#terms like gay or bi didn’t exist when he was alive

[apollolewis]

Ah yes the inability to fall asleep has struck again. My brain really likes popping random shit into my head to think about. Tonight it was Shakespeare and how “I compare thee to a summer’s day” was written about a man/boy

#midnight thoughts #insomia #shakespeare #sonnets #the whole was Shakespeare gay thing is not an easy thing to figure out #terms like gay or bi didn’t exist when he was alive #I say personally he was bi #shakespeare sonnets

[freepandahugs]

okay, so i kinda had this idea for a

MIRACULOUS ACTORS AU

(which i'm sure already exists somewhere because i'm unoriginal like that, but hear me out)

'Miraculous' is a wildly acclaimed tv drama. It's actually kinda dark too, but still amazing (it actually has character development too)

Mari is Bridgette and Adrien is Felix, and the rest play their same roles as in the series (except Gabriel, he's actually the director/producer of the series)

And i also offer you this:

Marinette Dupain-Cheng:

• oblivious af

• has a crush on adrien but thinks he doesn't like her back so she friendzones him constantly

• bffs with chloe, alya and luka

• is totally trying to set up luka with chloe

• also designs clothes, has a very suffessful clothing line

• plays bridgette in the "miraculous" tv drama

• used to date luka a long time ago but they are best buds now

Adrien Agreste:

• head-over-heels for marinette but is constantly friendzoned

• cat puns because he can

• son of the tv director, gabriel agreste

• bffs with kagami, nino and luka

• is totally trying to set up luka and kagami

• plays felix in the "miraculous" tv drama

Alya Cesaire:

• plays bridgette's best frien on the "miraculous" tv drama

• was a fangirl of marinette's character and accidentally went to a casting and got chosen for her role on the series

• totally ships adrinette, but is done with mari's bs

• started dating nino after their characters also started dating because they started spending a lot of time together

• bffs with chloe and mari, but also befriends lila (she's still kinda startruck with all her new famous friends, can't stop looking at lila through rose-colored glasses because of that)

Nino Lahiffe:

• plays felix's best friend on the "miraculous" tv drama

• young disney star who rose to stardom for his music and his amazing acting

• fell in love with alya when he saw her tumble into the set during auditions

• secretly asked the writers to give his and alya's characters more scenes together (he was bamboozled by the dating thing tho)

• bffs with adrien and luka, also best buds with the rest of the 'akuma class'

• the friendliest off all cast members, a social butterfly

Chloe Bourgeois:

• plays bridgette's rival/eventual friend on the "miraculous" tv drama

• is actually a sweetheart in real life, with fans, actors

• constantly donated to charity, but tells no one because she doesn't like to brag

• extremely shy too (she can't talk to kagami without becoming a tomato)

• is totally crushing on kagami, thinks it's unrequited

• absolutely has bi panic when she sees kagami and luka in the same room

• kinda hooking up with luka, but no strings attached (that's why mari is trying to set them up)

• bffs with alya, mari, adrien and luka

Kagami Tsuguri:

• plays bridgette's love rival/friend on the "miraculous " tv drama

• panics in gay when she sees chloe

• isn't out yet because of her family

• one time she was ogling chloe while she was talking with luka, and adrien came up to her and scared her, causing her to lie that she was looking at luka, thus making adrien want to set them up

• is convinced chloe hates her because he often chloe runs away when she tries to approach her

• bffs with mari and adrien, really good friends with luka too, but not quite as close as with the other two

Luka Couffaine:

• plays felix's love rival on the "miraculous" tv drama (they butt heads a lot for bridgette's affections)

• is actually a world-renowned rock artist, but he wanted to change it up a little and took up acting too

• accidentally finds himself in a love triangle that actually just two very chaotic girls that need to learn to communicate

• is actually aromantic (not asexual, he likes to mess around with people)

• used to date mari before he realized he didn't feel any romantic feelings for her (or anyone)

• they broke up in the best of terms tho, truly, they saw each other more as friends than as lovers

• a huge gabriel agreste's movies/series fanboy (even if he won't ever tell that to anyone, over his dead body)

Lila Rossi:

• plays bridgette's classmate/yet to be revealed main villain on the "miraculous" tv drama

• liar liar pants on fire

• likes to spread rumours around about all the cast members and what will happen in the series

• producers hate her

• but she's a damn good actor and the public seems to love her so they really can't kick her out (they really wish they could tho)

• everyone on cast kinda hates her too

• is trying to get with adrien, makes fun of mari to make her 'less appealing' to adrien (doesn't really work, boi is whipped)

• likes to wreck havoc in the relationships for the lols

Gabriel Agreste:

• director and producer of the "miraculous" tv drama

• ACTUALLY A GOOD FUCKING FATHER

• loves adrien very much, kind of overprotective of him after his wife's death

• but let's him have his freedom

• secretly has a bettinf pool with tom and sabine on when adrien and marinette will get together

• bffs with tom and sabine (mari's irl parents, they are still bakers), used to know each other in school and went on multiple double dates when emilie was still alive

• for some reason they never really organized a play date for mari and adrien when they were childre  but oh well

#mlb #miraculous ladybug #actors au #they're all dumbasses here #they share one collective braincell too #might do some art for this #who knows #adrinette #lukanette #kagami x chloe #kagami x luka #chloe x luka #nino x alya #djwifi

[hellomynameisbisexual]

How did it all start, the erasure of bi people in law and politics, even by the LGBTI-rights movement itself? With bis actually comprising more of the LGBTI population than gays or lesbians, how did we come to be made so invisible, even within LGBTI-rights discourse?

The “how” and the “why” are two separate questions. The “why” is eloquently (although in dense academic language) tackled by Yale Law Professor Kenji Yoshino in his article, The Epistemic Contract of Bisexual Erasure. Yoshino’s article describes in detail the driving forces, both benign and not, of bi erasure. As with many things, it may come down in large part to insecurity: people are threatened by what they don’t understand, and by realities that threaten their rigid paradigms.

For example, Yoshino explains, gay and straight people find some comfort in being able to identify sexual orientation on sight: if one sees a same-sex couple, one can safely assume the members of the couple are gay, and if one sees a different-sex couple, one can safely assume the members of the couple are straight. Except that the existence of bi people renders such assumptions not so safe at all, but rather, fundamentally flawed. Which makes both gay and straight people uneasy, for not dissimilar reasons.

As Yoshino and many others have explored over the years, there are other more complex factors at play as well driving bi erasure. But, leaving the “why” aside, the “how” it all plays out is a bit more straightforward (no pun intended). This article gives a brief snapshot of at least some of the history of bi erasure in LGBTI-rights political discourse. The next article in this series will give a parallel snapshot of how that bi erasure has evolved in LGBTI-rights legal discourse more specifically.

To preface, “gay”, “straight”, and “bi” are all relatively new identities. Since the beginning of time, in every culture, it is likely that people engaged in homosexual or bisexual conduct, without sexual orientation labels being attached to that conduct. For example, Plato’s Symposium can be read, in part, as describing the sexual fluidity of an ancient Greek society in which men often had male lovers in addition to their female wives. But the ancient Greeks didn’t use the ancient Greek equivalent of “gay, straight and bi” identity labels (although the Symposium’s stimulating lover/beloved dichotomy is a binary of another sort). The word “bi” was no more included or erased from discourse in those days than “gay” or “straight” was.

It was only when “homosexual” and “gay” became common labels in modern society that the comparative absence of “bisexual” and “bi” from political discourse became apparent. Rather than the label “homosexuality” applying only those with solely same-sex attractions, those who had both same and other-sex attractions also got swept up in the “homosexual” label rather than being acknowledged as “bisexual”. In other words, “homosexual”, and, eventually, “gay”, evolved as the default labels in political discourse for everyone who engages in same-sex intimacy, whether or not they also have different-sex romantic partners and attractions.

Even Alfred Kinsey’s influential research in the 1940’s–which revealed how fluid sexuality is and how uncommon it is for people to be unwaveringly homosexual or heterosexual–was bi-erasive in terminology even while being positively bi-revolutionary in its impact: Kinsey himself disliked, and did not employ, the term “bisexual” as a label describing bi-sexual orientation.

Bi invisibility and erasure to this day is pervasive in political discourse as well. For example, despite lobbying from bi activists, LGBTI-allied legislators and even many LGBTI-rights groups still insist on using the titles “Gay Panic Defense Ban” or “Gay and Trans Panic Defense Ban” to describe legislative efforts to ban those who commit violence against LGBTI people from defending themselves on the grounds that they were provoked by the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity. As ten-year old Anthony Avalos would attest, were he still alive to do so, being brutally murdered for being queer is something that happens to bi children too. Although The Advocate, with unfortunately bi-erasing inaccuracy, reported he was killed for coming out as gay after saying he liked boys, the full story is that Anthony was beaten to death, allegedly by his mother’s boyfriend, for coming out as bisexual and saying he liked boys and girls.

Just as Anthony’s bisexuality, the very reason for his brutal murder, was erased by a prominent LGBTI media source, so is the broader reality of violence against bi people every time the LGBTI-rights movement pushes legislation that includes only gays and trans people in its name, not bi people. It has been, so far fruitlessly, pointed out to those who insist on omitting “bi” from the “gay and trans” titles of such legislation (if not, thankfully, from the bills’ legislative protections) that such bi erasure is both inaccurate and harmful to bi people, who suffer disproportionately high rates of violence and hate crimes compared to even lesbians and gays.

Sadly, the response to the call for bi-inclusivity in naming LGBTI-rights legislation has been a collective shrug and half-hearted justification that this is just the way the bills have always been titled (although they haven’t; they’ve evolved from “gay panic” to “gay and trans panic”, so why not evolve a bit more, to “LGBTI panic”?).

Change is hard, so it is said. But being excluded by name from protections from hate violence, having our very existence erased by those who are supposed to represent us, is harder. It’s not too late to start being inclusive of the bi community, and, in the process, more accurate about the demographics (and honoring of the lives) of those who are victims of violence because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Panic defense ban legislation is just one of many contexts in which bi people have been omitted from the titles of legislation. The good news, and bi people should take this to heart, is that the actual text of these bills does protect against sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination broadly, which applies to bi people and other queerfolk alike. Which just begs the question: if the actual substantive text of laws can be written to be bi-inclusive, why can’t the titles of the legislation as well? It’s not such a big ask.

An even more important policy ask, that has been made over time by members of the bi community, is for bi people to be not just acknowledged, but counted in our own right in research and the collection of data that determines the allocation of resources to communities in need. This, and other bi-aware policy protections for bisexuals that are solely needed, would go a long way toward protecting the bi community, the largest but least politically acknowledged group within the LGBTI movement.

To solve the problem of bi erasure in LGBTI-right discourse, policy and politics, it will help if more out bi lawmakers are elected to office (such as Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema, who has a shot at advancing to the U.S. Senate this fall). But it doesn’t seem that bi legislators are going to flood the state capitols or advance to Congress in great numbers any time soon. So in the meantime, we desperately need our own community — the broader LGBTI rights movement, LGBTI media, and LGBTI-friendly legislators — to step up, hear our voice, and say our name.

#bi tumblr #bisexuality #lgbtq community #bi #lgbtq #support bisexuality #bisexuality is valid #lgbtq pride #pride #bi pride #bisexual #bisexual history #bi history #bisexual community #support bisexual #support bisexual people #bisexual injustice #biphobic gay people #biphopia #biphobic #bi erasure #bisexual erasure #bisexual facts #bisexual info

[ghostparents]

queer beetlejuice the musical headcanons bc it’s pride and i love to overthink about everything :’)

(also mentions of shitty parents & queerphobia keep yallselves safe okay)

adam is bi, obvs (and maybe demiromantic?). he’s had a few boyfriends & girlfriends before he met barb, but none of them were like Serious relationships. he didn’t have like super accepting parents but they slowly became more tolerant (a part of him thinks that’s because he eventually married a woman tho but he like tries not to think about it). he’s always been very upfront about his sexuality with barbara and she might’ve have had to like reexamine some internal biases on her own time but she has NEVER let adam see any of that and has never been less than proud & loving of every part of him ;-; she’s also maybe punched a few people who were being biphobic to him (he would never want anyone to hurt anyone but also barb has fists and she WILL throw them if need be). adam very casually came out to the deetzes bc honestly he’s been around people who Know that he’d kinda forgotten that it could be like? a thing? obviously no one cares (luckily, bc barb would’ve killed them) but beej is upset for like 10 seconds bc HE wanted to be the one who made adam realise he liked dudes >:(

lydia: this isn’t about you

beej: ??? everything is about me

lydia’s an ace lesbian, and she takes a while to come out. not because she doesn’t think she’ll be accepted, but because she’s just like really upset that she never got to come out to her mother?? emily deetz was very openly bi, and lydia’s upset that she never got to like share that with her. also she’s kinda worried about beej’s reaction (she’s not super sure he’d get asexuality). but eventually she does come out and everyone is really psyched for her and of course delia bakes her a rainbow cake (it’s really really awful. lydia loves it) and beej DOES need some explaining (it turns out that he does understand asexuality he’d just never heard that actual word before!!) and he wears an ‘i love my ace sister’ shirt for like 2 weeks straight (until charles p much threatens not to let him into the house unless he puts on a clean shirt).

barbara had parents that were uh,,kinda a lil more disapproving than adam’s (& adam never came out to them because of it) but she’s been dismantling all the biases she grew up with. and then lydia comes out. and obviously barbara is very happy and proud and supporting!!!! but then like later when it’s just her & her husband she’s like ‘ok but how can she know she’s gay if she hasn’t had a gf tho’ and adam’s like ‘,,,,,,,,,you don’t have to have had a relationship to know you’re gay? it’s like how i knew i was bi even though i’d only dated guys at that point? if you know then like you know & you don’t need proof??’ and barb is like ‘,,,,,,,,,,,understandable. on an unrelated note i need to go have an existential crisis’. she’d been thinking of herself as straight because even though she DID like girls she never dated one, and she just figured that it didn’t count. it’s taking her a while to work through all her internalised biphobia but she is getting there!! she’s a lil annoyed that she didn’t figure this out while she was alive though

beej: i mean if you’re upset you missed out on lady loving then you can join me in staring at delia’s ass while she’s doing yoga

barbara: isn’t she like your mom??

beej: well fuck you now you’ve made it weird for me

beetlejuice is pan and agender!! lydia went through loads of terms with him because a lot of them didn’t exist last time he was in the living world, and those are the two he likes the best. juno didn’t give a shit about who he dated (except to make some shitty remarks about ‘no one will ever love u they’re just using u bc they know ur needy & pathetic’ but it’s fine it’s fine he’s fine he’s working through it) but she DID give a shit about how he dressed, and pretty much pressured him into always wearing super masculine clothes. he likes his suit he does but he also would love to wear some feminine things sometimes? one of his first lil rebellions against juno was painting his nails, and now delia does his makeup with him :’)  (except for lipstick bc he just eats it). lydia bought him his first ever dress and he loves it so much okay. he gets overwhelmed in shops a lot but he still tags along on shopping trips sometimes w delia & lydia and they love picking out things for him that he never thought he’d be ‘allowed’ to wear. he’s ending up sticking with he/him bc he likes it and doesn’t mind as long as everyone understands that he is not a man tyvm. also he doesn’t mind being called mister bc it’s still the funniest thing ever when charles calls him mr juice (delia called him ms juice once and beej was like :O!!!!! so now they all mix a lot with titles & terms. beej loves it)

delia is pan!!! she doesn’t talk about it unless she knows she’s with ppl who don’t care (she’d be the first person to punch a bigot if they said something about someone else but also like she wouldn’t stand up to her ‘friends’ or partners if they said smth bc she’d kinda think she deserved it?? but she’s unlearning that shit don’t worry). now that she knows that the deetzes & maitlands are Good People she is VERY open and happy about who she is!! also obviously no one was surprised bc like that woman RADIATES gay energy. lydia & beej had actually had a bet on how long it was gonna take for her to come out to them. lydia won :). her and beej especially bond over being pan (& also they get high and commiserate over shitty parents who don’t accept them bc yeah that woman has never had a good parental figure in her life lbr).

after delia comes out beej is like [divebombs charles] TOKEN HET and he’s like mr juice. i am bi. and that’s that tbh

#beetlejuice the musical #adam maitland #lydia deetz #barbara maitland #beetlejuice #delia deetz #charles deetz #headcanons #my fave thing to do is headcanons so sorry but yall gonna get a lot of these about like. everything #(.............also u could ask me for headcanons about musicals if u want okay bye) #drug mention

[c-is-for-circinate]

On Good Omens, queerbaiting, and heteronormative bullshit

Theory: Good Omens the miniseries and the way it treats relationships feels maybe a little weird and hits some of the same mental buttons as queerbaiting not because Aziraphale and Crowley are insufficiently gay, but because the entire rest of the show is.  In this essay I will actually write this essay, because no, really, I think it’s A Thing and I might even be able to prove it.

There’s a lot of nuance to both sides of the whole queerbaiting/not-queerbaiting argument, and I don’t want to neglect any of it, but I think my big takeaways have been as follows:

On the ‘this is uncomfortable and queerbaity’ side:

Good Omens the miniseries ramps up the emotional relationship between Crowley and Aziraphale to be the heart of the entire show.  Both demon and angel are coded as gay in a number of different ways, both individually and in terms of how their relationship is portrayed as a romance.  And yet despite being the core of the show, they never make any of it explicitly romantic.  There’s not a kiss, there’s not an ‘I love you’.  The entire relationship is built from implications rather than explicit statements.

Years and decades and centuries of storytelling have given us gay relationships that we have to look for.  That we have to find in implications rather than explicit statements.  Sometimes stories were written that way for plausible deniability, so that content creators could keep mainstream/straight fans happy while also luring queer fans with crumbs and promises.  Sometimes stories were written that way for plausible deniability, so content creators could slip hidden gay messages past censors.  Sometimes stories were written that way for plausible deniability, so content creators could stay literally, physically safe.  But either way, it’s exhausting.  It’s been so long.  We want to see ourselves on screen.  We want somebody to admit out loud to what we’re seeing.  We’re tired.

Also, when things get heated: the opposing side are apologists and boot-lickers, ready to bend over backwards to defend their Precious Author Faves in hopes of receiving whatever crumbs they can get.  (Please note: this is an ad hominem argument with like ten different logical fallacies in it, and also it’s just mean.  We will be assuming that all parties in this discussion are attempting to act in good faith with a healthy dose of frustration, and largely ignoring this point.)

On the ‘no, this is Good Representation, really’ side:

Aziraphale and Crowley are in a queer relationship--it’s just not a gay one.  They are two genderfluid beings who mostly present as male out of preference or convenience, surrounded by additional similar genderfluid beings who may present as male, or female, or both, or neither.  Their relationship is both romantic and asexual.

The fact that those ‘explicit milestones’ of kissing, sex, etc are absent from the show is in fact part of the point.  Not only does it make sense for the characters themselves, but it means so much to see a relationship that is obviously romantic, that is the center of an entire story, where the key turning point is about something other than sex or marriage.  A relationship can be super important, can be important enough to build an entire life around, without sex, without kissing, without wedding rings.  It’s so good to see one that is.

Also, when things get heated: the opposing side are aphobes and probably transphobes, whiny babies who don’t really care about representation, they just want their kind of representation.  (Please see above note about ad hominem attacks and logical fallacies.

There are a few points that everyone can agree on.  Crowley and Aziraphale follow the plotline of a romance, and their relationship is the core of this show.  They do not kiss, or have sex, or explicitly fall into any behavior that conventionally says, ‘yes, this human couple is dating’.  Other characters in the show mistake-them-for-dating, but those characters are always uninformed about the real complex nature of this relationship.

One side says: it all comes so close to being a thing we so rarely get to see, to reflecting ourselves on screen.  Why promise and not deliver?  Why come so close and then shy away?  Aziraphale and Crowley, with all they are to each other (with Aziraphale’s shop in Soho and his time in a discrete gentleman’s club, with their so-religious families that will disown them or worse for this relationship, with everything they are an have been) are a metaphor for gayness that refuses to commit past the point of metaphor and just admit it already, and it hurts.

The other side says: it has exactly hit the nail on the head of being a different thing we so rarely get to see, to reflecting a different portion of ourselves onscreen.  It just so happens that the thing it’s reflecting is by nature a little confusing and undefined, is close to the kind of queerness you’re expecting without getting there.  Crowley and Aziraphale (who’ve been alive for six thousand years, who have seen so many different ways humans love each other and swear to each other, who are not bound by our conventions or definitions and maybe show us that we don’t have to be either) are a metaphor for nothing.  They parallel a lot of familiar narratives of a lot of kinds of queerness, without trying to be anything but what they are.

Two sides, everybody so starved for representation that they’ll grab for it and name-call and scrabble desperately when they almost get it.  One relationship.  One divided fandom.

.

Look, it is obvious by this point that this is a case of everybody fighting over our one specific instance of representation because there isn’t enough to go around, right?  If gay relationships were more common throughout fiction, it wouldn’t be so important that Aziraphale and Crowley were among them.  If ace relationships and alternative relationship dynamics were portrayed as frequently or given as much weight as sexual ones, it wouldn’t be so important.

And it’s not just about what’s important, it’s about what’s noticed.  If there were gay relationships--or if there were ace relationships, or other kinds of queer relationships!--all over fiction, then being explicit would matter so much less.  It is important, in this world, that queer relationships in fiction announce what they are out loud, because in this world they are so often brushed over or ignored.  They have to clear a much higher bar than conventional straight, sexual relationships.  If there were more representation in the world, everybody would be primed to notice Aziraphale and Crowley as a romance.  We wouldn’t need it spelled out--one, because we’d already know, and two, because it wouldn’t be such a big deal if somebody else didn’t.

Of course, there’s more representation these days than there used to be--little dribs and drabs of it all over.  There’s just enough out there that somebody can say, ‘look, we’ve seen basic gay romances, let us have this thing here, let us have this nuance’.  And meanwhile half the audience (who may be gay, or bi, or ace, or transgender or genderqueer themselves in all sorts of ways) is gaping, because...okay, maybe gay romance exists in some places, in corners, but there’s still so little of it.

We’re all living on crumbs.  It’s hard to appreciate nuance when you’re just a few steps past starving.  It’s hard to appreciate the grace of ambiguous and open endings when you’ve seen them twisted against you again and again, and you just want something that’s yours.

.

Here’s another thing, an important thing.  Humans are used to seeing patterns and we’re used to seeing stories.  It can be very hard to tell whether a storyteller is trying to give us something new and strange told well, or something more familiar told badly--especially if we’re used to seeing the familiar thing told badly.

And: if the audience cannot tell whether an author is portraying Thing A well or Thing B badly, at a certain point it doesn’t really matter which it is.

And: sometimes the only way to tell if a story is trying to show you Thing A and succeeding or Thing B and failing, is to look around the story to see if you can spot Thing B done right, anywhere else.

In other words: How do you make a difference between an audience that is collectively sure that Crowley and Aziraphale are some specific, slightly-hard-to-define but very definitely queer thing (and sometimes being hard to define is an intrinsic part of queerness), versus an audience divided amongst themselves over whether or not they’re just a bad, cowardly approximation of ‘gay’?

You put actual, explicit gay somewhere else in the story.

And that’s where we run into problems.

.

The problem with Good Omens the miniseries and how it does queer representation, how it does Crowley and Aziraphale and their romance, is the same problem that Good Omens the miniseries has across the board.  The problem is that half the writing team is gone, and so is half the story.

In the miniseries, Aziraphale and Crowley are, hands down, the main characters.  This is their story, and everyone else around them--Anathema and Newt, the Four Horsemen, Heaven and Hell, the Them, and even Adam himself--are just bit players.  I don’t fault Neil Gaiman for that, exactly.  I’m sure he did his best, and his best meant he poured the heart and soul of the story into these two characters and the relationship they share.  He gave them as much richness and depth as he possibly could.  (That’s part of why we all love them enough to fight over them.)  But the fact is, the rest of the story around them suffered.

Adam and the Them, Anathema and Newt, even Madame Tracy and Sergeant Shadwell--humans, all of them, and very much the people who actually stop the apocalypse.  Considering the way Anathema kick-started Adam along his path towards Armageddon, they’re even the people who started the apocalypse.  Very, very fundamentally, Good Omens is a story about how humans don’t need heaven or hell--not to be evil, not to be good, and not to keep being human.  Except that the miniseries wrote the humans off to the side, and that cracked things a little.  In some places, it cracked things a lot.

Don’t get me wrong: I love the miniseries.  I love Crowley and Aziraphale at the heart of it, and the richness and depth of their relationship.  I love the story about how an angel and a demon are so very very human, even though they think they aren’t.

But it’s a story that only works with enough of a contrast.  We can only appreciate Aziraphale and Crowley as an angel and a demon who’ve become very-nearly human if we know what the differences are in the first place.  We can only appreciate their similarities if we see enough humans acting the same way: with want, with fear, with desire, with pettiness, with love.

The difficulty with the miniseries is that we see a great deal of Crowley and Aziraphale being full of very, very human emotions and reactions.  We see their worry and desperation and how much they care about each other.  Nothing we see from any other character in the whole show comes close.

Anathema lives a life in service to (a prophecy, not a Host, but is it so different?) a thing she doesn’t quite understand and nobody can explain to her, that she just has to trust--but we see Aziraphale deal with Gabriel and Heaven again and again, and we see so little of Anathema’s fear and doubt.  Newt is fired from (a nothing job, not God’s endless love) a world he vaguely understands but isn’t good enough for, and finds himself in a strange, confusing place where he’s probably smarter than his boss and everything smells a bit weird and it might technically be his job to hurt people except maybe he doesn’t want to--and we get none of it, compared to what we see of Crowley, six thousand years post-Fall.

Adam is human and not-human, full of powers that can bend the world around him to his whim, that can make things how he thinks they should be.  He decides not to, because of love and selfishness, because he’d rather be human.  He makes the exact same decision Aziraphale and Crowley make.  We just get so much less of the weight of it.

The thing about telling the story this way is that it turns Crowley and Aziraphale into the only real people in the whole show, with everyone around them in silhouette and abstract.  It stops being a story about how this angel and this demon are, effectively, exactly the same as everyone else--oh sure they’ve got some differences, powers and abilities and age and shape-shifting (and mutable gender, and vague non-existent sexualities), but hell, people in general are full of differences in all of those things anyway.  

All of a sudden, the differences between baseline human and celestial being start to feel weird and cheap.  If Aziraphale and Crowley are the only real people in the story, and they’re not reacting in the way most people would react--it’s not just because they’re individuals, with specific individual wants and needs and reactions.  It’s either a statement or a weird error.  If the only real people in the story aren’t people, everything starts to fall just a little bit apart.

.

And so we come back around to sexuality once again.

A deeply, deeply unfortunate side effect of the Good Omens miniseries fleshing out Heaven and Hell and neglecting the humans is that all of the queer content--all of the nonbinary characters, our one shining non-heterosexual relationship, all of it--went to characters who were not human.  It makes so much sense, on one hand.  That’s where all the new depth came from, so of course that’s where all the new queerness went.  And why should non-human characters subscribe to human definitions of gender and sexuality?  Of course they wouldn’t.

Because, right: the idea that sexuality is in and of itself a primarily human thing, which most non-humans lack but some experiment with for fun (and that is Word of God and that is explicit in the text of the show and the book)--that idea’s not actually inherently bad.  The idea that sexuality is a requirement of humanity, that it comes part and parcel with love and ‘becoming more human’ (which is, after all, the best thing you can do according to show or book)--that idea is in fact bad.  But if all of your desire for sex goes to your humans AND all your queerness goes to your non-humans...that gets real unfortunate, real real fast.

The problem is, just like the show neglected to give the full depth of human characterization and emotion to its actually human characters, it failed to give them the full depth of human sexuality and gender, too.

The humans in Good Omens are painfully heterosexual.  It’s not simply that the Newt/Anathema and Tracy/Shadwell relationships are straight--it’s that they fall into place as though straight is the only choice.  Both relationships are so very much a picture of no other options.  Anathema and Newt are facing the end of the world, about to probably die, and also have been prophecied to get together under these circumstances for centuries.  Shadwell and Madame Tracy are both very deeply alone, and getting older, and if they want to be anything but alone their only choice appears to be each other.  These four people appear to default their way into traditional m/f relationships, whether it’s falling into (under) bed or moving to the country to retire together.  They hit all of those ‘explicit markers’ we were talking about before, and they don’t do it with emotional build-up.  They don’t do it with any real exploration of the individuals involved or why they’re making these choices.  There’s barely any acknowledgement that these are choices.

The thing is, gay humans do exist in the world of Good Omens!  We spend time is Soho, and we hear about a very specific extremely gay gentleman’s club, and we know it’s there, somewhere, hidden.  We just never get to see it.  Crowley and Aziraphale (who are our only touchstone to those queer areas, which the other human characters never seem to encounter) are the Only Queers In The World.  And it sucks, and I think it happened completely by accident.

I suspect that the lack of human queerness was literally just a side-effect of the lack of human anything--Crowley and Aziraphale are in fact the only queers in the world specifically because they’re the only people in the world.  None of the already-existing human characters were given enough additional development to add much of anything, including any new gay.  The human world of Tadfield and the Witchfinder Army wasn’t given enough development to make it worth creating any new characters, let alone queer ones.

It just means that, all of the sudden, straightness gets accidentally equated with every single non-child human we spend more than two lines with, and queerness becomes exclusively the province of demons and angels.  That’s really bad.  It’s one of those unfortunate accidents that happens sometimes, because the world ain’t perfect, but it’s pretty not great.  And that’s where our problems come from.

In particular that’s where this current debate comes from, because if sexuality = human and human = straight, and nonhuman = asexuality and queerness = nonhuman, then we’ve accidentally said some pretty damning things about humanity and equated all queerness with lack of sexual desire all at the same time.  And it’s subtle, and it’s easy to miss, because it’s all about a lack of queer humans that’s all mixed in with the lack of humans at all, but it feels off.  So we go looking for reasons and we go looking for scapegoats.  It’s so easy to fixate on and blame the only queer relationship (the only developed, real relationship) we get at all, writ huge and impossible-to-miss all over our screen, rather than all the invisible ones we don’t.

.

Here’s what I take away from all of this: Crowley and Aziraphale are, in every real sense, the most important characters in the Good Omens miniseries, and their relationship is without doubt the most important relationship.  It’s a well-developed, believable relationship.  It’s neither a straight relationship, nor an explicitly sexual gay relationship.  It is a different thing all its own, a thing that does not easily fit conventional human labels, that may or may not include sex at some point but certainly does not require it to be devastatingly important.

And I like that.  I, me, personally, who would rather find a reason to feel heartened than a reason to feel angry, am really glad to see something so extremely not-straight at the emotional center of a story I care about.  That’s me.

In the absence of anything that is an explicitly sexual gay relationship, this nebulous complicated thing at the core of this story looks an awful lot as though it’s trying to be gay and not getting there all the way.  And that sucks.  And for a lot of people, that hits some very specific buttons that have been made tender over many years of stories that try to be gay and refuse to go there all the way.  The flaw, though, is in the contrast and the context around the relationship--not in the relationship itself.

Stories are hard.  Telling stories, and making sure that they get heard on the other end the way we want them to, is hard.  Figuring out why certain things resonate the way they do, why some people feel connected while others feel alienated when we’re just trying to make our point, is sometimes the hardest thing of all.

I don’t blame Neil Gaiman for not magically figuring out that this would happen with the story he was trying to tell, partially because I haven’t seen anybody else in this great big argument of ours notice it either.  He tried to tell a story that was similar to but distinct from a story a lot of people wanted, and he didn’t make it clear enough.  I still really like the story we got.  I like all the slightly-different fanfic versions, too.  I like liking things.  That’s me.

If you’re still mad, if you’re still hurt: legit.  That’s valid.  But I don’t think arguing over this one specific relationship, what it Should Be and Shouldn’t Be, is helpful.  

Basically: I don’t want to sit around getting angry at each other over why Crowley and Aziraphale didn’t get the same traditional markers of Happily Ever After as Newt and Anathema, as Tracy and Shadwell.  I want to know why those couples didn’t have to (didn’t get to) EARN their happily-ever-afters with all the feeling and wanting and fearing and deciding that Aziraphale and Crowley did.

#good omens #driveby meta attack #I said I was going to keep my two cents out of this one! #apparently I lied #sigh

[thisiswhatwereupagainst]

The Forgotten LGBT Characters of 1990s Marvel Comics

Hey X-Men fans! It’s still June, still Pride month, so I wanted to talk about three lesser-known LGBT Marvel characters. They’re very obscure, and they’re all also all from the early 1990s. Like Mystique, one might consider them pioneers of Marvel becoming inclusive of LGBT people. Unlike Mystique, no one really knows about them, as they never became major players (far from it, in fact) Be warned, two of them are villains and very much products of their time and the unfortunate way that society was still treating LGBT people; Marvel was starting to include them, sure, but in very demonized, stereotyped ways. But problematic or not, they existed and they’re close to my heart, and I’d like them to be remembered by a greater amount of fandom. Who knows, if enough people like them, maybe they will come back in canon one day and be treated with greater sensitivity!

Shinobi Shaw (bisexual) - Shinobi Shaw appeared as the young estranged son of Sebastian Shaw, who abused him terribly as a child. While he looked pretty badass at first by killing his father (it turned out not to take, alas) he spent the rest of his time being pretty much a joke as a villain. He preferred to just get drunk and hang out with a bevvy of hot men and women than really do any villainy, and what villainy he did commit was largely limited to trying to get X-Men he liked (Warren and Storm) to join him. Seriously, he sent Warren an invitation to a Hellfire Club party on a PERFUMED card with a LACEY border written in LOOPY PINK INK, and wanted him to be his White King. He totally had a crush on him. Jubilee drives it home with a “Liberace” comparison just in case that was all too subtle for readers. And of course he was attracted to Storm because...STORM. All bad guys like Storm! That’s not where the hints of bisexuality end, though. And by “hints” I mean “on more than one occasion he’s surrounded by men and women who are in various states of undress” like basically the art is trying to tell us that he’s in the middle of an orgy at any given time. At one point, his butler asks him if he’s having oysters or snails tonight, which is an old-timey way of saying “women or men”, and Shinobi replies he thinks he’ll have dinner first, just so the readers are sure he AIN’T talking about food here. Also he dresses in a purple pirate coat and lilac pinstripe pants. I don’t like stereotyping but COME ON GUYS. Fashion bicon right here! Shinobi is definitely and blatantly depicted as bisexual, but he’s really not what could be called good bisexual representation. He’s not only a villain, he’s played up as simultaneously despicable and ineffective, as too effeminate and damaged (his status as an abuse survivor is not treated sympathetically either) to be any real threat, but still as disgusting nonetheless. He’s also depicted as something of an attempted sexual predator, but also as, again, not really enough of a “real man” for it to be scary, just gross. He’s also played up a LOT as a decadent hedonist obsessed only with pleasure, which is an age-old stereotype of gay people and bi people both, but especially bi people. There’s a lot of problems with Shinobi. But he’s still a lot of fun as a character, at least to me, and the hints of how emotionally damaged he is from aforementioned abuse and the implication he may have a substance abuse problem and that all this decadence might just be his only way of coping because he’s clearly unable to connect with people but WANTS to somehow...there’s a great character arc here waiting to happen, if some writer only sees it. Those familiar with the far more famous Daken might notice some similarities in design; both are the eastranged predatory  bisexual abused half-Japanese son of a burlier, hairier, pre-established white male character. Of course, Daken was far more competent and became a much more major, complex character. Maybe Shinobi was sort of his first draft? Who knows! All I know is that as of June 19, Shinobi has finally re-appeared alive in Uncanny X-Men #20, and I’m hoping for more shenanigans--preferably in the flamboyant bisexual disaster Shinobi style! Mindmeld (transgender) - Mindmeld appears solely in X-Force #62 as a bodyguard in the employ of Shinobi Shaw. No alternative name is given for her, and it’s my headcanon that “Mindmeld” is her chosen name as both a mutant and a trans woman. How do we know she’s a trans woman? Well, we don’t. But she’s drawn with the same body type and facial shape as all the male characters are, because this is comics and there’s one mold for guys, one for ladies. However, despite big muscles, a strong jaw, and a distinct lack of breasts, she presents pretty feminine, with makeup and a lot of jewelry. The other characters (the heroes, no less) express confusion about her gender, saying things like “Now, Mr. or Mrs. Mindmeld...” and “What is your real name? Pat? Chris?” (get it? those are unisex/androgynous names?) However, only “she” pronouns are ever used for her. Given all this, I think it’s fair to say that these jabs along with her physical appearance are meant to hint to the audience that she’s a transgender woman. She could fall into some other trans category, such as non-binary or genderqueer, but considering this was the 90s (when those identities were less known) and being written by straight cis guys (the least likely to know about said identities) I think that her being a pre-op/non-op/non-passing trans woman is a safe guess. My bet is that her presence was meant to add some shock value and play up Shinobi’s own bisexuality (since it’s a common misconception that a straight man couldn’t possibly be into a trans woman) In any case, she was short-lived and ill-treated by both the story and the other characters, but I find her intriguing. She’s also very important despite her obscurity, as she’s the first representation of a transgender mutant that I’m aware of that didn’t involve something like shapeshiting or or bodyswapping (though her powers could swap the brains of other people!) or being an alien with no knowledge of gender norms, or any other “explanation” that accounted for being trans that had no real-world equivalent. She just seems to have been trans in the way REAL people are trans, something that thus far no mutant I’m aware of (save for another one-time character, Jessie Drake) has been. And I think she damn well deserves some love for that. Plus look at her, she’s just cool! Nocturne (wlw) - Nocturne aka Angela Cairn (no, not TJ Wagner, this is a different Nocturne) is the only non-villain on this list, and the only one whose sexuality was treated sympathetically, perhaps because it was only hinted at and her story was told largely in metaphor. Ironically, she’s also the only chracter here who is not a mutant or an X-Men character, despite X-Men being the publication that’s supposed to be all about embracing the different and downtrodden. She first appears in the 1993 Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #13, and had a few subsequent appearances before disappearing from the page altogether. Angela Cairn was a police officer of Black, Cuban, and Native American (tribe unspecified) heritage. As a lifelong victim of prejudice, she joined the police in hopes of using the law to protect others from being victimized. She is implied to have been in a romantic relationship with a fellow female officer, Jackie Kessler, and the two may have co-habited. After Jackie is murdered in the line of duty, Angela went on the trail of a serial killer who she believed was the same supervillain that killed Jackie. Following a false lead, she was lured to a warehouse where she was trapped and experimented on by one of the nameless mutates created from humans by Baron Zemo. Unlike the other monstrous mutates, this one did not seek to return to human form, and, for reasons unknown, wanted Angela to become like her. As a result, Angela was transformed in the mute, winged, vampire-like being called Nocturne. No longer able to live in human society or even explain to others that she’s Angela, Nocturne becomes homeless and protects those who also live on the fringes of society, including a boy who is the victim of a gay-bashing. Her journey ends up being not a typical superhero tale, but an introspective single-issue saga of pain and self-acceptance. It’s told largely in what I interpret to be metaphor for coming to terms with being open about her sexuality only after she lost her partner, which I write more extensively about HERE, and I personally find it to be a surprisingly deep and nuanced story---especially for comics, which are usually about as subtle as an anvil when it comes to whatever social commentary they’re trying to get across (not that this is always a bad thing either!) Anyway, if you read this far, I’d very much appreciate it if you would reblog! I think these characters deserve to be more well-known, and I think a lot of people will enjoy seeing their representation, flawed and dated though it may be.

#xmen #x men #marvel #lgbt #shinobi shaw #mindmeld #Nocturne #Angela Cairn

[jinniesmeow]

good evening. this is a very long rant. if you’ve been tagged in this, it means I have a message for you :’) it’s at the bottom of the post, and that’s the most important part, so dear mutuals, feel free to just go read that part and don’t feel forced to read all that bullcrap I've written. thank you if you do, thank you if you don’t. 

if we’re not mutuals and you’re reading this, well I guess thank you because this is hella long and cliché af. I'm sorry to everyone for this. though it kinda has nothing to do with what I'm saying, I was feeling particularly gay tonight and I'm in my feelings right now so yeah. if you’re willing to read, just click, you know how that works. 

first of all, hello. thank you if you’re reading this, whether we’re mutuals or not, this isn’t a private post so if you’re reading this, hello to you, I hope you’re having a wonderful night or day and I guess sorry for what you’re about to read if it’s considered TMI. I don’t know everyone on here so I'll start with the basics. I’m zia, aka users jinniesmeow, yunholy, hwangitzy and very recently yuzukhei. I'm (almost) 19, and in case you didn’t know, I'm French. and Italian, fortunately or not, idk. 100% European and white anyway, and my ancestors were all 100% racist and homophobic (I mean Poland and Italy? come on.). My sister, who’s turning 23 this year (she’s not on Tumblr), and myself are the first generation in my family to be queer on whichever side of it it is you’re looking at. 

Indeed, (if you didn’t know somehow, now you do) both her and I are pansexual. thankfully, our mom is far from being homophobic and racist and she’s a very open minded person, like really. neither of us have ever had a coming out, and none of us plan on doing it. I totally understand the necessity for some people to come out to their relatives and all that, but here’s why I personally refuse to do it: I don’t get why I have to tell people I'm not straight. I think it only fuels the fact that being straight is seen as the norm, because do straight people ever announce they are straight? exactly. being queer (gay, lesbian, pan, ace, whatever) is not abnormal, it’s not unnatural, so I refuse to have to scream it to everyone, and I don’t mean by that that I'm trying to hide my queerness, because I'm very open and honest about it, and I always have been. I hope one day, we won’t need to come out anymore and that people will stop assuming our sexuality. until then, I'll let people get flustered whenever I imply that I'm not straight without having ever stated it clearly before because fuck that shit. 

anygays. so, like I said, I've always been very open and honest about my romantic and sexual orientation. I know lots of bi/pan people “realise” they are queer when they’re a bit older, during their teenage years or early adulthood, but (un)fortunately I am not one of those. I have literally always known I liked girls too (in the first place, I mean). actually, I’ve always thought attraction and romance were about the person, like, I mean it was an evidence to me ever since I was a child, and how can I explain that I got slapped in the face when I discovered that it was not a universal thing, that it was not “the truth”. so there I was, in the middle of elementary school, openly saying I liked girls in front of everyone because I thought it was normal. I mean, it is, but you get what I mean. 

on top of that, the term “pansexual” has been occulted and invalidated for years, and most people didn’t even know of it until like maybe 3 years ago. remember, I'm 19, and there I was in middle school at 13 years old telling people I was pansexual when they’d barely even heard of bisexuality (while everyone else was like ‘I'm straight!! ew the gays’ btw). honestly, I cannot count how many times I've been called a pedophile, a necrophile and zoophile. by my very own friends, yes. 

same with high school, but I'm not going to repeat myself. just for the precision: no, I have never been physically or mentally bullied for that, however, I was mocked a lot because of how tall I am (I was 1m73/5′7 at 14) and because I can be quite androgynous since I don’t have big boobs. I have large hips though, so those fucking males didn’t miss the chance to pick on me for that too. obviously though if I've never been full on bullied it’s because: 1. I've always had friends and I've never been a ‘loner nerd’, 2. I was tall and intimidating, 3. I was respected for my intelligence and grades and wasn’t being full of myself about being a top student, and 4. because I was neither fat nor a person of colour, obviously, and those are privileges I'm very aware of. I have still been called a ‘woman with a dick’ and other transphobic shit and was often treated as if I were a boy, though. 

I still identify as a girl. I have been so, so complexed about so many things about my physical appearance for so long, I can’t count how many hours I have spent looking at my naked reflection in the mirror, feeling disgusted, wishing I had bigger boobs and that I would “look more like a girl” and so on. how much I have hated my body is something I can’t even measure. as of today, I've realised there is no such thing as “looking like a girl” and I've made a lot of progress on liking my overall appearance and accepting my body, sometimes I even think I'm hot™ and definitely think men don’t deserve me but for some fucking reason I can’t choose my sexuality (crazy right) and I still am attracted both romantically and sexually to them :/ 

anyways. now you know how long I've known that I'm a pansexual and throughout all these years, every time someone talked about the community or when pride came, no one mentioned us pansexuals, and I've seen us being invalidated so many times I really started doubting myself. I was like, “it’s like being bisexual, I'm just being butthurt and pushing it too far” but at the same time I never stopped calling myself pansexual. to some people, it’s just a preference in the choice of words to say you’re bi or pan, but to me there is a difference, even if it’s the smallest ever, and yes. being bi and being pan are “basically the same thing” and both orientations are very close but that very difference means everything to me. I am attracted to people, romantically and sexually, regardless of their gender. that is exactly it. and it’s very important to me.

I'm sorry if this is a mess, it’s hard to say things in the right order when I have so much to say, but I'm going to go back to what I was saying in the beginning about my family. I talked about my mom. my parents have been separated since I was 6 and haven’t spoken to each other in like 12 years btw. so, as for my dad, I know he wouldn’t care. he’s not homophobic, not racist. he does say homophobic and racist things sometimes, without realising it, like a lot of people do, and that doesn’t make him a homophobe. I know he doesn’t care if I'm gay, and I feel good just knowing that. however, remember, my family is italian. everyone around us is 100% straight (except for my cousins, I'm pretty sure one of them is bi-curious and the other is ace, but they aren’t open about this at all and have probably never questioned their sexuality lmao) and then there are my sister and I in the middle of it, and we’re like “yup, we’re the gay cousins”. the italian side of my family is huge. like really, my father has a total of 24 cousins (and I don’t mean the little ones and all that, I mean first degree cousins), so imagine how many of us there are in total when you’re counting everyone’s kids, spouses, grandkids and great-grandkids (you read that well, some of his cousins are old, some are even deceased). and they’re italian. and 100% into their religious set of mind that has them believe their god forbids being gay and that we’ll burn in hell. whatever, would’ve been going there anyway, gay or not so it’s not like I care, all the more reasons to be a fag. 

and yes I have proof they are racist and homophobic, I've heard the things they’ve said. so, I, whomst has had depression for basically all her life and also has every existing form of anxiety there is, don’t exactly feel comfortable around these people. and on top of being gay, I listen to “Ching Chong music”!!! how do I have to put into words that I know exactly what they think of me? I even have blue hair now so like, blending in even less than before. so yeah. 

to add on to that feeling of worthlessness, when I entered high school, I was still a top student without doing any type of work whatsoever, but then depression got the best of me (like for real this time how am I even still alive tbh) and I fell so hard I could barely stand going to school anymore. my last two years of high school (it lasts 3 years in France) have been disastrous. I barely attended and could barely manage keeping my grades above average, because I had zeros on 99% of my homework since I never did it. still had good enough grades on tests though, and it saved my ass. 

honestly, I don’t even want to talk about these years and how I was feeling, because it’s still too fresh for me and I'm stil trying (yes, trying) to heal from it. I can say without a doubt that they were some of the worst years of my life though. however final exams came and my ass managed to get a really good grade without revising anything, this way I could send a big, huge, fuck off to my teachers who had been shitting in my face for years and making me feel like the hugest shit on earth. I hope they choke on their jealousy. then I went to uni for about three months, where I majored in English, but eventually decided to stop because I couldn’t go a day without having a panic attack on the train, because I still couldn’t get my ass to do any work, because I was bored out of my mind and just when I had started feeling better after leaving high school I was sinking further down. I spent months staying home without seeing anyone but my mom and doing nothing but watching Netflix (the French catalogue isn’t as interesting as the American one btw). then, I finally found the guts to go see a therapist. not gonna say it was a mistake, but I'm glad I stopped because this bitch was just here to take my money. I took antidepressants for a few months, and I have stopped really recently, actually. in all honesty, I have gotten much better, thanks to my own doing, I've worked so hard on getting better and I'm proud of how far I've come. 

today, I can finally say for the first time ever in my life that I am proud of who I am. 

the whole point of saying all of this shit you have (maybe) read is not because I want people to give attention to me or anything like, I don’t want pity or anything and truly don’t think there are any reasons for people to feel any pity towards me. I'm saying this because I want to thank the people around me for just existing, for supporting me, for making me feel validated. because you might not realise it, but (a lot of) you are often talking about your problems, and it makes me realise that I'm not the only one feeling this kind of way. it makes me realise there are people who might understand me, even just a little. and when I see you talking about your sexual/romantic orientation (or lack of so) it also makes me feel accepted. I see you guys reblog such validating things, and then some of you even have pride flags in your layouts, and you have no idea how my heart feels about it. if you weren’t aware, I'm a twitter person. I've spent so much time on there, I have met lots of people, lots of which are part of the community and openly supporting it, and yet I have never felt more validated than since I've been on here. 

I've also met the people I consider “the most” as my internet best friends on here, like my best best internet friends, if that makes sense lmao, and not actually on twitter (although I might be pushing it because I have actually gone from IVL to IRL with most of them so like... whatever.) point is: I have met amazing friends I'm so thankful for on here. and all the people I see in my dash, to all of you, thanks for everything too even if we don’t really talk and if we haven’t had actual discussions before. now if you want to, you can always come to me to talk about whatever the fuck you want. 

so, here, I want to thank all of you, because today I'm finally starting to think maybe, just maybe, that I want to keep on living and that good things might happen to me. I have no plans for the future, since I never imagined myself getting this far in life, but I'm still willing to give it a try. 

please, if after you’re reading this, you’re thinking about telling me cliché things about staying strong and all that, I'm going to ask you not to do it. it just feels like pity to me. or choose your words wisely, I'm begging you, because I can’t stand thinking anyone would pity me. please don’t feel like that, that’s not the point of this.

I'm doing this as a thank you, and as a message to everyone out there who’s read this. I hope my words mean something to you. maybe help you? it’s ok to be confused about who you are. it’s ok not to like yourself, it takes so much work to get better and all that, but just know that you can do it, it is possible to do it. it takes time, it will hurt, but it’s an option. it’s not impossible. 

now. I have some people I want to send a quick message to. I guess some of you will be surprised, but just read what I have to say please, and know that from the bottom of my heart, I mean it.

@hwangwhatjin Emily. I don’t even know where to start, and soon I won’t even be able to see what I'm typing anymore because the tears I've been fighting while writing all this crap have started flowing all of a sudden the second I typed your name. you’re the first friend I made on here. we started off nothing, and I was a no one, and yet you still talked to me and all that. you’re honestly one of the most tolerant and kind people I have ever met in my life. you’re the exact opposite of prejudiced, you’re so open minded, so not giving a shit about other people’s quirks (I mean it in the right way) that don’t concern you directly, like people are who they are and you don’t give a damn about it, it’s amazing. I know this doesn’t sound like a compliment, but I can’t find the right way to put this. you’ve also always been there to listen to me whenever I wanted you to, and you have never judged me once. you have no idea how thankful I am for having you in my life. I wouldn’t want to have anyone else hold the title of bro. I love you so, so much, and I'm sorry we haven’t been talking lately. I hope I can help you just like you’ve helped me and support you as much as you need me to in the future, and I want you to know I'll always be there for you, I'll never let you down. you have no idea how much I can’t wait to meet you so I can wrap you in a blanket and give you hot chocolate while I light up a gingerbread scented candle (yes, I remember) and put on some blink-182 and stroke your hair because it’s what you deserve. you’re one of my best friends, like ever, and it’s such a pain we’re so far from each other, fuck this damn channel. one day I'll just swim to you to hear your wonderful accent you say you hate so much. anything to see you. I'm sorry I'm so old, I wish it were less of a problem, but as you grow up this gap will be less and less of an obstacle, so let’s just be patient, yeah? I love you, bro. roach bros to the end of the line.

@pikachulein Laura. ok. where do I start and how do I stop my eyes from sweating so much. you know, I'm just gonna say it. in my opinion, soulmates aren’t the people we’re especially meant to be with in a romantic way, and we might even have several of them. I just think they’re people who just bring you so much, and people who are like another version of you, but different. kind of like I described in my Felix au, actually. when I call you my soulmate, I really mean it, because I'd never thought I'd meet someone who understands me so well because they relate so much, someone who basically shares the same mind because hell, when have we ever had different thoughts on something like... it will never cease to amaze me. it’s only been a few months since we’ve known each other, but I actually think you’re one of my closest friends. hell, on the day we meet, because I'm not taking no for an answer, I don’t even know how I'll be holding up like, I won’t know how to act. so in advance, I'm sorry if I'm so weird at first. you’ve listened to the story of my whole life and you’ve shared your experience back, and you have no idea how thankful I am for that. maybe you haven’t realised, but you’ve been of a huge help to me. thank you for being so understanding, for not judging me, for being so open about everything with me, thank god I have someone with whom I can talk about literally any subject without it feeling uncomfortable or like i’m being judged. I have so many things to say I can’t even find the words, honestly. I’m just so thankful that you exist and that I have you in my life, and that you actually like me as a person too. thanks so much. you’re my best bitch, together we’re the baddest bitches of the pan squad and I can’t wait to travel across Europe with you for real. the world ain’t ready for us. 

@hanniesunshine Isabel. you’re just the biggest ray of sunshine ever. everything about you is so pure I'm even scared to be one of the people you talk to because I feel like you don’t deserve to talk to me (I mean like you deserve much better than me) and that I'm way too filthy for you. you’re always so good and kind to me, so, so supportive, and I can’t even thank you enough for that. honestly, every time I see you somewhere, kakaotalk, WhatsApp, Tumblr, I just can’t help but smile because you’re the purest and brightest being the earth has ever seen and I can’t believe you would actually want to talk to someone like me. I'm so sorry for everything. I'm so sorry for being such a cold bitch (and for using this word) sometimes, and for almost never finding the right words. thanks for always being so eager about reading my content. I'll keep supporting you, and I'll do better in everything!! I love you, so, so much. I'll always be there for you if you need me or want me. 

@sleepyracha Marie. I'm so, so sorry I'm so inconsistent and that I don’t talk to you as much as I used to, I hope we’re still okay. I just want to thank you for being the open minded person you’ve shown me you are and for supporting me all the time, and for very interesting conversations about literally anything. I promise I'm learning Spanish and that soon we’ll be able to talk together in another language than English. I hope you’re doing well and that you know I'm always there for you, and if Tumblr isn’t the best place for you, tell me where you want me to be for you. congrats on passing this year, you’re someone amazing and you’re so chill, it feels so good to see someone like that. thank you for even talking to me in the first place, thank you so much and I love you. 

@lesbianbias Nina. you’re such a soft and pure person, I'm so glad you were my skz anon and that I got to meet a wonderful person like you. you’re always showering me with love, and I always feel like I don’t deserve it. thanks so much for all the support, please, please never change. I love you and you’re amazing. thank you for being so chill as well. I'll make sure I'll return that love to you. 

@xiaocity siya. thank you so much for listening to me, you know what I'm referring to. I know you’re one of those who really deeply understands me and I'm thankful we got to talk, even just a bit. I'm always there if you need me, thank you for supporting me and my works, and be more confident in your writing, it’s good!! I think we actually have a lot in common too, so if you ever feel like talking, feel free to drop by in my dms.

@littlefallenrebel Sophie. we haven’t talked that much, but I feel like we should talk more. we have a lot more in common than we think, I'm sure of it. thank you for being you, thank you for the messages you’ve been spreading with your posts and reblogs. you’re an amazing person and I'm happy you’re my mutual because you’re a truly good person. 

@visualgiggles sam. thank you for your reblogs, whatever they’re about they never fail to cheer me up, whether they’re about tolerance or just memes, even the latter help me regain faith in humanity. we haven’t talked that much but I would gladly talk some more with you if you ever wanted to. you’re a wonderful person and I'm thankful you’re my mutual. 

@dreamypansexual I don’t think we’ve ever talked, I'm not even sure I know your name so I don’t want to say something wrong. but that doesn’t matter, because you’re still one of the people who make me feel the most validated here. hell, you literally have a pan flag as your layout (your user... I mean yeah). your posts are always making me feel so much better because it proves me that there are still such tolerant and open people out there, so thank you. 

@cloudyyboii honestly, I think it’s kind of the same as with your friend right above between me and you. it doesn’t matter though, thanks for the validation and the tolerance you’re spreading around. love you. 

@jxsng Kylie. I don’t think we’ve ever had a private conversation, but whatever. you’ve shown me lots of supports in every other way and you’re such a sweet and open person, I'm thankful you’re my mutual. I feel small next to people like you because I feel like you hold the whole world in your hands, you’re one of those meant to go places and it shows. I'll always support you too. thank you for everything and I love you.

@ggukksrose shims. you’re definitely one of the people who make me feel validated the most, so from the bottom of my heart, thank you. I always see you sticking up for others and telling the haters to go fuck off, and you even did that with me. you’re an amazing person, and I admire you for the confidence you’ve managed to achieve and I wish you the best in the future, I hope you’ll only get better and better with your fights and if anyone ever messes with you I'll be throwing hands. just say the word. I love you. 

@cypher-yngi Emerson, am I wrong? we’ve never talked though we’ve been mutuals for so long. from what I've seen, we have a lot in common and I'd be more than ok to have even a simple conversation with you, even if you said Orangina was good. you’re also one of those who have helped me feel valid and realise I'm not alone in this world, so if you’re ever feeling alone, and if you want to, let’s be alone together, maybe? gotta love FOB. also, you have amazing music taste. and you're a fellow yoongi stan, and that itself says a lot about the kind of person you are. thanks for existing and I love you.

@wonwonbebe ah... have you ever told me what your name was? I have terrible memory. doesn’t really matter. I love you, I'm so thankful that you were my anon and can’t believe you actually went through all that just to talk to me. you have no idea how thankful I am. you’re a wonderful person, and I'm so, so happy to see that my mutuals are all so amazing and tolerant. thanks for all the positivity. 

@psycho-robin-chan robin, right? we’ve talked a bit before. if you read what’s above, you’ll probably find some parts a bit familiar, haha. I actually loved this conversation with you, if that makes sense? it’s always interesting and it feels good to let it out. I also like seeing I'm not alone, and I like to think that when I speak about such things with people I might also be helping them feel better. so thanks, you also make me feel valid with your posts and reblogs, and you’re such a tolerant and open and chill person at such a young age. never change anything! thanks for being here and supporting me. 

@mirohell sage! we haven’t been mutuals for long, and I'm not expecting you to read everything I've written, it’s ok if you don’t, really. I just wanted to thank you real quick because you’re already showing me lots of support and I feel like we’ll be getting along well. if you want to read this, I'm sorry for putting so much on your shoulders so quick lmao, you’ll basically be knowing so much about me without having asked for anything. feel free not to read it, I'm repeating myself again but really, the actual important part of this post is this one where I thank you all individually. so thank you!! I'll do my best in supporting you in the future as well, and not only by showing your edits some love haha

@theminho min! we haven’t been mutuals for long either, but thank you for caring about me. thanks for even just following me. thanks for this message you’ve sent, it means a lot really. you don’t have to read all that I've written above either,, don’t feel pressured, I just wanted to thank you personally too for just being here and for the support. feel free to come talk to me whenever you want (if you ever want) and I'll be supporting you always!! 

@justlovingkpop my sweetheart, you’re just too cute and so supportive and loving. thank you so, so much for everything and for coming to talk to me!! I'll go reread some of your work soon to because I've missed it. thanks for existing, and know that I'm always there for you. love you lots. 

@strawb-milk-tea my babyyyy I'm going to repeat it but thank you and I love you and you’re so cute and you’re NOT a potato ok, you’re so, so pretty like I knew I was gay but phew... I feel valid too when I see you. long live the gays. 

@five-pence hey there! it’s been a while. hope you’re doing well. thank you for supporting me, thank you for making me feel valid as well, and I love you very much. I'm here whenever. 

@jooheonenthusiast yo. we’ve basically only talked bc of that one post I made, and it’s been enough to show me that you’re an amazing person and a bad bitch. thanks for your support and fuck the homophobes. I love you. 

@marriael adellum. you’re a really kind person. you’re so pure. and you make me me feel very much valid, love your profile pics from the last days by the way. thanks for existing and I'm glad you’ve joined us on the network, it’s a pleasure to have someone like you around. hope I'm not too much of a pain in the ass. 

@channiiebby gryphon. we’ve never talked privately, but you’re a sweetheart. thanks for being you. you’re valid and you know it, and that makes me feel valid too, so thanks for showing me it’s okay to be who you are. I love you.

that’s it. I'm out of words. I've been at this for like 2 hours now. if I think of anyone else, I'll just reblog and add them. but right now I feel totally empty because of all the emotion hive poured into all this and I need to recharge, so good night and I love you all. thank you for your time and attention. 

happy pride month everyone,

your friendly neighbourhood pansexual, zia. 

#on this note #good night everyone #I love y'all #rants #personal #<33 #sorry for bothering you all with this

[belzinone]

sexuality & gender diversity headcanons.

// this turned out... so very... L O N G. so answers under the cut <3

@rulerofthesewalls​ asked:

when did your muse first realise they’re not attracted to the gender(s) that they aren’t?

// her mother risa was always pushy about growing up and marrying a rich dude they could mooch off of. despite being a bi disaster herself and spending most of her youth in an arguably feminist tirade, she pushes a lot of sexist ideas onto her daughter as a half-joke. bel always brushed her off, but as everyone around her started getting crushes and dating and talking about how hot they thought people were, she just couldn’t relate. she wasn’t into people the conventional way or felt “human” urges the way other people did. it probably really hit home for her when she tried to “fix” herself by forcing herself into an intimate relationship with a guy she hardly knew, yet everyone around her seemed to consider conventionally attractive. it probably didn’t last very long at all and left her with the impression that there was something wrong with her. her issue wasn’t that she experienced same gender attraction, rather she experienced no superficial attraction at all.

when did your muse first become aware that they’re not cis?

// it started to hit her sometime around puberty, when her body started changing into something she didn’t feel like was hers. she wouldn’t have had the vocabulary to explain her feelings, nor would she have known it was aberrant enough to warrant mention. it was really easy to conflate feelings of minor dysphoria with being body conscious and having poor self esteem, which is what she thought was going on. her starting to bind was probably more of a teller, yet she didn’t really know why her breasts bothered her so much. it wouldn’t help that dressing them up in private helped her feel better, but as soon as she was in company again, resigned to intense shame. because she could never feel one way about herself, it was hard for her to pinpoint exactly what it was that confused her so much about her body.

how much does your muse’s gender identity and presentation differ from one another? is this a source of issues, or does the relationship between the two feel natural?

// it depends on where she is, but it changes. sometimes, she dresses really androgynously and binds. other times, she dresses up like a high femme. her true gender identity is somewhere between the two, but she finds herself caught between the way she wants to present herself and the way she thinks she is. she doesn’t feel “woman” enough to dress really feminine but doesn’t feel completely comfortable dressing more masculine or binding either.

how does your muse feel about not being cis or straight? are they content with it, proud, ashamed? would the situation be the same if the culture or surrounding support systems were different?

// currently, she’s not concretely aware that she’s queer. if she knew her source of discomfort with her body and her identity had a name, she’d probably find peace in it and even devote herself to activism. it’s complicated for her, though, because she’s not even “conventionally queer” in the sense that she’s not concretely gay or trans or even bi. her sexuality is defined by a lack of one and her gender is also defined outside the binary.

// her issues from feeling “woman enough” are also both identity and biologically driven. she has a pituitary adenoma, which throws off her hormones and renders her infertile as a result (she also doesn’t menstruate). however, she has an intense desire to want to be a mother and in not being biologically capable of doing so (without medical intervention or a miracle) she feels like she’s a failure of a woman.

// if society as a whole didn’t put such harsh gender stereotypes on women (to exist for the purpose of producing children and solely for male consumption), she probably would have a much easier time existing outside of the normative. furthermore, if the queer community itself wasn’t so hell bent on gate-keeping the more marginal identities (namely, aspec and nonbinary) she’d have a much easier time discovering she wasn’t alone and just as valid as anyone else.

what are your muse’s feelings towards stereotypes relating to their identity? do they affect their self-image, or how they perceive others?

// before figuring out her identity, she’d believe that she’s frigid, broken, and inhuman, some things wrongfully attributed to people on the ace spectrum. (her wallflower name reflects this. it’d be so awesome to write her reclaiming it omg) it’d trouble her immensely, but she wouldn’t know what else to do but accept the rhetoric people place on her: that her general lack of drive makes her inhuman. deep in the back of her mind, however, it’d hurt her because she’s completely capable of experiencing platonic love (as well as minor sexual and romantic attractions depending on her interactions.)

// with regards to her demi identity, a lot of people invalidate it as just being a “tomboy”, which isn’t necessarily true. she wouldn’t like being called a boy at all and find it really offensive, triggering even because that’d tap into her feelings of inadequacy as a woman. being a tomboy is also considered “cool” (as opposed to boys being feminine being considered shameful but that’s a whole other deal) and it upsets her to think that someone would think her inner turmoil as something to be proud of.

@shuuhuu​ asked: // about 18 & 7

how does their family feel about the matter? friends? coworkers?—and does their thoughts matter to your muse?

// risa might be a little disappointed to learn that she might not have grandkids (more so that she’s less likely to have a sugar son-in-law lol) but otherwise won’t have much to say about bel being ace. she’d lowkey mourn the loss of having that part of her identity in common with her, but on the other hand, bel would be a little glad that she doesn’t share her mother’s wild sexuality.

// her brother, however, would more than overcompensate for their mother’s lack of enthusiasm. he’d be fiercely protective of and coddle her in a bit of a problematic way that’s infantilizing, but bel would appreciate it nonetheless. however, if she does ever find herself in a relationship in a verse where her brother’s still alive, he’d be a terror and get on her nerves. all he’d want is to make sure her partner (more likely a boyfriend to warrant his most extreme responses) isn’t pushing her too hard or causing her much trouble, but bel’d think he was taking his paranoia way to far and even interfering with her self discoveries.

// as for her friends and coworkers, they probably wouldn’t know unless they were more closely related to her personal life. she’d stay quiet during certain conversations and casually admit that she’d have nothing to contribute to the discourse of who was the current hottest celebrity. if the situation ever came that she could open up, she’d do so very slowly and carefully, since being aspec and demifem isn’t nearly as mainstream as being gay or trans or nonbinary even.

how public is your muse about their gender / sexuality / romantic attraction?

// convoluted as they seem even within the queer community, as soon as she figures out that labels that suit her exist, bel’d be publicly out to any circumstance that calls for it. she certainly wouldn’t be as out as i am or even make jokes about it, but if the situation’s safe enough she wouldn’t necessarily hide her identity. if anything, she’d refrain from talking about it at length. surely, she wouldn’t go through the trouble of explaining what her identity means to someone. if they’re not already familiar with the terms, she won’t make a big deal about it. it’s a can of worms she’d rather not open unless she was 100% confident said person wouldn’t react poorly to it.

#// i went so ham on this omg #// thanks for all these thooooooooo <3 #// it's not as simple as yes she likes girls or yea she's transgender #// decoding her sexuality has to be a murky grey mess #// now you see her now you dont #// now you think you see her but you dont really better luck next time askdjfnaskfn #i'm not bad ; i just muse that way . aspec #DYSPHORIC AND DESOLATE . demifemme #// i also took the liberty of answering these with a modern connotation #// bc trying to make sense of this in the snk world would make it so much different like #// when she was a kid her mother made her dress like a boy but she wanted to look like a girl #// then when she grew up she stopped feeling so much like a girl #// also i venture that sexuality isn't much of a deal in the snk world but the lack of one would be more of one? #// perhaps? #// that'd make things especially unfortunate for her asdfnask #// also gender roles don't SEEM as rigid but still #// her relationship with her femininity is still a mess that troubles her more than it should

[bigskydreaming]

Okay, last random post for the day, then I gotta work. But something else I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, is that kinda weird feeling when you don’t like a writer or how they handled stuff and would have preferred someone else write it, BUT at the same time, you also really like something that came out of their writing and probably wouldn’t have happened if not for that writer making it happen.

And I think this also traces back to that post the other day about not settling for substandard representation and holding creators accountable for not doing more, and when its not the creators’ fault but the higher-ups, holding them accountable, etc.

Like, Scott McCall and Jeff Davis is a great example of this, I think. Obviously, he’s one of my favorite characters of all time. And as much as I hate how Davis and co. wrote him a lot of the time, obviously they also wrote him in ways that established all the core reasons I love that character so much, and there’s no guarantee that if another writer had launched a TW reboot, their version of Scott would be remotely like the one that I latched onto. 

And obviously we’ve all talked a lot about how Davis could have done more with Scott’s Mexican heritage and identity as biracial and latino, even though there’s a large chance he would have just been white if another creator had been in charge. I raise that just as another example of what I’m talking about, not one that I myself am looking to weigh in on, I leave that to latine fans. For myself, I’ve obviously talked a lot about how I project onto Scott and identify with him so much as a survivor and see a lot of parallels between his story and my own experiences and the identity they’ve shaped for me. And on that front at least, I’ve ranted just as much about how I personally don’t give Davis any credit for this stuff, because I think it happened in spite of him not because of him, that he was oblivious to the undertones of his own material, or at least the ones that could easily be read into it.

And then there’s Devin Grayson, the Nightwing writer I rant about a lot. The one who wrote him being raped, which obviously is also a large part of why I identify with Dick, and just like Jeff Davis, something I think is in spite of her writing, not because of it, as she too was irresponsible and oblivious in a lot of her handling of her own material. And at the same time, she’s also the one who introduced Dick’s Romani heritage and made that canon, while being very heavy-handed and stereotypical with the way she wrote things herself, and a lot of Rom readers being very critical of her choices there, while at the same time celebrating Dick’s Rom heritage and happy to have him as representation now. And given how few writers have even referenced Dick’s rape since it happened or how few actually acknowledge that he’s Rom, an argument can bemade that neither of these things would have happened if not for her.

And then we’ve got Bobby Drake, who I identified with long before he came out in the comics, and even moreso now that he’s actual gay rep I can point to. But obviously I rant a tooooon about Bendis and his handling of all this, probably even more than I ever have about Davis or Grayson specifically, and I think the difference here is that making Bobby gay WASN’T something that only he would’ve written. Given that multiple writers going back over twenty years have wanted to and even tried to write Bobby as gay or bi, but Marvel told them no, this is a definite area where the higher-ups are as much to blame for my issues with the comics as Bendis himself. Because Bendis is responsible for the writing choices I dislike so intensely in this matter, but Marvel’s higher ups are responsible for Bendis being the one who got to make the writing choices in this matter, even though other writers were willing and able.

I’m honestly not sure where I’m going with this, lmao, and don’t really have a point, sorry if you thought I did. I’m more kinda just thinking out loud. Except...in text. Whatever.

Anyway. All of this I think goes to show one of the best things about storytelling IMO....which is that stories grow with the telling. Always. Storytelling is like one giant, never-ending game of telephone. Where every time a story is retold, or adapted, or even just passed along from one person to another via a summary of the events - something gets added to it. The last person to pass it on in some fashion added a little bit of themselves to it, their own personal experiences and perspectives and priorities helping to further shape or flesh out the story even further. 

Sometimes by adding little details or context that maybe weren’t even in the original source material, but that we unthinkingly add in, maybe because those details are things that came to mind when reading or watching the story since they go hand in hand with why the story appealed to us in the first place. Like we add them in without realizing it because it seems so obvious that there are little holes and gaps in the story and these are the things that SHOULD go there, should’ve been there from the start. 

And other times, we add to and grow stories in the telling, somewhat counter-intuitively, but by ERASING little details about the stories or elements that feel like they don’t belong. Like filing away the rough edges to leave a more finished, polished piece before we hand it off to the next person, our audience for our retelling or recounting of it. Again, often not something we’re even consciously thinking about, our minds automatically leaving out the parts that we take for granted don’t fit or shouldn’t have been there in the first place. 

So any time we interact with a story, have some kind of personal relationship with it or connection to it, its like that story exists on two levels, in two separate ways. There’s the story as it was originally told, initially laid down, the story a creator constructed based on their own personal experiences, lens, and priorities, the story both as they intended to write it and as they actually wrote it, what ended up on the page. And then there’s the story as it exists once distributed to a wider audience, the story as its retold and recounted and transformed and shaped and honed and added to.

And you can’t divorce that second, larger version of the story from the initial ‘baby’ story it grew from. Not to get too precious here, but as with anything that grows, either physically or metaphorically, there is a sense in which its alive, and can be compared to other living things. Like take any person you meet. That person grew from a baby. The baby they were is fundamental to the person they are now. Who they are wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for who they were.

But how much does the baby they were actually matter, when interacting with the person they are now? No, you can’t separate the two, the one wouldn’t exist without the other, but in every way that actually matters, its only the larger, more grown version of that person that you’re actually interacting with, engaging with, INTERESTED in engaging with in the first place. How much credit do you actually owe whatever they were like as a baby or young child, for them growing up to become someone you like and value as a person now, someone who adds something to your life?

I think its something similar, with the way we interact with stories, and I think that’s part of why I have such a problem with the way we’re...encouraged to give proper credit and even show gratitude to storytellers for giving us certain stories in the first place. And I say that as a writer myself, and one who LOVES feedback, and loves interaction, and collaboration, and for whom a large part of the appeal of writing is seeing what someone makes of something I’ve written, or what they go on to do with it.

But I mean.....there’s no doubt that however these things originated, Dick Grayson’s existence as a male rape survivor means a ton to me, as one myself. Just like him being Romani means a ton to a lot of Rom fans, and the way Scott McCall being Latino means a ton to a lot of latine fans and how he means a lot to survivors in other respects and how Bobby Drake being gay means a ton to a lot of LGBTQ+ fans.

But in a lot of those cases, these characters mean so much to us more as a result of what other people have done with them SINCE those initial stories laid out these aspects of identity. It’s not Devin Grayson’s fumbling attempts at writing Dick as Romani that most Rom readers I know celebrate and enjoy his character, its for what others have done with that heritage on their own. Adding to it with their own personal experience, or at least researching attentively and with proper credit and deference paid to people whose experiences they listen to and learn from, etc. Just like, its not her issue with Nightwing and Tarantula I would actually cite as the reason I identify so strongly with Dick Grayson, but all of the fics and meta and headcanons written about that issue by other survivors who added to it and fleshed it out and made it real and lived with their own experiences and takes, while filing away the parts that just didn’t work for them.

Then again, we could argue that at least we still owe something for having that opportunity in the first place, right? That there was even that seed planted, that other people cultivated and grew into the story we actually like and engage with.

Except, idk. Like, intent doesn’t matter in terms of harm done, we say that a lot and its true. The fact that you didn’t intend to hurt someone with something doesn’t mean that they weren’t hurt. But that doesn’t mean that intent doesn’t matter, that it doesn’t make a difference in how something comes across. That sometimes it isn’t THE difference, in and of itself.

I rant about non/con fic and hurt/comfort fics all the time, fics that are really just an excuse for torture porn, even as I write stories that deal heavily with rape and abuse. And I don’t find this remotely hypocritical, because for me, this part traces back to intent. I’ve got zero interest in people using trauma such as rape or abuse for a narrative REASON. Like when writers talk about using rape as a tool to reveal something about a character, to change them in some way or develop them, to show what they’re capable of surviving or toughen them up, anything like any of that, I have an immediate and visceral reaction of FUCK NO. That train of thought is basically a dealbreaker right there, because I’ve got a deep-seated hostility to the idea that rape or any kind of trauma can be a tool. Even in fiction. Because no matter how you frame it, that tacitly perpetuates the idea that rape or abuse can have a purpose, a reason for existing, for happening to a character or a real person, and from there it’s only a few small steps to justification of it happening. The idea that being raped or abused can make a person better, can change them into a better or stronger or person in ways no other experiences or circumstances can manage - that’s deeply abhorrent to me, and I’ve got no respect for stories that go this route.

But at the same time, I do write stories about rape and abuse and read and engage with stories about this stuff, like various stories about Dick or Scott. And for me, the difference in these stories, the reasons why I’m interested in these but not those others, is because of the intent behind their writing, or at least what I perceive that intent to be, based on the writing. I’m interested in the stories that aren’t about writing rape/abuse to tell a story about a character, but stories about characters who have been raped/abused. Stories that are about the PEOPLE affected rather than the events that affect them. That treat rape/abuse not as a narrative or plot device or a thing that happens with purpose or for a reason, but rather just as things that happened to the people the story is about. Treating these things as lived experiences rather than part of an author’s grand design, or the real-life version of these things as part of God’s grand design. I don’t read/write stories about rape or abuse, I read/write stories about survivors. The difference is in the intent. Writers who are trying to make something horrible into something useful versus writers who are trying to make something out of the aftermath of something horrible. The latter value the survivor’s pain; the former don’t value their pain enough not to subject them to it in the first place.

And this of course relates to writing identity as well as experiences. With writers like Davis and a Latino character like Scott or writers like Bendis and a gay character like Bobby. It comes down to intent. Why are they making these choices, giving these characters these identities. Are they doing so for a purpose, because they think it says something about that character or will result in something? Or are they doing it to tell stories about a character with this identity? Because just like with certain lived experiences, I’ve got no respect for writers who treat real life identities as a tool, as something that can be chosen with purpose, to achieve specific goals. 

Most latine fans who are dissatisfied with Davis’ handling of Scott as a biracial or Latino character specifically, IME they cite the problem being how little interest Davis showed in actually expanding on that or doing anything with that aspect of his identity, even while happily taking credit for casting a Latino actor in his lead role. The vast majority of my complaints with Bendis and his writing of Bobby’s sexuality go back to how little interest he ever showed in writing Bobby as a character, having him explore his sexuality rather than just treating his coming out as a character benchmark or milestone that would forever have Bendis’ name on it, and that’s all he needed or wanted out of that. Why would anyone owe a writer credit or praise or gratitude for using someone elses’ identities for personal achievements? 

The flipside though is what about writers who write outside their lane in an honest and sincere attempt to tell stories about people who have these identities, stories about the experiences that come with them, stories about these people as people. Okay sure, that’s different, that’s great. But I mean, its not THAT great. As a white dude, I don’t ever think, gee I sure am grateful that this writer sat down and decided I’m gonna make this character a white guy because I think white guys have stories worth telling. LOL. Nah. So why should I be like, well gee, I sure am grateful that this writer sat down and decided I’m gonna make this character gay or bi because I think gay or bi guys have stories worth telling? I wouldn’t. I shouldn’t. Congrats on seeing me as a person whose identity and experience has value, same as I am and do because of my whiteness or my maleness? I’m....grateful? Nah. I mean, yes, this is better than writers like Davis or Bendis who are only writing outside their lane to get credit and praise for doing so, but just because its not ACTIVELY bad, doesn’t mean its like....ACTIVELY good or worthy of gratitude instead of just....hey, here’s a thing a writer did, they wrote a story with someone who’s like me in these specific ways. I’m a person to them.

Again, I have noooooooo idea where I’m going with any of this or what I was trying to say in any kind of cohesive fashion. This was just....stream of consciousness musing that I will now wrap up because I’ve run out of steam and/also I gotta get back to work. Make of it what you will, like, if you can find something useful in this, hooray and also, impressive, lmao, and if not....let your eyes glaze over and scroll past, lololol.

#long post #rape cw #abuse cw

[katieskarlette]

Before the Storm:  A Reaction Post

I just finished binge-reading the latest WoW novel, and I have thoughts.  Quite a few of them, actually.  So here goes.

Short non-spoilery version:   Game tie-in novels are never going to be high literature, but for what it was, I really enjoyed this book.  I know Golden’s name has been mud around this neck of the internet lately, so this probably isn’t a popular opinion.  The contrast between Anduin and Sylvanas as leaders--and as people--was interesting to see, and the questions about how the living and the undead can (or should) interact were incredibly poignant.  There was only one significant lore development (at the very end, regarding a new variety of undead) that is easy to catch up on via a quick summary, so it’s not a mandatory read to understand Battle For Azeroth.  But as a character study and a fleshing-out of the world and how various issues stand going into the new expansion, it was a enjoyable read.  If you’re a fan of Anduin, Sylvanas, Genn, Calia, or goblins, definitely check it out.

Spoilers (as well as a mention of real-life death/grief) below.

I think sometimes fandom marinates in an echo chamber and, because of how seldom new canon material is released, we assume that because Blizzard isn’t releasing a weekly short story they’re letting unresolved plot threads dangle and fester.  Sometimes they do, granted, but there were an awful lot of things addressed (or at least mentioned) in this book that fandom has been wondering/worrying/complaining/speculating about:

The leadership void among the Darkspear.  The impact of losing so many soldiers and supplies in the war with the Legion.  What’s been going on in the Undercity while Sylvanas is away doing Warchief stuff.  The fact that none of the Horde leaders have families.  The reaction of the Cenarion Circle to their losses in Silithus.  The unpopularity of Gallywix among his own people.  The confusion and cross-faction misunderstandings about the disastrous battle of the Broken Shore.  The tension and lost trust after Genn Greymane and Admiral Rogers’ shenanigans at the start of Stormheim’s storyline.  Moira’s son not being a baby anymore.  The unresolved issues between Moira and Magni.  Velen’s grief over his son.  The fact that Tess and Mia Greymane exist.  Theramore.  Calia’s claim to the throne of Lordaeron.  The long-lasting impact of the Cataclysm.  The mixed opinions among the Horde about the way the goblins terraformed Azshara.  Kalec and Jaina’s relationship.  Lore from the priest order hall.  And yes, the fact that Anduin needs an heir.

I’m not saying all these things are settled or developed, or handled in ways I necessarily agree with, but it’s good to be reminded that Blizzard hasn’t forgotten about any of these elements.  (Wrathion, on the other hand...  Sigh.  Don’t get me started.  Suffice it to say he’s not even alluded to in the book.  Onyxia does get a passing mention in relation to how her scheming impacted the Wrynns.)

Anyway, moving on to the main theme of the book:  life, death, and all the corpse-gray areas in between.

It was hard to read sometimes because of how raw the emotions were and how hard the questions were that it asked.  I’m not sure that it would have the same impact on someone who has never grieved the death of a loved one, but for me it was quite emotional.  I got misty-eyed in several places.  

I found myself imagining what it would be like to see my much-beloved grandmother (who, by the time she died, was as hunched, emaciated and discolored as any Forsaken, although that’s not how I try to remember her) standing across a field from me.  To be able to speak to her again, tell her how much I love and miss her, to tell her what I’ve been doing in the last fifteen years...yet to see her as a withered, pungent, unnatural husk, to know she’d been denied the rest of the grave...  Faced with that choice, I don’t know how I would react.  I’m glad I never will--for a lot of reasons!

The book never said that Anduin imagined himself facing either of his parents under such circumstances, but I’m sure he must have.  (I mean, not that there was anything left of Varian to turn undead, but hypothetically speaking.)  Anduin’s a very empathetic person, and his own grief over his father was still so raw.  It certainly affected Genn, who I thought was written very well. 

I’ve never been a fan of the Forsaken, because their dark, mean-spirited, nihilistic outlook and the corpse/bone aesthetic don’t appeal to me. (It doesn’t in other contexts, either.  Give me cute jack o’ lanterns and chubby-cheeked ghosts for Halloween decorations, and skip the plastic tombstones and cardboard skeletons, please.)  This book gave a lot of insight into what it would be like to be undead, without the need for sleep, cut off from any living friends/relatives, with a body that’s slowly wearing out without the ability to heal or do physical therapy, knowing that you are repulsive and smelly to others, making the most of second chances while also perhaps yearning for the peace of true death, and being acutely aware of how fragile you really are.  It made the Forsaken more sympathetic and (excuse the pun) fleshed out.

I was also quite pleased to see acknowledgement of Forsaken who aren’t emotionless, gibbering eeeevil.  My lone, seldom-played undead alt, a lowbie priest, is that kind of a character:  holding onto the Light even though it now is painful to use, and refusing to stoop to being a monster just because she’s a walking corpse.  That wasn’t a viewpoint that was really highlighted in canon before.  (Of course, that means my little priest would be out there on the Arathi plain with a bunch of black arrows sticking out of her right now, so...)

I was disappointed that the book never mentioned Anduin bringing Elsie’s body back to Stormwind to bury beside Wyll.  I’m going to assume he did, because geez.

I still don’t know where they’re going with the new Light-infused variety of undead, but we’re not really supposed to.  It’s just a teaser and cliffhanger.  There’s a lot of story potential, anyway.  We’ll see.  I’m glad they didn’t remove Calia from the story completely, at least.

Speaking of cliffhangers, if that adorable gnome/goblin couple didn’t survive, I’m going to be majorly bummed out.  It was also interesting to know that goblins and gnomes can get married in canon.  Presumably other cross-species relationships can be made legal, too.

Anyone who’s emotionally invested in the Menethil dynasty has sure had a rollercoaster of ups and downs lately.  Yay, Calia’s finally in game!  Noooo, she’s not interested in claiming her throne!  Yay, she’s interested after all!  Nooooo, she’s dead!  Yay, she’s...undead?  And she's totally cool with the idea that Lordaeron belongs to the Forsaken?  (Which, I mean, it does, but it’s surprising to have her think that.  So many forum threads about this stuff suddenly became obsolete...)  And there’s a slim chance that her daughter is either undead or still alive out there somehow?  WHAAAAAAT? 

Oh yeah, she secretly got married to a footman, had a kid, escaped the Scourge, lived in Southshore for years under an assumed identity, and then presumably lost her husband and daughter when the town got Blighted (yet she’s okay with the Forsaken???), but we didn’t see the bodies so heaven only knows what plot twist could come of that.  

On one hand (the Watsonian one) it’s a tragic, awful thing for her to have gone through and I felt really bad for her.  On the other hand (the Doylist one), did she really need more tragic, awful backstory?  No.  No, she really did not.  It seemed like overkill, which makes me suspect they’re seeding a plot thread for the future.  Meh.  Hey, if she lived in Southshore, did she know the Rogers family?  Would Admiral Catherine Rogers recognize her as whatever her fake identity was?

On a related note, you’ve got Anduin who in the past was always like, “OMG noooo don’t compare me to Arthas!” and now is like, “Okay, Calia, I’m officially adopting you as my new big sister.”  Oh, the irony...

I should address the rainbow-striped elephant in the room:  There is no LGBTQIA+ representation in the book.  Anduin is specifically mentioned as having been attracted to the female dwarf Aerin, and he expects to fall in love with a woman someday.  Personally, I‘ve headcanoned him as bi, perhaps leaning a bit ace, while always expecting Blizz to have him marry a woman.  I do sympathize with those who had hoped that he might be canonically gay, and I strongly agree that Warcraft badly needs more representation in that regard.  In this book alone, it would have been so easy to have that blacksmith bringing a helmet as a gift to his long-lost Forsaken husband instead of friend.  But we also need a major Warcraft character to be unequivocally LGBT.  It’s way, way past time.  Get on it, Blizzard.

[Edited to add:  I almost forgot, another kind of representation I wish they had explored was that of physical disability.  As convenient as Anduin’s Magic Lie-and-Bad-Idea-Detecting Bones are, why couldn’t he have had some negative lasting effects of being crushed by the Divine Bell?  Chronic aches, maybe a limp at least?  Loss of a limb, even?  There is a narrative to be explored there, and as someone with a close family member who suffers from chronic pain and limited mobility it would be refreshing to see that kind of thing addressed.]

Moving on, I’ve never cared for Valeera Sanguinar that much, but I did like how she’s set up as Anduin’s super secret spy.  I wonder if she gets to wear pants now.

Big ol’ meanie Sylvanas made Baine and Anduin stop being pen pals.  *pout*  I loved how Magni called her “lassie,” though.  That takes balls of diamond, to be sure...

Speaking of the banshee queen, I tried very hard to read between the lines to see what their long-term plans are for her.  Just because the last line of the book is Anduin proclaiming that she’s beyond saving, that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to try to pull off some kind of redemption arc.  If anything it just draws our attention to the question.  

Is Anduin right?  A big part of his plot arc lately is how he’s finding his way, making mistakes and learning from them.  Could he be wrong about Sylvanas?  He saw potential for good in Garrosh that never developed, so it’s not impossible that he could find compassion for Sylvanas someday...if she shows remorse and a desire to change.  And that’s an “if” bigger than the sword sticking out of Silithus.

I didn’t see any signs of her wrestling with her conscience.  If anything, the emphasis on how some Forsaken do still have feelings (besides hatred, bitterness, and anger) condemned her all the more by comparison.  Yet she does regret Vol’jin’s death, and she did respect him.  And her feelings were definitely hurt by her sisters’ responses to her, and you have to have feelings to have them be hurt.  But her lack of remorse for any of the vicious, heartless things she does, combined with her new penchant for killing her own people, doesn’t bode well for her to have a change of heart any time soon.

I also kept a close eye on Nathanos.  In his short story they made a point of saying that his senses were sharper with his new body, and that he felt a pang of regret for the first time since his death.  That could simply be an indication of his renewed state, or it could be a tiny sliver of foreshadowing that he’s not 100% on board with Sylvanas’ plotting.  Then again, that was set before Legion, and he spent all of Stormheim frantically trying to find her, and worrying about her, and just generally not being remotely subtle about how much he cares for her.  Heh.  Then again, he can care about her (in whatever way the undead feel such bonds, that is) and still think she’s going too far with her ideas about the valkyr, raising more Forsaken, keeping them up and functioning indefinitely without the release of true death, etc.  Interesting potential for conflict there, as well.

I don’t know that I even want to see a Sylvanas redemption arc, but it’s fun to try guessing what Blizzard has planned.  And such a plot twist would alleviate some of the “Didn’t we just do this same ‘overthrow a bad warchief’ plot with Garrosh?” syndrome, and allow them to keep around one of the franchise’s most recognizable characters.

I was also relieved to find no evidence that Anduin is being corrupted by the Old Gods, Azerite, or anything else.  He’s true to himself and the Light, as always.  I appreciate characters who stubbornly insist that there is good in (almost) everyone, despite living in a world that does its best to beat that optimism out of them.  It’s not blind idealism or naivete; it’s faith and its own kind of strength.

Sylvanas and Anduin are fascinating foils for each other.  The stark contrast between a young king who is still finding his place and a bitter, scarred, centuries-old queen, someone who comes to understand that death is not always the enemy versus someone who digs in her heels and refuses to accept it, someone who wants his people to be happy versus someone who kills them for not agreeing with her...  It’s intriguing.

Was it the best book ever?  No.  Did I enjoy reading it?  Yes.  Is it absolutely necessary to read in order to understand the story going into the next expansion?  Nah.  Would it have been a lot better with Wrathion in it somehow?  Of course.  ;)

And that’s my two cents.  (Er, well, judging by how long this post got, more like $2.50.)

#Before the Storm spoilers #Before the Storm #BFA spoilers #rambling about wow

[ninawritesastory]

The fact that voltron will admit to no wrong doing... hurts more than I thought it would. The people defending them I don't know if they're naiive or just hardcore no criticism types. Whatever, I'm leaving this crappy show I hope their ratings drop.

I think it might be even worse than that; not so much that they’ll refuse to admit it, but that they may honestly think they’ve done nothing wrong. Queerbaiting happens all the time; even LGBT people themselves have been guilty of it.

And the attitudes surrounding queerbaiting kind of remind me about the attitudes surrounding rape. Like, on the surface we all agree it’s a bad thing and shouldn’t happen, but when presented with actual instances of it there will always be people who tell you you’re just making it up.

“You weren’t queerbaited, you’re just reading way too much into things!”

“But they said Shiro and Adam weren’t getting back together, so that’s not queerbaiting!”

“They can’t possible be queerbaiting, they said Shiro was gay and he had a boyfriend! They were even gonna get married!”

Like…I wish I could say I see their point, but they don’t really…have one? The thing about LGBT rep is that, for so long, everything had to be subtext. Even in real life, it was all subtext. There were secret codes in LGBT communities way back in the day, like lesbians giving each other violets or the presence of green carnations in the gay community. Even today, so much of it is subtext. That’s why things like Pride and media representation are so important. The LGBT community has spent centuries living their lives in subtext. Small clues, unspoken cues, complicated work-arounds, the works. And we’ve been getting more and more vocal about getting out of subtext.

This is why it’s so important when a character is explicitly linked in canon to an LGBT identity. It’s pulling us out of the subtext. I could handle Lance ending up with a woman and still being bi so long as it’s explicitly addressed. Because unless it’s explicitly addressed in the show, it’s just subtext. And maybe Word of God.

Queerbaiting isn’t solely a result of the show itself; if the VLD team had never made such a big deal about eventual LGBT rep, if they’d never been evasive and coy about certain animation and direction decisions, if they’d never gone so far as to tag clips and trailers with a popular gay ship, none of this would be as big of an issue as it is. Because there would be nothing muddying the waters, so to speak. If they’d kept quiet and not made a big fuss about LGBT rep, the accusations of queerbaiting would be much less well-founded.

But they were pretty vocal about LGBT rep. And they were pretty vocal about Shiro being gay being a last-minute addition. Especially since Shiro was slated to die after Season 2. (Which, at this point, that might have been a kinder fate.) And in terms of the Shiro and Adam not getting back together thing…that’s one thing.

Even the best relationships can encounter conflicts that they can’t successfully overcome. That would’ve been fine. But instead of giving us Shiro and Adam even alluding to the state their relationship ended in, they gave us nothing. Absolutely nothing, after hyping Adam’s existence to such an extent where it wasn’t a stretch to think he’d end up playing a major role this season. I can’t remember hearing more than one or two things about Veronica, and she played a pretty big role; but Adam was mentioned multiple times and killed off quicker than the victim in a Law & Order cold opening. That’s where the queerbaiting comes into play. And that’s what makes it all the more vile.

As far as Keith and Axca go…if there had been any reasoning behind it, I could’ve been more lenient. But they’ve only interacted, what, maybe twice before over the course of the whole show? I know a lot of us treat it like a joke when we say shit like “A man can live and die for another and share an incredibly deep and obviously romantic bond with him and everyone says it’s just friendship, but a man and a woman share a pencil and suddenly romance is alive,” but jesus tapdancing christ. Keith and Lotor having a thing would’ve been more believable in terms of the actual content. Hell, Keith and Rolo would’ve made more sense.

And maybe I’d be more lenient on the whole “Keith is straight” concept the show seems to be suddenly angling for if they hadn’t had Allura—canonically and repetitively stated to be an extremely beautiful and attractive woman—fall right into Keith’s arms and he didn’t so much as flinch. I have never met a straight man in my life who could handle that close a contact without losing it in some capacity.

But I feel ya, buddy. You do what you need to. I’m in too deep enough as it is, so because I’m a stubborn ass I’m going to be seeing this trainwreck through. May you find better programming and an abundance of positive LGBT rep wherever your life takes you, anon.

#nina answers asks #anon #ugh i'm so fucking tired #both physically and mentally

[365queerstories]

Six of Crows

by Leigh Bardugo

What it is: A YA fantasy duology (the sequel is called Crooked Kingdom) that follows six people as they form an unlikely team to try and break into what is supposed to be an impenetrable fortress.

Why it’s on this list: Even in a setting where words like ‘gay’ don’t exist, it is made very clear that quite a few of the leads are queer. There’s a bisexual boy, and two gay boys, as well as a bisexual girl. Now, the girl really only has one love interest, who’s a dude, so some might say that her queerness is more a Word of God thing, however I personally as a bisexual girl-like creature feel like there is enough in the text to make it pretty clear that she’s bi. Six of Crows also has exceptional rep in terms of disability (dyslexia, addiction, adhd, and a badass boy with a cane, to mention a few).

Where you can find it: Any bookstore worth its shelves should have Six of Crows in it. You can also hang out with the author on her website, or here on tumblr at @lbardugo.

Official Synopsis | Unofficial Powerpoint Presentation

(art by Kevin Wada)

Six of Crows is kind of like Ocean’s Eleven. If everyone in Ocean’s Eleven was a shitty teen, it was set in a rich fantasy world that finds beauty in every dark alley and ice fortress, and the thing they’re trying to steal is actually a political prisoner with a dangerous secret.

Well, really, everyone has at least one dangerous secret, in this series. And okay, it’s not really that much like Ocean’s Eleven, except in that it’s a heist story that is so tense and twisting that I could actually feel my heart racing as I sped through it.

This duology is a wild ride, and it’s made all the more enjoyable because it has what every good heist story should have - an amazing group of loveable, morally questionable characters that make up the team. It’s such a diverse crew too, and each character has layers upon layers of lies and truths, so that even as the reader you’re often not sure who to trust. That just adds to the fun of it all, really.

Now, let’s talk about Jesper for a second. Jesper is the team’s sharpshooter, but he’s also a gambler and a charmer. He’s a member of The Dregs, the gang that about half this team is part of, but his loyalty is to Kaz, rather than the gang’s actual leader. Although in this fantasy world they don’t have the language for things like ADHD or dyslexia (or sexualities, but I’ll get to that in a second), Jesper is very obviously ADHD-coded. He’s impulsive, he’s a risktaker, and he feels the most focused and alive when in stressful or life-threatening situations. Having a bisexual ADHD kid in a fantasy novel left me, a bisexual ADHD kid, just beaming.

But Ziggy, you might be saying. You said they don’t have the language for sexualities. So how do you know he’s bi?

“What do you like?” “Music. Numbers. Equations. They’re not like words. They … they don’t get mixed up.” “If only you could talk to girls in equations.” There was a long silence. [...] “Just girls?” Jesper restrained a grin. “No. Not just girls.”

This exchange made this book, already excellent, that much better. This is a conversation between Jesper and Wylan, the team’s demo man and runaway and eventually Jesper’s partner. Seriously, right off the top every time these boys interact there is unmistakable chemistry between the two of them. At first I was worried it was just me being overly hopeful, but by the time we got to this conversation I knew it wasn’t just me. We get to watch them as they grow closer and closer throughout the two books, going from cautious allies to friends who would trust each other with their lives and secrets, to something a little more romantic.

Well, a lot more romantic.

They’re frickin’ adorable, folks, I don’t know how else to say it. A little hopeless, and messy at times, but so, so adorable.

Although they are definitely the main, most explicit queer rep in the series, I’ll give a quick shout out to Nina, who is said to flirt with everyone and who is a chubby ex-soldier who is also a terrifying magic user. Like I said, some consider her only rep as far as Word Of God gets you, but I found it pretty obvious in the text, personally. Still, your mileage may vary, in terms of whether you agree with me on this.

There’s one other main-ish character (-ish only because he’s mostly in book two and is not one of the six) who is also explicitly interested in someone his own gender. As talking about him in any regards is in and of itself pretty spoilery, I won’t say more about him, but I did want to at least mention him.

Six of Crows really reminded me that fantasy didn’t have to be something static, that you could have excellent representation even if the characters don’t have the modern language to deliver it in the way we’re used to seeing. Honestly, it inspired me to be better in my own fantasy writing. Leigh really sets the bar high here.

If you like reading great casts of characters attempt impossible feats and grow closer because of it, all while still not sure if they can trust one another, then this book is absolutely something you’re going to enjoy. Get ready to be on the edge of your seat the entire time, as all the while you fall for this great little gang.

Just a head’s up, this book does have some graphic violence, and the second one has some character death. As almost all of the characters have some form of PTSD, there is some rough stuff in their backstories as well, including abuse, sexual violence, and the like. I personally found it very well handled, avoiding a lot of the cliches that these kind of backstories can fall into, but regardless, they should be warned for. If you need a more full trigger warning list, let me know.

Reading Six of Crows? Let us know what you think! And if you’re looking for more great queer content, reminder that this is Day 4 of 365 queer reviews, one for each day of 2018. You can find all the reviews here.

#six of crows #leigh bardugo #mlm #boys in love #bisexual girl #bisexual boy #gay boy #book #mlm main character #wlw #wlw main character #mlm supporting character

[tieflng]

chocobox 2020 letter under the cut, because i do things and participate in things now i think.

dear chocolatier: thanks for writing for me! my actual requests were sparse because they were. quite long. especially the pyre one, because it turns out i have a lot of thoughts about minor/historical background characters as seen in the book of rites. so my prompts are all here, along with the dnws just repeated for good measure. thanks for reading all of this, i hope you can find something to have fun with.

pyre -

oops!! all golathanian! i was just really drawn to him reading the book of rites; there's something about an ordinary (certainly flawed) human man making the choices that brought every event in the game to pass and turned him into a godlike eldritch basketball saint. also, 'you gave your freedom that i might yet have mine' is a line i've been thinking about for an entire year. also, the g in lgbt is for golathanian. i'm really into the idea that the man the commonwealth could lionize as the ideal of strength is admirable not as a conqueror or warlord, but as someone with commitments to others that make him overcome his flaws-- someone who does the cooking for the group and makes dry comments and lectures out of worry and has a stupid laugh and acts like a grouch when he is secretly a giant softy. (and someone who is visibly gay and gnc, because the base of my mazlow hierarchy of needs is gay/bi men presented as admirable figures of authority, and i think that's something that should have been in the game, even if the commonwealth in-universe was going to erase it.) the heart and idealism and earnestness is what makes him worthy of respect, and that he's human, even if technically he ends up as a demigod sports-omen star.

i'm firmly in favor of autistic scribes (solidarity with chae) and scribes as large-r Readers. aside from soliam and khaylmer who both have cis energy i'm very up for any of the requested characters as trans or nonbinary, and near and dear to my heart especially are transfem chae and triesta and a nonbinary/my-gender-is-just-gay gol. explicit lgbt identities in general are a plus. environmental details-- i adore the richness and mystery and wonder of the downside, but i'd also kill for some sahrian imperial court ambiance. adventure is good, character study is always good, shenanigans and mischievous escapades between friends, misunderstandings that work out or not, angst with comfort is fine, moral or philosophical dilemmas or conversations (perfect for this group). it'd be nice to see something about titans, about (r/R)eading, the downside as an eldritch landscape, the simultaneous decay and might of imperial sahr, about turning into celestial bodies, a good old fashioned slow burn/mutual pining.

ha'ub & gol - i've always imagined these two are best friends - the first two scribes, 2/3 of the og triumvirate, and both dealing with the fact that 'mercy' means they have to keep soliam murr's fool ass alive. ha'ub is a chaotic little bumpkin who's never belonged anywhere, gol is an increasingly long-suffering visitor to purgatory dimension-- i feel like for all that he knows more about survival here than his new Big Friends, ha'ub feels just as indebted to them for being able to relate to him. it can't be easy being the first imp with human-like intelligence, or at least surely the only imp you know. misunderstandings between different species, teaching each other about sahrian human and downside imp customs, teaming up against howlers (did the howler/imp distinction exist yet, if all imps were wild and drive imps didn't exist??), learning to communicate with someone whose speech and language are very different. gol standing up for ha'ub in the 'why does an imp get a triumvirate' debate. why is ha'ub accursed? too, if there's gol/soliam, there's an opportunity for 'just kiss him already', or whatever misunderstandings imps have about human relationships/will-they-or-won't-they tensions.

gol & chae - please call the vagabond girl chae! i loved her basically at the moment i saw her and her arc means a lot to me. she’s autistic coded but her belief in the scribes-- in actually hearing and speaking to the scribes-- is never undercut by the narrative. and she’s immensely strong! she’s survived in the downside by herself from 17-19! and imo at least the scribe known for being strong and resilient and untiring, not to mention idealistic and loyal, would admire the absolute fuck out of her. i’d like her childhood as moontouched/homeless and displaced, her topside ending as a religious leader and inspiration in the sahrian union, wandering alone in the downside, her role with the nightwings-- i just really want to see what conversations these two would get up to, i want them to learn from each other, i want chae to have support and encouragement and comfort from everyone’s favorite nomad scribe. what does she ask him? what does he tell her? passing messages from ti’zo or the heralds? looking for advice/help on behalf of the nightwings, or just comfort when she’s feeling out of place? god, the fact that she’s in the companion class that parallels khaylmer-- do they talk about that, or how does gol feel? there are so many damn good interactions here. please don’t infantilize her or portray her beliefs and reactions as nonsensical or weird.

gol/soliam - i have so many thoughts about these two that i almost don’t want to say everything. my sense is they didn’t get together until the downside, with a very long enemies > grudging allies > friends > lovers, at least on gol’s end. you don’t jump over the edge of the world to kill someone and immediately kiss and make up. topside before he gets disillusioned there’s potential for that good courtly love - gol pining hopelessly (and perhaps obliviously, depending on how soliam acts towards him) for his beautiful distant liege, sol who so very clearly did not feel anything genuine for anyone as emperor, but who maybe has some ‘oooh, master-general ;)’ poking out of the hedonism-flavored depression. and then he falls down the river and realizes he was a big idiot. i could do very early sweet moments, courtly aesthetic and accidental intimacy, seeing a tender side to the emperor that most people never get close enough for/soliam murr Almost having a real feeling other than physical attraction. i could also do rebuilding their trust and rapport in the downside, mutual pining, growing closer despite everything and wondering privately if they couldn’t actually work out. or established relationship tenderness and fluff. i could also very much do explicit content with these two.

gol & khaylmer - ahh, yes. enemies. i got the impression from gol’s account (and gol’s account is really all we get) that these two hated each other, to ‘put his picture on the bull’s eye of the dartboard’ levels of hatred-- but also, maybe, that they had more in common than they wanted. gol and khaylmer as the only two grownups in a decadence-obsessed imperial court? certainly as the closest advisers to the emperor, whatever that means when your emperor is soliam murr. i always got the impression that gol was a bit more of a bastard than he let on-- nomad masteries are very ‘now i’ve thrown him off his rhythm!’ and you can’t tell me ‘preferred to fall on his enemies by surprise under the cover of darkness’ Isn’t the trait of a highly slippery character. then again, their worldviews and beliefs might as well be from two different planets, but then again again, do we really get an unbiased opinion on khaylmer to know what his worldviews really is? two driven and idiosyncratic people, more similar than they think, who just deeply hate and misunderstand each other at a fundamental level. also, please a deep dive into khaylmer’s head. lot of opportunity for backroom dealing and court drama here.

scribes & scribes - scribe adventures! or scribe shenanigans and arguments! i see these eight as having strong and contrasting personalities, but fundamentally caring about each other, even if they can get into real drama and conflict. fighting titans, exploring together, writing the book of rites, becoming eldritch basketball gods. found family is great, early stages of found family that grouchily insist they're business associates is better. there is so much you could do with these losers as a collective and i love them with my entire heart.

dnw: fantasy homophobia or transphobia, dubcon/noncon including under the influence, hand/eye trauma, unsanitary things, angst without a positive/hopeful resolution. in terms of explicit content, please no humiliation or impact play/physical pain. fandom specific: don't undercut chae's feelings or beliefs or write her in an ableist way. i also see gol and soliam as gay, and milithe and triesta as lesbians, so i'd prefer no references to past/current m/w relationships for them-- not because having m/w history invalidates gay peoples' identities, but because for me personally that'd be a horrible experience and it makes me sad thinking about my favorite characters going through that.

hades -

i did not expect to like a large soft-spoken honor-bound minotaur who duels you in honorable combat as much as i did, but probably should have knowing basic facts about myself. anything asterius-focused is great-- i really want to see him well-received in elysium and with a partner who cares about him......! he deserves nice things! elysium as a setting is so lush, environmental details, moments of respite, greenery, the river lethe, the elysian stadium, the beauty of eternal paradise And the fact that the people who live here decide to just beat the tar out of each other for fun.

this game has a really strong cast, and i'd love to see mentioned or featured olympians/house denizens/run npcs other than the requested characters. patroclus is a strong possibility for a fic in elysium, but achilles, hypnos, hermes/artemis/athena, and eurydice are also favorites of mine. i'm always down for explicit gay/bi identities, and i've been toying with trans masc zag and/or nonbinary aster.

Asterius/Zag - the inherent romantic tension of having a standing date to fight someone in hand to hand combat. but also, meeting outside of the arena in some way - a peaceful moment in a fountain chamber? maybe aster helps zag in a tough spot with some exalted? they both meet up in patroclus's chamber? i like how aster respects you for your strength and ability and the comparison he draws between them both as having been born monstrous/in darkness could use some (gentle) exploration. both of them uncovering hidden depths or softness in each other.

Asterius/Theseus/Zag - the inherent romantic tension of having a standing date to fight two people in hand to hand combat. i very much see this as an aster-centric v-- i don't really buy these or zag being into each other on their own, but learning to get along for the sake of their mutual boyfriend is good, and the comedy that ensues. anything i like in aster/zag or aster/these would be good here. absolutely not opposed to an aster-centered threesome (he deserves it).

Asterius/Theseus - how did these persuade hades to move the bull of minos to elysium? how did they become champions in the stadium? fighting by each others' sides, aster discovering after a mortal lifetime confined to a labyrinth that he's into men, these feeling weirdly compelled to show off or impress him. theseus training him in 'heroic ways'. theseus's lines about ariadne felt needlessly gross/borderline misogynistic and i'd like for them either to not come up Or for aster to sit him down and give him a piece of his mind. that's his sister, you idiot.

Cerberus & Zag - just a boy and his dog! cerby comforting a younger zag when hades is on his bullshit, or kid zag sleeping all cuddled up with his pubby. growing up and watching the house change. zag venting to cerberus or asking for advice, like you do with your pets when you don't expect an answer (and maybe getting one??). something in styx would be good, or zag finding any other kind of treat or toy and smuggling it back in from one of his runs.

dnw: fantasy homophobia or transphobia, dubcon/noncon including under the influence, hand/eye trauma, unsanitary things (please light on the descriptions of the satyr sack, lmao), angst without a positive/hopeful resolution. in terms of explicit content, please no humiliation or impact play/physical pain. as far as fandom specific: please nothing that portrays hades as good or justified in any of his actions. nothing zag/meg or zag/than; i really prefer zag and meg to have acknowledged their feelings and decided to stay friends.

arthuriana/let’s be real i’m here for the gawain and the green knight - 

......i'm just in this for the inherent homoeroticism. explicitly gay/bi gawain and bi bertilak is great, bertilak and his wife both being in on it is great, threesome? more christmas games? courtly flirting? being cozy inside? going on a dangerous quest? anything sounds great, just have fun with it!

dnw: homophobia including period-typical (just not why i read fanfiction), dubcon/noncon including under the influence, unsanitary things, hand/eye trauma, cheating/negative feelings between the hautdeserts, angst. in terms of explicit content, please no humiliation or impact play/physical pain.

#///] #///]] #////]] #///]]] #/////] #exchange letter

[swampgallows]

pride month questionnaire just for my own reference

what is your sexuality? biromantic asexual

what do gender do you identify as? cis woman 

how long have you been aware of your sexuality/gender? around 16-17 i knew there was some shit wrong w me lmao, i had always just assumed i was straight but if we’re being real i knew from a pretty young age that i was broken and an alien. only ever had a few crushes [on guys] in my life but generally felt the same way about both men and women

do you have any preferences? big

share a positive memory about coming out! none

how do you feel about pride month? is good. isnt really “for me” but i will keep the glow i feel about it on the inside, like when i wear a favorite pair of underwear

do you participate in pride related events? any other events? no, though i was invited a few times it was by very sexual people who also drink alcohol so it wasnt really my kinda deal. much as i love sk i didnt really care for ladykiller’s sets

how do you feel about lgbtq roles in media? more, more written by lgbtqia people, less about dying and more about living ffs. let them be alive. let them be professional but also lgbtqia, let them be three-dimensional fully fleshed out characters who are also lgbtqia instead of being one-note cardboard cut-outs erected for Diversity

do you feel pride in who you are? not yet.

who has been your supportive idols in your self discovery? lmao

tell us about your first crush? despite kissing and being in a relationship with and having sex with a girl it didnt occur to me that i might be a lil gay until years later when i had a crush on undyne and she had a crush on a girl who became her girlfriend, and i was like “holy shit, you can do that? undyne likes girls? she likes a girl???? that means???? she could like me???? i could also.... like girls???? girls can be girlfriends???”

what sort of advice to have you lgbtq teens? i have no idea, im 27 and i still feel like a teen, do not ask me things 

have you come out to friends and family? sort of. i tried to tell my siblings and my sister said I just hadnt met the right person yet, to which i asked her “oh well youre bi too, you know, you just havent met the right woman yet” stupid fucking bitch. my brother was silent. so was my mother. my dad doesn’t know, i dont think. he asked me “what does this mean, ‘tracer is gay tracer is gay tracer is gay’?” but the conversation got derailed luckily before i could answer

how do you feel about the term “coming out” ? not really up to me i guess. i only use it because i dont really know another term for it

do you believe there is a “closet” to come out of? sort of, i guess. people dont fucking care about asexuality; they complain that “nobody cares that you’re not having sex, theres no need to talk about it” then when i say something like “well im not really a sexual person” or “i dont like sex” all of a sudden it’s “WHAT WHY ARENT YOU HAVING SEX??? WERE YOU RAPED? YOU SHOULD SEE A THERAPIST. HAVE YOU TRIED SEX TOYS?” - my doctor  So like yeah just saying the word “asexual” gets people really fucking riled up, i have to decide whether or not i want to engage in a fucking hour long debate and reveal my traumas and life story if i feel like even saying my orientation so w/e, that’s the closest kind of a closet i can have i guess. granted im not gonna be gunned down in the street for being asexual but i also dont like being incessantly interrogated and armchair pathologized either

any tips on coming out? no. i never really came out to my parents deliberately, my mom just snooped some shit on my facebook and cornered me w a question about it when i was stuck in the car with her

what’s your biggest pet peeve when it comes to lgbtq characterization in media? stop fucking killing them and making them the butt of jokes

what’s your favorite parts of lgbtq characterization in media? “well at least they’re there, i guess”; alternatively, when done well: “that me”

what did your teachers say about the lgbtqa community in school? i have very little recollection. it was mostly about gay men, i dont recall anything on lesbians, and i remember like one time we had a transgender person (calling themselves transsexual, at the time) come and talk to us, but i didn’t even know it was a thing that could be done or even existed so i had no idea what to make of it. but i remember they were there and spoke to us, even now. i basically just remember it happening lol

do you practice safe sex with the same gender? we didnt use dental dams or whatever, and since we didnt use toys we didnt use condoms. i mean i guess it was pretty safe, we were both monogamous and unsexed to all fuck. we washed our hands i guess?

what’s an absolute turn off for you in the opposite/same gender? this is too weird of a question for me to answer. im pretty demi when it comes to romantic shit, i dont feel attraction to people at all really, though i have felt attraction to people i dont know it’s extremely few and far between. like this year i saw two (2) girls i found attractive, not in a sexual way but i thought they were iridescent beings comprised of pure light and couldnt take my eyes off of them. before that i cant even remember the last time somebody stopped me in my tracks or gave me butterflies. i dunno if i have any real active ‘turn-offs’ aside from basic shit (racism, sexism, general shittiness) other than like... sports, i guess. sports and drugs

what’s an absolute turn on for you in the opposite/same gender? big. soft, hug. hairy boys. hairy girls are fine too but it’s more prominently a thing in guys. cool teeth (if you have cool teeth i will remember you)

how do you feel about lgbtq clubs/apps/websites? not for me

how do you feel about the term “queer” ? use it if you like, but respect those that it hurts

how does your country view the lgbtq community? america a fuck

favorite lgbtq actor/actress? fuck dude i dont even have a favorite straight actor or actress

any tips for heterosexual and/or cisgender people on how to handle lgbtq events/news? 1. it’s not for you 2. be proud for them 3. LISTEN TO THEM. SHUT YOUR MOUTH AND JUST LISTEN

what’s the most annoying question you have ever gotten? literally any time i tell a man im ace and he wants to fuck me, like, anything he says after that point is the worst thing

how do you feel about receiving questions about your sexuality/gender im open to answering but i can only speak from my own individual experience, which is a disclaimer i try to give any time anybody asks me shit. im not the best representative for the bi or ace communities or anything lgbtqia in general. i dont like sex and i barely like people. leave me w my monsters

#blathering #lgbtqia

[bhadpodcast]

//I have had a terrible and soul searching week in which my physical and mental health teamed up to rebel against me. Dylan O’brien is alive and well in the RSA and that’s all I got today, boo. And we had pizza day at work. You want a quick Damon/Dylan headcanon? // lol same to all, except I didn't get a pizza day, I got to go to a funeral. Massive yes to Damon/Dylan. Or Hoech/Dylan 😁

Been there, boo, way too many times.  Stay strong. 

So I’ve been thinking a lot about this picture:

We talk a lot about bb!Dylls (lil Dyll pickle!), but we don’t talk a lot about bb!Damon.  And I think it’s because at this point we still don’t know a lot about who he is, but I like to imagine he was a young kid who met an older man that took him under his wing.  That they realized they might not make the best couple, but Damon was young and hungry and could perhaps help out on set and be discreet with the things that happened behind the scenes.  

He wasn’t a famewhore, he simply loved the environment.  He saw enough Hollywood True Stories to know he didn’t want to become one, and knew enough people who made a decent living without ended up on the splash screen of TMZ.

But maybe not enough people?  May he didn’t have enough contacts to fully know when something shady was going on during filming.  Maybe he didnt’ have enough experience to fully understand the reason behind Jeff’s contempt for Hoechlin or why he was always so wary of Colton.  What he did know was that this opportunity was a way to make some new friends while learning the ins and outs of the business

Where Damon lacked this 6th sense, what he did have was superb peripheral vision.  Head on he might miss the more pettier nuances, but in his side eye he could see everything.  Like a closet case facing immense pressure from their management and family.  And the against type twink with the gigantic crush on him. 

Some called it chemistry.  To the naked eye it was playing off one another, jokes and stories about baseball.  It was hero worship at its finest, it was mentorship and a big brother program all at once.  The two were only separated by 4 years, but one was a teen and one was an “adult” and it was enough to put aside the thought of any sexual impropriety and firmly encamp their relationship in more of a… scout master/scout type of setting. 

Damon knew better.  His own age was settled firmly between the two and he could see the twinkle in the older’s eyes every time the boy came into the room.  And he could see the wonderment that rained over the boy when the young man graced his presence.  They subconsciously felt each other, gravitating effortlessly to one another, not needing to say a single word, sharing nothing but a coy eye before bursting into laughter. 

And there were the touches.  There were always touching each other.  Sport’s touches.  Little ways guys had to justify their intimacy to each other.  Nevermind that each slap on the ass was really a pat or “playful” squeezing, disregard that the hit to the chest was actually a caress.  Ignore the fact that while Hoechlin often referred to Dylan as a “teammate”  or “buddy”, he never once said little bro, never implied the familial, never put up a fence that he would only later have to tear down. 

And Dylan?  Dylan was a revelation to Damon.  Ultimately shy and anxious while at the same time being extremely comfortable and open when he got to know you.  And he knew you quickly and trusted his instinct.  He knew who was going to hurt him and he was mature enough to know how much he could take before he had to let go.  And for the things he didn’t know?  He’d find a way to ask.  Not directly.  He never asked Damon to kiss him, to fix his pout when he went down on him; he never asked Damon how to “gay”, not directly.  But when he and Damon met, somehow Dylan knew instantly that Damon would be his training ground.  And Damon was glad for the assignment. 

Now, let’s not be mistaken.  This wasn’t done with malice.  Damon wasn’t a plaything that Dylan thought he could use and throw out.  There was a respect there, a near reverence.  He didn’t know all the details, but he knew Damon was on a break after the Jeff stuff.  He knew that Damon didn’t want anything long term, but also didn’t want to overuse his Grindr app.  Damon was soft spoken and a kind soul, but he had a straightforward wit and cunning that Dylan instantly took to.  He’d made fun of Damon’s gauges and Damon just grinned and shrugged and said “well, who doesn’t like a pair of black studs?” while throwing a saucy wink at the boy.  Dylan gave his trademarked open mouthed laughed and Damon licked his while watching the boy’s mouth.  He was complimentary and Dylan liked that.  He was tall and sweet and Dylan liked that too.  And most importantly he was game.  And discreet.  Dylan liked that most of all. 

Dylan appreciated the leers he would feel when he knew absolutely no one else was watching.  When people tried to pat him on the head, he knew Damon was looking at his ass.  When others tried to talk about how cute he was, Damon would growl at him playfully and call him sexy.  Dylan knew he meant it.  He appreciated that Damon could see beyond the baby fat of his cheeks and recognize the impressive growth in his groin.  If Damon could see him that way, maybe someday Hoechlin would too.

What Damon knew, but Dylan didn’t is that Hoechlin already saw Dylan that way, and artfully ignored it.  That’s for later though.  This starts after the night at Fruit Alley

They toast and dance and both are surprised at the other’s ability to move.  Dylan’s hips are extremely pliant and Damon can easily pick up Dylan and wrap his legs around his waist and Damon is swinging him around the dance floor and Dylan shouts in his ear above the music, “I think I would be a top!” 

Damon laughs, shocked and drops Dylan who looks confused at first but then shakes his head laughing. “No, not right now, I just mean, in general!”  He tries to explain, but Damon is a bit drunk and can’t hear over the thumpa thumpa of the club and all he can see is Dylan throw up his hands and mouth “fuck it!” and then Dylan’s mouth is on Damon’s mouth and they grind on each other in the club.  

And Damon is clean shaven, but Dylan still runs his mouth against Damon’s jaw, no doubt with someone else’s in mind, and he moves up to his ear and says, “We should get out of here.  Talk about the topping thing, I have a lot of… research I wanna do.” and Dylan pulls back. 

What stops Damon isn’t the obvious red flag of a young twink ready to wild out with a few drinks under his belt and a hazy gaze.  It’s the fact that when Dylan pulls back Damon’s expecting a cocky put on and bi bravado and what he gets instead are wide, curious eyes asking explicitly for permission.  Cock, but not for connections, for confidence, for coin, but… cock for consent.  This is something that still existed, but Damon has been in Hollywood long enough to forget it and that scares him.  But Dylan gives him hope.  Because if he has this then he can keep it, he can hang on to it.  He’s gonna get his heart broken, Damon can tell, but maybe Damon can show Dylan how to take it without breaking completely. 

“Dylan, you’re not going to fuck me.” Damon says resolutely as Dylan’s eyes fall.  He tucks a finger under his chin and kisses him assuredly. “Not tonight.  This is it for tonight.  And when you’re ready… we’ll try something new.”

Dylan smiles at Damon and Damon smiles back.  

Later that night he drops him off at the apartment Dylan shares with Posey and Hoechlin.  Posey’s light is out which means he’s either asleep or spending the night at some girl’s house.  They have the next day off so Damon is betting the latter.  Hoechlin is downstairs by the dumpster talking heatedly into his phone.  He’s arguing with someone, probably his girlfriend, though it could be an agent, his tone doesn’t waiver much between the two.  Dylan can’t take his eyes off of him.  He sighs, but it’s not defeated, it’s… patient.  He turns to Damon and reaches over squeezing Damon’s hand.  He nods his thanks and piles out.  He doesn’t head towards the dumpsters, but instead goes to the door.  He stills for a moment.  He knows Hoechlin sees him, but Hoechlin acts like he doesn’t, keeps on with the call.  Dylan finally goes inside and Damon drives off.  As he goes he looks in his rearview mirror and sees Hoechlin watching him, without expression. 

He heads to Colton’s apartment.  Colton is a sassy bitch and a fun drunk.  They’ll shoot the shit and Damon will tell him all of his secrets and Colton will drunkenly forget and he’ll say the night was a good night, but he can’t wait for Monday.

#dylanxdamon #dj