*noisily pulls up a chair* 🪑 do you guys ever think about what HunterCorp!Dean thought of Cas? Like he was already clearly of jealous of Dean Prime, with his cool shirts and rugged trauma, so he must have been like, ‘what! you have a hot angel sidekick too?! Lucky!’

And Dean would have just floundered and gruffly tried to shut him down like, ‘what’re you even talking about? Cas—hot…?’ *manly, sputtering deflection*

And then HunterCorp!Dean would be like, ‘oh?👀 so you’re not together then? Interesting. Very interesting…’ *slicks back his already over-slicked hair* *huffs into palm to check if breath stinks* *readies himself to make his move*

And then Dean would have internally combusted, obviously. because now he has to explain to his very queer alternate self to cool his jets and step away from his not-boyfriend because…. Because…. Well just to back the hell off okay that’s why!!! >:/

Both Sam’s just -_-; -_-; *deep sigh*

Unpopular opinion: parts of the cr fandom are really dismissive/ reductive of Travis’s characters. It feels like it’s due to Travis being seen as THE cis het man of the group, and by extension his characters must be heteronormative and bad, despite the fact that you could have queer interpretations of his characters. At the very least, Travis’s characters explore masculinity and the different ways it might look. It’s like the people who are all “ew men are gross and shitty” and act like that’s an absolutely normal reaction to a man just existing.

So this is another one in that I agree with the initial statement, but I'm actually not sure re: the reasoning why. I think it's possible but I could not tell you for sure.

I used to, again, think this was people carrying through Campaign 1 elements well beyond the point where C1 had ended, and so Grog having an intelligence of 6 was being applied to Travis; and this definitely does come through to an extent when people treat Fjord (objectively as smart as Beau without her circlet) as stupid or act shocked that Chetney is the brains of Bells Hells or that he can play a Cerrit, Fjord, or Nathaniel. However, again, I think this is one of those opinions that pops up among people who weren't around for Campaign 1 (or early enough in C2 to be exposed to it regularly) so I don't know if that's the case anymore. It could still be - it could be that Approved Fandom Opinions get passed down even when the logic behind them has long since been lost; that's a really common thing in institutional memory. But I can't say for sure.

I also have in the past credited it to, as you said, people assuming his characters are the cishet guys and then writing them off. That's still possible - I've seen both Fjord and Chetney called "token straight" despite considerable evidence of bisexuality, and they also paradoxically are both commonly headcanoned as trans while still getting called "token straight," which sort of ties into a post I would need to find from someone else from quite some time ago about which cast members are granted agency by the fandom in their choices vs. which are assumed to be the victims of circumstance. And I do think that there are people in fandom who have decided men are icky or whatever, and I used to think this came from a place of bigotry and a slide towards t*rf ideology but I now do genuinely think it's just idiots who don't grant interiority to characters outside their own limited understanding.

But I think it's also useful to consider a few things, most of which I've brought up before:

Travis is extremely offline. He is not here to entertain your headcanons; he has been politely but openly dismissive of some (imo, really fucking dumb) fanon/fan theories. I think the cast frequently talks about how it's their table, and I think that's valid and correct, but Travis is one of the players who lives it the most. He is playing this game with his friends, and he'd like it to be a good story, but if you don't like it, he is not here to make you like it. I think that really fucks with the parasocial connections some people desire with the cast.

Travis's characters tend to examine masculinity as a performance but also the general performance of the self, and the fact that you cannot in the end control how you are perceived entirely, and I think that really unsettles people who have equated presentation with reality and are again, looking for external validation of the self.

Travis can play it big but he's often extremely subtle, especially with his more serious characters, and he's not as easily quotable out of context as some others at the table. I think because he is a lot more naturalistic than dramatic at times (Chetney notwithstanding) and isn't as pithy and quotable in his characters as many of Taliesin's PCs are, and a lot of the strength is in the delivery, he gets overlooked despite being very good with words on the fly.

And finally: this would be a whole post on its own but people are still very foolishly wed to this idea that pressing the big red button in D&D is Wild and Chaotic and haha Big ADHD Man when it's actually how you play D&D if you're not a coward; the button is where the story is stored, and a lot of Travis's strength is that he is extremely good at understanding what the GM wants and supporting it with sufficient grace that it's only visible if you know what you're fucking doing.

What are heaven will be mine & coquette dragoon?

oh my goodness, thank you for asking!! the short answer: they are incredibly good visual novels that I highly recommend, especially if you're a fan of mecha, sci-fi, great world building, yuri, and generally just amazing art created by transfems

long answer:

heaven will be mine (aside from being where I got my url) is the second VN made by worst girls games, best known for their first outing, we know the devil (also an absolutely amazing game). hwbm tends to ask a bit more from the reader than its predecessor- while wktd almost exclusively featured three characters and dealt with rather plainly stated themes of alienation, loneliness, and religious trauma, hwbm presents a setting cloaked in metaphor where human will literally shapes the universe and psychic mech pilots read spacetime like a narrative.

the cast is bigger, with the three routes allowing insight into each of the three main girls in addition to members of the factions they belong to, all in service of a beautiful story about queer people connecting with each other and finding/making their place in a world that would want to deny them their happiness (and a lot of other things, but I'm simplifying some here). begging to be replayed over and over, i've had different characters and details stick out every time ive played through the game, while also gaining a deeper understanding of and appreciation for hwbm's characters and setting. I've loved hwbm and wktd for years and expect I will for years and years to come, which, incidentally, is why I got a pair of tattoos based on these games LMAO. in other words: they're fucking fantastic and hit like few other things out there, imo

coquette dragoon is one of those other things, because holy shit does it excel at hitting incredibly specific and relatable emotional beats that are liable to absolutely tear you apart. created by ivy burgeroise, who (by her own fantastic description) makes art for sad perverts, coquette takes place during a seemingly endless war between the lilac fleet and the duchy of lucia, two spacefaring societies inhabited by animal people who have very differing opinions on magic.

focusing (so far) on xiomara rosales of the lilac and lady honey rose of the duchy, coquette explores painfully human stories from both sides of the war. (to that point, I'd be remiss if I didn't advise you to look out for the content warnings- coquette gets into some very heavy stuff and speaks about it very frankly and honestly, which is to its credit imo but i also understand that that is not something that everyone is in a space to deal with.) more than anything else, I feel, coquette is a work that puts words to feelings that you'd never before been able to describe, and, through the vulnerability of its author in making something so emotionally honest, makes me want to be more openly and happily myself. all of this in a story that examines war, exploitation, and the societal structures that prop them up, among many, many, many other things. I could keep talking in circles gushing about it, because I am so so obsessed with what's been released so far and so indescribably excited to see how it progresses in the future, but to keep myself from going on for too too long i'll cap this off with a tweet about coquette that i frequently think of and is one of the best recommendations I can offer:

OH and also coquette has wibbleburger, which, as we all know, is your favorite

so i havent really be keeping up with the TOTA Takeover (i was watching doctor who all day everyday) BUT i will do this last one.

i think the show is wonderful. it discusses mental illnesses without making it the entire plot or entire personality of characters. it displays it realistically and doesnt romanticise (by this i mean they didnt just show positive things or ignore it completely) or... obsess over it, i suppose. it wasnt completely focused on the characters "flaws" or illness. while they were mentioned, they actually still made the characters relatable and realistic, as opposed to (imo) Heartstopper, which felt to me like it fetished queer people, but thats a discussion for another day.

it was nice for a change in media, because its not often that you get media from the perspective of someone outside of the mental hospital willingly going inside because they genuinely enjoy being there and the people there. thats one of the reasons i love Eddie, he isnt afraid of what people will say about his new job, or if he is, its not stopping him even though (im pretty sure?) he doesnt get paid for it. hes a kind and lovable protagonist and it was interesting to have his side and opinions on things.

the side characters (i suppose thats what they are) are easy to fall in love with because they have so much depth and are genuinely interesting as a whole. it had, i think, important representation of Rosalie's OCD. it was important representation because it doesnt seem like we get a lot of OCD in media anymore (not that we ever really did, at least not in the things ive watched). i personally dont know much about the disorder but the representation still felt... correct, i suppose, to someone who has little to no knowledge, which is still a good sign because it means it was easy to understand and, yes, still seemed realistic. it was easy to feel bad for Rosalie because of her story and because she was treated and written as a real person.

have you ever watched something and thought, "this character is a bit cardboard-esque"? doesnt it make it tricky to actually feel bad for the character in question? its difficult to sympathise or empathise with someone who is uninteresting or unrealistically written. like in the Twilight movies, for an example. its difficult to feel bad for Bella because shes a kind of basic protagonist. she has simple wants and has simple struggles. whereas in TOTA, the characters have different wants than is usually displayed. like Campbell for example. he wants to be a radio show host and whats stopping him? his struggle to find a place that wants to take him and, i would say, his fathers disapproval. while Campbell isnt openly warm with his father, its still difficult for Campbell to ignore him because its his dad, the man who was there, but not necessarily there for him, all his life. its still difficult to get over someone whos supposed to love and support you telling you that you wont be able to do something.

Campbell is another example of a well written character. it was easy for me to love him, and not just because he was played by DT. he was a funny character without just being comedic relief. his bipolar disorder was displayed well according to me, someone with again, little to no knowledge in the subject. it was nice to have a character who has specific wants that are different from other characters in other medias. he was interesting because he was, say it with me, written as a real person. Campbell was easy to love because he was written and played like someone i would personally want to be friends with. hes funny, caring, friendly, unique, and protective. he sort of immediately likes Eddie and is friendly and talkative with the older man. he doesnt hold back and doesnt bite his tongue when he wants to say something.

TOTA was silly and light hearted while still bringing up important subjects that i dont think a lot of media is willing to bring up. i think, unfortunately, it might have been before its time. i think if it was made recently or in recent years, a lot more people would watch it and talk about it. i think its a beautiful show that, while not laying too heavily on it, discusses mental illness in a positive way. it doesnt act like the characters disorders are flaws, it treats it as something the characters have that might make them unsatisfactory to other people but not like it is unsatisfactory and i think it was lovely.

overall, i thoroughly enjoyed watching TOTA. it was different from most things i watch but not in a way where i was reluctant to watch more and only liked it at the end. i thought the ending was brilliant, even if it wasnt a massive everyone-got-their-way sort of ending. it was honestly nice to have media that had only two characters that i can think of getting what they want. TOTA had some sad parts that were so well written i cried. and if something bad happened to a character (haha... ha... hm), i cared about the character and was upset because they were well written and i loved them.

i know i used the words "well written" and "realistic" so many times, but the main things that struck me about TOTA were those two things. while i love sci fi and fantasy, its nice to have a show that felt real, like it actually happened. i loved the characters and the plot. the writing was superb. its an amazing show that more people should watch.

(hi. sorry if this is terribly written, im not great at these sorts of things. i tried keep it focused but if i ever strayed away from the main point, i apologise)

You know what?! Screw it, let's do this...

Riley ship opinions, pt. 1, M/F edition (m/m version here, polyship version here)

If I missed one you want to hear my opinion on, put it in the replies and I'll add onto this post in a reblog.

Buffy x Riley: Is canon. Is the ship this blog is supposedly "about". I like it. Not *super* fond of how it played out in canon, but they're real cute in S4 and have some very sweet moments, like in Hush and Goodbye Iowa. Wish there was more content for it, especially fixit, canon divergent, AU, etc.

Riley x Willow: Gonna be honest, when I started S4 I thought they were teasing this as a ship. They could be cute romantically, especially if they had like a nerd4nerd dynamic going. I think I like it a bit better platonic. I think a really sweet scenario is some sort of AU where Riley is also openly queer (I'm sorry but I'm never not gonna read that man as a repressed bisexual), and he and Willow are friends who support each other.

Riley x Darla: Ok they never met in canon but that never stopped me before. In a more canon sense, I feel like they could have a really fucked up thing where they'd both be obsessed with Angel (cause you know Riley was) and they end up sleeping together or something. I do think in an AU they could be sweet and wholesome but honestly that's most all the ships imo.

Riley x Drusilla: See above when it comes to not meeting in canon. Drusilla would keep him as a pet. Riley, as a psych student, would be fascinated by how her mind works. How... cute?

Riley x Maggie Walsh: "Hello, thank you for calling Mommy Issues Central, how may I direct your call?" But in all seriousness this would be fucked up in so many ways but also somewhat plausible and you know what? I am here for it.

Riley x Tara: Another one I'd prefer platonic. I'm not entirely opposed to Tara in het ships (I kinda like the reading of her character that she's more attracted to like... the person as opposed to gender?) but I usually prefer her in f/f ships. Also, I just don't think Tara and Riley had much chemistry romantically. I'd like them as friends in the same type of scenario as with Willow tho, that could be cute.

Riley x Anya: Not really my fav, honestly. Didn't see much chemistry between them, like with Tara. Not huge on them romantically or platonic.

thoughts on rwarb (movie) now that I've actually finished it:

I really loved all of the Henry and Alex moments and they all felt so sweet and adorable and I honestly just loved those idiots. zahra was a favorite of mine in the book and I genuinely think the movie made me love her even more. it was pretty good overall but I really don't think it does the book justice. small cuts and changes are really normal with movie adoptions but they cut out important information and characters. june played a really important role as Alex navigated his feelings and I think it was wrong they cut her character. The same certainly goes for Rafael Luna, he played an important role in the election and without him Alex wouldn't have found out who leaked the emails (I really dislike how they changed that situation too). The whole deal with Alex already being aware he was into guys also bothered me a bit since seeing Alex discovering and accepting himself was another important thing early on in the book. I feel like we were robbed with both Henry and Alex's family issues. Alex's parents being divorced certainly affected his character and for some stupid reason they seemingly have his parents in a happy and healthily. Then there's the fact that Henry mentions Catherine is off "saving elephants" which I once again don't like since her absence due to her depression from losing her husband really affected Henry just as Alex's parents being divorced affected him. I also see no reason why they needed to cut out "The Powder Princess" deal and make Bea younger than Henry (especially seeing that it affected him a bit as well). Another thing that irritates me to no end is basically all of the queer rep involving the women in the story was cut. Amy is really openly a transwomen in the book and even had a wife (who's pansexual) and neither things about her were mentioned. Then Nora was pretty open about her queerness and how she was attracted to just about any gender (so assumingly pan or bi). It was even pretty much confirmed Nora and June were a couple in the bonus chapter of the special edition copy of the book and I don't believe her queerness is ever brought up, even when Alex comes out to her (originally she was the first person he went to about it because she was queer as well and I don't think the scene had the same feel with that missing). Even with June being cut she didn't need to end up with Pez and could have expressed her queerness. Something I wasn't all that thrilled about from the beginning was the casting for Henry and Alex. Now Henry's certainly wasn't too bad but Alex looks so much older than twenty two and I can not get over the fact that he's taller than Henry (casting is still one of my least concerns overall). The whole deal with the reporter Miguel didn't sit well with me well either. The fact that he essentially outed Henry and Alex as a queer man himself feels even more wrong than the emails getting leaked by Richards. I dont understand why they couldnt have stuck to the original plot there. I really did enjoy the movie and already plan on watching it again but I really hate how they went about a lot of things and cut such important things I loved about the book. I absolutely recommend it but sincerely think it does not do the book justice.

tl;dr

I really enjoyed the movie and honestly loved seeing Henry and Alex but it did not do the book justice and too many important things were cut imo

Not to come into your inbox and start shit about worm, but I’m reading rn and getting some weird vibes. Like, the extremist racist nazi group is being portrayed as more sympathetic than a lot of the other hero and villain side characters, the two most written openly queer characters so far are a rapist and a lady who did something equitable to rape, and there’s a weird emphasis on like fatness and/or being unattractive to men as the worst thing that could ever happen to a person (piggot+ cherish).

I’m still really invested in Taylor’s continual self-justified train wreck and the fight scenes are compelling and cool to read. Does all this get worse from the end of the Echidna death (where I am) or is all the stuff that came before it the worst?

this blog is a safe space for shittalking worm. i think it's very good and i love it dearly but everything you're saying is basically on the money (i wouldn't say that E88 are portrayed as sympathetic at all, but i do think that they are handled poorly and incuriously).

that said they will play no role in the story from where you are onward--the homophobia and fatphobia and taylor's internalized misogyny (which i do think is a deliberate character choice in a way that the homophobia and fatphobia imo aren't) are going to be pretty much constants throughout, but the nazis more or less exit stage left from here on. if you like the fight scenes, then there's a bunch of extremely cool ones near the end so you might want to hang on for the sake of those. no shame in going 'i'm kind of sick of this shit' and quitting, though.

Who even knows their sexuality at 18?? A LOT of people. Most of us know from a very young age. Maybe people don’t like that argument of “ you don’t know your sexuality at 18” because it’s what’s use to gaslight us when we come out at an early age. Yes some people don’t know. But must of us do. And we’ve been paying the price since we were children. Yes people don’t owe anyone an explanation about their sexuality. But some people like the reassurance that their representation is authentic, especially when so many queer artists get overlooked for the more “marketable” option. Not trying to pick a fight here. Just something to consider.

For someone who "doesn't want to pick a fight" you sure sound aggressive pal.

I get the want for representation and for queer people to get cast in queer roles. But at the end of the day, the point remains that that's a real person we are talking about, a teenager, and he doesn't owe us anything. Being in the public eye doesn't magically remove his humanity, his right for privacy, his right not to get bullied, his right to figure himself out at his own pace.

Regarding figuring yourself out at a young age: if you always knew, that's amazing (no sarcasm, genuinely) but you can't forget that your experiences aren't universal and a lot of us don't figure ourselves out until well after our teens. Be that because of repression due to a bigoted environment or simply a lack of education on queerness or queer identities. And that doesn't even factor in that for a lot of us, sexuality is fluid and coming out that publicly will inevitably put someone in a box, a box that might not even apply. Maybe Kit doesn't use a label, maybe he hasn't found one that fit him beyond "I'm not straight" yet. Or maybe he just doesn't feel like he owes a bunch of invasive strangers anything at all. And all of these reasons would be valid. Because at the end of the day he is a human being, not a fictional character. It's lovely to watch other queer people strive, but they don't owe us any part of themselves that they are not willing to share with the world. It's their lives, not a plot in a TV show. Kit, or anybody else, is not responsible for giving people representation. Especially not when they are still so young.

At the end of the day, we don't know the first thing that is going on in these people's lives. I mean, just look at actors like Tyler Blackburn, Ronen Rubinstein or Chyler Leigh. The opportunity to play queer characters on TV gave them the strength and the courage to start loving themselves and their sexuality and gave them the strength to out themselves to the world eventually. Should they not have been casted because they weren't out when they were casted in their respective roles?

Should we tell actors and actresses "Either you come out on our terms or you can't work in a way that is right and healing for you"? Or should casting directors be allowed to ask invasive questions about an actors sexuality during casting? Or should we stop casting new people for things and stick to the small pool of people who are out and famous enough that you can google their sexuality? Because those are the options if you only want openly queer actors for these roles.

Again, I understand the desire for openly queer actors in queer roles, but you know what (imo) is even more important? Queer directors. Queer writers. Queer showrunners. In short: Queer people behind the scenes making the decisions and telling stories in a way that actually represents all parts of our community.

There are a lot of ways to help our community to get more and better representation, but bullying a teenager off of twitter because he doesn't feel like he owes the world every part of himself isn't one of them.

(also, attempting to bully someone out of the closet isn't "seeking reassurance" , that's just people being nasty for the sake of looking righteous in front of their online friends on the back of a stranger who is also a literal teenager)

Hey, here's my take /as/ a queer man. anyone, gay, straight, etc...can dress how every they want and how ever they feel expresses themself. to me it's a non issue, even if like, you think someone is being disingenuous, I don't think it's an issue and i find it more harmful to me and people like me to have this debate in the zeitgeist to begin with. more straight girls have argued with me about why xyz behaviors is problematic and i find it exhausting. It is more destigmatizing to not put barriers around fashion in the first place & focus on uplifting queer gnc men than tearing other people down.

This is from a couple months ago but I didn’t have the mental bandwidth to answer it until now (sorry).

I appreciate you for responding with your perspective. Like I said, I’m not a queer man (I’m a queer woman), so I really don’t like speaking about the experiences of queer men as a generalisation.

And I agree with you actually! Men (cishet or lgbt) should 1000% be able to wear whatever they want with zero comment from anyone! And if we were debating whether or not Harry Styles dressing in a gnc way was problematic in general, then that would be a pointless conversation. But that’s not the the issue.

My argument was that- while he’s valid a million times over for however he wants to dress or act or whatever- the media and mainstream pop culture fans are wrong for elevating him into this unprecedented progressive icon of masculinity because of the way he dresses. And Harry (imo) is wrong for allowing it and playing into it.

Listen, if Vanity Fair or Vogue (or whatever magazines it was idk I don’t read them lol) regularly gave cover photos and full page profiles and stuff to other gnc people praising them as sort of new age icons for their gnc-ness (specifically gnc openly gay men, or gnc poc, or gnc people who are not stereotypically young and fit and traditionally attractive), then them also giving Harry that treatment would not be sus at all…… but we all know they don’t have a history of doing that. And we all know that when Billy Porter (an older black gnc gay man) or Sam Smith (a plus size gnc genderqueer person) etc live their truth and dress in gnc ways, they do not get as much adoration and adulation and worship and excessive praise by mainstream pop culture media as Harry (again, a young white skinny traditionally attractive most likely cishet- or at the very least not openly queer- man) and the reactions from the general public are always far more mixed. And that’s definitely sus.

It’s almost like the societal establishment realised that newer generations are accepting and celebrating gnc-ness, and knew that they had to pander to that, so they decided to elevate a gnc person….. but because the societal establishment will always edge as close to the conservative status quo as possible, they picked the blandest, whitest, most basic male model type (again- young and fit and noncontroversially hot), who is as close to cishet as they can get (because he refuses to categorise himself as queer, has not shown any evidence of being queer, and thus allows folks with complex homophobia to assume he’s not) while also still allowing them to get half a queer rep point (because, hey, he doesn’t categorise himself… so he might be queer, right?) without having to earn it at all.

And if Harry is just completely Head Empty I’m Just Vibin In My Flower Skirt oblivious to this whole issue, then that’s fine I guess lol- let him vibe! But considering how he’s made it part of his brand to be an lgbt ally and how his fans attack anyone who says anything about this problematic conundrum by screaming that Harry is extremely socially aware and has supported the queer community more than anybody, How Dare You Accuse Him Of Anything!!!- …..Like, it’s either one or the other bro.

If Harry really does know that much about the lgbt community (enough to insert his opinions on in-community issues such as how he thinks gay characters being portrayed as sexual beings is wrong), then he HAS to know that it’s problematic for him to be accepting all these fat ass magazine cover checks and skyrocketing his personal brand with glowing profiles and grasping at more fame and positive recognition for himself via fashion choices, and generally just basking in the praise he’s getting for being a bOuNdArY bReAkInG hErO,.. that other minority gnc people with much less privilege than him have been struggling to receive for decades and STILL struggle to receive.

It’s not like it’s a capital offence or anything. I’m not saying he’s a complete and total worthless piece of shit……. It’s just grating.

Today I saw a thread about queer representation that angrily referenced some examples of people ‘forced’ to come out in order to appease the demands for queer characters to be played by queer actors and…

Honestly, it makes me tired.

Should people harass actors until they’re ‘forced’ to reveal deeply private parts of their identities? No, of course not—ABSOLUTELY not.

IMO we should be able to agree that people shouldn’t harass other people full stop. AND that gender and sexual identities are things no one should be forced to share before they’re ready.

That said, I don’t think the solution to this problem is to tell queer people that we should stop demanding better AND TRUER representation, or that we should be quietly thankful we’ve got any rep at all. I don’t think it’s wrong to ask why explicitly queer, and even queer-coded, characters aren’t being portrayed by openly queer people.

The problem isn’t “this person isn’t openly queer and therefore can’t represent us” — especially considering the queer community isn’t exactly a monolith.

The problem is that the world is actively violent towards openly queer people. The problem is that openly queer people are still getting passed over in casting decisions, in crew decisions. The problem is that queerness is often distilled into a very small number of flavours and fewer yet go deeper than caricatures.

I have this same problem with a lot of the discourse around queer romance and who is ‘allowed’ to write it. The problem isn’t that cishetero-identified people want to write queer romance.

The problem is that most of the people who are getting publishing contracts to create queer romance are writing for demographics they’re not part of.

Could some of them have a secret queer identity hiding behind the public cishetero identity? Sure. I know for a fact this happens. This isn’t about that. It’s not about the potential for queerness that a cishetero-identified person may have, whether or not they’ve begun to explore it for themself. I’m not here to gatekeep queerness or police any specific individual’s identity credentials. This also isn’t to say that people must be part of a community in order to write it well.

It IS to say that openly queer people are getting passed over in favour of people who aren’t, and THAT is a problem.

It IS to say that the persistent uplifting of a small subset of voices (overwhelmingly white, cishetero-identified ones) has negative consequences on the quality and diversity of queer stories being told. It’s definitely to say that I don’t believe it’s okay to protect people who hypothetically might be queer at the expense of people who explicitly ARE queer.

We need more opportunities for diverse queer stories and queer representation in general.

AND it’s okay to be angry that openly queer people aren’t typically the ones getting funded/paid to create and/or portray those stories! It’s okay to demand that people in power actively diversify their talent pools!

Telling people they can either shut up or choose to support companies/projects that only cast or publish openly queer people is a BULLSHIT argument.

This is a SYSTEMIC problem. This is a problem created and exacerbated by capitalism and white supremacy.

It’s not a problem that being nice thankful little queers meekly accepting whatever scraps of representation are thrown our way is gonna fix. Fuck off with your false sense of moral superiority and stop tone policing.

"but also that’s what you get when a show plays queerness for a joke all season for every character except the main two" Can I ask why you feel that Lucius/Pete and Jim/Olu were played for a joke? YMMV but I just watched a panel with Lucius and Izzy's actors (the former is openly gay, the latter has done a ton of gay roles) and they talked about how much they love that queer sexuality is never a joke on the show despite it being a comedy.

If i had tuned in randomly to an episode of the show without the context I got from tumblr and saw lucius on screen i would have been convinced I am watching an actively homophobic caricature of an effeminate gay man from an edgy tv show from the 90s. How many times does the show pause and wait for the audience to laugh after he does something especially limp wristed?

Now, of course it's more complicated than that. Gay men who act like that undeniably exist, the stereotypes didn't come from nowhere. But imo the show felt a touch too comfortable playing them up., considering the decades of media that did the same thing with actively negative intentions. The problem with writing a world where homophobia doesn't exist is that you never get to adress homophobia. No one makes fun of Lucius for being like that within the text, but no one defends it either. He's accepted for who he is, sure, but he's accepted by his crew of inept weirdos.

I felt uncomfortable more than a few times when watching. And of course that's just my personal reaction. But it doesn't come from nowhere. That's exactly the way the media and social norms I grew up with portrayed gay men to dehumanize and mock them. we do unfortunately live in a society. More thought needs to go into gay characters than 'some are limp wristed, some love dressing up and the rest are just plain stupid, with the exception of the black and nb character who are played dead serious because the writers won't dare touch them with a ten foot pole.'

"Can I ask why you feel that Lucius/Pete and Jim/Olu were played for a joke?" I never said that. The ask is reffering to this post, in which i said the queerness was played for a joke, not their relationships. I did exagerate a touch, I do think jim and omu were treated respectfully by the plot and jim especially sets a revolutionary new standard for nb rep.

However. As we all know, just because a character doesn't say "I am a homosexual" doesn't mean they are not gay. And what I especially meant in those tags is how the show uses queer coding (and autism/mental disability coding but thats a discussion for another day) in the background characters and yes, consistently plays it for a joke. Or rather frames it in a way that a homophobe (or a clueless straight person) would just see another gay caricature to laugh at in the comfort of their unchallenged stereotypes (until and unless they stick through to the end), and looking through the notes on that post and the obliviousness of the straight people described in them only proves my point.

I STILL THINK IT IS A GOOD SHOW. A NET GAIN IN TERMS OF QUEER REP. SOMETHING TO BE ENCOURAGED AND EMULATED DESPITE ITS MISTAKES. PROGRESS ISN'T LINEAR. TWO STEPS FORWARD ONE STEP BACK IS STILL BETTER THAN NOTHING. CRITICISM IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF CONSUMING MEDIA, EVEN GOOD MEDIA, AND IT DOESN'T MEAN I THINK ITS BAD AND NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED. THE FACT IT CAN EVEN EXIST SHOWS HOW FAR QUEER RIGHTS HAVE COME IN THE LAST DECADE. THE FACT YOU AND PLENTY OF OTHER QUEER VIEWERS DON'T HAVE THE SAME KNEEJERK REACTION AS ME IS A GOOD THING AND A SIGN THINGS ARE GETTING BETTER IN OUR WORLD

I am straight so correct me if I’m wrong but I totally get the queer baiting. It’s not that Maya can’t be gay but it’s that she uses the community to her advantage without ever reciprocating. Like take Harry styles for example he’s one of the biggest queer baiters imo and I say this as a Harry stan. Now I don’t think someone needs to come out with their sexuality if they aren’t comfortable but if they’re “straight” in public as in only dating opposite genders then I don’t think they should be playing queer people on tv especially when it takes away from actually queer people getting the role. Like Harry playing the main character in my policeman wasn’t okay imo cause yes he’s very supportive of the lgbtq community but he only talks about it for his own advantage like he never shows support on a personal level and bottom line is that queer roles should be played by publicly open queer people for diversity and fairness just like how black characters should be played by black people, Asians should be played by Asians, etc. Harry and Maya are hired for their popularity and their family status when there are openly queer actors just as capable who are waiting for their big chance

literally all of this, like all of it. you don't need to be gay to understand that it's profiting. it's all about the money baby.

and my very good friend is a massive fan of HS but is still able to recognise that him using that community and profiting off of it can be troublesome.

as a gay person and as someone who's friendship group is mostly queer - we all are uncomfortable with this type of stuff. i want to see gay people do gay things in the media, it makes me happy.

Ok so does SK actually hate the gays or are you just a former HP fan who wants to drag other people to hell with you?

99% sure you don't even care about my answer and intend this as some kind of roast but you're the very first anon to message me after i turned anon back on so in honour of that i'll bite.

i'll be the first person to say that was a poorly worded post! i made it around when the it2 movie came out bc a lot of white gays on here were heralding sk as some champion of gay rights for allowing the movie adaptation of that story have an "openly gay" ritchie. which i found/find dumb because 1. it is, and 2. i said it because this man has a history in his other stories of writing queerness as part of the horror. quite a few of his stories from the 80s and 90s feature gay men only as pedophiles, other gnc characters as rapists, and even some of his stories from this century, while more sympathetic, have played off harmful stereotypes about women victims of sexual assault becoming lesbians as a result of trauma. sure, he's not the first/only writer to pull this kind of shit, but he's the biggest horror writer of the last 40 years and you can't say that that hasn't shaped his audiences' ideas of queer people.

i did not intend for that post to get notes. most of my text posts don't. but overnight it spread because some people decided to use childish insults then got insulted in return by someone else and it was kinda funny imo but the traction led to other people clamouring to say "but the homophobia in it2 was presented as bad!!"or "his daughter is gay and he's donated to gay causes!!", thinking i was talking about it2 instead of the rest of his body of work. i ended up just deleting the original post after a couple of days because it was too annoying and i got a bunch of anons harrassing me, which continued even after deleting the post. even THREE YEARS ON you decided to come and find me, anon.

but yeah, does stephen king "actually hate gays"? probably no, but his work is full of homophobia/transphobia and i still think that's something to consider before you praise him for *checks notes* letting someone else make one of his characters gay in a movie.

y’know, i think i might’ve realized why so many people gravitate towards batfam instead of flashfam

to the extent of my knowledge, most of the flashfam are related to each other either biologically or by marrying (to clarify i’m talking specifically abt pre52 flashfam rn since i haven’t actually read any of the new52 yet). you have:

barry allen, the flash

iris west, barry’s wide

wally west, iris’ nephew

linda park, wally’s wife

don and dawn allen, iris and barry’s children in the 30th century

jenni ognats, the daughter of don and jeven ognats

bart, the son of dawn and meloni thawne, making him jenni’s cousin and wally’s first cousin once removed (i think so anyways i’m not sure)

owen mercer, bart’s half-brother

thaddeus thawne II, bart’s clone and technically his twin/brother

jai and irey west, linda and wally’s kids

pretty much the only ones who aren’t biologically related in any sense are jay and joan garrick, who imo act like barry’s parents, and also temporarily had bart in their care for a while

of course, this isn’t including people like jesse chambers, max crandall, johnny chambers, etc. bc i’m mostly going through the family tree, however they are very close friends/allies who are generally considered as part of the flashfam

ANYWAYS, like i said, that list of people? they’re all biologically connected in some way, or in linda + joan + iris’s cases, they married in.

now let’s look at the batfam, which is made up almost entirely of non-biologically related people (once again, not taking into account close friends such as babs and steph):

alfred pennyworth, the wayne’s butler and the man who raised bruce (along with leslie thompkins)

bruce wayne, batman

dick grayson, bruce’s first son

jason todd, bruce’s second son

tim drake, the third son

cassandra cain, bruce’s one and only daughter

damian wayne, son of bruce and talia al ghul, and the only member with any sort of blood relation to bruce

talia al ghul, who isn’t generally considered a part of the batfam (thanks to morrison ruining her entire character smh) but was once married to bruce

this list also doesn’t take into account close friends/allies like stephanie brown, barbara gordon, selina kyle, etc. bc none of them are official members of the family, though they are counted as family by most people (including me). again, these are the official members of the batfam

it’s pretty common knowledge that the batfam is the most popular family in the entire dc franchise. the fanworks alone go to show that, and dc isn’t much better when it comes to that. it can be hard to figure out why, since the batfam can be so messed up sometimes, especially compared to the flashfam, which imo is one of the most openly loving and caring families in dc. despite that, the flashfam fandom is like a single speck of dust compared to the batfam fandom, which can honestly be really frustrating bc they deserve more recognition, but i digress

anyways, the main difference between these two families?

blood relations.

okay, let me explain. here’s the thing—the batfam fandom is mostly made up of people that are queer, neurodivergent, mentally ill, or maybe just don’t have that great of a home life. this post explains it much better than i ever could, but the general gist is that these people love the concept of found family since they usually don’t have an amazing relationship or are rejected by their blood family, and the batfam is built on found family. like i said, the only people related by blood are bruce and damian—everyone else is a) adopted or b) close enough to the family that they’re considered part of it (think steph, babs, alfred, etc.)

now, i’m pretty sure that the batfam is the only family that’s pretty much completely found family (with the exception of lanternfam, but hal, kyle, jess, simon etc. don’t fall into archetypal roles like the dad, the brother, the uncle, etc. so i feel like that plays a big role in why the lanternfam isn’t nearly as popular + the fact that most people just don’t really seem to care about them). most of dc’s other families are blood related—and this includes flashfam, which i think it actually the family that has the most blood-related members in it.

here’s the thing—some of the members of the flashfam absolutely do play at least a little bit into found family. take bart, for example—he travelled back in time from the future. iris couldn’t take care of him bc she couldn’t spoil future events for the others (i think so anyways i’m not too sure), wally was nowhere prepared to mentor a kid who was so much like him, so max was the one to take him in, and they ended up having an amazing father-son relationship, and they weren’t related to each other, either.

still, despite definitely having more healthy relationships than the batfam, most of the flashfam is blood-related, which is probably a huge part of why people gravitate towards the batfam—the idea of having a found family that, while dysfunctional and messy, is a family that loves each other, is really appealing towards people who are queer/neurodivergent/etc. not only that, a lot of the batfam members are unintentionally neurodivergent coded, which is another reason for the flashfam not being nearly as popular (though i firmly believe that most if not all speedsters are adhd i mean just look at bart’s 90s solo comic but that’s not the point)

of course there’s also the fact that dc just loves promoting the batfam for whatever reason...most of the dc animated movies have batman + nightwing in them, and god whenever i scroll down to movies that have ‘batman’ in their title on my tv list it’s so goddamn long...batman himself is one of the most well-known fictional characters ever, and while the flash is popular, it pales in comparison to batman. most forms of dc media have the batfam or at least bruce, alfred + dick or damian in them (batman and harley quinn, batman vs robin, the dcamu universe, etc.) while the flash...

i’m pretty sure barry’s the only one to really consistently appear in any sort of dc media that isn’t comics, but the one movie that could be considered a flashfam movie is justice league: the flashpoint paradox and even then i feel like it’s a stretch. other than that, all i can think of if wally making some cameos in the 2003 teen titans cartoon + his appearances in ttg. even in video games, there’s no bart, no jay, no max—only barry as the flash and wally as kid flash, even if the timeline doesn’t make sense

so yeah. that’s my reasoning for why the batfam is so much more popular than the flashfam

go off in those tags mama

Ok no but I want a dedicated post to talk about characterization in cmm because as much as I’m actually enjoying playing it, the characters are clearly written by different writers.

Or at least, they’ve done that thing where a show goes on for too long and the characters become caricatures of their most extreme traits in the later seasons. These are all my interpretations of the S2 characters, feel free to check me or share yours in the reblogs or replies-

Lucas: They straight up made him a prick, and not even in a logical way. Lucas was a little pretentious in S2 (using a varied vocabulary, being picky about how he presented himself, preferring expensive drinks, etc) but he made a clear effort to skip over it and be polite to everyone. But in CMM he straight up is rude to people, threatening to leave and shutting jokes down. Honestly, that would be more in-character for Rahim to do, because Lucas never openly disliked the humor of other islanders like Rahim did. And you’re telling me that the dude who was established as wealthy doesn’t know what octopus looks like, doesn’t like horses? It’s fine if he does, but no one addressed the dissonance between it and his personality. I’m fine with Lucas being a little gruff with anyone, but he’s not doing it in a nuanced or in-character way.

Priya: Of all the islanders, her and Rahim are the most out of character imo. Priya was established in S2 to be a super interesting character- on her face she’s pretty basic, enjoying boy bands and perfumes and basic chat. She’s very confident and states multiple times that she’s mature, despite doing a lot of immature things when her feelings get hurt. She’s careless with other people’s feelings and likes being pursued more than she likes being intimate. She had taste (according to the other islanders), she was a little bit goofy. We see like… None of that in CMM. In fact we actually see the opposite- they took her affiliation with sunflowers, which she explained as deeply meaningful, and made it a throwaway joke about asking people to wear “only sunflower print” to her funeral. Priya would die in S2 before wearing sunflower print- all of her clothing is un-patterned and she clearly cares about fashion. They stripped every personality trait from her and replaced it with horny.

And that’s the other thing- I’ve wanted Priya as an LI for a year. We wanted her to be the softer sapphic option to contrast Marisol’s slowburn angsty route. But I replayed the wedding episode yesterday, they didn’t edit it to make Priya seem like she was questioning. Instead, they just made her 180 on her sexuality in cmm and made every other line she says just her lusting after MC. It would’ve been so easy to fix, too. Just tone down her “I’ve been thinking about you” every line to be a couple of her being super excited to see MC. Maybe they kiss once in the bedroom, but we cannot have her be ready to commit to dating MC by episode two. It just doesn’t make sense. And the way the justified it by having her say ‘lol didn’t you notice how I always complimented you, I was attracted to you’ felt like a slap in the face rather than a callback. Like Fusebox was saying ‘lol we queer-coded her but then made her straight, remember that?’. I just… Hire a sapphic writer, please. I would believe Priya examined her sexuality after the villa or even after the wedding, but the way she talks about it isn’t nearly conflicted or in depth enough to make sense. Yes, this spinoff is supposed to be fan service, but… It’s a yikes from me.

Gary: They just straight up made Gary a bumbling idiot in cmm. Yes Gary was slower on the uptake than other islanders in S2- he didn’t recognize jokes right away and took things too literally- but he wasn’t outwardly stupid. In fact, two different times we saw him get quiet and try not to admit it when he didn’t understand things. And even then, he always laughed it off. In cmm he’s just brashly stupid in a way that’s not really funny or endearing (to me).

Rahim: This one bothers me the most because I love Rahim so much and because no one’s talking about it? Several people say things to the effect of ‘that’s just our crazy Rahim LOL’, but??? Was he ever established as the unpredictable wildcard in S2?? The only thing I can think of is that he surprised everyone by spending lots of money on dates (but that’s in-line with his character because he’s super awkward until he’s in love and then he’s SUPER romantic), but other than that he was literally never an endearingly unpredictable sort. Everyone agrees the horse thing was weird, but a lot of his other dialogue has this ‘lmao I’m craaazy’ vibe. Rahim was always quieter, avoidant of conflict, nerdy, and awkward. You could argue that his awkwardness goes away as you get to know him, but even if you were with him from day 1 in S2 he never gets this outspoken. Plus he was picky and judgmental in S2, but we see him in cmm just be super comfortable and supportive of everyone else. I love that Rahim’s here, but he’s so ooc he might as well be Henrik if they wanted a ‘goofy, outgoing, friendly’ character on the cast.

Noah: This is the only change that I really liked, but clearly we have to acknowledge that Noah is way more forward. I believe this change, because he’s had time to self-reflect and also he’s not on tv being scrutinized this time. It makes sense for him to be more flirtatious now that he knows everyone and is more comfortable, especially if he and MC are happily married.

I feel like Bobby, Marisol, Chelsea, and Lottie are all pretty in character, but maybe that’s because they just haven’t had a lot of lines yet. And Rahim/Priya are really the only characters that bother me. Don’t confuse my being critical of the writing with the series being bad- it’s not!!

just added some notes to @betterstllbemywindingwheel post here, but wanted to make a post just for my own reference.

i think we can all see there’s been a shift in how H’s queerness is being shown to the public. his tour shows have always been this way but to see it on such a large stage like coachella, which reaches so many people, is important. he didn’t have to dial it down, in fact he ramped it up. if the rumour is true about him have a male date in his next mv, that is also massive. imo i think his casting in mp has been a major factor in how his team have decided to market him and his art. their concern about the backlash of him playing a gay character if he’s still only perceived as straight by the gp, and of course H himself wanting to be more free about who is.

the label has such an influence on how his image should be moulded but at the end of the day all they care about is making money, and lots of it. their main concern is to not cut off the fantasy boyfriend image, as in their eyes that’s gonna draw in and keep the most fans. i think it’s getting to a point where they are willing to more openly lean into his queerness, as long as it doesn’t threaten this. so as frustrating as holivia is, having a very public girlfriend which everyone knows about, keeps that image intact.

so it seems like a win for all - the label keeps their woman loving star, his team limit the criticism of his mp role, O get’s publicity for herself and her film, and H get’s to show his authentic self just a little more.