Rivalry made me want to maybe watch QAF! And I love knowing that queer complaining has changed so little in twenty years.
Shadow Daddies et al.: I was fascinated but also very much Lex Luthor going “I have no idea who this is.” Obviously I am very out of the loop of this whole arena of bookdom and it’s a world I know nothing of (and I can’t really feel bad about that since Dark Fuck Prince is NOT my preferred type of boy at all).