heaven, troye sivan // rat a tat, fall out boy // heaven's gate, fall out boy

IDs: A black and white graphic of four open mouths with the words “It’s not blasphemy God wronged me first.” The second image is the same graphic inverted. ED.

literally this close to just filtering queerbait with the absolute state of the good omens tag rn

LOL had a reddit comment reported for harassment and subsequently taken down. the comment was my being against a specific popular piece of ableist bullshit and nonsense mental-disorder-roleplay that's been infiltrating every corner of the internet, and now every queer space (because mental disorders are inherently queer now, apparently. that's not homophobic at all. /s) literally didn't respond to any nasty responses either, just mass blocked everyone supporting the bullshit. I guess that tracks for the new reddit policies though, so I'm fuckin out

Why does the black girl always have to be more masculine Why does the black girl always have to be more masculine Why does the black girl always have to be more masculine Why does the black girl always have to be more masculine Why does the black girl always have to be more masculine Why does the black girl always have to be more masculine Why does the black girl always have to be more masculine Why does the black girl always have to be more masculine Why does the black girl always have to be more masculine Why does the black girl always have to be more masculine

Why does the black girl always have to be more masculine?

Do you think G(a)linda and Elphaba ever explored each others bodies?

every day im so thankful i fell off lu so fast

If you've ever wondering what it's like being a Quaker but specifically being a Quaker in my brain I have a moment about 2-3 times a day minimum where ill be doing something random and probably fun or quiet (or not, maybe it's really loud) and my thoughts and such will stop dead in their tracks and I will take a hard 180° and start to think about how there's this light inside every human that makes them inherently interesting and beautiful and equal and good, or how silence comes from all around us and the joy of just sitting in the sunlight of creation, or how people are some of the most beautiful things to ever exist and how grateful I am to get to experience us, or the importance and wonder of the natural world and all of creation and the necessity of fighting to protect it, or how queer people are holy and sacred in our own little ways or the injustices of the world and how oppressively horrible they are but also that that's why hope and fighting and seeing a better world is so important.

And on and on and on. And then I'll go back to like making brownies or doing maths homework or something.

The Gods are not trans allies.

The Gods are not trans-friendly.

The Gods do not ‘support’ queer people.

The Gods ARE trans. The Gods ARE queer.

The Gods are transgender, They are transsexual. ‘Trans’ means ‘beyond, across’.

The Gods are beyond gender. Beyond sex. Beyond flesh. Beyond normality and norms— thus, They are queer. They are trans. They are on the other side of gender, of sex— on the side we cannot even begin to understand.

The Gods are transsexual and transgender and queer not (only) within our human understanding of transness— They are not trans in the way we humans are trans.

But They are still trans. They are the original transness. The ultimate transsexuality.

Transness as a transition from a state to another state, from a form to another form— from Their divine form to one we humans can behold without being consumed by Their inherent queerness. From Their divinity to words we humans can attempt to understand and think of without being utterly lost in the enormity and infinity of the divine.

Transness as a journey, a constant state of evolution within the world— evolution of the world itself, for the Gods are the world, are beyond time, beyond space, yet constantly changing.

The Gods do not love trans worshippers despite their transness, despite their queerness. The Gods love trans worshippers for their transness. They love us because we are trans. Because we are queer.

As we defy norms, we become closer to Them— trans people are humans, mortals, but I firmly believe that there is something inherently holy in transition. To change yourself, to think the limits of the body and to alter your own flesh is to create, is to destroy. To understand how limitless the world is— how flesh and sex and gender are human things, social things, that are made by us and can be expended and transgressed— is to take a step towards the Gods.

The Gods love you. You are made in Their image. Or maybe— you make yourself in Their image. And that is beautiful.

(reminder that this is my vision of divinity, not a definite fact, even if i think there are a lot of things (in multiple cultures/religions) that point to the divine being beyond gender)

good omens is an allegory for queer deconstruction from an abusive fundamentalist religious environment.

i've talked about it on here ad nauseum, probably, but i haven't fleshed my thoughts out on it fully. this has been my interpretation since season 1, and season 2 just solidified it for me. so here goes.

it's about the choice that all queer people in an environment like this have to make, and both choices suck and end with loss.

choice 1: stay with your church community, your friends, your family, the world you've always known, but never be true to yourself. because they will never fully accept you if you are true to yourself.

choice 2: embrace your queerness, live your authentic life, and leave it all behind. you're torn from everything you've ever known, everyone you've ever loved. but it's what you have to do to be happy. aziraphale is stuck between choices. crowley never had a choice. his was made for him.

heaven are the church elders. the protectors. the ones who say they have your and god's best interest in mind, always. they don't. to them, hell are the blasphemers, who are both unworthy of redemption yet can only be saved by it. they are the arbiters of what is good and right and bad and wrong.

aziraphale's story is one of both learned faith and earned faith. learned, in that he's been indoctrinated his whole life. been to church at least twice a week since birth. earned, in that he's seen the good that the church can do–they feed the hungry, shelter the unhoused. how could people who do such good be capable of cruelty? and surely, when they are cruel, there must be some greater good to come out of it?

crowley was faithful once, too. he loved god. loved church. but he knew he was queer from a young age, and asked questions about it. not because he wanted to make trouble, but because he wanted to understand. to understand why something he knew about himself to be so innately true could be wrong. but the church didn't see it as that–they saw the embodiment of sin, questioning them. their authority, their virtuosity, the fibre of what holds their organization together, and he was cast out. was kicked out of his home, alienated from his family, his friends, his community. he fell. and he now sees the church for what it truly is.

as for aziraphale, he's accepted the fact that he's queer, but had faith that his elders had his best interest at heart when they spewed homophobic ideology. he never believed the ideology, not really, but he had to believe (made himself believe) that the people who spread it meant well. that they meant it out of kindness, out of protecting queer people from damnation. he wanted to believe that not everyone in the church was like this, that not everyone in the church thought all queer people are inherently people of sin. that is, until a mentor, someone he trusts, perpetuates it too. he's had moments in his past that chipped away at his faith: he'd stayed friends, or whatever you want to call it, with crowley, and crowley had tempted him into trying new things that the church wouldn't approve of. things that aziraphale loved. but this moment with his mentor is when his faith is truly shaken. it's the beginning of his active deconstruction.

and so he leaves. he leaves and finds crowley and they build a semblance of a life together with what they have. they're happy. he's learning that he doesn't need to go to church to be holy. that he doesn't need to be holy to be happy. that he's allowed to indulge in the things he loves without guilt and shame.

that is, until that mentor shows up at his doorstep, offering him everything he's ever wanted. insinuates that he knows him and crowley aren't just friends, and assures him that they can come back to church together. that they're going to change things in the church, and that aziraphale can help. that they need aziraphale to help. (they don't. they want a pious gayboy to help repair their image. it's performative activism at its finest). aziraphale is being offered his family, his community, everything back, and crowley can come too. preying on his wants and desires, manipulating him back into their control. so of course he says yes. they'll get to be together with everything they've ever known and aziraphale doesn't have to make a choice between losses anymore. (deconstruction isn't linear, and abuse is cyclical.)

but crowley makes it for him. crowley tells him no. he doesn't want that life and doesn't want to go back to those people who hate him so much. who hate them so much. crowley knows what the church is about and sees it for what it is. they're not about god, or moral good or doing what's right. all they want is control. it's about the optics of the organization. it's about influencing what serves them and their agenda, and crowley knows that aziraphale is just a pawn to them. ("Why would we go back to them, when they think that who we are is wrong? Is vile? They think us the embodiment of sin and you want to go help them with their PR campaign?")

but aziraphale doesn't know that, can't know it, and crowley can't make him see it. (aziraphale knows that they cast crowley out, that he was kicked out of his home. crowley never shared with him about what happened after. the nights on the street, the things he'd endured to survive.)

and so crowley kisses him. he kisses him to tell him not that he loves him, because of course he does. he kisses him to tell him "This is what you leave behind. We would never be able to do this there, to be this there, even if they say we could. Our lives are here, our safety is here. this is what you're giving up."

crowley has been through it and experienced their cruelty firsthand. aziraphale won't be able to see it until he experiences it, too. he won't be able to realize he's being played if he doesn't even know that there's a game happening in the first place.

i can't recommend watching the show through this lens enough. it makes aziraphale's story that much more heartbreaking, because there's this intense duality of indoctrination vs. deconstruction that lives within him constantly. (imo it's also the main difference between book aziraphale and tv aziraphale: book aziraphale is significantly further along in his deconstruction journey. it's why he's a bit more of a bastard. tv aziraphale is set back a bit further, which sets up his deconstruction arc beautifully across three seasons.)

it's why aziraphale has the ability to peel back layers of himself and his train of thought depending on the situation at hand–he literally has two trains of thought happening at once. the indoctrinated one, and the deconstructed one.

and when crowley kisses him, it's the first time in his existence that both trains of thought have been that present simultaneously. it's both trains colliding full speed with each other. it's why we see both livid, hesitant frustration and fierce passion and longing at once. it forced him to confront something that lived so deeply within himself that he wanted to bring to light on his own terms, but crowley was desperate. the kiss wasn't i love you, please stay. it was look at what you're leaving behind. we could've been us, we could've been this.

and i think that whatever happens in season 3, whatever heaven does that makes them finally irredeemable in aziraphale's eyes, it'll be a beautiful ending to his deconstruction arc. not that deconstruction ever ends, not truly, but for the first time in his existence, he'll be able to see heaven, hell, and the system as a whole clearly for what they are: a bunch of self-righteous dicks.

[if you're curious about religious deconstruction and what it means, this video by therapist and social worker mickey atkins talking about deconstruction in reference to shiny happy people, a documentary about the duggar family, is a good place to start. cw for pretty much all types of abuse imaginable, fyi.]

in the past week or so ive seen a lot of people posting about how there's this oversexualization of trans girls on the site, and I gotta agree, there are way too many people (including other trans women!) who act like we're all dtf 24/7 or always super kinky and horny. I've been tired of that stereotype for ages and i am saying this as a rather sexual trans girl myself...

...but I think people are overcorrecting a bit now, and are starting to veer into "trans women shouldnt be talked about sexually / need to be shielded from it" territory. and, to me, that's really dangerous, because outside of some queer spaces - and even within them- the sexuality of trans girls is heavily scrutinized, as is attraction to us. as much as I dislike certain aspects of the memes and jokes that kickstarted the stereotypes, I'm kinda grateful for them as well. girldick jokes helped with my bottom dysphoria, voice kink shit helped me like my voice, and the whole "tgirl tummy tuesday" thing gave me a lot of confidence in my body where I hated it before. I think this open appreciation of trans sexiness has done a lot for both me and others on tumblr.

again, obviously its got its problems - people end up assuming every trans girl is horny, or only spread positivity if its related to sex with us, and of course the people who do have dysphoria from the things that are being sexualized are left out (like those the "girls without dicks are like angels without wings" memes, ugh, feels icky every time). and on the note of comparing tgirls to angels, we also started getting treated like we're ethereal fertility goddesses and that t4t sex was some inherently sacred ritual. spoiler alert, trans girls are normal-ass people and t4t sex can be holy for the participants but its generally a pretty normal thing to do as well

coming back to the "don't sexualize trans girls" posts now, I think they were initially going in the right direction, but at this point I'm starting to raise an eyebrow at more than a few of them. I'm not gonna whip out the "youre a sex hating puritan if you post about it" accusation because that is obviously wrong but again, I think people are definitely overcorrecting and starting to turn this into a (false) dichotomy when it's not. its a complex topic and each individual trans woman will feel differently about it.

(I feel like the internet just erases any nuance in favor of a two-sided, highly polarized flamewar with unrealistic views on both sides. actually i wouldn't even say this is a super-nuanced discussion because its really not that hard to say "fetishization is bad, but so is suppression of sexuality". will this post just end up being a void scream and people will continue drawing lines between one side and the other? probably. but I am a stubborn bitch and I have hope that we can be reasonable.)

anyways I'll close this off by saying that I wrote this between around 1:30 and 2 AM on terrible sleep the night before, that I hope what I said is coherent enough, and that I will keep being a trans girl who is openly sexual, gets horny over other trans women, and is proud to be transsexy as fuck. I will keep being critical of jokes and trends and memes that stereotype us, even from our own community. I will keep being angry at how poorly us trans folks are treated with regards to our sex lives, bodies, and relationships between the two. I will keep loving and lusting over trans women without fetishizing them. And I will keep doing all of these til the day I die.

im glad that people r clowning on that detrans person who went viral on twitter for blaming trans people/hrt for his baldness and normal male genes, but i really hope this can at least wake up some transmasculine people, ESPECIALLY white transmasculine people.

many BIPOC transmasc people already have standards of whiteness imposed onto us, but we do not cry wolf when our genetics cause the male secondary characteristics that they do. many of us are hairy, many of us have thick and coarse hair, some of us get extremely deep voices, etc and etc. BIPOC transmascs already have to deal with the masculinization of our bodies even before HRT because many of us cannot achieve white standards of womanhood. it is just also incredibly ignorant to shed tears over normal secondary sex characteristics that everyone on HRT are informed about. Just because you have male pattern baldness, an adams apple, and a low voice doesn’t mean you suddenly lose your worth as human being. white transmascs who successfully performed white femininity and desperately still cling onto it or try to be a hairless pretty twink after HRT,,,PLEASE understand that you cannot control the way HRT reacts to your body. You cannot complain about not looking like a beautiful twink because you cannot control how your genetics and HRT will masculinize your body. Like holy fuck. 

there is definitely a time and a space for detrans people to discuss their journeys. Many of them don’t regret HRT, many of them just simply realized they don’t need to be binary passing. But when we center detrans experiences as the reason why HRT needs to be stopped, why trans people are making “serious mistakes” to their bodies...yea I dont care how much you hate yourself. You do not need to make your insecurities everybody elses problem.

I genuinely hope this makes some white transmasc people realize that its okay to look like a normal dude. Some of us feel euphoric by the male pattern baldness. Some of us love our hairy arms and legs. Some of us love being men. Some of us love loving men. Some of us love having friendships with men. There is nothing wrong with being a man. The biological essentialism of vagina=good and penis=bad is not just a gender issue, it’s a race issue as well. These ideas are inherent to whiteness; when you say you distrust all men, when you say they all deserve to die...this means ALL men...Black men, queer men, transmen, Asian men, Latino men, Indigenous men, men who are disabled, men who are GNC, lesbians who are men, butches....

Having a caution toward men or male presenting people because of patriarchy, sexism, and misogyny? Fine. Hating them, vilifying them, viewing them as inherently predatory and evil? No. Thanks for making us feel like we’re all dangerous, that definitely does nothing to the male pysche, and thanks for conveying that anyone with a vagina is inherently good.

god. destroy white ideas of gender and sexuality already. you guys are just so damn annoying. we cannot get an ounce of solidarity because of you guys.

"Christianity can totally be pro queer" or "the Bible isn't actually homophobic if you just interpret this in this one secret way" is inherently a harmful take. Because it presumes that gay people have to be accepted by Christianity inorder to have rights.

The answer to whether or not or not the Bible supports queer rights should be that it doesn't matter. The idea that we need to be approved by the Bible to have rights is a presumption that's always going to make every right we have a negotiation with cishet people.

Also, I legitimately don't think there's an answer to whether the Bible supports queer rights or not because I'm not Christian and thus don't believe the Bible to have one true meaning. It's just an ancient book, written by humans, over hundreds of years, with no single author. It's like compiling everything written under the Warhammer license, adding in some fanfic for good measure, and arguing over its stance on social issues.

For me personally my polytheism means I especially don't care about what any holy book has to say about homosexuality. Even if it was written by a god I can choose to condemn that god for their beliefs just like I would a human. I accept that there are some gods who I shouldn't interact with just like there are some people I shouldn't interact with.

Remember that the correct response to someone justify their bigotry with religion, is not to start debating their religion, its to tell them their religion is irrelevant. Like, if you think supporting queer people will send you to hell then go to hell about it.

I just finished S1 of Heartstopper and dare I say it....dare I say it....

I'm gonna say it. This is the sweetest piece of queer media I've ever seen. I'm sure there's more out there, but by god I am floored. Alice Oseman, can I please give you a hug?

I've never seen a show weave so deftly between my expectations. I expected a cute love story, and I got it. But what I did not expect was for the story to be so...graceful.

I'll be honest, at first glance I had low expectations for this show. The growth of queer media since the release of Love, Simon (especially MLM media) is a fantastic thing, and I'm so happy it's happening, but part of becoming mainstream is that a lot of mediocrity will come to fill the gaps. Having no prior awareness that Heartstopper was a comic series (my bad), I'd shallowly judged it as such.

Holy fuck was I wrong oh my fucking god

This show is a gift. And what makes it amazing is, as I said, how gracefully executed it is.

This show writes itself. Two teens meet-cute and have a sweet forbidden love. We all know how that goes. We even know how the gay version of that goes. But Heartstopper? It said "we see you, and raise you this". It is two teens meet-cuting and having a sweet forbidden love. But the show takes one look at all the potential tropes inherent there, and says, "nah".

Case in point. Nick. Fucking. Nelson. You are a national treasure, and I will thank Alice Oseman eternally for bringing you to me, you sweet, sweet boy. Nick's story could have been very traditional, as far as gay stories go. Masc athlete discovers he likes guys and has a crisis. Cue the internalized disgust, angry outbursts, emotional victimization, and relationship toxicity, followed by a hasty resolution that "fixes" the relationship and offers only a mildly satisfying conclusion. But what Heartstopper did so, so beautifully, is make Nick Nelson kind.

It sounds so bare minimum when viewed that way, but that is the problem. Too often in queer stories, it is either A) about the suffering of being queer, or B) about the aftermath of the suffering. Neither is uplifting, optimistic, or even nice to see represented, all the time. We've all lived it. Seeing it told so callously on a screen isn't vindicating. It's rude. Nick Nelson flies in the face of that phenomenon, simply by being kind. He is a masculine athlete who finds out he likes guys and has a bit of a crisis. But he never lashes out at Charlie, never scoffs and says "I'm not gay!", never shouts Charlie down or shames him.

From moment ONE, Nick is completely self-aware. He knows his own confusion could do harm to Charlie, so he doesn't make it Charlie's responsibility. He's proactive. He talks to people. He gets honest with himself. Soul-searches. Opens up to his feelings. Why? Because he wants to be happy, and because he is committed to kindness.

Highlighting that turned Heartstopper from a predictable gay love story into something life-giving, and warm, and adorable, and so unapologetically queer. This was underscored by Elle's storylines. Seeing a black trans girl like myself fit so perfectly into the main cast of characters and be treated with the utmost respect the entire time added years to my lifespan. Seeing an interracial lesbian couple navigate their relationship with such grace was beautiful.

And seeing all of those unique perspectives blend so easily into a unified, unapologetically queer friend group was so accurate to my own experiences as a queer individual that I found myself tearing up as I watched. This is the gooey, dramatic, teeny-bopper queer love story every queer kid deserves to be able to watch, and I literally cannot wait to get my hands on the graphic novels and the next two seasons of the show. I love it so much.

I. Don’t understand how being against homophobia and misogyny and informational suppression is cultural relativism? Yeah I have a #USAmerican raised Christian bias but I think not being bioessentialist and anti-intellectual is. Normal???? Genuinely don’t understand

Okay so. My guess from how this was written is that you are either a child or just into your 20s. I'd expect much different wording and approach if you were older. So. I'm going to try and be as gentle and clear cut as possible.

1) Orthodox Judaism is actually quite diverse and also different from Christianity, even fundamentalist Christianity .

2) What you're witnessing is not necessarily indicative of the actual community values; you are interpreting without insider perspective, or seemingly any actual knowledge. You're also ascribing motive to actions that may or may not be there.

3) many orthodox Jews, myself included, are queer and trans and embraced by our community. Every person of authority I've spoken to on the matter says that my incredibly queer, t4t marriage that gets read as gay no matter what, still gets the mitzvah of sex on erev Shabbos, and that includes my main community of Chabad.

4) many books are screened before being given to children by all people everywhere for a variety of reasons. Just because you don't fully understand the reasons as you are not yourself Orthodox Jewish doesn't mean that they are automatically something to be hated due to your preconceived notions.

5) Assuming a group is inherently homophobic, misogynistic, etc. Simply because you don't understand them as you are not part of their community is in fact a bad behaviour, yes. Don't do that. Most of the time, in most communities people are at worst confused.

6) As for misogyny... It's important to know the ways in which Judaism actually structures it's sex roles. No one has different sex roles because they're lesser, which misogyny implies. And every SINGLE person I have ever met observes mitzvos based on sex due to actually desire, not coercion. But for example, married women cover their hair as a way of making their marriage even more holy. Men meanwhile are told to cover their head at all times so they are mindful of G-d at all times. What does this imply at first glance? Why, that women are capable of remembering G-d at all times and the men are silly and must forget G-d if not reminded! Do we think this is all to the interpretation?

So. Before you judge our community so harshly... Perhaps also consider the last century of human history alone. We are being killed and hurt at alarming rates again, especially in the USA. Is it any wonder we don't stop in the streets to justify our existence to you?

Lastly, an oversharing of my personal details because as I am currently safe and well at home, I feel I ought to give you opportunity to understand that you aren't seeing/understanding the complexity of sex roles in Judaism

7) so, yes, orthodox Judaism has gender/sex based roles. It also is, in my experience, pretty flexible to meet individuals. I was coercively assigned female at birth. I was however by Jewish law, tumtum. In English terms, I had ambiguous genitals which could be surgically changed. My sister wanted a baby sister. And so, I was surgically "corrected" and raised female, until puberty and onset of hormonal problems that indicated that it wasn't just a genital mutation. I felt disconnected from binary gender, and at time, in part of my community having a label for me while the hospital I was born at had simply labeled me "incorrect", I came to embrace a masculine social standing. Because I was unable to be sexed as an infant, have masculine levels of testosterone and a lack of menses for years at a time, I have to adhere to both male and female sex based mitzvos. Religiously, I am operating with the strictest possible adherence, but this is all written and debated, as are all of the other sexes in Judaism. I am, however, allowed to exist as intersex in a Jewish community in a way that I am NEVER allowed to exist as intersex without a fight in the secular world, to the point that if it's not relevant I identify only as trans, because otherwise it becomes too complicated in the secular world. And this is genuinely because there is actually a space for me to exist in, as there are six Talmudic sexes.

Being trans and intersex is "allowed". Being queer is "allowed". Some communities differ, but I've lived in seven, and all of them have been more accepting of me being queer, trans, and intersex, than any secular space, including liberal and leftist spaces. At WORST, I am met with curiosity because I am new to the community. I think, perhaps, too many people in this world mistake curiosity with hatred.

talking abt that one thing in velma thats on my mind a lot for the past few days (that turned into a big incoherent rambling about gay rep in media)

i'm seeing jokes about how the queer representation in mystery inc being so much better than the queer representation in velma and honestly it makes me want to go on a whole tangent about my thoughts on queer representation nowadays vs the more subtle examples decades prior.

There's this weird debate that goes on online about what is "good" queer representation, and one of the most notable and honestly annoying examples is that queer representation has to be so subtle that you could easily miss it/ignore it. i've always hated that take because its a claim mostly said by straight people who are uncomfortable with seeing characters who are openly queer and/or state their identity, but they present it as some sort of push for subtle and nuanced writing. personally i do prefer it when a character just, identifies as how they are without explaining their identity, but that doesn't mean flat out explaining your orientation is inherently bad representation. its why i will always defend the very clunky and awkward high guardian spice scene. it is absolutely poorly directed and written, but that doesn't make it "bad representation". however, I do consider the character who explains that he's trans bad representation because he is flat, uninteresting and very clearly a creator self insert. he doesn't feel like a well rounded character who's also a trans man, but just an incredibly sanitized example of trans representation.

i have many, many issues with helluva boss/hazbin hotel and i do genuinely find some depictions of queer characters just flat out offensive (you can argue with me about how angel dust being written like your average 90s gay stereotype is woke actually because he has trauma, i dont care), but i do admire and appreciate that the series doesn't want to sanitize its queer characters, even if its done poorly. though i could go into a whole rant about how i find it very telling that female characters that are queer are far less sexualized or allowed to be problematic compared to their queer male counterparts.

anyways back to velma. that show does something that i've always found pretty irritating in queer representation which is just this weird lack of faith in its audience. characters can't have a slow burn anymore. internalized thoughts, anger, frustration, longing. you have to immediately know that two characters are gay for each other, even if they're lifelong enemies. its like when modern horror movies open with the gore because they're scared people are going to be bored or leave early. there's no subtlety or chemistry between daphne and velma, they're just lovers because idk, its two girls who hate each other and who doesn't love that.

then i think about how mystery inc handled velma and her sexuality, how she was allowed to be well rounded and nuanced before you slowly realize that "oh, she doesn't like boys". i know her whole thing with shaggy is controversial among fans but i always loved how she does do something pretty unlikable but not immoral. yeah, it is shitty to force shaggy to choose between her and his dog, but i can understand her line of thinking and empathize with her. and i do like how they become friends in the end despite their awkward break up. It's always fun rewatching it and realizing that their incredibly awkward and cringe relationship was meant to be awkward and cringe. it was supposed to be weird and difficult to watch, because those two weren't meant to date each other. you could see how hard velma was trying to make the relationship work despite the fact that you never get the vibe that either character was full invested in it, unlike daphne and fred's relationship.

then you had velma and her relationship with marcie, which started off as sort of a catty rivalry (not full on attempted murder, i mean holy shit hbo velma) that slowly grows to where you're completely convinced that these two did gradually like each other. and i do really enjoy stuff like that, more subtle writing like that. which doesn't just apply to queer rep btw, my favorite ships are relationships that feel understated, something you have to really dig for and pay attention to. its why i consider bubbline the best f/f representation in cartoon. because its subtle, but not too subtle where it feels out of no where when they kiss, and nuanced in ways that enhances the relationship AND characters.

there's a good amount of relationships i see in cartoons where the creator, who is usually queer themselves, often wants to depict queer relationships, but is weirdly adverse to depicting the uglier aspects of that character, and refuses to add subtlety to it. steven universe is a show i've always felt conflicted on its handling of queer representation because on the one hand i appreciate writing lesbians that are messy, traumatized and make constant mistakes. but on the other hand, the show goes out of its way to ignore these issues and/or make excuses for it, making the decision to make these characters messy and complicated genuinely baffling (this is also one of the big issues i have with catradora and stolitz).

it makes me think back to my own work too. i really enjoy making fluffy, easily digestible gay content for my followers and myself because it puts me in a good headspace. But even now and then i like exploring those little nuances too, because i don't really enjoy stories with little conflict. Because of that acknowledgement of how satisfying it is to write fluffy, queer rep, you end up putting yourself in other creator's shoes. you're so used to media that either dehumanizes gay people or tells people that they don't exist that you push yourself to make the most in your face queer rep you can but its at the cost of an interesting and subtle characters. characters that don't really have arcs or places to learn and grow.

With bugtopia i made a joke about how i want some of my queer rep to feel like you're being queerbaited. It's not literal, obviously, but mixed in with characters who are already married and in same gender relationships, i really want to write dynamics that feel subtle enough for a bit of a slow burn. even if you know they're going to end up together, to at least value the characters on their own before centering them on their relationships. queerbaiting is something that deserves all the criticism it can get, but it is embarrassing when queerbaiting feels genuinely more interesting than actual queer rep because queerbaiting has that factor of "maybe they won't get together" that adds that bit of intrigue, vs so many shows that repeatedly hammer in your head "don't worry guys, they're gonna be lesbian lovers".

mystery inc (and many other shows) being forced to keep a relationship obvious while subtle to get through censorship really forced creators to be creative with their storytelling and not center characters around their relationship and identity. but nowadays i think shows like to take the easy way out. for me, i always thought the most impactful example of queer representation in steven universe is "Rose's Scabbard". I genuinely don't enjoy that episode because it's a good example of the show thinking that trauma is an excuse for shitty behavior, but i cant deny that an entire episode of pearl breaking down and finally accepting that she wasn't the center of rose's world. it's the crew being forced to be creative and push through censors to telling a compelling story about a traumatized lesbian slowly realizing that she basically deluded herself into thinking she was someone's savior.

I think it's silly to try to place good queer representation in one box. like subtle queer rep is good, but also queer rep where a character flat out states that their gay. where I think it falls apart is when it either reinforces stereotypes without properly deconstructing or expanding on them, makes the characters so overly kind and non-controversial that the relationship is just boring, or try to make your messy and complicated characters but the narrative refuses to hold them accountable or at least acknowledge that they're doing something wrong. and to clarify on that last part, i'm not asking for some hays code nonsense where every bad person goes to prison and/or promises to stop being a bad person again. i mean the narrative doesnt just fucking sugarcoat their behavior. i don't want to see helluva boss ignore the fact that stolas made blitzo call him out for only using him for sex and then pathetically rush to justify their relationship by giving them a bizarrely sanitized and sweet backstory. and i don't want to see catra literally end the fucking universe and only do something good because she's straight up out of options and the show just decides that that was her redemption and she doesn't need to do anything to atone for what she did (including repeatedly abusing and verbally berating adora).

anyways velma has none of those interesting qualities and i'm pretty sure daphne and velma kissed because the creator is a weird pervert who thinks two girls kissing is hot.