Re: the One Piece poll
Guys OP has a s literal army of trans characters, it's actually a plot point, there's literally so fucking many trans and NB and genderfluid people in OP its kind of fucking insane
There's Bon Clay/Bentham from as early as Alabasta in March of 2000, 3 years after the initial publication of OP
Bon's powers let him transform into other people, and he's the only member of a bad guy group with male/female partners who doesn't have a female partner bc he's both the male AND female partner in his rank
He doesn't need one bc he's both
Bon is also consistently one of the best characters who helps Luffy, and who deeply respects the bonds of friendship, and he deeply admires Ivankov (next in the list)
Plus, Bon Clay is only one of two in the villain group to become good guys and befriends the main characters
There's fucking Ivankov, Queen of Kammabakka Kingdom an island full of drag queens and trans people, with his hormone powers that lets him trans all the genders for himself and everyone around him (aka the Newkama in Impel Down- a literal army of trans people who help Luffy break out of prison so he can save his brother)
AND he's the second in command of the Revolutionary Army, a group actively against the World Government that controls the entire globe, and is fighting against it's corrupt politics and ideals, such as allowing slavery for the higher classes, fighting the racism against Fishman it's held up for centuries, and all that stuff
Ivankov is one of the most important characters in the series in regards to the world politics and the fight for freedom against the oppression of the WG, and he works with what are unambiguously the Good Guys in the world, who are headed by Luffy's father
There's Okiku in Wano, who its 100% trans and even gets the horny Sanji treatment
(which is kinda important bc there was some Bad Trans/Queer rep earlier in the series involving Sanji running from drag queens who were harassing him and for a while Sanji was pretty transphobic and it was a whole thing, but Oda seems to have learned or educated himself by this point, so yay)
Plus Okiku is a super strong samurai, fucking powerful girl go off, and everyone treats her as one of the girls and she's the best tbh she deserves the world
She's so sweet and kind and strong af and is just as much a warrior as the rest of her group
Plus there's Yamato
Who, to be very clear, is not CONFIRMED as trans, but has a lot of gender fuckery going on that he belongs on this list imo, come to your own conclusions ig
Yamato is 100% confirmed as the biological daughter of Kaido, which is backed up in several other sources and even a colorspread with only biological women, but everyone in the story itself refers to him as he/him, Including Luffy who calls him by Yama-guy/Yamao
(something Luffy only does for men- he calls Ivankov and other more genderfluid or femme leaning queer folks by -chan)
and Yamato calls himself the Son of Kaido multiple times
Yamato saw someone be so awesome that he wanted to emulate that person and become them-
but as an apparently separate decision, he decided he also wanted to be a man, too! Not just because of Kozuki Oden, but because holy fuck look at that gender, I want that for myself!!!
His identity as Kozuki Oden and his identity as Son of Kaido seem to be separate things, bc Kaido, Kaido's forces, Luffy (our main character who helps us understand how to treat situations), and everyone else around him at least acknowledges that Yamato, is, in fact, the SON of Kaido, and everyone, regardless of which side they're on in the war, respects that and treats it as fact
Meanwhile, absolutely no one treats Yamato like he's actually Kozuki Oden
And there's no sign of Yamato being forced to become a man because Kaido wanted a son- 1), he was called Oni Princess fairly consistently as a child by Kaido's forces, and 2) he only became known as Son of Kaido after Yamato himself decided he wanted to become a man
Yamato has refused everything forced on him by his father, and has run away, hid, and fought back at every moment he could, and his gender and pronouns were the only real decision of his own that have been respected as all his other freedoms were taken from him
(Which doesn't say much about his horrible father- Kaido was guided by an incredibly strong female pirate at a young age, and he has plenty of strong women among his crew. Kaido doesn't care about what gender his kid is, or gender at all)
So yeah while Yamato is not confirmed in the text as trans like many other characters are in much more obvious ways, and several sources confirm that he's biologically female, he still goes by Son and he/him by the other characters and by his own choice, so make of that what you will
Please enjoy this spread of Yamato in the Men's bath (he refused to join the women's bc no mixed bathing), and Okiku in the women's
Anyway yeah op has tons of trans, genderqueer, and genderfluid representation in it, it might not look it but it's been there since basically March of 2000 when Bon Clay was first introduced and it hasn't stopped since
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So... listen. I'm almost out of my 30s. Really, genuinely almost out of my 30s. I am standing at the threshold of middle age, getting ready to knock on the fucking door. I self-label as queer. I'm masculine-leaning nonbinary of some variety or another. I am, as I generally put it, Extremely Divorced.
(I might have also said "MEGA-Divorced" at one point or another. Probably multiple points. Including last Friday.)
Shows like GO and OFMD feel so resonant and important for me because I'm objectively and unavoidably getting older and I need to see older queer folks developing relationships that are actually deep and good for them, even if they're also messy and imperfect and interrupted. You've got middle-aged men and man-shaped people(?) trying to figure their shit out and be together, and absolutely fucking it up along the way but in a way that's beautiful and genuine and ultimately survivable.
It makes people like me think that maybe we've still got time to get it right, actually. And I have to imagine that there are other people in the "older set" of the fandom(s) who feel like this as well.
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I loved this short comic because of many reasons
It finally confirms that John did feel smth for Gary at some point which is just so painful
he looks so british as a kid and his personality i think its accurate
Cheryl mentioned :(
the contrast between vivid colors as a kid to the simon spurrier hellblazer ones its so smart- Ive always loved talking about the downfall of how John views the world, his beliefs are the same but on early hellblazer it still has color and then on current one everything is so dark and gray
thats i just- this one had a little kick to it
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A lot of things can be true at once. Oliver is the de facto young white lead on 911, so making him anything but straight when the show is both trying to get a new audience and remain familiar to it's old audience is definitely...bold. A lot of straight viewers are going to whine about the show "changing" or "ruining" Buck, which is why ABC has tried to set a positive tone with a big media push. They're in decently uncharted waters.
That said, to call bi Buck "groundbreaking" for the show or say that it will "change the show forever" seems extremely unfair to Aisha Hinds and the character of Hen, who has been LGBTQIA for 7 seasons and has a whole-ass wife and kids. I think that's why Oliver has stuck to simply saying that he personally is thrilled to play this arc and feels responsibility for it. I'm not knocking fans for feeling that it's groundbreaking for them personally. Realizing you're bi at an older age is definitely different from realizing you're a lesbian at a young age. I just think it would be irresponsible of the network or larger news sources to call it that when 911 is technically an ensemble show whose leads, if they exist, are Angela Bassett and Peter Krause.
Imo, what would be truly groundbreaking is Buddie, because from what I understand, no show has ever done a seasons long queer slow-burn relationship where the characters are not revealed as queer from the start but instead discover their queerness based on developing surprising feelings for each other. There have been multiple opportunities but every other show has either queerbaited or ignored the potential. That's what is groundbreaking and that's what changes the show forever, imo.
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