#like ship what you want IF they aren’t confirmed gay then you are legally not allowed to ship them in a straight pairing | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

centaurianthropology · 2 years

Text

What ‘Our Flag Means Death’ Did for this Older Queer Fan

I’ve been trying to articulate what feels special about ‘Our Flag Means Death’ to me for a while. I’ve been active in fandoms since the ‘90s, back when webrings were your best bet for good fan content. I have seen a lot of shows come and go. And I got very used to my fandom experience going something like this: find a new show or movie or book or other thing, write a lot of meta about character motivation and plot structure and costume choices, and often find a pairing I found appealing. The chemistry was usually good, with variations on antagonistic, friendly, or other chemistry. And if I was lucky, the show would drop a few hints that there was something there. You learned very quickly to be grateful for scraps, and to never expect too much. There was never, NEVER an expectation that a queer pairing would be ‘endgame’, or would ever be manifested in anything more than a few lingering glances and the actors and maybe a writer or two being all for the relationship EXCEPT.

Except the producers, the studios, the audience. It would never be accepted. So it was confined to glances. And that I understood. I could appreciate that. I knew that, if they could, those writers and those actors would have gone there, but gay marriage being legalized seemed like an impossibility, queer cinema was treated as niche or arthouse, and the only queer characters allowed on network shows had to be sidekicks who never had sex.

After that came the era of the queerbait. Showrunners were more aware of fandom in the mid-2000s, and really wanted that sweet sweet audience retention. So some shows started to lean into the possibilities of queer relationships. They played up that things might happen between characters on screen. It was no longer “we want to, but the network/producer won’t let us”; it was “maybe there is something there! *wink* *wink*”, only to turn around and inevitably claim that the audience misinterpreted, that there was nothing there and never had been. It was somehow less than what we had in the ‘90s, because then at least we knew we were never getting anything, we knew that the writers had pushed something as hard as they could and they felt as shitty as we did that it wasn’t going to happen. This was, well, bait.

And yet I don’t really think I understood that feeling of being baited, because I never got the canon queer ship on screen. Whenever I saw the bait, as a fan who had been around and seen the talks in the ‘90s about queer rep on network TV, I knew that it was bait. I knew that they would never follow through because everyone was convinced that two men kissing would end their television show. So no matter how much they teased the audience, I knew it was lies, and I didn’t feel like it hit me as hard. I told myself it didn’t hurt.

Now we’re in a new era where queer relationships are directly confirmed by creators, but there’s always still this halting before the final hurdle. “These two men are in love,” they’ll say, but then turn around and say, “but it’s so elevated and pure and perfect that they would never sully it by smashing their faces together. So they’re definitely in love guys! Just don’t expect them ever to show that physically.” Because gay love is now in vogue, but gay kissing and God forbid gay sex are still that bridge too far. Even shows with great queer rep that aren’t explicitly billed as queer romances will stop before the kiss.

And this doesn’t feel like asexual rep or an embracing of queerplatonic relationships, because it definitely doesn’t feel like they deliberately set out to write that. No, it always feels like they wanted to have their cake and eat it. They want the queer fans that will come to see a queer relationship, but they don’t want to lose those fans that they are still convinced will stop watching when two mens’ lips touch (it’s different for women, because straight men love lesbians, and so they get a pass for ogling reasons, which ... is a whole different story, and a whole different long post, frankly).

And then comes David fucking Jenkins, who seems like an impossibility. He is an apparently straight white cis man in his forties. He is the exact sort of demographic that you would never expect to deliver a meaningful queer story, or a story with explicitly anti-racist or anti-colonialist beats. On first glance, he’s every other showrunner who’s tried to pull a fast one on queer audiences before.

But as this article shows, there was something different ticking away in his head. He watched Star Wars and came away with the impression that Finn and Poe were the couple with chemistry. He saw how fans treated Kelly Marie Tran and John Boyega and wanted to do better. He’s almost blissfully unaware of the long history of queer fans getting ignored, then baited, then told that gay sex or kissing would ‘lessen’ such a wonderful relationship.

So he set out to write a queer sitcom about pirates. And since it was a romcom, of course the two leads were going to kiss, because that was the point of a romcom. That’s what the audience signed up for, and to turn around and give some bullshit line about how their mouths touching would lessen what they had was inherently ridiculous. A romcom has specific beats, sure. They were inevitably going to be separated by misunderstanding, but there was also an agreement with the audience that it wouldn’t be forever.

And the kiss sealed that deal. It showed that he had none of those weird hang-ups or beliefs that if he showed two men kissing, his show would be over. And you know what? He was more right than he could have ever imagined. What he was doing was, in his head, simply following through with the agreement established by all romcoms. It wasn’t remarkable or revolutionary. It wasn’t until he was surprised that more people weren’t believing it was a romcom by the moonlit scene in episode 5 that he started to understand something was happening that he hadn’t been privy to before. I think it was only after that that David Jenkins did a deep dive on queerbaiting, and realized how pervasive it was, how even the queer audiences weren’t willing to believe what was obvious on screen. That, in the words of Lucius: “This is happening.”

And they didn’t believe it until the kiss, because that’s always the line that shows aren’t willing to cross. When he stepped over that boundary he didn’t even know existed, he had an audience ready to go to war for him. Because he had delivered. There was no waffling, no bullshit. He just delivered. And after that, well ...

The audience flocked to him. They campaigned, made cakes and Twitter storms and were unrelenting. They were a groundswell for a show that had gotten no advertising, no buzz, no press before its airing. It’s clear that HBO Max had the same old attitude that he had crossed the line with that kiss, and that the show would flop. But it was the opposite, and instead of tanking his show, it got him a renewal.

And I myself felt such a lightness in my heart after seeing that. Even with the darker end the season had, I knew that this was a romcom, that our lovers would be reunited, get over their miscommunications, and would be together in a meaningful way. David Jenkins had the idea, and then he filled his writers room with people to bring that idea to life, to push back and buy in. Queer people, people of color, people of different cultures. This is the move of a man who has a dream to write a diverse, queer story, and knows that he has a good idea for it, but also knows that he needs people who have lived those lives to help him avoid stumbling blocks that he never could have seen.

Seeing this leads to the extraordinary result of writing that is well aware of how queer characters and characters of color have been treated by the media, and how queer fans and fans of color have been treated too. It also led to him going on his own journey of discovering, realizing why people reacted the way they did, why they were hesitant to believe he would deliver, and why they would fight so hard for his show when they did. It was effervescent, like drinking champagne, to finally just ... have this. For it to happen both with the writers knowing it was something special, and the showrunner not understanding why it wasn’t always so easy just to deliver these stories. Just to see the chemistry and go for it. Just to treat characters with respect and still let them be silly and ridiculous. To have an entire world that feels queer friendly, beyond the queerness of the lead characters.

It only really hit me recently, when I heard that tired old excuse of “they love one another, but kissing or sex would cheapen that relationship, so they’re in love, but not in a sexual way”, and I was finally sick of it. Because David Jenkins and his silly gay pirate show showed that it’s bullshit. He showed that your audience booms when you finally set aside the fear of two men kissing, and just pay off the relationship. When you embrace queerness not just in words, but in deeds. It took OFMD to finally rip those tolerant blinders off me and for me to think, “Oh, just say that you don’t want to show two men kissing because you think whatever audience you have will think it’s gross.” Just say it. Just be honest instead of trying to parade this as a better form of queer representation. I wouldn’t like you any more, but I would respect the honesty.

Finally getting what I always secretly wanted from a show--but would never admit that I wanted because I knew I would always be disappointed--has taken away my ability to tolerate whatever excuse showrunners trot out for not taking that final step. OFMD opened my eyes. It woke me up to realizing that I had spent twenty years pretending I wasn’t hurt when a show teased a relationship they never intended to pay off. I haven’t felt so giddy about a show in years, and I have *never* felt so giddy about a queer genre show (because I’ve never seen one before that delivered so well on both being queer and on being genre)! This was not a show billed as a romance, but a show about pirates, but it delivered such a lovely romance and such a lot of silly pirates!

So thank you, David Jenkins. As you went on your journey of discovery about queerbaiting and how it made you feel, I have been on a similar journey. And you helped me get there. You and your silly gay pirate show.

#Our Flag Means Death #David Jenkins #whoof #this was a long one #and maybe not as coherent as some of my meta #but I wanted to try to put my thoughts in order regarding what this show means to me as an older queer fan #and what it did for me in regards to my own relationships with how television has historically treated queer pairings an queer fans #anyway #thank you David Jenkins #you will likely never read this #but you helped me a lot with your show

309 notes · View notes

buddielove · 3 years

Note

Hi! I'm a gay fan of 911 and I have a question about the whole Buddie fandom. As much as I like Buck and Eddie, it's frustrating that a HUGE part of the fandom is pushing for these two characters to get together instead of putting energy into supporting Hen & Carla and Michael & Dave. Not to mention Carlos and TK in Lone Star. Can you explain to me the appeal of wanting these two men together? Wouldn't it be more interesting to see two heterosexual males just be able to bond in a non-toxic fashion? That's something we don't get to see often on television.

Hey! This is MAD long lmao I am so sorry! You caught me on a day I felt like talking! Also this took like a year to answer you lolololol. This does have a few ʻhot takesʻ so please be warned! So like in this essay....

So first I am also apart of the LGBTQIA+ community, so I do understand how it could come across as a fetish or being non supportive of the current canonically LGBTQIA+ characters, however I think a lot of the interest around Buddie and the want for them to be confirmed as a couple is how they are being written. Me personally I knew since s2 e1 Buck and Eddie were written not as rivals but as two people who would eventually become friends, but it wasn’t until the Christmas episode with the elf assuming Buck was Chris’s dad and Eddie’s partner that I was like ‘hold on!’ because I was really hoping Abbey would return and I didn’t see Eddie as a possible Buck live interest because of that. The elf’s comment wasn’t played off like most other shows would (think Dean and Sam arriving anywhere in Supernatural) it made me go back and look at the other episodes to see exactly how Buck and Eddie were being framed/written. And as we have moved into further seasons I think there has been a shift in how Buddie is being written, in s3 it was very much like two people progressing into a deeper friendship then the blood clot/lawsuit gets in the way and they both have to deal with emotions surrounding that, then Buck’s response to Eddie being trapped (we see how is he when Boddy is trapped in a fire WITH A GUNMAN, it’s emotional but not to the point is is with Eddie), even the love interests feel very pushed on us and there’s so little banter between Buddie about their gfs and how they feel about these new beginnings. It feels off, not like a friendship in the slightest, more like two people trying to force something and not wanting to deal with any other feelings. Then when Eddie gets shot and reveals Buck is Chris’s legal Guardian in the event Eddie dies, that’s huge, and he did this after only a year of knowing Buck (I have friends with kids. I’ve known one of them for FIVE years, I’m at their house every week, the kid calls me family. I’m person #10 on the list of ‘who gets my kid if I die’, not #1 lol) It just feels like it’s all building up to something, and people are getting tired of waiting for that something! We’re all emotionally tired from the past two years, and probably from many shows queerbaiting us and this is something that could happen, seems to be something the actors are ok with and the fans want. So why do they keep drawing it out. This isn’t about us demanding they ignore the chance to write a healthy platonic male friendship, or forcing two characters to be gay, it’s about holding the writers to what they’ve implied and seeing what could come of it.

Also think of it like this; If Buddie is confirmed it will still be a good example of a healthy friendship which then developed into something else, like Booth/Bones! Showing the natural progression of friendship to relationship that happens a lot in real life. It’s two men who previously (on screen at least) have only been with woman, but now they have an emotionally connection with someone which they then develop and explore. This could be 911’s first nontoxic depiction of two gay characters coming together, because sorry not sorry the canon couples aren’t perfect (which does humanize them) but they also reenforce harmful troupes that plaque the LGBTQIA+ community, which I’m sure you understand: TK was a drug addict, who only got with Carlos at first cause he was hot and sex was TK’s new addition (all gay men are sex addicts who do drugs and sleep with anything that moves). Carlos was ashamed and wanted to keep TK on the downlow (poc gay men want to pretend to be straight but have free access to gay sex). Hen cheated on Karen seemingly the first chance she got (lesbians can’t handle monogamy when pushed, and cheat on their long term partners). All known and documented troupes that happen far too often.

I’m not saying Buddie is some gay jesus ship that’s gonna save the entertainment industry but if done right it could prove to be one of the few healthy depictions of two men getting into a gay relationship we have. If they plan it out correctly, show us the relationship development, like they did with Maddie/Chim for example, Buddie could be used as a positive example of a gay fictional relationship (I really could go into depth about this. I probably should tbh).

As for not supporting Hen and KAREN, or Michael and DAVID, I think fans do support them! The writers don’t. If you read fanfics Henren and Michael/David are featured heavily in many fics, and ik some people might say ‘well they’re only there so Buddie can talk about their gay side!!’ but both these couples have their own fans and fanfic tags! They aren’t just plot devices in Buddie stories. There is a huge side of the fandom that supports Henren and wants to see more of them and their family. Same with Michael and David, during the episode where Michael and Bobby team up to find that plastic surgeon who was working illegally many people where ecstatic that we were getting more Michael/David content and that David was getting more than a couple lines. But sadly it seems like the writers only want to delve into these story lines when they need filler, they even miss opportunities to include these other LGBTQIA+ characters when it makes sense;

(Someone came for me about this but I am going to bring it up again)

When Chris is sad and wants more human connection, instead of bring Harry + Michael/David and Denny+Nia+Henren back into the picture (and yes I understood at the time the pandemic was bad (lmao still is!!), but all the actors at some point would have/had crossed over into each other’s ‘bubbles’, so ALL the actors would have been exposed to each other so getting the children together with adults they had ALREADY been with during shooting wouldn’t have been a super spreader event) but instead they brought in Ana after only two on screen dates and pretended like it was a logical thing for someone who’s up to that point been extremely careful with their child.

They really could have pushed the ‘118 is a family!’ message here and included the canonically gay supporting characters, and the lesbian main character(s) but they did not and instead chose to push the Ana/Eddie coupling even though they hadn’t properly developed it yet. The writers themselves don’t seem to care about developing their canonically gay characters and including them more than they have to but fans are continuously developing Henren and Michael/David with hc and fics.

I’d like to use your logic against you for a second, in s1 we have a very healthy, platonic friendship between Chim/Bobby but that got written out to the point they are more like boss/employee unless the scene calls for them to seem closer, we now have Bobby and Michael friendship but again we hardly see Michael. On Lone Star we have Owen and Judd as a really, really good example of a healthy male friendship but we see Judd more often with Tommy now then we do with Owen, and in s2 it’s overshadowed by Owen trusting Charlie from Twilight and constantly getting fucked over! Why can’t the writter just be happy with these happy, healthy, emotionally well male-male friendship they’ve already included and expand upon them. There’s enough drama because the show literally involves burning buildings and people’s lives being at risk from some natural/man made disaster ever 12 seconds. Does it need to have so much interpersonal conflict and male peacocking??

#Buddie #Please donʻt get offended by anything in this!!!#These are JUST my opinions which MAY change the further we get into this show!!#ALSO IT IS JUST A TV SHOW!!!! PLEASE BE KIND TO ME AND TO EACH OTHER

25 notes · View notes

floralkittygambler · 3 years

Text

@critical-hazbin @devils-advocutie @what-the-hazbin I have Gasu on notifs because I really loved the quality of his fanart (Velvet needs love ❤️). Confirmation hes part of the team, as well as designs some merch and runs the Val account (Good on him! His art is incredible, again Velvet needs more love ❤️) but I wanted some thoughts on this. Firstly, the auto translation is gonna be shit bc they usually are but I’m interested in the focus on Val’s sex appeal and staff interactions with the characters.

Personally, Val’s sex appeal. It’s subjective I suppose? But I feel making a pimp have that is really good PROVIDING it’s backed up with why it’s dangerous and the vile nature of such people in a genuinely threatening manner (publicly, he needs to show more affection to Angel and Vox in a way that seems believable, partnered with subtle hints that it’s fake and he’s a pos. avoid teen drama as it can look fun and appealing to kids!

As for staff interactions with fiction, do that in your own time and have fun - I implore! However when you’re publicly and professionally representing a product and company, you NEED a set layer of professionalism as well as empathy towards the consumers and your products potential impacts on them. This is TWO staff members publicly romanticising and interacting with a fictitious character in ways to appeal to ships and profession. Probablyfakeblond and Gasu have now publicly done this - now with younger audiences, this is dangerous to make pimps JUST seem ‘sexy’ and ‘quirky’, and make their behaviours seem fun. Because pimps really don’t care if you’re legal or not. An insecure teen who’s easily influenced and desperate enough for love, money or ‘clout’ is a walking dollar sign as far as they’re concerned. These folks are EXCELLENT at manipulation and reading body language. Val just appears... stupid, to be honest. And his faux teen drama excuse of a love life with Vox just makes both their threat levels seem disgustingly low and comedic - even the abuse is supposed to be a punchline (and if it’s not, this is a terrible way to present that).

Overall, these accounts could be fun and interesting insights to the HH/HB universe, but that potential is wasted on staff publicly making a teen drama of every character, ships being a focus, many characters being neglected INCLUDING main characters, personalities nullifying any decency in a good designed character, publicly interacting with characters in an almost ship bait way, clear displays of self indulgence, these making more of a mess of an already poorly stringed together plot line and overall...

The lack of professionalism and visible breaks in the fourth wall for staff indulgence (which almost shows off a privilege of the team in a NEGATIVE way - the privilege is in the art/characters/plot building NOT you’re ability to have people potentially ship you with your favourites, it’s blatantly unprofessional) is just... I COULD say cringeworthy at best but that just feeds into cringe culture (though I think we’d all cringe at someone walking on a path of Lego’s barefoot - make that the new cringe culture, things we cringe at legitimately whilst some madlad just doesn’t give a fuck and faces it - jackass style). In reality it’s lack of professionalism that seems to dismiss real toxic behaviours as quirky humour is appalling for a business. As a business woman, this really makes me nervous of the hands these shows are in as well as the mixed messages, lack of research and lack of compassion for the real world effects. The promotion of toxic behaviours being a ‘quirk’ (sexual harassment being ‘cute/romantic’ to full on abuse) especially towards the influencial minds of the audience is terrifying. The real message won’t just be lost - it already IS. Maybe I’m being too paranoid, but once you have kids in your life, you see the effects so much more clearly and it’s terrifying.

The staff aren’t treating this with the sensitivity it needs. It’s just a shagfest, self indulgent, imbalanced, plot holed, immaturely handled mess. I’d expect better behaviour from the staff - and this isn’t even roughing upon the member who appears to have some disturbing fixation towards rape. It isn’t just upsetting, it’s terrifying. They’ve let the underage work illegally on the products (Al comic - FULL ID PROOF IS A MUST IN HIRING). There’s been numerous accusations of art theft that are brushed under the rug, I’m incredibly concerned. Though it’s clear this is going to be a fucking mess. When Blitzos IG posted about “Wish me luck” on him having sex to keep the Grimoire, there was a glimmer of reality - fans actually showing concerns for the feelings of deep discomfort from Blitzos side. That is before Stolas posted, then all memories of Blitzos feeling were lost. Husk being upset with Angel or uncomfortable leads to fans harassing HIM for being ‘rude’ or ‘needing to apologise to Angel’ - why? For being uncomfortable? There’s a LOT of victim blaming for “uwu gae ships” that fetishisizes gays (gays are fuckin PEOPLE not some kink-) and then the canon gays such as Chaggie are given so much shit for “crushing fan dreams like chalastor”. Funny how compatibility is involved their but the second Husk and Blitz show discomfort and no compatibility, it’s “but it’s true gae lovezzz” - how disrespectful to sexual harassment victims (ESPECIALLY male victims who people already treat as a fucking joke-) as well as turning a sexuality into a kink. I’ll be honest, rl person x fiction isn’t my issue - it’s how they’re handling it. Are the staff a part of this universe then? Why? What do they contribute? Why is this their story? Or is this self indulgence that fellow staff and fans can uwu ship? There’s nothing wrong with real x fiction but their needs to be a limit (fixation is unhealthy and self indulgence so openly is far from professional standards).

PLEASE don’t fuck this up SpindleHorse. There’s potential here for something original and enthralling, please don’t waste this over temptation and immaturity.

Sorry to tag less and I hope you all can see this, just unwell.

#hazbin hotel #character development #vivienne medrano #concerned fan #think of the message you want to share and the delivery #the plot is a mess #back to basics #I’m sick so please forgive any error #room for discussion #stans and antis dni

19 notes · View notes

findmeintheafterglow · 5 years

Text

A Guide to Every Single Newsie

There are way too many of those punks. If you’re new to all this come learn whom is who

Let’s start with some pictures, they’re blurry because it’s surprisingly hard to get a decent screenshot. There are lots of them but hopefully just seeing their faces a few times will help you. Recognizing them just comes with time trust me, I used to struggle to find Race and now I see a pic of someone's feet and am like “ah yes Finch my boy”. Also, I’m only covering the newsies live cast because that’s what you can legally watch and what most people are familiar with. Also, I didn’t want to do every cast member to ever be on Broadway or tour.

Please note some of the things I’m about to say may not be canon but are part of what I know is widely considered true within the fandom. As far as sexuality I may mention it with some characters/who they’re commonly shipped with just so y’all aren’t lost when you see fics and things.

Jack: You know Jack so I’m not going that deep into his character. He’s 17, full name Francis Sullivan, newsie nickname is Cowboy. He’s the leader of the newsies of Lower Manhattan. A charismatic asshole who really just wants meaningful relationships and happiness for those he loves. Undeniably bisexual. Played by Jeremy Jordan.

Davey: Full name is David Jacobs, newsie nickname is Walking Mouth though he’s only addressed by his nickname in the 1992 movie. The most educated, attended school until he was around 17 ish. He’s a doofy little nerd and also mom friend ultimate, I repeat bc this is a defining trait Mom Friend Ultimate. I’m not sure if this is canon but pretty much everyone recognizes that he and his family are Jewish. Played by Ben Fankhauser.

Les: Sassy angel child. Full name Lesley Jacobs. Albert calls him shortstop a few times but it’s not quite a newsie name tm. 10 years old(almost). Also pretty Jewish. He’s kind of an impressionable little firecracker, he looks up to all the newsies but especially Jack. He just has a lot of energy and wants to hang with the big kids. Sass master in training. Buckets of charm packed into about 4 feet of human. Played by Ethan Steiner.

Crutchie: Crutchie! You know him! You’ve already fallen madly in love with him! Lost use of one of his legs to polio. Last name is Morris for sure and a lot of people say his real name is Charlie. Jack’s closest friend. He’s often painted as a pure sunshine boy, he is a pure sunshine boy. However, he is also tough, streetsmart and ready to fight. Very kindhearted and eternally optimistic. Played by Andrew Keenan-Bolger(you may see it abbreviated as AKB).

Race: This boy has lots of names so strap in. Racetrack Higgins is his name, people mostly call him Race not Racetrack. He is also sometimes called Racer. I don’t think this is canon but as a fandom, I think we’ve determined that he’s aggressively Italian and his real first name is Antonio, you may also see Anthony or Tony. Best friends with Albert. Crutchie is Jack’s best friend but Race is sort of Jack’s second in command. Sprace, him and Spot Conlon, are pretty much the biggest ship in Newsies. He’s a gambler and has an affinity for betting on horse races. He sells by the Sheepshead Racetrack hence his nickname. Very easy to recognize because he always has a cigar. The definition of a disaster gay. He has good intentions most of the time but is also a chaotic piece of shit. Played by Ben Tyler Cook(BTC).

Albert: Albert DaSilva is his name, having fantastic hair is his game. Race’s best friend. Personality is similar to Race but a little less chaotic, like he still does dumb things all the time but isn’t nearly as loud. Prankmaster and Sassmaster ultimate. Lives on the lower east side with his dad and two older brothers but generally that fact is ignored and he’s lumped in as living in the lodgings. His cap is on backwards most of the time which can help you recognize him. Played by Sky Flaherty.

Spot: Spot Conlon, the man, the myth, the legend. Leader of Brooklyn. Comically short but will also soak you without hesitation. Side note bc I didn’t know this for a long time: the newsies call beating someone up “soakin’ ‘em” because you beat them up so bad they’re soaked in blood. Back to Spot, he’s tough as nails but also cares about his boys in Brooklyn a lot. Played by Tommy Bracco.

Elmer: A smart yet small boy. Very good at math and science and somewhat interested in politics. He has 8 older siblings. Polish apparently? I learned this very recently?? A very friendly and sunshiney guy. The newsies make fun of him saying that he’s bad at selling papes. He’s a hardworker. This is definitely not canon but you may see his last name as being Kasprzak. This comes from Evan Kasprzak, the actor who played Elmer in the Papermill and Original Broadway Casts. People like writing about Elmer so they just kinda gave him that last name and it works. Played by Anthony Zas.

Jojo: Jorgelino Josephino De La Guerra where to begin. A good Catholic boy. He was raised by nuns in a cathedral in Harlem. A nice boy, a kind boy. Down for some shenanigans but is generally reasonable and doesn’t want anyone to get hurt. Very ambitious and wants to be a big baller(in KONY he wishes for a solid gold watch I mean). Played by Joshua Burrage.

Buttons: Benjamin Buttons Davenport, what a guy. So I don’t know that he’s actually younger but he definitely reads as a little more youthful. He’s optimistic and easily excitable and overall kinda has this genuine hope and happiness that some of the other guys have lost to the street. He lives with his family and has at least a few siblings but I feel like he has hella. Not gonna be last in line for the tub tonight. Played by Chaz Wolcott.

Romeo: Will flirt with anything that moves. He has very distinctive bright red and blue striped socks if that helps you identify him. Is one of the younger newsies but makes up for it with overconfidence. Very lighthearted, we never see him get too serious. A charmer through and through. Still a very kind and caring guy. Played by Nico DeJesus.

Specs: Specs is a good one. He wears glasses obviously so you can identify him pretty easy. Definitely on the older end of the newsies. There’s no basis for this in canon but I feel like he’s been around longer than Jack. Kind of helps lead and run things with Race and Jack because he’s the most responsible motherfucker in that lodging house. Think kinda like Davy where he’s a bit of a mom but more easygoing, less cautious and more one of the boys. Generally a happy guy and so so sweet. Very forward thinking and genuinely likes selling papes. Played by Jordan Samuels.

Finch: Finch! A personal favorite please show him love. Full name is Patrick Cortes. He has a family(or at least a mom) but ran away when he was little. He carries a slingshot with him a good amount of the time so use that to find him. He’s sarcastic, funny, and always rarin’ to go. Tough but not in an “I’ll fight you” way. He will fight you if needed but it’s more like “Life’s a bitch but look how far I’ve made it”. Kinda like a cool older brother vibe but throw in a good handful of antsy. Played by my main man Iain Young.

Sniper: Mkay it’s time for the tough boi trio, these next three are fighters. Last name is Wah. His dad is named Sam Wah and owns a laundromat above Jacobi’s Deli. You may see him as a girl in fics or hcs because for almost all of the tour he was played by a woman. Boy has aim like no other. He is confirmed to be the quickest and strongest of the newsies. Also sly and cunning. Boy’s like a snake or a fox or whatever simile you prefer but regardless be scared. Has a reputation so people don’t mess with him. Would never hurt another Manhattan boy, he’s scary but he defends his brothers. Played by Daniel Switzer.

Tommy Boy: Don’t know a ton about Tommy Boy but here we go. He’s a man of few words, when he talks his answers are brief and to the point. Not in a mean way though that’s just how he is. Appears to be confrontational as he’s consistently seen stepping to a fight(before the world will know when Jack says “keep your shirt on” and when he scabs he gets in people’s faces). A good dependable guy but kinda mysterious, I would not provoke. Played by Michael Dameski.

Mush: Last name is Myers. First name is possibly Nick? In the real strike, there was a boy named Nick Myers so. He lives in Harlem?? But who cares about canon, ignore that. Mush is a ‘hattan boy. Has a lisp. He considers himself to be the muscle of Manhattan and will throw down for his brothers. When the strikebreakers show up, Jack literally has to hold him back because Mush is just trying to get to those hoes so he can protect the rest of the boys just yellin’ “Nah man I’ll get ‘em”. Very caring and very selfless. Boy’s got muscle but is totally a teddy bear with a heart of gold. I’ve always thought of him as your classic rough and tumble but clean-cut caring all-American boy. Played by Nick Masson.

Henry: Last name is possibly butler after the real life newsboy, Henry Butler but the only confirmed name we have is Henry. Became a newsie at 11 when his dad died and his family lost their deli. Has a mom who he still sees sometimes but doesn’t live with. Boy really likes food. It reminds him of the deli with his dad and also he just really. likes. food. Fairly easygoing, practical, and will call guys out on their bullshit(e.g. whom the fuck cares about being famous). Played by Michael Rios.

Smalls: Smalls! I don’t got much at all but here’s what I know. Very commonly thought about as a girl as Smalls was played by girlsies for all(?) of the Broadway run. Pretty firey or at least high energy. Sometimes headcannoned as being leader of the Bronx because in the normal not filmed staging he’s the one to yell “so’s the Bronx”. Played by Julian DeGuzman.

Mike: Twin brother of Ike. These guys are hard to tell apart because they’re played by actual twins but here are some distinctions. Mike wears a brown cap, a plaid shirt, and green socks. Played by Jacob Guzman.

Ike: Twin brother of Mike. Has a dark grey cap, a striped shirt, pin-striped pants, and brown socks. Both twins seem to be pretty fun-loving. They kinda rough house a lot and are often messing around. Played by David Guzman

Hotshot: A Brooklyn newsie, I don’t really know his deal? A typical production doesn’t have Hotshot in it but he was in the filmed version and was apparently there towards the end of the broadway run. Kind of arrogant and tough. Sometimes seen as Spot’s second. Has literally only ever been played by J.P. Ferreri.

Vince/Myron: Ok so for newsies live they just threw in some extra newsboys for the heck of it and this guy is one of those. I don’t even know his name because the actor who plays him also plays a strikebreaker. On the wiki cast list, it just lists him as playing Vince and Myron with no indication as to who’s the newsie and who’s the strike breaker. Just from the nature of the names I can guess that Vince is the newsie? A big tough Brooklyn boy. Played by Stephen Hernandez.

Willie/Bart: Same deal as Vince/Myron. I’d be willing to guess that Willie is the newsie. Another Brooklyn boy. Played by Andrew Wilson.

Kenny: Also thrown in just for newsies live but I actually know his name. A pretty sunny guy, as far as I can remember he’s always smiling. Not in any of the pictures because he’s not in any of those scenes. It’s the same guy who plays darcy so go to carrying the banner or once and for all and find the guy in the yellow suit. That’s Darcy, Kenny looks just like that but in newsie clothes. Played by Jack Sippel.

Am I about to throw Bill and Darcey in just for kicks? yeah I think I am. Ok so this is a last minute decision and I don’t have pictures for these guys but here we go.

Bill: Not a newsie. Son of William Randolph Hearst, owner of the New York Journal. Full name William Randolph Hearst Jr. Katherine and Darcey’s friend. A sophisticated, classy, educated boy. Not tough in a street way but is kind of cold/reserved or maybe just a bit calculating. You can definitely tell he’s a rich boy by the way he holds himself. Looks like Mush bc they’re played by the same actor. Blue suit. Played by Nick Masson.

Darcey: Not a newsie. Son of Whitelaw Reid, owner of the New York Tribune. Still high class but more excitable and interested in the newsies world. Very kind and always concerned of behalf of others. His sweetness does not equal weakness, when Romeo approaches Kath in Carrying the Banner, he’s ready to handle the situation. Yellow suit. Played by Jack Sippel.

so there we go that is every newsie I could think of and then some. I’m gonna attach the pictures I have of an old wikipedia cast list which is what I use for reference since the one that's on wiki now isn’t great

That’s it! If you actually read all this, God bless you. If I got anything blatantly wrong or if you have any questions please talk to me

2K notes · View notes

nerdygaymormon · 5 years

Text

Elders Quorum Lesson - Truth & the Plan by Elder Oaks

First, let me give kudos to the instructor. Several days beforehand he asked if I would share some thoughts on this talk with him. And he began the lesson by saying this is a sensitive topic and there are people who have strong feelings about it.

I didn’t know what to say, I couldn’t ask that he leave out all the main points of the talk, so I didn’t respond to his request.

What I wish I had asked is that when he introduced the lesson, that he mention this is not “us” versus “them.” LGBTQ people are part of this church and our ward. All should feel loved and welcomed and we should each commit to speak sensitively about this topic.

—————————————————————

There was very much a split in comments between those saying this is the way it is and anything different or wishy-washy is going against God. And others who would say we need to love as Christ loved, view others as Christ views people, and leave judging to God.

—————————————————————

Worst comments from today: (my commentary in parentheses)

Changing the law isn’t going to make it go away. Changing the law may make some people happy for a short period of time until they become aware of the consequences and they’ll want to change those, too. (changing an unjust law also involves changing the consequences)

A man told a story of soldiers in Vietnam & Korea who were charged with felonies for marijuana possession and shipped home, but today some states are legalizing marijuana. How are these men who have this lifelong record supposed to feel about it now being condoned? If it was wrong then, it’s wrong now. (perpetuating a wrong doesn’t make it right, perhaps a retroactive pardon of some sort should be considered)

If somebody wants you to recognize somebody who is gay, liberal or homosexual, lesbian or whatever, have courage to stand up for what is right. Have courage enough to stand up for what God has told you and the Holy Ghost testifies to you that is right. (I’m sincerely curious if this man has earnestly studied this topic and asked the Holy Spirit to confirm that gays & liberals are in the wrong)

I happen to know a brother who has a son who ended up to be gay. The parents did not raise the kid to be gay. And suddenly despite everything the church has given the family to raise the kid, the kid took a totally different route. (newsflash, his son was gay the whole time. Instead of thinking, “with all the church resources his parents had, how could he turn out gay?” ask “what was it like to be a gay child in this family where he didn’t feel safe enough to tell them until he moved out”)

From the beginning of this world I’ve never seen God say that I’m going to give you another man as a companion. I never saw that he ever said I’m going to give you another women as a companion. Whatever happens is because of you, you decided. If I want to become a gay, I don’t have to blame my wife, that’s my fault. (😂🤣😂, this guy really doesn’t get how it works)

A guy parked illegally in the handicap parking space may not know the law, but it’s still the law and the police officer will enforce it. (God is going to punish people who are gay or trans who have a different understanding? How is this just?)

Best comments from today: (my commentary in parentheses)

Recognize Jesus taught about love for all people, his love was outstretched more to those on the margins. (I testify this is still true today)

I think the issue becomes when we as individuals interpret something and say it came from the Bible when it really didn’t come from the Bible. Who made the decision? God didn’t make the decision. We misinterpret and force that onto other people. (Particularly on LGBTQ topics, the Bible doesn’t say what a lot of people think it does)

We are fortunate to be in a church that teaches that we don’t abandon our family. (Say it louder for the people in the back of the room!)

There’s no way that we, not having God’s vision of everything, can say this person is better than that person, that person is wrong. We have to love all and try to see them as God would see them because it is only in seeing in the way that God sees them that we have that love for them. As we seek to love as God, then we seek to serve as God. They may not have the same light (knowledge) as us, but for them that light may be sufficient. It is not our place to judge anyone and it is our place to love everyone. (💖 Also, maybe they have different light. Be their friend and listen to their stories, you may find you have things to learn)

We have to do more walking than talking. You can have knowledge and spew it out but it’s not going to touch their hearts. Jesus walked the earth and loved everyone. Start with love first, walk with them where they are, understand them. (chances are if you spend time with us that you’ll get to love your LGBTQ brothers & sisters and see things from our perspective)

—————————————————————

I had intended to speak up in the meeting, but as those first comments were spoken, my social anxiety kicked in. I didn’t want to cause harsh attention to turn to me by saying, “hey, big fat gay guy here and that talk hurt me and made me feel like I am not welcome in this church because I am a distraction from its purpose as stated by Elder Oaks.”

Plus my dad was there. 😕 He usually attends another ward, but in my stake this was fast Sunday and the high council attend their home ward. My dad wishes he forced me to go to conversion therapy and is convinced I was molested or somebody pushed me into being gay. You know, he doesn’t understand. So with him there, I lost my courage to say anything.

—————————————————————

I wish I didn’t attend EQ today, I felt awful as I walked out. I don’t think the way many in the room view LGBTQ people is how Heavenly Father sees us. I hope they aren’t judged as harshly as many seemed ready to judge people like me.

—————————————————————

Partway into the lesson, the bishop pulled me out. A young man had asked if I would stand in the circle as he was ordained to a priesthood office. It was as though Heavenly Father rescued me. It was like God was saying, “here’s your place in my kingdom, you have an impact on these teens and they love you.”

I think I missed the worst part of the comments & I’m glad for that.

—————————————————————

Just an observation, many people vehemently condemn sins they can’t commit, like straight people attacking gay marriage, or men denouncing abortion? I think it maximizes feelings of superiority and minimizes the uncomfortable feelings that come with humble introspection.

#homophobia #worst day of church in a long time #queerstake

83 notes · View notes

tenacious-scripturient · 5 years

Text

a run-down of / my thoughts on the novel ‘trade secrets’

so! i’ve recently finished this beautifully written novel by @bettsican, and am anxiously anticipating for the second book in the trilogy! (seriously, give it a read. it’s a great lgbtq+ thriller and mystery story, i promise you’ll love it!! you can find trade secrets in many places, including amazon, where it’s only $6)

as i was reading it, i noted down all the thoughts i had. it was fun, interesting, and kept me on the edge of my seat!

oh, and spoiler warning, of course.

Chapter One

okay. this is interesting. why are they in paris? or rather, why are they NOT in paris?

2080. damn.

who is cooper hall and why is he important i want to knowwwwwwww

Chapter Two

HOLY FUCK

CHAPTER ONE WAS A PROLOGUE

OKAY IF I DIDNT NEED TO BEFORE I HAVE TO READ IT NOW

-ahem- anyway

nate literally everything you think of has to relate to smoking, doesnt it?

clyde you absolutely bitch raccoon

im sort of piecing together what’s happening here? either way this is a SUPER interesting concept.

i love the idea of every word being important

nate look at you being a nice guy. testing the CAPS before giving them to ur clients

or maybe it’s just good business

but whatever

okay, so credits are money in this world. but how do people get them? obviously there’s what nate’s doing but what’s the legal way to get them? ill probably find out soon

if it wasnt explicitly said by betty that nate ends up with another guy (i forget his name. cooper?) i would have thought audry was the romantic interest

audry you loving caring hypocrite

i feel like she’s gonna be one of my favourite characters

who is this young man that dares disturb nate’s slumber

cooper? cooper.

Chapter Three

nate get up

u turtle get up and hurry down the stairs

or—okay you can fall into that drywall that works too

ohhhhh so nate is a detective. that’s interesting

i also love this idea of keeping secrets (haha trade secrets)

dude are you sure that your embarrassing entrance wasn’t the ONLY reason you blushed? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

HEIGHT DIFFERENCE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE HEIG—

nate ur spending an awful lot of time looking at his features you funky little bisexual

oh damn ur smarter than u seem, just watching him take a single breath and you’re already making connections. i guess that’s why he’s a detective

im gonna assume this is cooper, even tho it never explicitly says so

i feel like we aren’t gonna get his name for a while, bc clients and whatnot and not getting attached

Chapter Four

NATE WEARS GLASSES???????

that’s kind of cute

im lowkey gay rn

anyway

NATE CALLED HIM SWEET-FACED AND PRETTY-FACED O K A Y

oh he has curly brown hair

and oh the glasses aren’t real glasses. oh. the use is actually pretty cool!

so from what im gathering civilians are people who don’t live in sanctuaries, and lemnis are people who do?

cooper sweetie why do u need so much money what have u done

nate’s pretty clever

HAH I WAS RIGHT WE AREN’T GONNA GET HIS NAME FOR A WHILE

well that’s that i guess

Chapter Five

he’s so timid awh

hehe he’s on nate’s bed

sorry

goddammit man calm down or else you’re gonna get everyone in a 5-mile radius around you arrested

wait…. zero-credit balance?? didn’t he just have a few hundred thousand credits???

OH THIS IS A FAKE PROFILE HE MADE

so cooper isn’t his real name either

Chapter Six

oh we’re back to 2080

oh they’re back in the apartment??

it was obvious before but at this point it’s confirmed that they’re going to be doing some travelling together or something

Chapter Seven

this is getting really interesting i dont wanna stop reading and type everything that comes to mind

these are gonna be shorter now hehe

“i’d been a petri dish of mixed emotions and wild chemical changes for half the day” I LOVE THAT METAPHOR LMFAO

what happened with nate’s mom

i want to know

my prediction: she wanted him to either change up or completely remove the chip bc she did something horrible? or maybe she just wanted to leave idk im bad at predictions

either way it said she was crazy

o h

that’s why he’s terrified of cutting the chip

poor nate

Chapter Eight

oh this is strangely intimate

very intimate

i feel that, because cooper has such high pain tolerance (or doesn’t show pain), he has some backstory for it

Chapter Nine

lmao nate just went off didnt he

THEIR FLIRTING IS CUTE FHJKJDLSKAJDKLSJAK

also is being lgbtq+ widely accepted as the norm in this setting? bc nate considered cooper to be flirting with him

ughhhh it’s so good so far, from the character interactions to the suspense, especially in this chapter

Chapter Ten

rude cooper is rude, rude nate is even more rude

F E D O R A

“coop”

Chapter Eleven

aw i love jimmy already—

WHAT THE FUCK COOPER

EXCUSE ME

JIMMY

WHAT

HOW COULD YOU

goddammit

what the fuck is cooper hiding

cooper oh my god

you

you’re playing a dangerous game, mate

are you really that heartless

“deceptively innocent eyes” you got that right

this chapter hurted

thanks a lot jess

Chapter Twelve

“like a weeping wound on the canvas of my home” this has got to be one of my favourite similes ever omg

the way nate’s describing cooper makes my heart hurt awh

i feel like butterflies have some sort of symbolism

maybe being ugly on the outside and beautiful on the inside, or vice versa? the vice versa was basically cooper lol

aye we finally get to meet audry!!

PEANUT BUTTER AND TRICYCLE I WANNA HEAR ABOUT THAT

i love audry omg

IT’S NATE’S BIRTHDAY?? HAPPY BIRTHDAY YA SMOKEY CONMAN

“bright eyes” is the cutest nickname ever

Chapter Thirteen

oh we’re back to 2080

wait what they’re trapped together

is this story gonna have a sad ending

please no

Chapter Fourteen

OH IT’S THE LINE ON THE COVER

i like that

nate’s back to where he left cooper

also if it wasn’t obvious before, it’s definitely obvious now that nate and cooper or gonna find each other again. hm. not sure how i feel about that

kind of pissed at cooper but also we need him for the story to progress

O H

COOPER IM ONLY KIND OF PISSED AT YOU NOW

IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE

NATE IVE SAID IT BEFORE BUT YOU’RE PRETTY CLEVER

also who is ‘her’?

COOPER WANTS TO BECOME A?? LEMNIS?? GODDAMMIT MAN

I CAN FEEL THE PRESSURE RISING

nate’s in danger

wow this chapter is

a lot

i need a break

-cue a break-

Chapter Fifteen

i’m back

eisley is a cool last name

oh wait so even people outside of sanctuaries can become a lemniscate

i’m still not 100% sure what a lemniscate is

it’s so ironic elijah’s last name is king, but i assume you did that on purpose. i also like the slight nod to royalty by his first name

COOPER’S BACK

why hello there

Chapter Sixteen

they’re

competing

to become a lemniscate

and one of them dies

do they fight back?? is that why they end up in prison??? so many thoughts are going through my head right now

nate, your fantasy about becoming a lemniscate is surprisingly dark. i’m totally down for it

Chapter Seventeen

oh wait so joshua is cooper’s blackmailer?? Interesting that it’s a lemniscate

i keep forgetting nate is wearing glasses

cooper, my dude, calm the fuck down. you’re gonna get yourself and nate killed

it’s the return of soft™ nate

Chapter Eighteen

oh there’s another one

oh this is very ominous i don’t like

Chapter Nineteen – Twenty-One

okay i was eating while i read so i couldn’t type here but just know that these chapters were really really good

Chapter Twenty-Two

wait fuck what’s happening this is all happening so fast

cooper brought out his gun,,,, it’s aimed at ivonne,,,,,,, they’re walking,,,

OH IT WAS A FAKE KIDNAPPING

nice

i like ivonne a lot

Chapter Twenty-Three

the entire story just changed course

this isn’t just about cooper and nate anymore, it’s about a corrupt government

NATE AND COOPER ARE HOLDING HANDS AS THEY RUN THROUGH THE BARRIER THAT’S SO ROMANTIC

also the line “only the dead are ever truly free” is beautiful

THAT’S WHERE PARIS COMES IN

THEY ALL GO TO FRANCE DON’T THEY

I’m so curious to find out where this story is going

Chapter Twenty-Four

this is doin me a confusion

but tbh these hints/ visions of the future, if you could call them that, are giving just enough information to keep me super interested. props to you

Chapter Twenty-Five

AUDRY STOP TEASING NATE

just joking keep doing it, this might actually get their relationship somewhere

ivonne is definitely my favourite character so far. she reminds a little of melia from xenoblade chronicles, in that they’re both ‘royalty’ that rebel. also they’re badass and smart

oh fuck the brother is here

okay thank god he’s not an asshole

oh god things are happening again

Chapter Twenty-Six

nate stop ogling at cooper when you’re in a life-or-death situation

holy shit the lemniscate are messed up

this crew is pretty great, it sucks that it’s almost the end of the book

WAIT I FORGOT THERE’S A SECOND COMING SOON HECK YEAH

anyway

YES COOPER PULL THROUGH

awwww yiss

Chapter Twenty-Seven

O H

oh my god i ship them so hard

THEY KISSED

THIS IS SO STEAMY

this chapter was art thank you so much for this

Chapter Twenty-Eight

AHAHAH AUDRY

once again, i’d like to state how much i love her

oh the tension just grew twentyfold

this is… great

oh god nate what are you planning, you just got together with cooper and now you want to leave him?

Chapter Twenty-Nine

what’s with all the dancing?

Chapter Thirty

oh god the description

so he’s going around and giving people credits, all the while confessing things that would help the lemniscate track him down. i assume this means he’s going to die, but why?

just what are you planning?

oh we’re back to clyde, the guy who started it all. it feels full circle

Chapter Thirty-One

HE’S MAKING HIS CHIP SHOW THAT HE’S DEAD

that’s much smarter

FUCK

NATE YOU IDIOT—COOPER’S REAL NAME

SHIT NOW KING IS HERE

everything’s going downhill now isn’t it

Chapter Thirty-Two

wait that took an even darker turn

there’s so much happening right now i can’thandlethis

cooper and nate are couple goals

Chapter Thirty-Three

king isn’t as horrible as i thought

still horrible, but not a monster

NEVER MIND YOU’RE A FUCKING MONSTER WHAT IS THIS BS

cooper

actually

shot

nate

Chapter Thirty-Four

OH MY GOD

WHAT

THIS IS HOW YOU END IT

I CAN’T

HOW DARE YOU

i need the next book

like right now

what the hell

Final Thoughts

okay so this book was SO good, and so well written. like damn

aside from that horrible ending how could you do this to me

i’m joking, it was an incredible and emotional ending, i loved it and hated it at the same time

it very rarely felt static, and especially in the first half, there was a good mix of action and backstory/description. it was never boring

the story is just,,, so unique. i seriously haven’t read anything like it, EVER

the world-building?? Is?? so vast?? and insane??

the increasing tension and speed as the story progressed is perfect, i felt my heart beating faster the more i read

anyway that’s all from me

this book was amazing i cannot wait for the next

#writeblr #other writeblrs #trade secrets #phahbiyah speaks

12 notes · View notes

gaarfielf · 6 years

Text

Not to be that guy but here’s an analysis on LGBT characters/rep in the lupin iii universe nobody asked for. I’m gonna cover Twilight Gemini, Harimou’s Treasure, Angel Tactics, TWCFM, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 5

Twilight Gemini is arguably one of the least popular films of the series pretty much based on the fact it’s just not a good movie. But this ain’t a movie review that’s just the facts. Anyway the villain’s henchman, Sadachiyo, is gay and the movie does not skirt around it at all. Lupin makes several “jokes” about the character being gay and the character is written to be very perverted and evil (obviously because he’s a henchman) but nonetheless very stereotypical to downright offensive (his character wearing lipstick is a little uh). Ultimately, Goemon returns at the very ass-end of the film to stab him directly in the chest and that’s where that story ends. Now, there isn’t much to say about this character because he really was only around for Lupin to make jokes that weren’t funny before dying. Gotta love them yep huh /eye roll/

Harimou’s Treasure gave us the double whammy of not only a bad joke against intersex people and trans women, but also a nazi joke! hooray. The film uses a slur that some may argue “wasn’t a slur back then” but nonetheless leaves the film to have aged terribly. The character...../sighs/ Herr Maphrodite /SIGHS LOUDER/, is once again a huge offensive stereotype and coincidentally, another villain. By the end of the film Fujiko manages to take him down by.... kissing him.... and he’s so repulsed.... that they just... win somehow. It’s really just an unpleasant scene. But luckily the film isn’t hugely popular (in comparison to Secret of Mamo, Cagliostro, Fuma, etc).

Angel Tactics threw in a new idea with a bisexual woman........... who is also a villain. Detecting a pattern yet? Her name is Lady Joe /HUGE SIGH/ and she is shown to be pretty masculine which there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with until you consider that TMS might have argued otherwise, but the film eventually reveals her “true form” (???) where she’s actually really perverted and her outfit changes to be very revealing and “sexy” (TMS wouldn’t know sexy if it bit em in the ass tbh). It’s almost as if TMS associates being gay with being evil and perverted? Wild.

TWCFM is a split audience in this aspect, with a gay character that some believe is pretty accurate representation and others believe is just another TMS classic gay stereotype. Personally speaking, the fact that Oscar was designed to look like a woman (the same head shape, wide hips and skinny body as Fujiko) and also being notably... /excited/ around Zenigata, I disliked the representation. However, other people (gay people specifically b/c why would I ask straight people how they felt about him lol) believe that he’s actually really speaking to them as a gay character. I mention this because I didn’t personally finish TWCFM so I don’t wanna throw him under the bus as a character, but I will say, he is still a villain in the series as made apparent by his strict hate for Fujiko (presumably out of jealousy).

Part 2 gave us a fast one with the Rose of Versailles episode. It was a crossover episode between the two series and TMS decided to do a very interesting take on it where Lupin literally falls in love with a character disguised as a man. In the episode it’s very apparent he has no idea that the character he’s in love with is actually a woman and actually convinces Jigen and Goemon later that it’s not a big deal. Jigen and Goemon by the by, are not cool with their relationship but eventually grow more neutral about it as the episode progresses. Speaking bluntly, this episode is a very wild outlier in Part 2 as an episode which literally outright confirms Lupin as bisexual (or pan, or any degree of not-straight that tickles your fancy). However, it’s often not acknowledged for ??? reasons. Alongside this in Part 2, there is another episode Lupin disguises himself as a woman to seduce a man for his money, only to find that after revealing himself that the man... doesn’t care. They get married in the episode. I don’t know how this goes over peoples head. Granted, Lupin was in it for the money but I think Lupin of all people could’ve come up with a different plan if he really didn’t want to legally marry a man.

Part 3 also gave us something new with various episodes that imply Jigen might swing that way too. Bear with me here but Part 3 delivers /a lot/ of secluded scenes with Jigen outwardly upset that Lupin ditched him for a woman. Scenes where he looks away from women that Lupin are talking to/about, scenes where he leaves the room when there’s women, scenes where he refuses to look at Lupin when he’s with a woman and just generally more outwardly not interested in women compared to previous Parts where he more-or-less ignores them. Previous Parts, Jigen might not be crazy about women but there isn’t really as many strong visuals as their are in part 3 that suggest he’s explicitly attracted to men (though there are scenes in Part 1 and 2 where he quite literally goes into hysterics over Lupin, thinking he’s dead, though take it as you will). Speaking of more visuals surrounding Jigen specifically related to being gay, I’ll bring up the obvious one being the classic Play Bohz scene, where Jigen is very visibly reading a muscle magazine (a kind of magazine that was specifically popular among gay men in the 80s as a more ‘discreet’ way of essentially reading filth) and I mean. That’s pretty concrete. But there’s also other nods to it like him and Lupin smoking under a billboard with two men kissing on it, Jigen telling Goemon he looks cute in women’s clothing, etc. Part 4 even gives us Fujiko implying that Jigen is jealous at Lupin and Rebecca’s wedding which Jigen.... doesn’t respond to.

Part 5 is where TMS reverts back to its old ways. Actually it’s new ways because part 2 and 3 were the 70s and 80s and all these outwardly homophobic movies happened in the late 90s through the 2000s. But nonetheless we get....another... gay.... villain. hooray. again. His name is Albert in case you haven’t watched it yet. Not only that but he is mentioned offhandedly to be gay in one (1) episode before it’s never mentioned again (not exactly what I’d call representation) and the series also doesn’t shy away from gay jokes that purposely make fun of fans for shipping the characters and just in general make fun of gay people. TMS, it’s 2018, can we stop making gay jokes? They aren’t funny. Zenigata pulling his gun on Lupin for making the joke wasn’t funny, Jigen attempting to kick Lupin’s phone out of his hands wasn’t funny, and even the article claiming they were dating wasn’t very funny because it was deadass a joke made at the expense of fans. A wacky gay joke accompanied with hating your fans is a funny way of writing, huh?

In conclusion, why is it that the 70s and 80s somehow handled hinting at these supposed “controversial topics” better than it was in movies made in the 2000s and then rinsed and repeated again in the year 20 fucking 18. I think if Part 2 can have an episode where Lupin deadass flirts and falls in love with a man, Part 5 should have been capable of not writing homophobic characters. and thats the hot but true take of the day.

NOTE: if y’all try to message me to argue keep in mind 1) theres literally nothing straight about Lupin falling in love with a man and Jigen reading a muscle magazine literally known to target gay men and 2) theres nothing you can do to convince me otherwise so you best be ready to swallow that pill and 3) Don’t @ me with ‘bUT lUPIN lIKES wOMAN’ because yeah. no shit. read up on what being bi means before opening your mouth.

#and thats that on that #lupin iii #long post #sorry but not really

43 notes · View notes

holeofmarmora · 6 years

Text

My standpoint on Allurance and Kaxca (Keith x Axca)

So being the empath I am, I always try and see things from other perspectives, and try and see if I can empathize with the other side, or even just understand where they’re coming from. I’m a sheith shipper, and while I know klance isn’t inherently bad, it often makes me uncomfortable to see it due to my negative association with many fans, which I feel is justified. Anyways, that’s not the point I’m trying to make.

What I really want to talk about is ships that are not sheith and klance. I want to talk about Axca and Keith, as well as Allurance.

I’ve heard many klance shippers get upset because Allura is showing signs of like/love back to Lance. Often the argument is “she never showed him any signs of interest before! She’s treating Lance like her second option!”, and while that’s a somewhat valid argument, I think these people are interpreting that wrong. I think there’s a little bias here.

As far as Keith and Axca, people from all sides are upset and really hoping he doesn’t get with her. For me, it’s because it’s very forced and right towards the end of the series. Sure, Axca saved Keith a few times before, but they had no real interaction, and no sign of romantic feelings. Hell, for a long time I was theorizing that maybe they where siblings and we just didn’t know about it. Maybe she knew something Keith didn’t. But I’ve noticed especially that Klance shippers are really loud about this. Sheith shippers are upset, yes, but it’s the klance shippers who seem to be losing their heads.

Now correct me if I’m wrong, but I think its because of a bias. The majority of sheith shippers always knew, know now, or are coming to terms with the fact that sheith will never be canon. Are they scared? Maybe. Disappointed? Yeah. I’m not saying my side of the fandom are pure little babies who knew all along. I’m saying the majority of us are older and more rational, and at least can manage the thought of our ship not becoming canon. The klance side however, is something else entirely. I don’t venture into the klance side because obviously it’s not my cup of tea, but I’ve still seen it. It’s practically unavoidable. People are angry and raging about Allurance and Axca and Keith as a pairing being homophobic and how “of course the heteros get together but the gays die” and all this nonsense. It’s understandable, as a good majority of klance shippers are of the younger demographic and are therefor generally more passionate and outspoken, but it’s not right.

I was trying to empathize with it. I was thinking “maybe they’re seeing something I’m not”. I thought long and hard about it and I came to the conclusion. They think it’s homophobic because a huge majority of the klance side of the fandom thought their ship was going to become canon. It makes perfect sense. When you look at both sides and see how many sheith shippers knew and how many klance shippers promised with their whole being it would be. Compare that to how many outraged people there are on both sides and the difference is head spinning. One of the main slogans of the klance side is literally “klance is canon king” and if that doesn’t say something about why this is happening, I don’t know what does.

So how does this really affect Allurance and Keith and Axca (I’m gonna call them kaxca for now). I’ll tell you it straight (haha): it’s because it gets in the way of their ship. If Lance is with Allura and Keith is with Axca, they’re not going to be with each other (in this monogamous universe and mindset). A lot of klance shippers are saying it’s homophobic and forced because they thought this whole time that klance would be canon. That it would be endgame.

So why do I as a sheith shipper despise Kaxca and not Allurance? They’re both the Herero ships of this show so far (even though kaxca really isn’t). Well, it has nothing to do with gays or sheith from MY PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE. I have a huge respect for good and consistent writing. Voltron has been well written from the beginning, from its clever comedy to its deep undertones that really get you thinking, to its interesting and sometimes unpredictable plot twists. Whoever is writing it is decent at worst and amazing at best, for a kids show. Allura and Lance have been set up since the beginning. Sure, before it was just Lance practically harassing Allura and annoying her and the team. He was (and still kinda is) a bit immature. However, from the beginning I knew that a good writer would build his character up even a little to make him a better person towards Allura. I’ve shipped it because I knew that all along. I didn’t think his behavior towards her was cool in the beginning. He was treating her like every other booty call in the galaxy. But you can see through the series (and something klancers often ignore) he starts treating her better. He starts respecting her better because he’s not seeing some pretty princess in the castle who he gets to come back to and show off his big strong man muscles. He sees a girl with a complicated mind and a kind heart. He sees why she preached so heavily about peace, and he sees her fighting for it in the front lines right next to him. He sees her creativity and her effort and he supports it hard. His range of sight has moved beyond her physical self and into her mental self. He has a genuine crush on her and it’s been built from day one.

Kaxca, however, is not like that. Before I say this, I want to point out that the only thing going for them is a couple of glances, a battle together and maybe a conversation with the team that was only to move the plot along. I personally don’t think it’ll be endgame, but it would be terrible if it was. That being said, kaxca would be the very definition of poor choices and bad writing. Imagine that; a show with such good pacing and writing and diverse characters has been going on for well over a year. We’ve grown with these characters and loved them for a long time. Well would you look at that, a pretty alien girl just as angsty as Keith! Let’s have them kiss after no interaction or emotional growth together hardly at all! Sound familiar? That trope has been popular for ages, and that trope is called lazy writing, shown in the book of “how to avoid legal troubles but still get two characters to kiss on screen”. It’s not a good idea, and I really hope they don’t go with it. The show has never been about romance, and if they do that, it just confirms that they eventually stopped caring and wanted to make it interesting to one type of person. THAT is why I think it’s terrible. There’s a HUGE difference between Allurance and Kaxca.

This is why I can’t empathize with klance shippers right now. Allurance isn’t homophobic or cheap, and it’s not going to be endgame just because it’s the herero ship. In my opinion, it’s going to be endgame because Allura and Lance have both grown enough emotionally to be ready for each other. That’s all.

Before I end this post I just want to point out that I do NOT in ANY WAY mean all klance shippers. If you ship klance and feel differently than the pack, you are valid and I respect you. This post was very generalizing to get my point across, but if this doesn’t apply to you, that’s amazing. Same with sheith shippers. If you feel differently than what I said above, that’s okay and valid. This is just a show that we all enjoy and we should interpret it however we want as long as we aren’t hurting anyone.

Have a good day and remember, be nice to each other!

#sheith #vld s7 spoilers #voltron #discourse #discourse mention #kaxca #allurance #opinions

40 notes · View notes

s-3-3-s · 6 years

Note

Hello! regarding your post about how Tatsuya and Jun's relationship is treated in P2: IS I'd like to present my thoughts on it. In first place about the way people react, I didn't see anyone react to it actually beside the demons (and Lisa whose reaction stems from being rejected rather than any homophobic thoughts in my opinion) but I might just have missed it so tell me if I did please (The biggest reaction I saw was Eikichi whistling which wasn't even negative). [1/?]

Concerning the demons though you have to remember that they are shards of humanity more specifically shards of their unconscious which itself is filled with every thought and concept we don't want to share with the world, our deepest thoughts and secrets and that is exactly the reason the shadows react like they do in IS. This game takes place not only in Japan (which right now hasn't even legalized gay marriage much less attempted to fight the stigma against gay relationships) [but also in the year of 1999 where this kind of relationship was even less accepted than it is now, so in a way everything the demons say and every reaction to their relationship ends up reflecting in one way or another the way that the masses look at their relationship which again is rarely in a good way considering the setting of the game. That being said I don't think that representing the collective unconscious with this consensus is a bad way to represent it for a very simple reason. Every single time a demon asks about your relationship you can say that you are lovers and every time you are called out for being disgusting or for breaking a "taboo" you can tell them to their face that what you two have isn't a "taboo" or disgusting and it's not like that response is always the wrong one, which if anything spreads the message that you shouldn't give up on your relationship despite everything, that you can do whatever you want and that the masses, the demons, are just an obstacle in your way that you CAN defeat with ease, it tells you that no matter how loud their voices are you don't have to listen to them. If Atlus really had a problem with LGBTQ+ people they wouldn't have included the relationship at all in my opinion or they would have made jun way more effeminate (popular practice in a lot of yaoi media) and yet while he might be described as such the only effeminate thing about him are his looks because his voice gives him immediately away has a male, his clothes consist simply of his school uniform, and his actions aren't in any way feminine. Sure he might be a hopeless romantic (things like flower language, the French dinner and even to a certain extent his fixation on astrology certainly give that vibe) but that's not necessarily feminine behavior and does not erase the fact that Jun is for all matters and intents an average guy that happens to like Tatsuya or even guys in general (although we are not given any alone time with him to confirm this it is a possibility). As for the fact that this relationship was used as a way to attract Yaoi female fans and not put there for gay man to enjoy I'll have to both disagree and agree. Yes, I don't believe that this game option was made with the intention of offering gay man a way to engage in a gay relationship inside of the game BUT I don't think that the reason it was included was to attract yaoi fans either for two reasons. The first being that in the year this game came in 1999 the number of women who played video games on consoles when compared to the total number of players was of just about 30% without even accounting for the fact that Persona 2 was a very niche game in a yet pretty niche (even if it was starting to grow) genreso appealing to a small audience such as female yaoi fans would have just been a bad marketing decision specially considering how little effect it had on the overall plot of the game (being mostly just a little fun detail for people to have fun with and not something actual Yaoi fangirls would be that excited about). ________________________________________________________________Okay, I hope I got all of your asks here and didn’t leave any out. Sorry if I did! I haven’t deleted them so Ill go back through and add it in if one got left out. So, the first thing I wanted to say (sorry, these are gonna be all out of order) is that it was actually confirmed in an interview in the Persona 4 strategy guide that the reason Innocent Sin was the only game to have a gay relationship was in an attempt to try and appeal to fans of yaoi as that was a popular at the time. They wanted to gauge the reaction to it to see if it was worth continuing to include to appeal to these fans. Considering there hasn’t been a gay option since I think the outcome of that is self-evident. However, judging by how much emphasis I have seen people put on the relationship in more recent years (after PSP release in the US) and how much people have hung on to it even though it’s such a small detail I actually can see how they would think throwing in such a small insignificant thing like that would draw in a new demographic to the game. You can actually see a little bit of this in Persona 4 as well (the close, intimate friendships between same sex characters that I have seen many people go crazy over as ships, etc.) though I’m not sure if any of that was intentional or just fan interpretation. Regardless, the outcome was the same even if they were smaller details compared to the over all plot of the game. As for the demon responses, I half agree with you there. As someone who reads quite a bit of BL manga homophobia is often present (especially in older ones) usually to create isolating atmosphere (ie. secret lovers, people risking it all to be together, etc.) or just as a joke because yaoi isn’t geared towards gay men so it’s not like they are offending the target audience by doing this. Which one of these did persona intend? Maybe a bit of both. I do like your outlook on it thought, even if that wasn’t the main intention, and will try to incorporate that into my next play through of the game (not that I ever really had an issue with it to begin with but it’s just an interesting way to look at it).Also I feel the reason Jun wasn’t made more effeminate than he was was a.) He fits the “uke” role pretty well which does a much better job in appealing to women than an over the top campy stereotype would and most importantly b.) he is a very serious character involved in a very serious situation (which I will not get into for spoiler reasons) and that would severely detract from general atmosphere and the severity of the situations surrounding him. I don’t think either would have necessarily been horrible since gay stereotypes are a common thing and that was nothing compared to the two rape-y dudes from persona 5 but at the same time, given the type of character Jun is and who he is meant to appeal to it makes sense that they made him so feminine. As for the reactions of their friends at Tatsuya’s declaration, that’s never been a part I’ve seen any issue with. I mean, after all they are all friends and remain so for the entirely of the game so it wouldn’t make a ton of sense for them to have an adverse reaction. Lisa does give an awkward response to this compared to her response to choosing Maya and I do think it’s implied she thinks it’s a bit weird but it willing to brush it off for the sake of Tatsuya’s happiness. Do I think this is a bad thing? Of course not. I actually think that’s very realistic handling of the situation compared to outright supporting it or opposing it without question.

To wrap this up I don’t think the game is homophobic nor do I think any Persona, mainline SMT game, or any other Atlus game is homophobic and it was never my intention to imply that. However, my issue is with people praising the game as being “gay positive” and the other games as “homophobic” when I feel this game and other games are on the same level and it was never the intention of any of the games to portray a pro-gay message or appeal to gay fans. I don’t think what they have done is a terrible thing, but I don’t think it’s worthy of all the praise it’s been getting or that it warrants being called progressive. While I do like and agree with many of your view points on the matter, I do think we will have to agree to disagree over all. Thank you very much for sharing your opinion, btw! -Mod Eikichi

8 notes · View notes

homosexualtakashishirogane · 6 years

Text

Open Letter To VLD, Netflix, Dreamworks, and anyone who will listen

I’m going to swallow my anger as I write this, but I’m not going to lie and say that I am not hurting.

Here’s the thing: this isn’t about something being unfavorable. It’s not that I dislike your idea because I wanted something happy, and I didn’t get it. I’m not climbing to the top of a mountain to scream PROBLEMATIC because my ship isn’t canon.

This is real pain. This is real outrage. This is real. And I’m not going to let anyone invalidate my feelings, or my pain, or any of my emotions surrounding Adam and Shiro and Season 7, because what I feel is real.

And let me tell you why.

My parents aren’t particularly homophobic, I’m quite lucky. My mom is supportive and tries to understand me. My dad doesn’t really get it, but he loves me and does his best to be supportive. My brother is fantastic. And I’m so lucky.

But I didn’t come out until college. I grew up living in fear. Wallowing in self-hate. Spending my days convincing myself I was straight--that all I had to do was act like I was cis, and date enough boys, and one day, it would be true.

You see, the town I grew up in is extremely conservative. Being 11 years old and not knowing how to put words to the emotions you are feeling, but looking around your own town to see endless signs that say yes on 8! is a kind of pain you can only really know if you lived it. Finding out about the supreme court decision to legalize gay marriage across America because your boss tells you “The legalization of gay marriage is the criminalization of Christianity” is a rage that can never be fully put into words. Growing up full of hate, doubt, fear, anger, sadness, rage, and never, ever being given the words to explain why... It’s unlike anything I could ever describe.

I grew up in a community where it was impossible to mourn. Day of silence was filled with teachers forcing participants to speak, or threatening detention. Being part of the GSA meant having to prepare yourself for being harassed on the way out.

And you know what?

I had it easy.

Compared to what so many LGBTQ* youth go through, I had it so easy.

So why does the Bury Your Gays trope hurt so much? Why does confirming a character’s sexuality and previous romantic relationship to a yet-to-be-introduced character, only to kill that character off in the end, matter?

We’ve already felt this pain.

I feel that pain every single day. I shed those tears at Pulse. I shed those tears when a 12-year-old boy in the next middle school over committed suicide because his parents wouldn’t accept his sexuality. I screamed in pain over every fallen child, every murdered community member, every act of violent hatred carried out against my community.

The last thing this community needs, is another name to add to the list of casualties.

You want to help LGBTQ* children who watch your show? Give them hope. Give them something they can hold on to. Give them an explicitly LGBTQ* character who isn’t tortured every single moment. Give them a healthy romance. Give them a gay couple who isn’t fighting, and isn’t dying, and isn’t in constant pain.

When I was growing up, I had nothing to hold on to other than scraps. I had headcanons of trans boys. Gay coded villains. Lesbian coded friendships that never went anywhere. A TV show with an explicitly lesbian character that didn’t even air in my country.

The dead body of a gay character who was barely given three minutes of screen time isn’t representation. Don’t capitalize off of our pain. Don’t try to be “edgy” and “gritty” and “intense” by using us as kindling for your fire. Kill off characters, fine.

But to kill them off in that way. After leading us on. After giving us hope. After luring us in with a false sense of security.

That is the cause of our pain. You wanted to make a statement, and guess what? You did. And I hope I am write in assuming that it wasn’t the one you wanted to make.

So please, please take responsibility. Please acknowledge that you’ve caused us so much pain. Please recognize that you’ve dug up years of trauma. Please think about the damage you could have done to the gay children watching your show who were so excited to learn about Shiro.

And above all: I’m begging you, don’t brush us off. Not again. Not this time. Not now.

This community is already hurting. And it’s not our fault. So don’t make it our fault.

#phew #I needed that

1 note · View note

bluethepaladin · 7 years

Note

What do you have against Bex? (Can u also provide evidence thanks 💜)

When I first got this ask, I was tempted to play it off as a joke and say “the fact she exists,” and leave it at that. But I feel like it’s important to stay informed. And if you genuinely don’t know, I’ll give you the complete rundown. It’s long, it’s messy, and it’s nasty, so bear with me.

First, and introduction. When I talk about Bex, I’m referring to the actress Bex Taylor-Klaus, who is the voice actor (or VA) of the character Pidge in the show Voltron Legendary Defender on Netflix.

It all began a while ago when Bex liked a comment of a picture. The picture involved a ship called Shei//th. I censored the name so it doesn’t show up in the tags of that on tumblr. But essentially it’s a ship between two characters, Takashi Shirogane, a 25 year old pilot who is the leader of the team, and Keith Kogane, one of the other “paladins” or fighters on the team. People like me find this ship to be distasteful, since Shiro is an adult, and the others are teens (it’s actually a bit messier than that, since an official Voltron source listed Keith as 18, but the producers of the show, Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Santos, said they were not consulted on the book so there’s some question as to whether it’s canon or not). Either way, the consensus by most reasonable people is that it’s probably not a healthy thing to depict in children’s media, when you consider the considerable age difference, the power imbalance (leader, senior officer with someone they are in charge of), and finally, the iconic line by the character of Keith himself when he defines their relationship as a familial one.

Nonetheless, the ship persists, as nasty things on tumblr are wont to do. There’s a lot of shipping discourse on tumblr between two distinct groups which can be labelled as “antis”–people who are not in favor of any Shiro/paladin ships, or what has become to be known as “shaladins”–people who ship any variation of Shiro with the paladins.

Here is where Bex got involved. On Instagram there was a picture of a black shoe and a red shoe together and the joke was about the shoes being a prophecy that Shei//th would be canon. A joke, mostly, considering all the evidence above. But here’s where Bex got herself in trouble. She liked a comment on the picture where someone said “Keith is a power bottom confirmed.”

Obviously, this caused a bit of an uproar within the fanbase, especially between the discourse between antis and shaladins. Shaladins were celebrating that an Official Voltron Source liked their ship, and antis were angry about that acknowledgement of the ship at all by official sources, and the sexualization of a kid’s show (more on this later.)

So of course this sparked the discourse on tumblr. One user, @lancehunks, who was receiving asks about Bex, tagged her in the replies.They were definitely unfavorable.

and

and a few more.

Bex, being the big strong, adult, woman she is, decided that she could not take this obviously grievous insult to her name [sarcasm], and decided to reblog them all and respond to them. Keep in mind, that @lancehunks was just 13 years old. And Bex (22) decided that these were appropriate responses:

Yep, you read that right. Not only an adult but employed on a kid’s show! To a 13 year old! The target audience of the very show she’s a part of! (Oh, the hypocrisy). But wait, there’s more:

Just in case you’re confused, let me tell you the many, many reasons why this is unacceptable.

Bex is an adult. You’d think she’d be a little more mature by now just in general. It’s the internet and there are trolls.

The person she was addressing was 13!!!! Do I think it was mature to tag Bex in all those posts? No. But it’s… behavior that you can expect from 13 year old’s on the internet. If we swore at and tore down every single one of them every time they did something dumb, we would need a lot more therapists for teens in the world. Plus it’s really disingenuous to pretend that we wouldn’t have done something similar when we were younger if we were in that position.

Bex is famous. While she’s certainly not on the caliber of massive A-List stars like Tom Holland or Zendaya, she has a fanbase that exceeds the normal person’s friend group. Just because she’s been on TV before, she has groupies that will support her no matter what, who will troll for her, who uncritically and unconditionally worship her. I’m not a Bex fan, nor do I really care to know her well enough to know just exactly how many fans she has, to be certain she does have them. When she publicly reblogged those words, that “motherfucker,” those fighting words, she weaponized her fanbase. What I mean when I say that is her behavior gave her groupies permission to behave the same way. By targeting someone who didn’t like her (a thirteen year old!!!!!), she opened the gates to her fans and groupies doing the same thing, to a kid.

This lead to some terrible things happening. The 13 year old was getting death threats, sexual violence threats, and nsfw content, all because Bex just couldn’t let it go.

What does this mean? Finish it? Finish the kid? If you’re so sick of the fighting, then why did you even respond in the first place? Bex is the one who escalated the situation. Bex is the one who caused the fighting in the first place (by that I mean the fighting between the two that night, the fighting between antis and shaladins has been going on for as long as the show).

There we go. Now he have something resembling dignity. But unfortunately the damage was done, and user @lancehunks deleted their blog. As a direct response to Bex’s actions. Bex caused a 13 year old to leave tumblr.

When hearing this news, Bex offered a half-assed apology:

This is the most insincere apology I have ever seen. “The internet has Bad things on it and it’s YOUR fault for seeing them” is not an apology. The best part is that she’s a big fat hypocrite. “Sometimes, when it’s harmless, the best thing I can do is shake my head and keep scrolling.” So why didn’t you Bex? Why didn’t you keep scrolling instead of targeting a 13 year old?

In light of recent political events, though there’s one thing that stands out to me:

Sound like anybody you know? The esteemed President, perhaps?

*disclaimer* I am in no way claiming that Bex is a Trump supporter. I don’t know enough about her–and I don’t want to know enough about her–to know where she leans politically. I’m just drawing the attention to the similarities in moral equivalency going on, here.*

Sure you targeted a 13 year old and weaponized your fanbase, but someone tagging you in a snarky post is just as bad, right? (Wrong.)

You’d think that would be the end. You’d think that Bex would be capable of living and learning, or maybe even just taking her own advice, and keep scrolling. But here we go again.

The next bit of drama started when the possibly canon guide book was released, stating Keith’s age as 18. There was a big celebration on the shaladin side because technically, that would make it “legal” for Keith and Shiro to have sex. Besides the fact that legal ≠ moral, again, Voltron is a kid’s show. But on tumblr this time, Bex posted this.

This time, the discourse surrounding Bex was a little different., This time, the discourse mostly focused on the fact that even if Shiro and Keith disregarded canon and morals and the fact that it’s a kid’s show ever did get in a relationship, the only thing that matters is how they like to have sex.

This is a problem for a lot of reasons. There’s a culture, pretty prominent on tumblr of women, mostly white, who are obsessed with gay sex. They write fanfiction and p*rn solely for their own personal gratification. This, of course, is a gross misinterpretation to wanting LGBT+ representation. If you aren’t a mlm (an acronym for men-loving-man, that includes many sexualities) then writing p*rn about is sexualizing them, using them as a tool to get yourself off, and not like complex human people. Mlm are more than how they like to have sex. In fact, that shouldn’t be a part of a discussion for anybody except between willing partners. This also feeds into the popular and damaging stereotype that gay men are predatory by nature.

So, as a whole, not good.

And again, we have a whole situation escalated by Bex. The worst part is, to people who tried to explain this to her, the only response they were given was a gif:

So once again, a minor dared to express their distaste for Bex on tumblr. But this time, they didn’t tag her. This time, they censored her name. But Bex found it anyway. And she decided to do the exact same thing that led to a minor leaving the website, and to stop watching the show.

Have no fear, this time though. This time, Bex is going after a 14 year old, at least she’s not going after kids anymore, right? [sarcasm]

Some final notes.

Bex claims to be an LGBT+ rights activist. I’m also pretty sure she’s a lesbian herself (again, I already know too much about her, I’m not looking to get to know her better.) So, you’d think, as someone who wants equality for LGBT+ people and communities, she’d have the wherewithal to listen to specific subsets of that group when they say something about themselves, like, for example, young mlm who don’t appreciate being sexualized by a white woman. So I couldn’t help but laugh out loud when I saw this on her blog:

Now, I happen to agree with the above statement, but it’s so ironic, so hypocritical that Bex is talking about the sexualization of anything. Because kid’s shows aren’t safe from her sexualization and mlm certainly aren’t. How can one person be so incredibly oblivious? A mystery that I don’t have any interest in solving.

I also want to address something a little more devious and a little more dark. I personally know of at least 12 different people who sent Bex asks, politely explaining some of the things I’ve talked about here, or relaying how her words hurt them personally. Bex never answered any of them. But she did answer this:

Just to be perfectly clear, I do not condone or encourage hatemail. Do not send people anything wishing them death or harm in any way. I have never sent nor do plan on sending hatemail, and you should be ashamed of yourself if you do.

However, this is incredibly nefarious. Bex doesn’t answer any of the many asks she got that were polite, but proved her wrong. She didn’t answer any of the young mlm who gave her their personal stories and who weren’t anonymous. Instead, she publishes this. And she did this on purpose, to make her look innocent, to make her look like she’s the one being attacked. I get hatemail every single day too. Things along similar lines to this. I block the user. Delete them, One, because I don’t want to expose my followers to that kind of negativity on a daily basis, two, a mature person knows that deleting them is the best kind of revenge because the user will be constantly looking for a response and they will know they had no effect on me and three, because if you do that, eventually they stop. This is intentional on Bex’s part to make the people who don’t like her look bad. I don’t like Bex at all, and I certainly do not support that message. Any reasonable person wouldn’t. Also the fact that it’s an anonymous message adds a certain air of doubt as to who sent it.

The point is, Bex is purposely ignoring polite and well-meaning people and posted this to “prove” she’s the one on the “good” side because no good person would send that message.

This is also worth noting:

This was posted after the lancehunks debate but before the power bottom comment she made. In this post, Bex admits that a relationship between Shiro and any of the paladins is predatory in nature. She said that. Her words. And then after that she said that Keith was a power bottom.

The last thing I want to say, is that Voltron is a kid’s show. It’s rated US-TV-Y7. Which means for years 7 and older. Regardless of the ship, there should be no sexual content, be it fanart, of fanfiction of Voltron characters at all. We are all collectively responsible for keeping content age-appropriate for the target audience. So, stop it. All and any ships.

For minors, this is my advice to you:Bex is a predator, a hypocrite, and a liar. Do not engage with her. Block her. Do not tag her in any of your posts. She has a history of targeting minors. Protect yourself. Do not engage.

#Unlike Bex I take my own advice and I have blocked her so she can't target me #but you never know with these ones #she can find a way #bex taylor klaus #anti bex #anti bex taylor klaus #voltron legendary defender #long post #anti shaladin #bexcourse

3K notes · View notes

nina-and-klance-blog · 7 years

Text

It is your story and we need to respect that.

This is for all those creators, animators, voice actors and everyone involved with the making of a story that is a show, a book, a comic book, a manga and/or a movie (to name a few)...

Recently, someone took pictures while on a tour in Studio Mir. those pictures belong to DreamWorks and the Voltron Legendary Defender creators. After the poor person, posted them, they went viral within the VLD Community. Soon,they were being contacted by Studio Mir to take those pictures down, due to legal reasons involving DreamWorks.

And this person did their best. Never in my lifetime have i seen so many people coming together to delete all those pictures from tumblr, twitter instagram etc….

And we got victory.

But of course the victory was short lived.

It started with one person. A person who, claimed they loved the romantic ship of Keith and Lance from Voltron Legendary Defender, and kept on posting those pictures all the while saying to Studio Mir, ‘I won't take them down unless you confirm Klance Canon’.

(i.e the ‘ship’ name of Keith and Lance.)

People started to say so many things about this person as in:

“They hate Klance and are making us shippers look bad!”

or: “They aren't even in the Voltron fandom, they are just here being a troll (aka, nuisance)!”

To be honest, it doesn't matter who they ship, why they did this or if they even are in the fandom. What matters here most is 1) all the people who have planned out the story of VLD and who are now, getting either, discouraged by how these so called ‘fans’ are acting or are rolling their eyes at us. And 2) The consequences Studio Mir can face due to this once small accident.

And with this one idea from that person ‘blackmailing’ Studio Mir, came copycats. Around thirty other people or so are doing the same. ‘Blackmailing’. All claiming they just want LGBTQ representation in a very successful show like VLD but not knowing they are jeopardizing the chances of ever getting that in this and possibly many other shows.

Now, onto the show itself.

I fell for Voltron Legendary Defenders because of how it just isn't a kids show to me. Its very well made, humorous to all ages and all in all one of the best reboots i have seen in awhile (my 32 year old Brother agrees to this too.)

But, again, as someone who too, ships Klance i have never felt more ashamed?

A lot of people who ship LGBTQ relationships in shows and books that aren't canon are seen as ‘Fetishizing’ these characters.

The romantic relationship of two men or two women or all of the above, should never be considered a fetish. Because it is now the real world. Romance is real and for people to fetishize that, is sick and saddening.

I personally, love the dynamic of Klance. But, i also love and adore the dynamic of Klance not being romantic. Them becoming best friends is more than any person in this fandom could ask for.

To even enter into a romantic relationship, people NEED to become the best of friends first. It's common sense.

Now, i know the panel for VLD is coming up (?), and whether or not they address this isn't our business but, what is and will always be our business is how we react.

Our actions speak louder than words.

If Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Santos, walk onto that stage and say, “Keith and Lance will never enter into a romantic relationship.” it is OUR jobs to know that this wasn't because of some person on the internet that this was probably true from the start.

But, if they say, “Any and all romantic relations that will take place in this show in the future have been decided on our own and without the pressure of you lovely people of the fandom. We make things canon on our own terms and love the continuation of support from the fandom.”

Still if Klance becomes canon, that does not mean you go and praise the people who tried to ‘blackmail’ these people. If Keith and Allura get together you don't go bashing and hating on those people who tried to ‘blackmail’ the creators. You sit and watch the show and learn to love it not for its ships, characters, design but for it as a whole.

I am sure that whatever happens the VLD team will see that, hey, we (as in the fandom) all are very happy with how they are going with the show. They recognize they can't simply say “Yes gay will happen” but they also know that if they happened to plan out romance before this whole ‘blackmail’ thing happened that they have the right to.

All in all, for those people who ship all the romance between characters, or even just LOVE the show as a whole (all fans should at least) it's our job to: 1: STAY POSITIVE 2: To remember, ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS And 3: To love the show for what it is.

Sincerely, Nina June.

747 notes · View notes

likeabxrdinflight · 5 years

Text

some people still describe modern queer representation as being mere peanuts and not enough, and while there may be some validity to that...

20 years ago, there was nothing. Ellen was out and Will and Grace existed but that...was kind of it. I’ll just go off the fandoms I interact with, but you’ve got your canon Korrasami + gay Aunt Kya, (ATLA/LOK), Ruby/Sapphire and Pearl/Rose (SU), Dumbledore/Grindelwald (still a work in progress I know but just let the story unfold), Aunt Josephine and Cole (Anne with an E), Thomas Barrow (Downton Abbey), Robert and Sol (Grace and Frankie), Mulan and Alice/Robin (OUAT), arguably the entire cast of she-ra (some people say this is queerbaiting/not explicit enough but I hate to break it to y’all but the slow burn romance doesn’t resolve itself in only one season...you’re gonna have to wait a bit longer.)

and that’s just a small sample, all exploding onto the scene in the 2010s. I don’t think people realize exactly how new this all still is. And there’s such a demand for queer rep that I think people want everything confirmed instantly and are forgetting about some of the conventions of storytelling. There’s still a long way to go with queer rep- star wars really needs to get on it (in the MOVIES the extra material is nice but it’s not mainstream. and interviews saying lando is pan also do not count). Comic movies could really improve as well, though I hear Harley and Ivy are now canon so that’s good? And disney has very little excuse remaining as well- we’re due a gay prince or princess movie in the next 20 years or so. (since it took them until 2009 to do a black princess...)

My point being, yes, there’s a long way to go still. and it really is fine to say “hey this is great but we can do better, we can do more.” but it’s still important to acknowledge that we have come immeasurably far since I was a child in the 90s. I grew up with nothing. Kids as little as six years younger than me had so much more representation than I ever did. that’s incredible, and I think it’s been taken for granted.

You have no idea how much I would have needed even the “breadcrumbs” of a ship like Korrasami or the “problematic” rep in steven universe. I’ll never stop being amazed at how far things have come even in the last ten years alone, and I really don’t think anyone should. If you’d asked me ten years ago, when I was in high school, if I thought we’d see legal gay marriage in 2015 or two women explicitly marrying each other in a kids cartoon in 2018, I’d have said you were crazy, there’s no chance.

And what’s truly incredible is that it’s very likely that my generation, the 90s kids, may have been the last to (by and large) grow up with little to no exposure to queerness in their media. 2000s kids (the earliest of gen z), by and large had shows like Glee, which may not have been perfect but it DID have representation. And it cannot be stated enough how incredible that is for kids growing up now. It is so taken for granted that kids are understanding what being gay means at younger and younger ages. I think it’s amazing that 10-12 year olds know what being gay is and have a way to conceptualize feelings that might otherwise have been confusing and deeply distressing. I think it’s amazing how many young teenagers are not only able to be out to themselves, but can be OUT to others too. There was a very specific type of distress that went along with being queer that I truly think is decreasing- and it came from not having the langauge or the ability to conceptualize what you were feeling, it came from feeling utterly and completely alone in the world. It came from feeling broken and defective because there it seemed there was no one else like you. It came from hiding, and everyone else hiding just as much as you were. It came from having no exposure to queerness at all.

So the representation we’re seeing nowadays aren’t breadcrumbs to me. Non-textual reveals of a character’s sexuality have become unpalatable, that I will grant you- but anything in the canon text? I don’t take that for granted, I never have, and neither should you.

#I get emotional about this stuff #because I remember being 12...and there was nothing #absolutely nothing #I fumbled around in the dark for years #and even just one show...one little show that I was watching #if it had had even the tiniest breadcrumb #...maybe nothing would have changed #but maybe a lot would have #I'll never know

0 notes

nobody-but-mebody · 7 years

Note

Understand that no one is claiming that you can't feel the way you want, because chances are, that no one that old wants you anyway. The fact that you think people are claiming that you should look at people that way, and that if you don't feel comfortable then you shouldn just shrug and be okay with it just goes to show how naive and immature you actually are, when no one is saying that, and no one is shipping sheith with you or anyone else in mind

The grammar is actually so weird in this that i have basically no idea what you’re trying to say but i’ll do my best.

A good amount of this will be uncomfortable or unpleasant to read if you ship sheith, please read it anyway. In the end I hope you’ll understand that I’m not demonizing you as a person, and I just want you to understand the impact that producing sheith content can have on the real world without precautions.

I can feel the way I want..because no one over the age of 20 wants to date an 18 year old?

First of all, i see no correlation between these two statements. Second, either you’re assuming i’m WAY younger than I am, (again, 18) or you’re completely forgetting theres an entire porn industry (in both straight and gay) devoted to (usually older) men fucking eighteen year olds. In fact, it comes in different flavors, here’s for example what comes up when you google something like “just turned 18″ and click the first link

I’ll add emphasis.

This one porn site has 994 videos JUST about sex with an 18 year old who’s only been 18 for, at most, a month or so. AKA the youngest person you legally can fuck or view being fucked. Not to mention btw, this is just in the heterosexual porn section. To drive the point home, here’s another search result number from another porn site.

211,962 results. 211,962 videos specifically catering to the desire to have sex with the youngest teenagers you can legally get at. “No one that old wants [me]” huh??? There are people out there who are predatory towards people my age. There are people who will use praise like “your so mature for your age” and the like to coax young people into relationships where they’ll be controlled. There’s a power imbalance. We live in a society, partially due to culture and partially due to nature, where teenagers are constantly told they’re not adults, they dont know as much as adults, they’re not as smart as adults, they’re not as powerful as adults, so when an adult praises them as an equal the teenager will respond more than if an adult praised another adult. Because of this, while the adult may treat the teenager as an equal, the teenager is usually incapable of treating the adult as an equal. Hence, these relationships are inherently imbalanced, and an imbalanced romantic/sexual relationship is an unhealthy one. There are adults who use this imbalance to control teenagers. Its a predatory form of abuse.

Keith clearly admires and, dare i say, even idolizes Shiro. Even if we presume that Shiro favors Keith among the paladins and views him as an adult and his equal, Keith is incapable of doing the same. He reveres Shiro, but Shiro doesn’t revere Keith. Because of this Shiro wields immensely more power than Keith in their relationship. Shiro could suggest something, and Keith could feel uncomfortable with it but agree anyway because of that sort of idolization. It isn’t healthy, and even though Shiro is a good person, he would end up hurting Keith eventually due to this imbalance. To Shiro, Keith is a favorite. To Keith, Shiro is everything, the only family he has left. If that doesn’t communicate the power imbalance here I dont know how else to say it. I am uncomfortable with adults shipping Sheith, because even if you whole heartedly believe fiction exists in a vacuum, if a predator sees support of a relationship where one party is around 25 and the other is in his late teens, and confirmed not to be an adult by the shows creators regardless of what promotional materials (designed to be catchy and flow well, “five teenagers” sounds better than “four teenagers and an adult”) that predator has had their behavior in a small extent normalized. If a victim of this abuse and predation sees a similar situation portrayed as romantic and healthy, it might reinforce their incorrect world belief that their relationship is romantic and healthy too.

I am uncomfortable with adults shipping Sheith because adults should know better.

I am uncomfortable with adults shipping Sheith because whether that adult knows it or not, they are giving passive approval of these relationships in the real world.The only time fiction exists in a vacuum and does not affect the real world is when it is clearly stated with every instance of that fiction not to apply to the real world. If you produce Sheith content and apply a warning to it saying something such as…

“This is a work of fiction. As a work of fiction it is not meant to reflect the real world, and is an idealized and impossible version of a relationship. Relationships like this are, in real life, always unhealthy. It is intended for consumption, again, in a purely fictional setting.”

I will not have a problem with your content, as it has been fully removed and severed from reality. It may seem obvious that the work is fictitious and people should not take it as a real world example of something good, but the truth is that the human mind is shaped by media as much as by upbringing and other sources. Perhaps even more so.

For a real world example, when i was a young child who watched a lot of TV, I wondered why my mother didn’t cook and clean. The answer is that my mom always has hated cooking, and she suffers from migraines that make her doing housework difficult, not to mention how for as long as i can remember she’s always been working. However, my perception of reality was shaped by the cartoons i watched and media I consumed. The message repeated over and over again was that Mothers cook and clean.

That might seem an irrelevant example, as I was a small child at the time and thus impressionable, but the thing is that teenagers are still incredibly impressionable. There’s a reason most terrorists and suicide bombers are young men between the ages of 18 and 20. Theres a reason why young people are some of the most passionate and quickest to take up new world views. There’s a reason that so many kids on tumblr so ferociously buy into “problematic” and “call out” culture. People my age, older than me by a few years, and younger than me by a few years, are incredibly easy to coax into a belief or world view and once that world view is established it can be strengthened and set with media.

Not to mention that once these beliefs are set, they’re difficult to dispel. Confirmation bias is a phenomenon where people will discard conflicting facts and accept only that which enforces their own beliefs. If relationships like sheith, however innocent the original intent, continue to exist without obvious warnings that this is UNHEALTHY in the real world, it has the power to damage real people and real lives by playing into confirmation bias.

If I were in love with an older person, and there were sources that said that it was unhealthy, and sources that merely implied it was fine, i’d definitely seek out more of the later because it feels good to have your beliefs reinforced. So even if its unpleasant, or clunky, or downright annoying, people who produce content unhealthy in the real world but fine in fictional settings (such as dub-con, unsafe sex, or the relationships we’ve been discussing) have a duty to point out that these aren’t cool in a real world setting to prevent real world damage.

Even if you’re not shipping sheith with anyone in mind, and you’re producing content or spreading content of it with no one in mind, there are people consuming that content with themselves in mind.

Dont let your content normalize and romanticize abuse. Sever it from reality.

#anti sheith #anti shaladin #TBH #antisheith

158 notes · View notes