every now and then I think about trying to Do Fandom again but then I spend half an hour doing chores and thinking about, for instance, one specific episode [5.02] of Father Brown, realising that the reason the arranged marriage feels like it works in the end (other than both parties clearly choosing it) is that it isn't just the guy's younger brother who's autistic, but his bride-to-be probably is too.

the first time he shows any real interest in joan as a person, not just civility or this low key sucks for both of us so I'm gonna give you as much freedom as I can ("an heir and a spare and you can do your own thing, if you get my drift"), it's when he asks her a question about mathematics and gets her talking - not really understanding it but telling her, afterwards, he'd like to hear more about it sometime.

looking at him a bit closer, I actually like his character more than I expected. he's not a proper young man of his station, he's taken his family's reputation down a few notches through what we can assume is (tactfully put) a fondness for partying, and I'd generally expect a character like that to treat women pretty poorly, except robert seems to be better than that. then there's the toy cavalry soldier he carries as a good luck charm, a major general from his brother's toy set who shares robert's name - because it's something his brother loves, and maybe a way the two of them connect.

and robert's stuck awkwardly chatting to this woman who he's meant to marry but doesn't really know. someone who doesn't always look people in the eyes; who doesn't quite seem to know how to interact with him; who talks algorithms and graph theory and is fascinated with mazes.

this is a guy who, reading between the lines of he loves his brother and he carries around a little soldier figurine is someone who speaks "listening to you infodump" and "sharing your special interest" as love languages. and later when it looks like the engagement's not going to happen, he quietly mentions that he was just starting to like her.

I like to think that his moment walking side by side with her, listening as she talked with intelligence and real confidence, was a bit of an oh moment for him. a bit "this is someone I can relate to", a bit "this is someone I can like". and him showing respect and genuine interest, even after she stopped herself and apologised, probably helped her begin to like him too. not love for either of them, not yet, but the beginnings of something good.

and joan asking to meet his brother, getting to know him a little and asking arthur if he wants to live with them both rather than staying hidden away, brings it full circle in a pretty satisfying way.

(and that is more analysis, perhaps, than the episode calls for.)

My thoughts on the trans rep in "The Star Beast"

This episode is haunted by the spectre of Good Representation™. Representation is a topic too expansive and nuanced for me to interrogate fully, so I'll just say I'm sceptical of the approach and the way it reduces trans (or otherwise marginalised) characters to plot points or blandly by-the-book portrayals. Also the idea that any single character can accurately represent an entire demographic is tenuous. Anyway.

Throughout the episode there's a huge focus on how beautiful Rose is, which is... I mean, I'd hardly be the first person to point out how Weird people (cis people especially) can get about how trans people look. And I get that this is probably a deliberate attempt to counter transphobia, to stress that trans people are cherished and deserve the world. It is a sweet sentiment I suppose, but it can come across as a bit... insincere? patronising? fetishistic, even? You have to recognise that correlating a person's worth with how beautiful you think they are is problematic in and of itself.

I actually really like the scene where Sylvia is stumbling on pronouns and worrying about whether or not it's okay to call Rose gorgeous. It's cute. It's genuine. I wasn't sure about the boys on bikes scene that preceded it – I thought deadnaming Rose was a clumsy way to establish that she's trans – but I've watched the episode again and my opinion has softened. I think it works well to have the malicious misgendering side-by-side with the accidental misgendering, showing that, yes, there is a difference. I know this already, but cis people who get confused about terminology and etiquette might benefit from watching this.

Speaking of pronouns... haha. Yeah, I did not like the "are you assuming he as a pronoun?" "my chosen pronoun is the definite article" exchange. Very awkward and nonsensical. It could have worked with some tweaking, but as it stands it feels more like a transphobic joke than actual dialogue. Ditto "male-presenting Time Lord."

Side note: why are some people so thrown off by the Doctor's gender? It's really not that complicated. The Doctor's pronouns vary depending on whether we're talking about an individual incarnation or the Doctor as a whole, encompassing all incarnations. If we're talking about a specific Doctor, they've all been he/him so far except for the Thirteenth and Fugitive Doctor (both she/her). If we're referring to all Doctors as one entity, it makes sense to use they/them since they're not consistently one gender or another. The Doctor is technically nonbinary I guess but only because they have the ability to regenerate into any gender. They're genderfluid only if you squint.

ANYWAY.

Is Rose nonbinary? Again, the "binary, binary, nonbinary" line just felt like a joke. Plus it doesn't make a lot of sense as a plot point/reveal. Rose's gender shouldn't actually be relevant because what's important for the meta-crisis thing is that she's Donna's offspring. There's also the fact that Rose had been presented as a trans girl until that point – no indication that she's nonbinary. Yes, it is possible to be a nonbinary girl, but it seems more likely to me that RTD just thinks nonbinary and trans are synonymous. Which is not the case.

The thing is, as I've alluded to already, Rose is an example of trans rep written by cis people for cis people. RTD's heart is in the right place, for sure, but he doesn't really know what he's talking about. I would say I appreciate the effort? But I don't know what the effort was in aid of exactly. I suppose it's nice for cis people to be told it's okay to stumble on pronouns sometimes, and to be shown that transness isn't a horrible and scary thing. I dunno. It's frustrating that trans people in life and in fiction have to educate and inspire and reassure cis people all the time... but we live in a society, don't we? And I'm sure there will be plenty of young trans people thrilled to see someone like them on TV, even if the execution could have been better.

What is your opinion about the "supertwins" otho-ra and osul-ra?

They've got more potential to be good than Jon currently does, but the odds of them ever actualizing said potential is slim to none.

Two orphans raised in Space Hell, taught to hate themselves and their culture, forced to kill and fight in gladiator pits, whom ultimately find a new father figure in Superman, who reconnects them with the culture their enslavers tried to stamp out, is a hell of a concept. They have more going on in their backstory than Chris Kent had, and more freedom to tell stories with than kid Jon had. Despite my wishes, most writers chose to write Jon as a mini version of his father. Osul and Otho have such an utterly different backstory from Kal, that there's simply no way to feasibly hollow them out into being the "yes sir" dutiful son that Jon was. Physical and emotional trauma that they carry is the sort that you carry to the grave, and marks them in a way only Kara could potentially understand.

Of the two I'm on record as preferring Otho, the daughter, more than Osul the son. In her I see a fascinating similarity to Kara. Kara was meant to raise Kal in an environment that could have been hostile towards them both. Otho-Ra actually had to do that, protecting her brother alongside herself. We know Otho has killed, she has the chains to prove it. I want to see some writer expand on that - what was it like to kill someone? Does she still agonize over the lives she took? Does she regret killing? Did it get easier over time for her? Does some part of her resent having to protect her brother on Warworld? How much does she really buy into Superman's morality? That scene in PKJ's Action run where Metallo empathizes with her excited me, I want more stories with her like that which touch on how she has all the markings of someone who could break bad. I'd like to see someone really unpack her history, relationship with her brother, and her place within the Superfamily.

Osul meanwhile is the weaker of the two character wise. PKJ seems to have made him deliberately as a replacement for kid Jon, and because of that, Osul is likewise fairly bland. His empathetic nature is a plus, he picked up on Jon's uncomfortableness towards his new siblings. But it's mostly the nature of his "New God" status that appeals to me. How he is connected to Olgrun, the other Aspects, and the Gods of New Genesis and Apokolips is a story I want to see told. Otherwise? PKJ wanted to kill Otho and keep Osul originally before deciding to keep both. Personally I'd either kill him off or "ascend" Osul out of the Superfamily and keep Otho.

Now I say all this while knowing that the Twins are not likely to stick around. The Superfamily has more members than it can feasibly support, and the Twins are the easiest ones to ship off somewhere. Making them the "brown" rep within the Superfamily would have mitigated this somewhat. I wish PKJ had stuck with his original conception of them not being white, that would've helped increase their chances of sticking around, instead they're easy pickings. Osul ending up having to go to New Genesis because of his transformation while Otho tags along to watch over her brother, both of them joining the Phaelosians on their new home planet, either of those would be a believable way to shoo them off-stage. Was hoping PKJ would get JL, and thus could exert some pull over the Superbooks even after he left Action, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards in the short term.

Right now? Let's see if anyone else takes an interest in and uses them. Otherwise I fear they may end up sharing the fate of Chris Kent, another example of how adopted kids outside the Batfamily don't fare well in the long run.

12!

12. Pick up to 7 characters to star in a Teen Titans ongoing (any era or generation you like). What tone do you envision for this series?

oh boy this is a tough one

Gar Logan/Beast "Boy" (he really needs a new name). I'm picking him as team leader. He's the only one of the seven members of the 90s New Titans team who's never really had a chance to lead, and while most of the others have had the chance to explicitly reject the leadership, he hasn't. I think making him Titans leader would be a real step towards letting him grow and become an adult.

Alinta/Bolt. Of the Titans Academy kids, she and the Batpack were the most interesting, and I think it's a real shame the four of them got tossed into the void. There are already 20 dozen speedsters, sure, but Alinta interests me because she doesn't seem to be explicitly connected to any of the others, which is pretty unusual for a speedster.

Cynthia Reynolds/Cynthia Mordeth/G.psy Charlatan. Cynthia comes with a lot of baggage, but a lot of it can easily be fixed just by changing her name. She's underutilized, should be around Gar's age, and I think her quiet thoughtful demeanor would be an interesting play off of Gar's. If I have to assign five man band archetypes to this, then I'm putting Cynthia in as the lancer.

Danny Chase/Phantasm. I'm usually not one for bringing characters back from the dead, but I think Danny can be resurrected fairly easily without breaking suspension of disbelief (it's been like 10 reboots and he literally pretended to be a ghost when he was alive, guys, c'mon), and I think he kind of got a bit of a bad rep for acting like an actual teenage boy. I don't think I'm crazy for saying it's time we reboot him, and since he reminds me a bit of a younger Gar, I think he'd serve well as a contrast for everyone else.

Otho & Osul Ra/Super Twins - they count as one character, right? Whatever, it's still 6 if they don't. Baby Phaelosians who are new to Earth. I don't think I need to explain this one. They're cute kids, they're new. They're here for exposition purposes, and getting-used-to-humans purposes, and being-adorable-on-main purposes. Also, they, along with Alinta and to some extent Danny, represent the new, younger generation of heroes, who don't perpetually see Gar as an annoying little brother. They actually view him with authority.

Characters I wouldn't give starring roles to but would still show up a lot:

Cyborg. He's Gar's best friend. They're buds. He demands no further explanation.

Kori. I love Kori a lot, but I really think she and the other Tamaraneans should have their own book. If I were fully in charge, I'd probably even take this Titans book to establish comics!Kori and cartoon!Kori as two separate characters, because they are characterized vastly differently, and then have a book about Kori on Tamaran and make cartoon!Kori a reoccurring member of the Titans book. But I feel like that's cheating so she's going in this section.

Deathstroke he and Gar could be nemeses if DC weren't cowards

Mirage - I know, I know, but I don't think she's been properly dealt with, and something about the idea of her interacting with Cynthia is really entertaining to me.

You may notice that, with the exception of Otho & Osul, all of these characters have been on teams before, but none of them are big names. This is very deliberate! I'm not sure how I'd characterize the tone - on the lighter side for me, on the darker side for the Titans, maybe? -, but I want this book to be about growth and to reference things that have happened in past books a lot. I don't mean so much that old villains would be coming back, but rather that I want to circle back to character experiences. Maybe we can circle back to Terra and finally tell things from her perspective? That would be nice...

Also, Trigon is Banned. No Trigon in this book. Come up with other plotlines.

speaking of Quinn and religion, one thing that's always baffled me is that I do think S1 wants to set up the black comedy of the "Queen of the Chastity Ball" getting knocked up, and it's supposed to be a whole commentary on celibacy, religious hypocrisy, etc. But I've never fully understood why they didn't truly lean into that? Because what the rest of Quinn's arc through S3 shows us is that honestly she's NOT a hypocrite about this. She believed in waiting. She was sincere in her faith. Her big slip-up was super dubious and a one time thing. For how much we've been told we were meant to hate Quinn in S1, I wonder why RIB didn't have her sleeping with the entire football team except Finn, having her play the nice girl around her parents then being knowingly cynical about using her religion as a disguise. It would still even work to contrast her with Santana, one being unapologetically sexual, the other hanging onto her pristine rep while doing the exact same things privately. It would've been such an easy way to make sure the audience sees her as the villain and tbh, might have better fit the dark humor of S1. That they didn't go that path is more proof to me that RM was ALWAYS writing Quinn as an empathetic character, even if he wasn't aware of it.

Alright alright, not gonna put off answering this because it's an amazing topic I wanna keep discussing or as long as y'all have thoughts.

Completely agree, they never lean into it. Not nearly as much as this ostensibly satire show should have. I often think about that, the deliberate irony of framing Quinn as ultra-religious and having her be the president of a damn Celibacy Club just to have her get knocked up. After having sex once, too. A better show would have a) leaned in and b) examined how society treats those who cross the madonna-whore threshold. Even in terms of the cheerleading stereotypes that the Unholy Trinity all check, it's ultimately Quinn who gets portrayed as a whore because she's the one with "evidence" that she's had sex. Brittana are much, much more promiscuous, yeah, but there's something about teen pregnancy as the ultimate symbol of sexual transgression. But, like you say, Quinn wasn't actually a hypocrite about all this.

I think she was also scarred from the pregnancy emotionally, understandably, but the only times she uses her sexuality after this in high school are when she's clearly unhinged. I.e. trying to make another baby with Puck. She wants to take things slow with Sam, completely understands Joe's perspective, and I for one seriously doubt Fuinn ever actually had sex. All that happened with Beth's conception was Puck taking advantage of her. But Glee season 1 just,,, does not get this. They so badly want Quinn to be this hypocritical bitch who cheats on her boyfriend and gets knocked up and isn't all that virginal after all. But even if we didn't see the actual scene, and oh boy do we, that narrative would still be dubious. Simply put, Quinn isn't the character Glee thinks they're writing.

I've said this so many times in so many ways but the bottom line remains the same. The writers did not know what kind of character they were writing. And there's a lot to be said about how RM reacted to that, goddammit I still haven't talked about that Rolling Stone interview, but at the end of the day we just have these facts within the show itself. And this is how I try to explain my frustrations with season 1 to people. Later seasons Quinn is a whole convo, too, but s1 always feels particularly insidious to me.

In terms of how you would have written it, yeah I think that would have worked better with what they were trying to do. There's still the contrast to Brittana so a chance for Quinn's redemption, but this villanizing would at least make more sense. She really would be a hypocrite and not just... a victim. But no, instead they wrote the story of a clear victim. I don't give a fuck if she happens to be rude to Finn and lie to him, yeah that's messed up but the dude is also actively cheating on her, so. Lest we feel too bad for him. It just sucks so much that RM was so, so unaware of the Quinn he was writing. Makes season 1 in particular incredibly frustrating to me, I can't believe there are people out there who consider this to be her best season. Why do you hate her so much?

For me it’s a little bit weird with all the “golden skin”/“golden brown”/“brown” skin discourse because knowing white people my entire life, listening to them talk about themselves and each other, and reading the way they write really puts you off any type of grasping for straws. And I hope I’m not coming off terrible or rude to you or any other anons (cause I know tone gets lost in text), but I feel like the reality is all of these characters are white unless extremely explicitly said otherwise. White people’s definition of brown (and its variations) is simply different from the rest of the world’s. White people will go to Italy or Brazil for the summer, come back and call themselves brown because they’re temporarily a Fenty 330 instead of their usual 220. And Sarah is ABSOLUTELY using that to her advantage so she can have half a foot in, half a foot out with how much POC rep she has in her book. Golden skin, golden brown skin, and even flat out brown skin are all white unless she straight up says they’re not. Bryce Quinlan is a white woman. People drawing her as pale is wrong descriptively, but not whitewashing because she’s already white. And it’s not fans acting like we can only have white women MCs, it’s SARAH AND THE AUTHORS WHO ONLY WRITE WHITE WOMAN MCs acting like that. They’re the ones writing all their MCs as white women, it’s not some mass delusion going on in fandom, it’s a deliberate choice being made (which I’m actually not too upset about because I’d rather white women authors who have SERIOUS issues writing POC and especially WOC not make their MC black or whatever so that I and other black or whatever women don’t have to suffer through a wildly popular series being violently racist at its core instead of just in the periphery).

Again not to seem aggressive or rude, but that anon’s sweet naïveté just doesn’t work here. Sarah writes white women and white characters first, then after she gets backlash, darkens their skin a smidge to some variation of golden or brown so she can get away with POC rep without actually making her characters POC. It’s giving very much “Dumbledore was always gay” and I don’t want anon or others to get caught up in what Sarah is trying to do (and succeeding to do with some of her fans who don’t think critically).

I fully understand your frustration. Some white friends of mine went to Hawai'i a few years ago and after coming back they were tanned and did the obligatory 'compare skin tones' by holding their arm against mine and were like "look we're almost as dark as youuu!" Which, no. They weren't. So yeah, I get what you're saying about white people's definition of "brown." But here's the thing:

The vibe I got was that anon was a) young b) a POC and c) a reader, or at least someone who's read enough™️ to notice that most book protagonists are explicitly white, and someone who sought out representation. I know when I was younger I used to interpret characters described as tanned or "golden" as lightskin if they weren't too thoroughly described by the author, to fill the void of the lack of Black girls in escapist media.

So I don't think anon was trying to give Sarah undue credit or anything, I think they were simply someone seeking representation from a popular author with a large fandom an author who could've used her popularity to provide good representation but has chosen not to

Okay, I'm gonna jot down as many of my final pre-watch thoughts as I can before going into the first two episodes. This has been a JOURNEY since thry first announced the show years ago, and then released those first maps. So in no particular order and without the slightest filter (but roughly organized by "plot area"):

Dwarves:

I know almost nothing about the Dwarf plotline but I'm all fired up for dwarves to get one! There being two concurrent Durins doesn't bother me much, the reincarnation thing was probably a misunderstanding by the Elves anyway. Dwarrowdams should have beards; you don't fix a certain group being overmasculinized by conceding that masculine women are, in fact, undesireable. Dís is a perfectly good Dwarf girl name, you don't have to add an 'a' on the end, do you really have that little faith in your audience?

Numenor:

I want to see Tar Miriel gaslight gatekeep girlboss the FUCK out of this show. Once again, you don't expand representation by NOT letting plot happen to people! I heard that Anarion is getting cut; this would decrease the potential interactions in Elendil's family and thus make me sad. The visuals for Numenor are GORGEOUS, the best sets that I've seen in previews. Their ships are very Aesthetic but not very...Master Of The Ocean-y? from what I've seen. (I know I said MOAR REP, but things get...weird when you give your biggest colonizers a non-European look.)

Humans of Middle Earth: I have heard they are there. That's about it. It seems unlikely that, when portaying a foreign culture of what Tolkien explocitly termed "lesser men", the show will adequately thread the needle between pedestalization and exotification 100% of the time. Hopefully they at least try.

Elves:

Straight cis male showrunners continue to be unable to cast, hairstyle, or dress, male elves correctly, surprise surprise. Arondir is okay, which may track with the fact that he is reputedly a love interest. This leads me to believe that Celebrimbor is NOT going to be a love interest, for Galadriel or anyone else. This is slightly disappointing insofar as getting to include the canon Celebrimbor/Galadriel/Celeborn love triangle might have given them enough of an outlet not to go making mischief elsewhere. Man, I just hope these guys can act as good as I've heard, it's their only possible redemption.

Galadriel in particular:

I only have a problem with the casting of Galadriel insofar as it proves that they are CAPABLE of casting elves who look their age, they've just chosen not to. She is the oldest of all of them!!! She can girlboss it up all she wants as well; it beats being suspiciously MIA for most of the Silm. Not a big fan of the shot of her ??raiding her brother's grave??? (None of them left a body or a tomb that pretty.) I dearly hope that she has another female elf to act off of, but I'm not holding my breath. Elves were never distinguished from humans specifically by their ears. Getting clear "only sane woman"/"Cassandra" plot vibes and I don't like it.  Want to see more of a "Celebrimbor is the only one who disagrees with her, everyone else is on her side" vibe.

Hobbits:

Hobbits! I took exception to the statement that they were *necessary* to a Middle-earth story, but that doesn't mean I'm not thrilled to see them! I'm really interested to see how their culture is explored. The shot in the later trailer where they have those clever ways of hiding was the first time I really had a deep sense of recognition for the feelings and themes I want to see present. Showrunners aren't stupid enough to unthinkingly name a second age halfling 'Elanor', but they might be too clever by half, got attached to it and gave it a convoluted justification rather than kill their darling. Same with the nickname 'Nori'; that name already belongs to a canon character *of a different species*. Unless you are trying to draw deliberate parallels between the characters, you don't just blithely reuse names like that.

Meteor man:

????????????? The only explanation I will accept is that he is somehow a Blue Wizard. Or Earendil. Somehow.

Sauron/other villains:

Honestly they can do whatever they want, I'm interested to see how Sauron/his followers are portrayed. And they've GOT to do the (platonic) seduction of Celebrimbor and the recruitment of the Nazgul, right? That's where the major meat of the second age plot is!

In general: I've heard it's extremely pretty. With how expensive it is, it damn well better be. I feel like I've come to a place of peace in terms of what this show can and cannot offer, and am going into it with a an attitude of openness and curiosity. If there is any goodness in it, we will have that, and if not, it can't take away what we have already built.

Well, lovelies, I think that's it. Stay safe, have fun, and TAG YOUR SPOILERS OMG. See you on the other side!

still stuck on how flat both the Taylor and Ana characters are. The only things we know about them are their jobs...oh and I guess we know Ana has a grandfather named Edmundo. But seriously, we know nothing else about them aside from their careers and who they're dating. How are we supposed to root for them? How do ppl already root for them without knowing anything about them? It confuses me

I know you came to me because I would share your opinion, so allow me to remind you that we are involved in a fandom that finds reasons to "defend" and "stan" a fictional female character because they believe she "deserved better treatment", completely ignoring myself and other individuals who have explained ad nauseum why her negative portrayal matters to US. (This fandom will make posts about the importance of bi representation that get hundreds of notes, but come across the harsh truths about ableism and they just keep scrolling. Even if you don't understand it, it costs zero dollars to acknowledge someone else's experience. That's what the like and reblog buttons are for. But I digress!) If there is support for A*a, I am under the impression it's limited, but regardless, I have no explanation for WHY anyone wastes their time. The actress behind the role deliberately presents herself as Latina despite having no such background. *That* should be enough to turn people off, but it's clearly not. Were she a white woman a la ScarJo who has been guilty of auditioning for parts originally meant for WOC, fans would be calling for her head. On top of that, Andrew Meyers (the writer in charge of 3x12 aka the skateboard episode) PURPOSELY illustrated ableism through her. The entire point of Eddie teaming up with Buck to create an accessible skateboard was to show that ANA'S SOLUTION WAS THE WRONG ONE. Christopher doesn't need TWO parents/parental figures who are scared to confront and adapt to his CP when times get tough. In that particular episode, Eddie very much thought like A*a, at least at first. BUT. He took time to reflect, had an honest discussion with his son about how poorly he'd been handling Christopher's disability, and then sought help from someone (Buck!) who he trusted to make Christopher's dream come true while also keeping him out of harm's way. Eddie NEEDS a partner who is going to recognize and call out his (unintentional) ableism when necessary, not one who tells him Christopher's CP is a sign he's not supposed to try certain activities. Anyone who is still a "fan" of hers most likely 1) isn't Latina and/or 2) doesn't comprehend what was so bad about her comment. (That goes for the disabled as well, because there sure are quite a few members of my community who love to say "well, she wasn't exactly wrong...", and to those people I say: YOU HAVE BEEN LIED TO. Able-bodied people don't know what the fuck we're capable of. Remember that.) I talked recently about why a portion of fandom might be rooting for T*ylor/BuckT*ylor here, but I also think A*a has inadvertently contributed to the intense stanning. Our fandom REALLY likes questioning why female love interests aren't given more depth. They are labeled victims because men hate writing strong female characters!1!1! With T*ylor, Tim awarded her more of a personality/presence than A*a, and also gave viewers more insight into the "connection" between she and Buck before starting to date than they ever got with Ali while she was his girlfriend. And! Now we can assume T*ylor and Eddie will tolerate each other for Buck's sake in the coming season, whereas A*a and Buck did not interact until the finale...through a one-sided phone call. A female love interest that is actually being integrated into the show?!? A female love interest that has her own life outside of being someone's girlfriend?!? (She's a reporter, y'all! We're going to SEE her in action!) When fans have the bar for "positive female rep" set on the ground, it doesn't take much to get on their good side.

hii, hope you are alright. i don't know if you watch everything's gonna be okay. so if you do, there are spoilers for season 2 on this ask. feel free to ignore this if you don't want to see it.

but what happened is that i started watching this show because i was told there was pansexual rep, and indeed the creator has said that both characthers from a sapphic couple (drea and matilda) were pansexual back when the first season finished airing. therefore, i was so excited to see this storyline going forward on season 2 after the girls got together. however, drea figures out she is homoromantic ace and matilda has an arc of figuring out she is not sexually attracted to girls and heterosexual, but she is still romantically attracted to drea. and i feel bad for feeling robbed of representation, if that is the right word. of course this process is a totally valid and a real experience people go through, and i am glad people with similar experiences got this rep. but a show deliberately choosing BOTH of their pansexual characters -and part of the few rep we have- to find out they are actually something else fells invalidating to say the least. actually, the only time i remember them using the word pan was when maltida said something along the lines of "i thought i was pansexual because everyone is but i don't want to have sex with girls". i wonder if the creator just used this word in the same way people say "we're all a little bit bi" or "everyone is actually * insert mspec identity * ", which seems gross. after those first episodes came out, i continued watching to see what would happen until the end of the season and there is no pan rep (unless you count panromantic matilda, which i don't know if would be considered canon or just a headcanon).

so i decided to send this ask because i want to see the opinion of other pan people and i haven't been able to find a single person talking about this situation. i expected more from a show that has been highly praised for its queer rep

hi! i'm good, thanks! i hope you're well, too! 😊

idk if i talked about it on here or twitter, but i know i ranted about this. it's so shitty having a creator explicitly describe characters as pansexual off screen, only to have them be something else on screen. you could argue maybe they didn't have their identities completely mapped out at the time they said that, but like......honestly, how realistic is that?

and then on top of that, to have no one care and everyone praise the rep? it's not surprising, but it still doesn't feel great. i think the rep that ended up on the show is awesome and i don't blame anyone for enjoying it and i don't want people to not enjoy it, i'd just like some acknowledgement of what happened, of being told they're both pan only to have it taken away.

(and the "everyone is pan" line.........i get that it's coming from someone trying to figure out their sexuality but still. gross. i'm gonna people to not do that.)