#and his bisexuality being erased

[intricate-ritualz]

jason: yeah i just feel like i’m expected to pick a side, ya know? but why can’t i choose both sides? why can’t there be some sort of fluidity with these things?

leo: shit, man! you’re bi? this is amazing news because as a matter of fact i–

jason: … i was talking about the greek and roman camps??

#people who think jason is the straightest percy jackson character ..😒😒 (slash light hearted) #i mean. the metaphor for bisexuality is practically GLARING at you #also. you can go the #he is gay but juno being goddes of marriage/family/being a bitch erased him realizing this from his memory #route. whatever floats your boat. #jason grace #leo valdez #valgrace #heroes of olympus #hoo

[daisyachain]

Restorative or Transformative?: Homoerotic Subtext, The Closet, and Ciphers in Pop Culture. The nature of commercial art is that it’s sometimes bad and inconsistent. Notably it’s also misogynistic. One way in which audiences try to reconcile massive plot holes or gaps in character motivation is by reading secrets or hidden information into a plot.

Commonly, male characters are interpreted as closeted gay or bisexual to reconcile the absence of women from commercial narratives with the generally stunted and poorly-written male characters that form the focus on said texts. This reading has become especially common among a non-heterosexual milieu. Rather than transforming the original text into some radically different new form, this closeted interpretation seeks to make the original text stand on its own as a story rather than a Swiss cheese of dumb writing decisions.

This interpretation only works for a specific type of pop, usually genre fiction. Any story in which tortured male leads eschew women in favour of male-male bonds (because female characters are constantly killed off, written sparsely, or written out, because the production team keeps casting their male buddies, because actors demand to keep having scenes with their bros, whatever) can become a sounder structure if you put one of them in a closet.

The gay interpretation is the natural consequence of shoddy misogynistic writing from ventures like Supernatural, Naruto, all the biggest hits. It’s also the natural consequence of more benignly misogynistic writing like The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes or The Lord of the Rings, where women aren’t necessarily rejected but are simply absent from the worlds of the protagonists. When the emotional crux of the story falls on male-male interactions, this reads as romantic because society at large priorities (definitively heterosexual) romance as the pinnacle of human connection. Two forces are in conflict, the primacy of heterosexuality (read as: romance) and the primacy of men.

Anyway. All that is to say that the typical gay or bisexual reading of male characters in pop fiction comes from a very real place. But, in some places, that’s the default interpretation. Angst, insecurity, secrets, double lives, fatigue, disappointment, restrained passion, stunted personal growth, anyone living in the closet can tell you that it impacts and defines your whole life to know that you live in a way fundamentally incompatible with The Proper Way that life is structured around down to tax law and superstore prices (which assume a heterosexual nuclear family unit). Characters in fiction also tend to have personal problems because that makes them interesting and tasty.

If you’ve grown up on stories with the specific type of misogyny that can be papered over with a closeted interpretation of the male leads, carrying this interpretation over to any male character will make sense more often than not. Even a bit of angst or insecurity? Well of course that makes sense if a character is closeted.

Except that’s hurt a normal part of fiction, and sometimes the closeted interpretation takes away from the point of a character. If a male character is on another axis of marginalization, the closeted interpretation imposed by the slash reading community downplays or trivializes the effects of that marginalization in the plot by overwriting it with another type of marginalization. Alternately, sometimes a character’s heterosexuality is a part of the story. There are some sorts of critiques or investigations of misogyny or masculinity that don’t work if the character has an ‘opt out’ of the cisheteropatriarchal perspective. Not that gay/bisexual men aren’t except from misogyny, but misogyny masculinity and heterosexuality are so tightly linked that it sort of defeats the point if you interpret that character outside of heterosexuality.

All that is to say—the closet interpretation is a quick and easy spice to apply to the weaker parts of action-adventure genre fiction to make it taste better. It draws from a large enough sample of art that it’s pretty widely applicable. Because of that, it’s part of some people’s [my] default interpretation package just because the semi-dull macho show at least gets less dull if you imagine there’s a reason for there to be no girls besides simple hatred. That then forms its own problem where the interpretation that works with your average genre work gets then blanket-applied to all genre works and obscures the places where the closet interpretation doesn’t fix the work, and actually makes it less interesting.

#kelsey rambles #I’m as guilty of it as anyone. #just thinking about Johnny Storm and like. bisexual ass character. deeply bi guy. but. #what IF he’s just heterosexual. what then. wouldn’t that almost be…more interesting #if he’s Like That and not closeted? what twisty gnarled psychological torments would a good comic have to explain him #and on the other hand. that one post I saw about how miles/hobie totally misses the point that their relationship is about solidarity #spider-punk and spider-byte’s alliance with miles are the same thing and to read it as romantic erases the important part #and on a third hand. when speaking of miles’ story. the stupid fucked Bendis running joke/subtext with Ganke #to have Miles be gay would possibly take away from the messy and interesting part of his character that is being a person with nothing #to hide. a totally honest genuine straightforward kid who is forced to start a double life by an outside actor #but at the same time it’s dumb and a cop-out to throw in that much bait and that much of a genuinely charged tense friendship #and then go ‘lol jk. nothing to see here’ #the other thing is the semi joke in atsv about ‘coming out’ as spider-man #the most important thing about Miles having to hide is his relatively precarious position as a black kid. he’s not afforded the leniency #that Peter Parker would expect if he got unmasked. Miles is more cautious because he is in more danger because he’s Black #so to paint that struggle with the gay brush is to disregard the character’s raison d’être. while also #using that sort of language and structure deliberately puts a gay lens over that character and ignoring that or kicking it to the side #feels a bit cheap. to borrow the look and not the substance #way too many tags and it’s past my bedtime. thesis statement is: #miles morales is a character whose history is fraught with plenty of real gay subtext and whose character struggles are entirely divorced #from any sense of gender performance. he’s subtextually bi but that’s got so little to do with his story that it feels almost wrong to read #that into him because there is so much other interesting stuff going on with him

[actual-corpse]

Saw a YT vid with the title, "Fandom Can't Handle Asexuality"

You're right, they can't... Because it doesn't fucking exist to them.

#aroace #asexual #enby people arent real either #we're told to stop using neopronouns and to stop being aroace bc 'nobody will take LGBT seriously' #keep being exclusionary #i dont want to be your friend if you're gonna act like that #I'm a genderqueer aroace person who's pronouns are it/its and you're gonna fucking respect that or be called a bigot #this shit has got to stop #also... because it matters #dont be ableist #ever. just dont #one of the main reasons i hate Alastor so much... is the fandom's treatment of him as a character #most of them completely erase his sexuality in favor of shitty crack ships. #I think a QPR with Lucifer or Rosie is a cute idea! but that's it #keep Vox pining for Alastor... that's great too #its like when I tried to erase Porter Gage's Bisexuality.... It was wrong and I've changed (Fallout 4's romanceable companions are cannonic #cannonically bisexual... I don't make the rules) I was just mad because someone had MY BLORBO in a disgusting ship and I got sick of seeing #it... And THEN I learned how to block tags!!! #idk where this is going #i'm just upset that aros and aces and enbys are erased #maybe it's a confirmation bias and i've just spent too long doing demographic research #i HATE demographic research #it takes me to disgusting places #i need to find my sewing patterns so I can refocus my energy into something good

[sapphicdessi]

not only are you transphobic… but youre telling a lesbian that they aren’t a lesbian. YIKESSS

transphobia isn't real, men can't become women. you just think offending/not worshipping men and penis is the biggest sin because you worship males thus can't fathom female homosexuality being real because you're a homophobic misogynist. but you really didn't have to hit anon you know i who you are lmfao. LESBIANS DON'T LIKE MEN/MALES AND DICK! cry and kys over it homophobic bisexual trash

#your dick and male loving isn't lesbian #cringe posting how you're thirsting over some ugly man and his dick and then going im so gay im so lesbian my crush is so gay ewww #YOU'RE BISEXUAL #stop being homophobic and saying sexuality is based on aesthetics and pronouns instead of bio sex and erasing same-sex attraction #you're disrespecting conversion therapy victims and all the gay people who have fought and died for their rights and spaces #that you fucks have taken away #BEING GAY / HOMOSEXUALITY IS EXCLUSIVE SAME-SEX ATTRACTION #you like the opposite sex or you're a male then you're not a lesbian end of #bihet compium

[poppy-metal]

the queer community hates bisexuals sm it rlly never ends.

#poppy speaks #just saw a post that was like 'ppl are writing eddie × female reader im scared' #if u dont SHUT UP #ppl rlly think they have conformation bc he has a bandanna in his pocket #which if u rlly wanna read into it. just means hes kinky and likes to top #n if u look into the hanky code it was literally for gay AND bisexual men #him being queer coded or whatever doesn't erase his attraction to women #and ppl act like it isn't queer ppl mostly writing for him #ex: bisexuals. #but oh wait. forgot we don't exist <3

[a-very-fond-farewell]

as I wait for artms to feed us crumbs, I guess it’s gonna be a ‘sweet crazy love’ on repeat until I pass out kind of writing session 😔🙄💅🏻

#iykyk #I call bullshit on the eng version of the song tho. that was a vile cash grab with terrible mixing #the og tho?? peak #oec gave us smth alright but imma need modhaus to give us more #sneaky niki #lamb loose liveblogging #anyway. HDS flavor of the day is 👏💃🏻 internalized homophobia #so hear me out #I hc him as bi #controversial ik #but I like to think he got some thoughts 👀 in the military but then suppressed it all by settling down with a woman #which does not erase his bisexuality in my version of canon imo #it just layers with lots of guilt and shame #look. I cannot sprinkle my catholic guilt here bc i don’t think HDS is religious #but I have to give him something to work with no?? #also I think he would still believe himself as straight as a pole with SDY on his lap #he would be like ‘it’s all your fault. you vixen. you brute’ #while SDY would be all ‘dude that’s so cougar of you tell me more’ #both of them being petty verse bitches is extremely funny to me #but I cannot think in good conscience SDY has ever been anything but gay #bc have you seen PJY??? that woman was to die for. SDY not even looking at her looks wasteful honestly #ma’am give me one chance I’ll treat you better than stupid HYH or KYS #so. these are the vibes for today #no sex to speak of in ch 14. but the Tension™️ folks. it burns 😈🔥💅🏻

[green-ajah-aes-sedai]

Bobby and Raven were such an iconic couple Marvel couldn't handle it

#nothing to add #agreed #his canon bisexuality being erased so he could be solely gay didn't bother me in the beginning #but GOD when people used to attack me for still shipping his BISEXUAL ass with another bisexual #really soured my interactions with other iceman fans #being mad about bisexual erasure is not anti gay #there i said it #signed a tired bisexual woman #asks #lovely anon #bobby drake #iceman #bisexual

[me-and-my-hyperfixations]

A while back, Neil Newbon confirmed on one of his streams that Astarion is Pansexual.

So this is why it bothers me seeing fandom say things like "Astarion just feels like a gay man!" and "I just can't picture Astarion with a woman" because like... Astarion is still a queer man. It's been outright confirmed by his voice actor. And his queerness and his attraction to men isn't diminished by the fact that he can also be romanced by female characters. Repeat after me: Pansexuality is an lgbt identity in it's own right and not just gay person lite.™

And I think an important aspect to Astarion's sexuality is the fact that the writers made his relationship with both men and women part of his backstory. It's a stark contrast to Dragon Age 2 back in 2011 where Ander's past relationship with Karl was completely omitted from his dialogue if he was romance by a female Hawke. The unfortunate implications here being that bioware didn't think their female player base would still wanna romance Anders if he had past relationship with men. That to make Anders palatable to a straight-girl audience, all traces of his bisexuality had to be erased.

Astarion's Pansexuality doesn't change depending of the player's gender. The language he uses for his past lovers is gender neutral, he'll still mention relationships with men regardless of who you are playing as.

There is no "Playersexual" about it. Astarion is Pansexual. And that matters.

Edit: I was just looking over the notes of this post after having it muted for months and it really reaffirmed my decision to mute it. Some of you are posting bad takes like you're in a bad take contest. Hope you recover from the trauma of having to acknowledge bisexuals and pansexuals. - Love my bisexual ass ❤️

#baldurs gate 3 #Bg3 #Astarion #neil newbon #tw queerphobia #Tw panphobia #Pansexual

[f4gtive]

Feel free to ignore, but were you gay in your source memoriez?

My source memories get fuzzy, especially those pre-'saka tower, but yeah. I was incredibly repressed about it, of course, but yeah. 🎸

#q/a #anon #You know the 'Sometimes a man hurts every woman in his life because his true soulmate is a man.' meme? 🎸 #I can vaguely remember V bringing it up like once or twice but it's not a conversation I let get that far. 🎸 #Disclaimer; This is not me erasing my source character's canonical bisexuality. 🎸 #This is me talking about my own specific memories due to being a fictive. It's not indicative of anything about my source character. 🎸 #🎸

[picturebird]

Some Asexual/Aromantic Reminders for Fandom

1. There is no justification for thinking “I like this character better when they’re not aro/ ace.”

Aces/aros aren’t better when they’re allos.

Gays aren’t better when they’re straight.

What that really says: “I don’t like asexuality. I don’t like aromantics.” No matter how you dress it up.

I feel like I shouldn’t have to explain why this is wrong. No character is better when you make them less special.

2. Saying “asexuals can have sex” is a huge oversimplification. When aces have sex it doesn’t make them allosexual, they don’t feel the same things. It doesn’t mean they even enjoy sex. It doesn’t mean they can have sex with a partner. It doesn’t mean they can do it more than once. And it doesn’t mean they have “fixed” themselves and can now love properly.

When bisexuals have sex with someone of the opposite gender it doesn’t make them straight. It doesn’t mean they “fixed” their homosexuality.

3. Erasure can happen in cannon and head cannon. You don’t have to be a professional to participate in it. When social media is flooded with images of an asexual character in sexual situations with no acknowledgement of asexuality, it’s impossible to see the asexuality through it. Maybe it’s not erased, it’s buried in an avalanche.

4. I can name five canonical Aro or Ace characters. The rest are allosexual. In every movie, book, tv show, and comic that’s ever been written. Throughout all of time.

Sherlock Holmes (original novels) who is constantly paired non platonically with Irene Adler or John Watson in his incarnations. No hate on those ships, just pointing out an example.

SpongeBob SquarePants who is asexual because real life sea sponges are asexual.

Rafael Santiago (Shadowhunter Chronicles) who was portrayed in the books as cold and indifferent to people’s feelings.

Isaac (Heartstopper) whose entire story is about being Asexual.

Alastor (Hazbin Hotel) who actually has a personality, a backstory, goals outside of being accepted as asexual, a dynamic story arc, and complex relationships with friends/enemies that are actually fun to watch. Honestly the best ace/aro rep I’ve ever seen: a guy with no interest in sex who actually has a sense of humor!

When the ratio is a million: 5, it’s not ridiculous for aces and aros to ask people to ship someone else as allosexual. Literally anyone else. This can’t possibly be the only option.

5. Creators have a history of not defending asexual/aromantic characters. They don’t fight to make sure people respect their sexuality. It’s always better for business and social media trends to encourage shipping. Sex sells. Romance too. They may be the authority on a character, that doesn’t mean they’re an authority on aces/aros.

6. You can’t show a visual of someone being asexual or aromantic. Not in the same way you can show two girls kissing or men getting married. You can show platonic relationships, but that doesn’t prove the absence of attraction. All fan art with ace/aro people requires context. It’s not hard to scribble a note here or put in a tag or something. It’s also super sweet to see in a post.

7. Shipping and fandom should be about fun. Fun for everyone. Ship freely and kindly.

#asexuality #aromantic #Alastor #hazbin alastor #Hazbin hotel #sherlock holmes #Rafael Santiago #isaac heartstopper #heartstopper #spongebon squarepants #shipping #fandom #Sherlock #the shadowhunter chronicles

[pineapplerightsideupcake]

So.. I'm confused about something. If your beliefs in radical feminism say that trans people aren't valid in their feelings of being trans, what's stopping you from making bisexual people not part of the LGB? B stands for bisexual. What if their sexuality is just a phase? What if they are *actually* just heterosexual? For that matter what's stopping you from excluding YOURSELF from the community? At some point, you can't exclude any more people from a space that wasn't supposed to be gatekept to begin with! -Vero of CFC

You people always use that word “valid”. It’s absolutely meaningless post modern nonsense. Trans people feel that despite having a male or female body, their feelings about it change reality. I’m not telling trans people how they feel. Because you’re right, I can’t know that. What I’m telling them is that their feelings don’t change their bio sex. I’m telling them their feelings don’t supersede the rights and dignity of women. That’s not at all the same thing as being same sex attracted.

If I tell you that I am attracted to both men and women you can believe me or not. It doesn’t change my sexuality. You can’t know how I personally experience sexual attraction. But if I tell you I’m an Olympic Figure Skater, that’s something external and material. That’s something that either is or isn’t. And it doesn’t matter how true I want it to be.

This isn’t about people being invalid or valid. It isn’t about telling others I know better than them how they feel. It’s me telling them that their feelings don’t change material reality.

And we don’t get to sidestep reality because language is limited and imprecise. We create words to express ideas and categorize things so we don’t have to start every conversation from the ground up. Think of the quote “a rose by any other name”. The word ‘rose’ is made up but the flower it refers to exists in the material world. And you and everyone on earth could declare a rose a tulip but as long as people needed to specify they’d find a way to invent the word rose again. It’s why every 3 years your movement declares old terms verboten. MtF and FtM got used until people got mad it didn’t erase the reality of bio sex and people just used those terms in place of “male and female”. Then the same thing happened with AFAB and AMAB. Now we’re onto TME and no one knows what anyone is talking about because at the end of the day, people are male or female and no amount of “validation” or the right words erases that reality.

I am bisexual because I am attracted to both men and women. Lesbians are women exclusively attracted to women. Gay men are men exclusively attracted to men. Straight people are exclusively attracted to the opposite sex. The LGB community formed because the thing we had in common- same sex attraction- is punished in most societies. It absolutely was designed to gatekeep. It was a civil rights movement- not a secret club house. The LGB have no more moral responsibility to admit opposite sex attracted people than black activists have to include white or Asian people.

“Queer” has nothing to do with it. Demi flux genderoo aroallo fox kin have nothing to do with it. A group of men that believe their internal state of mind makes them literally a woman has nothing to do with it. You people overran a movement for same sex attracted people, convinced everyone to call our community a slur, and demand that we center heterosexual teens too immature for a relationship thinking that makes them the same as a Gay man.

I’m tired of arguing with 19 year olds that read too much mlm fanfiction that having short hair and wearing hoodies from the boys section doesn’t mean they’re gay men. I’m tired of arguing with those same girls that the 45 year old man with pigtails and a pink pinafore sucking his thumb and holding a dolly on social media isn’t a brave woman defying The Man. He’s just a pervert.

#radical feminism #radical feminist safe #radical feminist community #radical feminists do interact #radical feminists do touch #radical feminists please interact #radblr #feminism #radical feminists please touch #trans

[radios-universe]

by the end of heartstopper season 2, isaac picked up the ACE book from his library and openly read it and held it around his friends - as a representation of coming to terms with being aroace and even being/ready to be open about being so.

so if this is the case, the books that isaac reads in this season seem to represent the current state that his self-discovery journey is in.

for example, isaac is seen reading ‘boy erased’ briefly in one scene - a book about conversion therapy. suggesting that isaac is rejecting the idea of being aroace at this point in time.

as he gets closer to understanding his identity, he reads ‘summer bird blue’, which has an aroace mc but isn’t the entire focus of the book. this suggests he’s much more open to the idea of aroace and is looking into it, but discreetly.

and then, of course, he picks up the ACE book from the library.

but if this is the case, back in episode 3 when james and isaac were setting up the display, james says this:

as he picks up the book with ‘bi’ written in front. and isaac responds:

if the books he has read in this season represent his labels and self-discovery journey, the suggestion that he has read a book about bisexuality but disliked it, suggests that he has, in fact:

experienced the bisexual to aroace pipeline.

#this is my favourite little detail #i realised this on my second watch and giggled to myself #i love this pipeline. because i also had it #osemanverse #alice oseman #heartstopper #heartstopper tv #hstv #heartstopper show #heartstopper season 2 #isaac henderson #heartstopper isaac #aroace #aromantic #asexual #aro #ace #asexuality #aromanticism

[the-great-ladyg]

Did someone notice in the new Somerton's video that he didn't adress any of the misogyny or transphobia accusations? Like, yeah, he said "people say I hate women but that's not true" and only that. And he also addressed the misinformation, in which we can include the misgendering, but he still didn'h fully talk about this even when those accusations were, along with plagiarism, the most talked about on the internet.

This dude didn't give any reason for why "he doesn't hate" women or trans people, it truly was a "source: dude trust me" and Somerton expects us to believe him, when no, he threw shit on women in every chance he got, he showed transphobia in many times for no fucking reason other than he's got something against women and trans people.

And he also didn't address any of the racism people has pointed out since a long time, but more specially since HBomberguy and Todd's video. This dude only focused on plagiarism, and even that he sucked at since he implied it was an accident. How can you plagiarize on accident?, you have to write, to read, to check what you're doing, he read and Nick's scripts, he must have noticed the copying and still left it with no citation. He said he loves investigating and reading, then he must notice the copying, yet he also said he "didn't notice", like this dude can't recognize he did this on purpose, it was all "an accident".

Also, he just tried shifting the blame, placing it on Nick or, again, like it was an accident and he didn't mean to it. Somerton knew what he was doing, all of us are taught at school, specially college, that plagiarism not only is bad, it it diminishes the quality and credibility of the person that stole those words, it can get you expelled or fired, and let's not forget the people you're hurting by stealing from them, and this case the people whose experiences and words were stolen. Somerton is in a more privileged position than many people in the LGBTQ+ community since he's a cis white man, and yet he decided to attack this way many POC and trans people, not only he stole their words, but he also used racist and transphobic rhetoric, he misgendered, he erased sexualities and put all of us on the same box of "cis straight white women".

"I wanted to make my channel a safe space", yeah, sure man, like saying all the negative things of an MLM media is straight cis women's fault, or misgendering, erasing the bisexuality of a woman or changing "trans" for "queer" is going to make to make your channel a safe for queer women and trans people.

I just deep down know he won't change at all, maybe except for the citations, but we must expect he'll continue being a misogynist racist transphobe dumbass that will keep ignoring this accusations and using the homophobia card.

I really feel sorry if he truly felt so bad he harmed himself and ended up on an hospital, if that's real I hope he gets better and never gets to that point again. Maybe I'm naive, but I want to believe this is not a tactic to manipulate us to forgive him, but... idk, I just expect anything from this man that has used the homophobia card to protect his ass from any criticism.

But talking by myself, as a genderfluid AFAB person who consumes and creates queer content and felt so insulted by his racism, his misogyny and transphobia, and noticing how he avoided the topic, I don't accept his apology and hope he disappears from the internet before he can do any more damage.

#james somerton #james somerton can kiss my enby ass #james somerton can kiss my afab ass #I'm really hating this man for what he did #and what he avoids mentioning

[buckttommy]

Imho henren just doesn’t spark for me. They just kinda bore me and it’s okay to admit you don’t like every queer ship a show gives you.

You're right, it is 100% okay to not like every queer ship you are given. This is actually something I'm really passionate about, because it's deeply similar to the idea of recommending a piece of media based on the fact that it has queer rep and not based on what other value the media has. Both accepting a ship because it's queer and recommending a piece of media based on its queer components come with an inherent, Capitalistic demand to disregard quality in favor of quantity (i.e. "Yeah, that book is mostly porn, but at least it's got gay men in it!" or "That show is trash, but at least the queer couple is kind of cute.") So to that end I say, you are absolutely right. If Henren doesn't spark for you, it doesn't spark. There's nothing wrong with that.

The problem arises when people erase the fact that complex, meticulously crafted, realistic, healthy, and beautiful queer characters have existed on this show from the very beginning. Michael's storyline alone — a gay man who stepped into his identity later in life, despite already being married with children — was so deeply moving and impactful on its own, as was watching him develop a genuine relationship with Bobby, his ex-wife's husband. We never get stories like that on television. Someone is always left out. Someone is always hurt. Queerness is always seen as a permanent betrayal where no one gets to move on from that pain. But 9-1-1 gave us a story where these people became a unique and cohesive family, and that matters.

Henren doesn't spark for you, but the weight and significance of their existence is undeniable. For one, neither of these women are stereotyped and sexualized. Karen is the "femme" in the relationship but she's never put into clothes or situations designed to appeal to the male gaze. She is a mother, she is a wife, and she acts like one. For another, Queerness is not the sole focus of their arcs and is considered just a part of their lives like anything else. They have careers, they have a family, and yes, the cheating storyline in Season 1 reeks heavily of Ryan Murphy's homophobic ideology, but the way they chose to grow past it cannot be overstated. Stories where we get to not just live, or not just love, or not just be messy, but where we can do and be all three cannot be overstated.

So, yes, I get upset when people ignore the existence of these characters and these stories for the sake of Buck. I love Buck so deeply and, as a bisexual person who knows what it is like to realize, step into, and subsequently settle into that identity, I'm excited to see where his story takes him. But he's not the only queer character on the show, nor has he ever been, and whether you yourself are queer or not, I think we can all agree why speaking out against that particular false narrative is so important.

#jack answers mail #tv: 911

[thottybrucewayne]

Another James Somerton lie that's super egregious to me is his lying about Janelle Monáe having to come out of the closet when Pynk came out because "Everyone got confused and thought the song was a girl power anthem when it was really Janelle's coming out song." and making a big deal about erasure and what not but it's like A. None of that is true the second that music video came out everybody and they mama said, "Janelle Monáe gay?????????????????" That was the primary reading of the music video, and it's very well-documented B. It could be argued that the music is somewhat of a "girl power" anthem too and I doubt Janelle would have an issue with that interpretation given that Pynk has a very "owning your sexuality and taking up space" message. C. Funny that James Somerton would make such an impassioned defense of an artist being "forced" to come out because he literally lied on a bisexual writer who was forced to come out after people assumed that she was some gross straight woman obsessed with gay men. James, who supposedly did alllllllll this research, lumped that author in with the "Straight woman who writes gay men's stories." in his video and proceeded to get pissy with her when she left a pretty mild comment of "Hey, after a whole harassment campaign against me forcing me to come out of the closet it kinda sucks that people are still calling me straight." Then, after very gently being called out over him erasing her sexuality to fit his narrative, he proceeded to omit the title of that author's work in his later videos and make up a lie about her being mean to him on Twitter when his audience questioned him on it. LITERALLY TALKIN OUTTA BOTH SIDES OF HIS MOUTH

This whole situation reminds me of a TikTok creator who's been called out for stealing from Black women all the time and how every time it's brought up, it's met with silence. Once, He just straight-up read out a Black trans femme's tweets without properly crediting her or asking her for permission to use her work. Making the excuse of "Well, I screenshotted the tweets and put them on the screen so..." then his fans spent days bashing her for calling him out on using the work of other creators without asking and making fun of her for having a donation up which I don't think he ever addressed outside of the occasional stray comment.

This way of "building a progressive brand" through stealing the work of marginalized writers is actually common in left circles and academia and has been an issue, particularly for Black trans femme essayists, for a while. Black MaGes (people of marginalized genders) will come out and say, "Hey! This really popular essayist ripped me off word for word bar for bar" and get paid dust because their platform isn't large enough to speak out and because their platforms are smaller, people are less inclined to care when they get ripped off. Like, it's easy for us to point at James and say, "Omg? How could he get away with stealing this much for so long?" when the answer is simple, nobody cares what you have to say if you don't have a big platform, thus nobody cares if you get stolen from and unfortunately, we're all complicit. Look at how much this situation has blown up just because a super-popular guy brought it up. If Hbomb and Todd in the shadows didn't speak on this story and these small creators made a bigger stink about James biting their shit, yall would have ignored them at best or crucified them and accused them of trying to tear down the body of work of a gay man and probably throw in something about them secretly being a kiwi farms troll trying to sew discord in the community (I know how yall get down...) at worst. To address this issue more substantially, WE have to be better about learning slowly and taking time to pour over materials ourselves and not fall into the trap of letting whatever video essayist we like the best at the moment shape how we think and feel about whatever topic they're covering. Ismatu Gwendolyn and their threadings essays on substack have really helped me personally start removing myself from the "quick learner" rat race and the need to digest as much information as possible that video essays fulfill and reintroduced me to learning slowly and with intention and reading sources for myself first without depending on the thoughts and feelings of a creator I like and agree with to color my view of things. If we work towards getting used to treating video essayists like essayists and not our parasocial besties being our beginning and end to learning on a topic, we can A. Mitigate the amount of misinformation and plagiarized work circulating by being able to identify them easier and B. Improve our personal relationship to learning so we don't have to rely on some stranger with "bisexual lighting" to make us feel smart.

Edit: Please rb the typo-less version,,,,

#thotty speaks #thotty rants #I linked Ismatu's substack because I cite my sources and am not a fawkin HACK #sorry had to get one more dig in <3

[aysathenotsogreat]

hbomberguy posted a video and i have opinions about it

i never made the active choice to stop watching James Somerton's content but when i stopped having a job that'd let me listen to videos for hours straight, I slowly became interested in other creators. i remember finding a couple of his videos contradictory in their analysis and do remember being annoyed by the "white women/teenager girls" comments a lot. oh yeah and that TELOS PICTURES ALWAYS REEKED OF A SCAM. Hearing James describe himself as a business major first in the pitch video weirded me the hell out. I feel like not enough people are talking about this particular part of the story but the man crowdfunded $60k USD and has produced nothing but stock image posters in return after years.

this man saw his community as nothing but to steal from and profit off of and clearly sees himself above those voices he robs. the point in the video that broke me was right in the beginning in the james half was the Mulan section. the tactic of erasing Jes Tom's words and passing it off as a personal observation of the community instantly reminded me of all the times James has confidently talked on the experiences of trans, nb and all queer people of color throughout his career and the fucking similarity of the language. that moment made me pause and scream. it instantly put into scale that this wasn't just one of the first video essays he'd ever made, it was EVERYTHING.

I want to pretend the queer media I see is made from a place of genuine care of the community, all of us do. but we as a collective need to stop catering to the consumption of content sludge. we need to be more critical and more aware. any time james mispronounced a character or place's name, i would always brush it off as a bad voice take kept in because of the videos' length that wasn't fixed in production. no, that was because james didn't care enough to learn the principle facts of the topics he was covering. (him spelling "shonan" in that AoT script made lose it). he wanted our ad revenue and your patreon money and by stealing the work of actually talented queer people, he basically won.

hbomberguy, lovely chaos bisexual, did a service to our community by making sure millenial and zoomer queers will never let this mf try to grift his way into the entertainment industry again. i have more to say about this video, especially illuminaughii bc she's an especially abusive and toxic person who i also watched a fuck ton at my old job. i certainly need be a bit better about where i get my info from, especially if i'm going to be repeating it to someone else. in the age of tiktok and the speed of misinfo there being insane, i just beg us young queers to think a bit more critically before we post.

#hbomberguy #james somerton #queer discourse time baby