gcucks draft

As of this writing, Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX, or Gcucks, as I'm gonna call it because I think that's funny, has just yesterday aired its first episode.

Of course, I’d already seen it. I saw it about a month ago. Along with the other three of the first four episodes. In a movie theater.

I walked into the theater chatting with our girlfriend about it, during which I learned that it was somehow related to the original Gundam, and that "Char Aznable" was in it. Who was Char Aznable? I dunno. I looked him up on Wikipedia.

Much to my amusement, protagonist Amate "Machu" Yuzuhira does the exact same thing in Gcucks, albeit through "Foolypedia", which is called that, because, y'know, it's a Cooly name for your fictional off-brand Wikipedia in your alternate Universal Century timeline where the Evil Empire won the war, I guess.

The premise of Gcucks, and a lot of what it expects viewers to enjoy about it, assumes a great deal of pre-existing knowledge and fondness for the original Gundam series, something that some of those coming into it with no prior Gundam familiarity just because of the pedigree of its creators have balked at. I was one of those people, and, knowing nothing about Gundam (except for The Witch From Mercury, of course), I didn't too much care. (Our girlfriend likes a fair bit of Gundam series, but had not, prior to this, engaged much with the UC material. She's not much of a Tomino enjoyer.)

We resolved, prior to watching the theatrical preview, to watch the 0079 compilation films later. We did. They were okay.

I'm sure there's some appeal and deeper understanding I'm missing from Gcucks by not fully viewing and enjoying 0079, along with Zeta, ZZ, and Char's Counterattack. I'll get to those later. Hopefully.

But honestly, I don't really care right at this moment. Because what I wanna talk about instead is girls.

Sorry. I'm a lesbian. I like girls.

I'm transgender. I'm a transgender girl. I'm transgender and also a girl. I'm still advertising that fact, I guess, since the fascists aren't yet trying to break down our door and torture slash murder me over it.

The big plot twist that I was a girl came about in no small part because of anime. I was, back in 2016-2019, a big viewer of anime YouTubers, and one whose analysis started to speak to me a lot more in the latter of those years was that of other trans YouTuber The Pedantic Romantic, aka Lachlan Still. Lachlan would become one of the most significant influences on our identity as an artist, a critic, and, indeed, as a person. It is no exaggeration to say that subscribing to Lachlan's Patreon page and joining their discord server changed the trajectory of our entire life.