#This cast is way too attractive for queer people

[candied-cae]

Real talk y’all?

They musta put something extra special in his water this season because - lord have mercy - he is GLOWING and I am ON MY KNEES. I keep coming back to this one just to look at him. Look at him, y'all. LOOK AT HIM!

HE'S SO FUCKING GORGEOUS I'M GOING TO DIE!

JUST ONE CHANCE- JUST ONE CHANCE IS ALL I ASK-

[thealogie]

picture this. you're michael sheen, beloved queer-friendly welsh actor and recent twilight saga vampire. you want your favorite book to become a tv show, and you want to be the lead. so what do you do? you befriend the author. he wines and dines you, you become a confidant in the scriptwriting phase. and in the process of the GO script you decide you don't want to be crowley, actually, you want to be aziraphale. you put in the work for months to influence the author to the same conclusion. so when neil gaiman comes to you one day saying, "i know you joined on to be crowley... but how would you feel about playing aziraphale?" you say, what a novel idea! i was feeling the same way, i just didn't want to say anything! let's do it.

you're michael sheen, the lead in the adaptation of your favorite book. you meet david tennant as your leading man, a rising star (and vocal fan of yours) you've had a few vague interactions with in the past. on set you immediately find the closest friend you have ever and will ever find in your life, and you know this. the romance you have in your (yes, your) show is ambiguous, but you're michael sheen. you think that romance needs to be explicit. so what do you do? you become a nightmare on set. you get really hands-on; you make costume choices, you make story decisions, you tell your author friend at the very end of filming: aziraphale is in love with crowley and realizes it in 1941. now go do it again.

so the author goes and does it again. you get a season 2. you get 1941 part 2. you're michael sheen, and you are the lead of the adaptation of your favorite book, and the romance you littered into the character you built from the ground up has become unambiguous. everything goes according to plan. but, you see, you have a problem: the author you have baby trapped is acting a FIEND on twitter and tumblr. he's saying everything he can to imply aziraphale and crowley aren't sexually attracted to each other. he's getting a bit too bold with his character assumptions, is all i'm saying. so here's what you're going to do: you play it up with your pal david tennant. you made a show with him during lockdown. you're going to depict your lives as even more intertwined and homoerotically codependent as previously possible. you grow even closer. your wives become best friends, too, because how could they not? this has been the plan since the beginning, too. your lockdown show ends. it wasn't enough.

so you, michael sheen, of course you put in the work. if david tennant's there, you're damn sure you're there physically, spiritually, biblically, in whatever capacity you can be. it's not hard. david tennant is a big fan of yours, after all, so he MAKES SURE you're always in the conversation. you have him wrapped around your little finger, this lovely little boy, and so you know what you do next? you become neighbors. you make your directorial debut casting your best friend's wife watching her husband and male neighbor initiate sex with each other. you play into the swinging rumors (that you, michael sheen, had started). you create a narrative that you and david tennant are two homoerotic besties, and is there more going on in the background there? any deeper conspiracy? who really knows, but what you do know is that the world is talking about it.

and you, michael sheen, your entire acting career has led to this moment, your gay quips, your oscar wilde sex scene (and the interviews following), all of your queer roles, EVERYTHING has brought us to this conclusion. you have created the lab perfect conditions where season 3 must have an explicit gay sex scene. i'm sorry neil, my hands are tied! the people are clamoring for me and david tennant to have sex-- i mean aziraphale and crowley to have sex, the public decided this all on their own! i really don't think you have much choice. but of course, i would never deign to tell an author how to practice his veritable craft. i concede to whatever version of series 3 you create, and i will happy to bring this beloved character to his deserved ending.

and why do you say this? because you're michael sheen. you're just an actor who incidentally stumbled his way into leading the queer romance adaptation of your favorite book that wasn't a romance, and you just read the script the way that it was given to you. and if series 3 means an explicit sex scene between you and your best friend david tennant, then what a lovely coincidence that you had absolutely no part in making happen. because what power do you really have?

This is my favorite book I’ve read so far this year. A rare occasion where the author pulls off use of the second person pov. I really felt like I was a beloved welsh actor crossed with Machiavelli when I read this

[shiorisdefenseattorney]

Is Juri's problem really idealizing Shiori in some way? The prevailing interpretation I've seen is that Juri should accept she fell for a snake so she can remove Shiori from the pedestal of her love. Incidentally Ruka also shares this opinion. I disagree and I'm here to be a contrarian about it!

A nonzero number of takes base their "Juri idealizes Shiori" conclusion on the "innocently cruel" line, the interpretation being she's percieving Shiori's personality as sweet and innocent. But that's not what the line is getting at. Juri's emphasis here is not innocence as a synonym for purity, it's innocence as a synonym for ignorance and naivety. Both Utena and Shiori are "innocent" because they are unable to anticipate the queer dynamic, the deviant lesbian desire, that Juri is operating from, and "cruel" because, in their misunderstanding, they step on Juri's toes in unintentional ways.

Even though we, the audience, know in retrospect that Shiori meant to fuck Juri up, the exact way she did it was a freak accident, and at this point in the story she has no idea that she managed to hurt her. Shiori is operating from a different understanding, one that assumes Juri's absolute conformity to and supremacy in heteronormative gender roles. Shiori's whole mission is proving her value over Juri on that axis, obviously because as a suppressed homosexual she feels insecure about her continuing obsession with Juri. She assumes "beating Juri" at attracting men will balance the scales-- render Juri's image less appealing, and hers more. And of course that would hurt Juri, who must value her success with boys so much. That lack of awareness is what Juri is referring to, and she's right here actually, about both Shiori and Utena-- they are unable to conceptualize desire for other women as a potential outcome, and in part it's because of this that they end up harming themselves and others.

Moreover the "innocently cruel" line does not imply that Juri thinks Shiori is an innocent person because, if anything, Juri does nothing but doubt Shiori throughout the series.

At no point does Juri say anything positive about Shiori's personality or their friendship. She is unable to frame her ex-bestie's existence outside of the pain she's caused her. The narrative purposefully never tells us why she fell in love with her in the first place, or what their friendship was like. We don't know why she chose Shiori specifically, and that's part of the mystique of Juri's feelings and of their relationship, that the audience will never see who Shiori is outside of Juri's heartbreak. She could have a vibrant personality, but it's thoroughly obscured by the opacity of Juri's despair, and Ohtori 's miasma. Not to mention Shiori's own internalized homophobia, compulsory heterosexuality, and chosen constructed persona-- just like a lot of other bitches trapped in Ohtori. This is what the place does, it chews up queer teenagers and doesn't spit them out so much as it arranges them neatly into a series of possible stage roles.

Juri's current image of Shiori is of a witch. It's possible she used to think of her as a princess, sure, but then she inverted the role once Shiori acted out. If anybody's idolizing anybody, it's Shiori. She is the master of rendering other people into shining beacons!

I have more thoughts forming on how Juri's "casting" of Shiori plays out through her final duel (does Shiori's mistreatment by Ruka briefly return her to her role as a princess to Juri's gallant prince-- but this proves unsustainable or undesirable, because princehood makes her too vulnerable or liable to corruption?) but they're half-baked at this time.

I do think though that Juri's "miracle" might be "making [Shiori] understand [her] feelings" literally-- not necessarily having Shiori return them (though that idea looms over her including in her understanding of what a man could do in her place, thanks to Ruka for the reminder). The miracle may be finding some way for Shiori and others to understand who Juri actually is without making herself vulnerable or diminishing the ease with which she moves through the world. She doesn't want to get stabbed with those swords of hatred. So many people don't seem to understand her, yet Juri is terrified of embodying anything other than an impenetrable image of excellence...! Girl watch out!! You're just embodying the reason why Shiori resents you in the first place!!! Those swords are coming at you no matter what!!!

[paraphwrites]

a brief note about charles rowland, bisexuality, & the art of queer interpretation

for most of modern history, queer people have been cast to the shadows. be they jailed at the time for sodomy, or erased from history after the fact by historians downplaying their relationships, history has been notoriously cruel to queer people. this is especially true in media, which often completely ignored the existence of queer people.

from this lack of representation, the 'queer interpretation' was born. this is when a consumer notices subtext in a piece of media and extrapolates that one or more character(s) is queer. this is especially prominent to try and undo historical revisionism, and what authors may not have been able to publish at the time, but were able to imply.

a well-known example is "a picture of dorian gray," an egregiously homosexual novel, written by an egregiously homosexual man. despite dorian not being explicitly gay.....he is. this is widely accepted among modern interpretations, because wilde utilizes queer-coding and allusions to ancient greece to create subtext that the character is homosexual in nature.

however, not everyone is a fan of the queer interpretation. many people cite it as inserting gayness where it does not belong. this, though an understandable argument, both erases the history of queer people and the ways that authors intentionally queer-coded their characters, and misses the point of art all together. art is open for interpretation, whether it be the symbolism of the curtain color, or the character's sexuality.

but the queer interpretation is especially important because it gives voices to those expressly forbidden to share queer thoughts when they were alive. beyond giving a voice to the author, it also reflects the feelings of the person interpreting the text (as all interpretations do). the degree to which one utilizes the queer interpretation illustrates the degree to which one feels the need to do so. for example, someone who is searching for queer rep is more likely to read charles rowland as gay, whereas someone who isn't fond of headcanons is more likely to accept him as straight

now, is charles rowland bisexual? yes. and also no.

charles rowland does exhibit many characteristics which, when you are familiar with queer-coding, may make him seem like a glaringly bisexual man. he wears earrings, he dresses alternatively, he smirks, he is an absolute twink. but, straight men can smirk too, and wear earrings, and dress punk rock. that does not actually mean anything. BUT it DOES. when utilizing the queer interpretations, one analyzes fashion and diction and other pieces of subtext to draw a conclusion. the implied subtext is queerness. so, charles rowland is bisexual, then, right?

limiting bisexuality to stating your attraction to both men & woman is harmful. it reinforces that heterosexuality is the norm, and implies that, if you do not directly state that you are bisexual, then you are straight.

but, there is merit to the 'charles is straight' argument. it isn't homophobic to not use the queer interoperation.

dbda is a show that is clearly not ashamed of highlighting queer characters. so it stands to reason that if charles is queer, it would have been brought up. (of course, if there had been a season two, maybe we would have seen him discuss his sexuality, but i will work with the source material i have.) so, it stands to reason that charles is straight. afterall, despite faint subtext that charles is straight, the show does not go out of its way to queercode him. so, charles is straight

WRONG AGAIN. charles rowland is neither gay nor straight, he is a plot device in this mini essay.

the heart of the queer interpretation is seeing a character and looking beyond what is written. oftentimes, it involves two characters (eg, edwin & charles). in the instances when there are two, the queer interpretation asks that you look at the most important relationship in the story, rather than what may seem to be the love story.

you may ship catwin, or crystalXcharles, or whatever. and that is totally valid. BUT, the show could still exist without the cat king x edwin. and the show could still totally exist without crystal x charles. but the show immediately falls apart without the relationship between charles & edwin. whether romantic or not, their relationship is the heart of the story. it is a story about THOSE TWO and everyone else is add on. i am not saying no one else is important, but i am saying the heart & foundation of the story is derived from edwin & charles.

queer interpretors ask that you look at the most important relationship in a text, rather than the most explicitly romantic one. and, often, queer interpretors then project romantic feelings onto the two characters that the story could not survive without.

crystal & charles cannot end up together because crystal will never be the most important person in the world to charles. the cat king & edwin can never end up together because the cat king will never be the most important person in the world to edwin. ergo, edwin and charles will inevitably end up together, because they are the most important people to each other.

at least, that's what queer theory might argue about it.

another just as valid argument is that charles rowland is a bisexual, and not in love with edwin. and a third valid argument is that charles rowland isn't bisexual and isn't in love with edwin.

because we don't KNOW. this is interpretation. so i can look at charles rowland and say 'he's a bisexual and he loves edwin.' and you can look at charles and say 'he is straight.' and someone else can say 'he is aromantic' and someone else that he's pansexual and someone else that he needs way more therapy before he can even begin contemplating his sexuality. and they are all VALID.

anyway but i think it's important to understand the why behind why so many people think charles' is bi, and why it matters! i'm not saying charles has to be bisexual, but i'm saying the bisexual interpretation does matter.

[lavendermoonlitskies]

I wanna talk about why I think Dead Boy Detectives means so much to so many people after only 1 season

So, we’re all angry and sad and confused right now and I think Netflix needs to understand why canceling this specific show was so upsetting to so many people, myself included.

First of all, they’ve made this a habit. The list of shows that they cancel after only one or two seasons is growing longer and longer, and there doesn’t seem to be any conceivable reason as to why. They hardly advertise their own show, they ignore its impact on the audience showcasing itself right in front of their eyes all over the internet via trending hashtags and campaigns to binge the show so Netflix doesn’t cancel it, and then they cancel it anyway.

The main question is why. Why do they keep canceling these shows that are so well received and manage to grow a passionate audience so soon in its run? The shows aren’t all necessarily similar to each other in the writing, casting, mood and what-have-you, but they do seem to have one thing in common: the audience is full of queer people. Regardless of how society has progressed in the way of LGBTQ+ acceptance, big corporations still have no interest in adding to that if it will hinder their financial gain in any way.

Whoever’s in charge over at Netflix HQ is not interested in taking risks. They seem to have forgotten that a show is rarely going to have record breaking numbers after one season, and if the show doesn’t specifically cater to a cishet audience, that’s all the more reason to pull the plug. That’s why shows like Riverdale go on for so long, that’s why Stranger Things hasn’t been cancelled yet (yes I know there is one single openly gay character in that show, but they’re not actually going to do anything with that and you know it), and that’s why there are countless shows with interesting and entirely unique plots and characters and settings who only get 8-12 episodes in total. Shows that cater to a cishet audience are safe, and despite the fact that Netflix is a multi-billion dollar corporation that can absolutely afford to risk having faith in something that diverts from the norm and attracts the weirdos of this world who just want to watch something that makes them feel seen, they just won’t do it.

I can’t really speak for a lot of these other shows, but Dead Boy Detectives was one of the most unapologetically queer shows I’ve ever seen. In just one season, it left us with some profound commentary on the horrors of hate crime against minorities and how when it occurs, it is all-too-often swiped under the rug and justice never comes. Edwin and Charles were victimized for being different and it is a very real-world issue to see kids like them simply ignored until it’s too late. Do you know how many queer kids saw themselves in Charles as we learned about his abusive father and all around terrible home life? Or how many saw themselves in Edwin when we learned what happened to him? That’s basically a tale as old as time but Netflix must’ve decided that it’s too uncomfortable to bring up to a cishet audience, once again deciding that going with what’s safe for them is better than giving an audience who needs it something to make them feel seen and heard.

It’s even more insane when you realize that the very first Netflix original series was Orange Is The New Black, because now it’s as if they’re going backwards.

[foxglovegames]

Trouble Comes Twice - the Postmortem

We celebrated Trouble Comes Twice's anniversary around a month ago! We'd hoped to post this postmortem back then as well, but it's taken us a moment to find the right words haha.

Anyway, we hope that this postmortem can give our players and other visual novel devs some insight into what the development process looked like for us. It's also a great way for us to look back at what went well and what went less well.

We'll be taking about the ideation phase, our (lack of) marketing for the Kickstarter, and also sharing (what we can) on our earnings from the game!

Coming up with Trouble Comes Twice

The original tone of Trouble Comes Twice was a lot more comedic and packed to the brim with anime tropes we enjoy. Most didn't make it into the final game, but some stayed and evolved e.g. all of the love interests are based on popular visual novel archetypes - the childhood friend, the tomboy, the shy girl, and the bad boy. 

Some, like Cameron and Zoe, changed a lot from their concept while Adrian and Stephanie stayed quite loyal to our original ideas of them. Cameron's character actually underwent the most changes after the initial reception to the demo, where a lot of people felt like he was too much of an ass haha. (Fortunately, he became a fan favorite when we dropped the new demo!)

The premise with the bet was something we invented to create some drama and establish a common plot thread throughout each route. Honestly, looking back, we would probably have approached the bet differently if we wrote it today and a lot of our pre-planning was... clumsy, at best. Still, it was a labor of love and I'll never forget the fun and excitement we had everyday balling ideas for the characters and coming up with their designs.

As Melli and I are just writers with limited coding experience, we worked with a past game jam friend to code the GUI and set up the base for the game (though the actual scripting was done by us and Melli put everything together in the end). Our biggest expenses pre- and post-demo was the character art and CGs, meanwhile we relied on free music and BG packs to save money.

Why a bisexual romcom?

So, this was sort of a no-brainer to us. We had decided right from the start that both twins could date both the male and female love interests, and (at the time) we feel that a lot of similar games had playersexual MCs rather than established bisexual/pansexual MCs. While playersexual charas are also awesome, we wanted to write a romcom where the main cast are always queer regardless of who you end up romancing. 

At the same time, bi/pan people don't all approach romantic relationships the same way e.g. Cameron is confident and has experience dating people of all genders, while Adrian's demi and Jace still struggles a bit with his attraction towards men. We know that some of our players felt like that made certain routes less romantic than others and we hear you on that feedback and have 100% taken it into consideration for our future romance games. But anyway, that was our thought process behind Trouble Comes Twice's romance dynamics!

Preparing for Kickstarter & the actual Campaign

Our Kickstarter launched at the start of August and let me tell you, we were nowhere near as prepared as we should have been. 😭 We hadn't set up a Steam page yet, we were trailer-less, and we only had a couple of hundred followers across our socials at best. I feel that there's a lot more successful Kickstarter projects to refer to and even a lot of marketing guides and advice now, but mostly it's on us for not researching more. 

The Kickstarter campaign did surprisingly well despite the lack of promotion and only having a rough alpha demo - we were even able to double our goal! - but we  wouldn't recommend what we did for other devs.

You should invest time into making a good demo, spend time building an interested audience before launching your campaign, and research so you've got some kind of marketing plan. We were lucky with word-of-mouth and that other visual novel devs with larger followings helped share our game, but we should have made more effort reaching out to bloggers, streamers, and game sites. Some crowdfunding successes may seem like they came out of nowhere and were just pure luck, but there's usually a lot of grinding behind-the-scenes that you don't notice.

The post-Kickstarter era, at least for us, was the harder bit. We now had 353 loyal backers who had expectations based on promises we had made and we had to make sure we met those expectations while also staying true to our wants as the devs. It was a learning process for sure, but we're fairly proud that we always did our best to keep our backers in the loop. It's frustrating to write an update explaining that the game has been delayed again, but backers are more open to being understanding than you think as long as you communicate!

A tip we'd give to new devs considering Kickstarter: Don't overestimate what you can do, but overestimate what you need. There's always hidden costs, unexpected taxes/fees, and other unknown obstacles that might eat up your budget. In our case, we made enough to make the game as planned, but had to change CG artists around halfway through development which meant our original budget didn't cut it anymore. Fortunately, we had earned a decent amount from our Patreon and pre-orders that we were able to use to complete the CGs, but that isn't always going to be an option for everyone and that also meant we were unable to use that money ourselves. (We didn't take any money from the original Kickstarter campaign, so whatever was earned through patreon and pre-sales was our only "salary" at the time.) 

Writing the game

Writing is, for obvious reasons, one of the most important parts of a visual novel. Melli wrote Jace's routes and I wrote Hazel's routes, which removed some pressure off our shoulders compared to trying to write over 300,000 words all on our own. 

It's fun working with another writer, but there are also some unique issues and considerations that come up when you're writing a game with two protagonists split between two writers. Especially because at the time, there weren't many visual novels with a similar set up to refer to.

The main things we learned, were:

Consistency. We wanted each couple to have their own dynamic, but the characterization needs to remain consistent between routes. You don't want Adrian in Jace's route to feel like a totally different character in Hazel's route. Additionally, we had to be careful that the tone and writing style of the protagonists' POVs still felt like you were playing the same game. Some routes can be more comedic than others, but we've got a problem if Hazel's routes are all (unintentionally) more serious/angsty in tone than Jace's or vice versa.

Watch out for your word count! Longer does not always equal better and writing eight routes, we had to put some restrictions in place. Even when writing on your own, it can be tough to guess how long your story should be, and it was important to us that the routes were roughly the same length so that none felt more "canon" than the other. However, with two writers who have different writing styles and ways of planning, it was tricky to compare our outlines and we struggled at times when it came to matching each other's word counts. Moving forward, we're probably going to be more lenient when it comes to word counts - some routes have to be longer than others, it doesn't mean that route is automatically more "important". We're also doing more regular meetings and frequent check-ins to make sure we're on the same page. In the future, we hope that should save us a lot of trouble when it comes to pacing! 🙈

Balancing your own wants with the wants of your players. In theory, these overlap most of the time. But making a commercial game (that people had already "bought" through the Kickstarter), there is some pressure when it comes to meeting certain expectations. We can't always just write what we want and assume everyone else is going to love it, but we also don't want to neglect what we personally like. We had a survey for the beta where we were able to get regular feedback and a lot of helpful advice. We definitely want to continue with surveys in the future - they are a great way to gather opinions from different players and figure out what works versus what doesn't! 

We took on too many tasks outside writing that distracted us. This bit is sort of inevitable for indie devs like us. 😅 Working with a limited budget and limited resources, you just end up having to wear a lot of hats! We think we did quite well sharing these duties though, and moving forward (thanks to you guys) we can afford more hands on deck to help us out. 

Marketing

The bane of every indie game dev's existence... although secretly, I kind of enjoy marketing but don't tell anyone that!

Having learned a thing or two from promoting the Kickstarter, we spent more time researching games marketing but in the end, trial and error was the best teacher.

As we got closer to the release date, we were posting almost daily on social media and grew our Twitter to over eight thousand followers. We didn't have any viral posts, but we saw a consistent growing interest in our game and it was such a motivation boost to see comments from potential players being excited for the game. We know a lot of devs have said that Twitter didn't help their game much but according to our stats, a decent number of our players found us through the platform. 

We saw less success here on Tumblr. Perhaps we haven't cracked the code here yet or maybe we're just comparing our numbers from Twitter unfairly! We're not hung up about it though, we love it here because it feels easier to connect with our followers and other devs there, and it's nice because we're able to write longer posts like this one! 💓

Aside from posting on social media, we reached out to several streamers and some bloggers prior to release to send them free game keys. 

We also commissioned some art from other artists to share, as we obviously couldn't reveal ALL our CGs before the release lol and visual posts tend to do a lot better in our experience. It was so much fun to see the characters in other art styles and we hope we can afford to commission guest art pieces a lot more frequently in the future!

In hindsight, we definitely regret not releasing a trailer sooner! We underestimated how much interest a good trailer could garner and delayed setting up our Steam page because of it. Steam was the platform where we sold the most copies and most of our buyers found the game through Steam itself.

Also, posting your trailer on youtube adds another site where you're promoting your game so there's really no reason not to get that trailer done as soon as you can. 

Final Notes

After the initial stress, we were pretty happy with our release! Although there were some things we would go back and change if we could,  that's just the nature of these kind of things. For the most part, we're proud of what we achieved and happy that we have learnt so much from Trouble Comes Twice that we can take into consideration for future projects.

We can't share exact numbers, but we wanted to open up a bit about our earnings for the game to help other aspiring devs: As of writing this, Trouble Comes Twice has earned close to 85,000 euros. This counts our profits from 2020 to now (the Kickstarter, Patreon, pre-sales, and actual sales). Removing fees, taxes, the salaries of our talented artists and other freelancers, as well as the money invested into our next game, our personal pockets did not see anything close to those numbers. But we're super proud of how much our little game has made and so grateful that it's allowed us more creative freedom with our next title! 

So, what's next?

You might have heard but for the past year, we've slowly been working on the demo and upcoming announcement for our next visual novel:

A 17+ supernatural neon-noir romance game about monsters, love, and other horrors. 

Play as vampire detective Circe (female protagonist) or hellhound cop Dante (male protagonist) and delve into the mysteries of North Haven, where demons, vampires, and supernaturals hide in plain sight among humans.

The game features six routes, with three romance options available to each protagonist. Dante only has male romances and Circe has both male and female romances. 

The game tackles a darker, more angsty tone compared to Trouble Comes Twice. Still, we hope that those who decide to check it out will enjoy it! We plan to announce the game this coming Autumn. Follow our Twitter (we're still not calling it X sorry) or Tumblr to stay up to date.

[beans-core]

I need to get this out of my system but I can’t write itttt AUGH so here

harry and ron decide to go to the Yule ball as friends

Other people decide to go with a person to the Yule ball as friends too, like Neville and Ginny. So what if Ron and Harry said “fuck it” and went to the Yule Ball together.

I’ve seen a few fics like it, but istg I need something in depth.

It’s pretty taboo (the wizarding world is really behind on all this stuff) but the boys still don’t care.

(Maybe this is a fic where one of Ron’s brothers is queer so he’s a confused-but-he’s-got-the-spirit ally. Harry has never really cared too much about his reputation unless it’s about actually important stuff so close-minded idiots sneering and calling him slurs is like the least of his worries— he’s got a death tournament to survive.)

The opening dance is required, so they dance hilariously bad on purpose, spinning wildly and only not knocking into the other contestants out of respect. Ron dips him at the end of the dance, but he does it way too deeply— Harry’s hair brushes the floor. Harry flings his leg into the air dramatically as he dips, and goes red in the face trying not to laugh when his shoe flings off and goes flying. He’s wearing a pair of socks that Dobby made him, and can feel the dissaproving stares so sharply. It’s great.

For all the homophobes, they fake kiss in the middle of the floor with loud smooching noises and crack up laughing when they see Karkaroff go purple with anger. Snape, who has been busting couples from eating face all night, is mysteriously not around to stop them. Harry is sure it’s only because he hates this stuffy dance as much as they do. But despite this, Harry and Ron begrudgingly decide that they owe him one.

When they decide to dance some more they head to the area that the stuffy purebloods have put themselves in. They (lightly) knock into others this time, flipping off any assholes as they twirl around. Half of the people seem to be offended, and the other half are trying to look offended and failing. The two call it a success.

Harry teaches Ron every muggle dance he can recall, recruiting Hermione once she stops being mad at them for not letting her know about their plans. (They kept their ‘dates’ a secret out of pettiness for Hermione not telling who her date was.)

The three of them make a joke out of every slow dance by doing the Macarena to the slow beat of the song— Hermione is embarrassed once she remembers Krum is watching, but Krum is on board, always down to crash a bougie-people party. Most of the muggleborns and halfbloods are unsuccessfully stifling laughter at this charade, and Harry has to appreciate Hogwarts unity as a few dozen students scattered about on the dance floor, all from varying houses (even a slytherin or two), join in on the mocking-Macarena.

About halfway through one of the slow songs, Hermione whispers into Ron’s ear. And then, oh god, Ron is trying to twerk and does so horrendously, nearly ripping open the ass of his dress robes and still going slowly to the beat. Hermione lets out her real laugh, a true witch’s cackle, as she runs from the crime scene back to Krum. And it is a crime scene, really, because Ron murdered any dignity he could have had left. Harry wheezes so hard he can barely hold himself up, so Ron has to drag him away to the tables for drinks so he doesn’t fall over.

Percy comes up to them and scolds them in hushed tones for coming to an event drunk, and that gets Harry laughing impossibly harder, attracting attention from more people. Ron announces, very loudly and to Percy’s face, that he could cast a sobriety checking spell if he wanted. They were both sober, in an unaltered state of mind, and completely unrepentant. Percy storms off, and they do a completely sarcastic toast to the ministry.

The Weasley twins find them soon after and nearly crush Ron to death in a hug, saying how proud they are of their baby prankster through tears that the younger boys can’t tell are real or fake.

The four boys team up to do one last prank later in the evening: while the band is on break and the music is coming from a dingy old record player, they get a vinyl of cringy muggle pop music from a muggleborn hufflepuff. They replace the disc during the last half hour of the ball, and the twins put a clever sort-of-sticking charm on it so it takes a good while to remove it. Almost all of the attendees vacate the hall and go outside in the cold trying to escape the music— it’s amazing. The band doesn’t back down though, moving their equipment onto a transfigured stage and playing their last few songs outside in the snow. It’s like a fucking concert, and the students who’ve given up on pretending like the whole thing hasn’t been fun have a blast. Everyone is moving now, whether to stay warm or to dance or all of the above. The twins let off some of their fireworks at the end of the closing song, and everyone cheers and oohs and aahs.

As Harry sits with his friends, he feels like a stupid, rowdy, reckless teenager. He’s having the time of his life. He feels normal.

(The hufflepuff who lent them the vinyl doesn’t get that specific one back, but Harry recruits Hermione to buy her a new one, along with another vinyl from the same artist and an ABBA album.)

McGonagall takes 100 points from Gryffindor each and gives Harry and Ron weeks-long detentions for embarrassing their house after she had explicitly told everyone not to. The boys just smile and say it was worth it. She even hears a few passerby’s agreeing. McGonagall looks exasperated and, weirdly, nostalgic.

(They were so reminiscent of the Marauders, those four boys. She herself had to stifle a laugh when Ron and Harry began massacring their public images on the dance floor. Just like Sirius and James, those two.)

[anonzentimes]

Hii!! I agree with your points and your interpretation is valid. But just wanted to say that I think that using a guy character not acting like a pervert and borderline assaulty around women as a proof of them not being attracted is a very flawed and harmful logic (talking ab the scene of Komaeda falling under Mikan’s skirt you mentioned). I’m attracted to women but if I fall under girl’s skirt or witness an embarrassing situation I will be uncomfortable too. Komaeda’s reaction is how a normal respectful person would react and I’m very saddened that the amount of pervert anime characters has normalized such behaviour

That's super fair! I only realize now I am using it under the expectations of Danganronpa since there are so many perverted characters in the franchise, you're right and thank you for pointing that out. That actually is really upsetting now that you mention it, yeah I'm going to edit that out ew.

I've made posts on twitter of small, even if silly, praises about how Nagito seems to really value consent. He's always the loudest and most annoyed about teruteru's behavior, and within the franchise he's the one who's the most respectful and realistic when it comes to the problematic subjects. It's sad that not every character is as respectful as him. In fact almost all of the dr2 male cast is crushing on girls, some being gross about it, the only ones who don't are Nekomaru and Nagito. Crushing on girls is definitely not the issue, but half of them being gross about it is.

Just to redeem the example because I'm upset by it here's some instances of his weird somewhat lack of interest in women that we've seen or general vagueness

Chiaki saying this isn't as straightforward but it still implies her being sexy wouldn't work to get Nagito's attention which still says things about his possible disinterest or respectful nature maybe even both.

During fan service scenes in every manga adaptation he never blushes while every other character does

He avoids the question of sexuality every time it's asked, he either doesn't know it himself, doesn't think about it because he thinks he's unworthy, or has to beat around the bush because he's closeted. Although outside of characterization wise it may just be kodaka staying vague because that's the common pattern Lmao. The question is avoided during Q&as and during ultra despair girls he just ignores Kurokoma altogether lmao (would add more but image limit on mobile is my worst enemy)

i've seen multiple interpretations for this so just ???

Either way the status of canon is: Nagito shows interest in men and we see he has sexual desires, he's anything that isn't straight or aroace. He doesn't show evident interest in women and there's been no official word on his sexuality, it is up in the air when it comes to specifics. He is absolutely a queer coded character, whether he's gay, pan, bi, or something else there's no doubt about that. I believe Nagito is gay because there's a lot of evidence supporting this, I think it also makes his storyline more impactful. But at the end of the day there is no said canon and people are free to headcanon what they want to, whatever people say that isn't invalidating important parts of his character we actively see is preferred.

[superspecial-awesome]

s0 queerosexual hcs. for pride month

basically my interpretation of the cast in this regard is that theyre a bunch of annoying queer teenagers who will never discover this about themselves because they live in 1990s japan and all think there's only gay and straight and that being the former is grounds to be beaten in the streets

Yugi: the only one who has his shit figured out. transmasc and bi and he plans on taking that to his grave. he has a strong preference for women though so that part never really comes up. "attracted to every woman ever and one guy i met at a gas station six years ago" disease. also bonus points anzu knows he's transmasc and helped him figure out binding and shit

Miho: huge lesbian but "oh no it's just that girls are objectively more attractive than guys everyone knows that, i just haven't met the right man yet, besides every girl wishes they could date women instead that's why bakura is so popular it's because he looks like a woman." I also like to imagine that in an ideal world, she'd fuck with genderfluidity

Bakura: aroace and agender transfem. he gives me he/it/any vibes. I think partly due to The Mega Autism he never really understood the deal with traditional masculinity so he feels disconnected from manhood as a whole and would be a lot more comfortable being able to exist as something entirely detached from gender. I also think the swarms of girls at all times made him view women as some sort of other species entirely and he's got a lot of deep-rooted misogyny going on about it, but tbh anzu and miho could fix him. and make him into the vague girlthing he always was

Anzu: Idk what label to slap onto her but I don't think physical appearance or gender plays any role in her being attracted to people at all. maybe like demiromantic asexual. but i dont think demi is the term im looking for. definitely ace though.

Honda: "WOW I LOVE BEING A MAN I LOVE WOMEN AND RULES AND ORDER I DON'T AT ALL FEEL LIKE I'M CURSED TO FIT MYSELF INTO A BOX THAT'S TOO SMALL FOR ME" and he believes that wholeheartedly and then wonders why he needs to constantly prove himself over things that don't matter to avoid his mental health crumbling to dust. I don't think he's trans though I just think he needs to chill out. also he's bi and poly and the single most useless hopeless romantic ever.

Jonouchi: bi but i think his refusal to accept that as a possibility has made him very aware of a lot of other things he has going on psychologically. like his homophobia has somehow made him a more self-aware and chill person. "honda put his hand on my shoulder for more than 0.5 seconds and my entire nervous system took a screenshot does this mean im g--wait no im just touched starved huh i wonder if that has ever impacted my poor decision making in the past." also him being used for the cartoon standard "guy wears girl clothes and likes it" joke is grounds for me to hc him as genderqueer. I could absolutely see him getting really into fem presentation.

Yami Yugi: gay gay homosexual gay

Kaiba: transfem in the super dysphoric way but will absolutely never find this out because any time she becomes remotely aware of something bothering her about herself she just looks in the mirror and says "no." i also wanna say arospec and aspec but idk she's fully either. i think if i wanted to give you an accurate idea of how attraction works for her i'd have to pull up the homestuck quadrants and i'm not joking.

Yami Bakura: agender is a way that's like "dude I'm a ghost in a ring who cares." If you called him a she he'd be like "what" and then after you got two words into explaining he'd go "nvm I underestimated the amount of shit I don't give about this." His sexuality is no time for dat goku

[hawkfuller]

interview with the vampire (2022) deserves better promotion

another corn on the plate situation: amc's marketing strategy, if it even exists, sucks.

we've known this since season 1. personally, i was lucky enough to get on-board with the series early enough back while it was airing in 2022 because my algorithm knows me, knows i like (queer) dramatic pieces of media that will fuck me up emotionally for the rest of my life because i got too attached to the unstable character(s). i then convinced my equally insane friend to watch it with me (didn't take much convincing, honestly) and we've been hooked ever since, annoying people enough to tune in too.

and i know i'm not the only one. most of this show's marketing relies on its passionate fanbase, which amc is lucky to have, but mouth-to-ear promotion becomes frustrating when it seems to be the primary, and almost only, marketing tool (i say “almost” here because outlets like tvtime – thank you – have been doing the most to feed us interviews).

as of now, we've mostly gotten 2-pixel quality interviews over zoom. while i appreciate watching them because it's “better than nothing” and i love getting more content of them, whose interest does it pique other than people already invested in the fandom? we need more mainstream media news outlets to interview the cast – amc headquarters should consider themselves lucky to have cast members who love each other so much, why not use that to their advantage? give them a buzzfeed puppy interview! a gq agree to disagree interview! jacob anderson is your main actor, get him an elle song association interview! ladbible's food battle – uk vs australia vs america? get them to guess parisian vs new orleans slang? best friends test?

what will it take for amc to invest in a show that clearly deserves its already-received praise to gain a wider audience?

not only such exposure would gather more fans, but it would attract award critics attention – which the crew & cast deserve in masses. and if they wanna talk money, well, they should know the show's potential would bring a lot more capital. (it's already keeping them afloat...)

marketing investment goes a long way.

[justanotherhh]

hold up wdym fizz is word of god demi? did a cast/crew member confirm it?👀

hey hello howdy!

before i get into anything i need to disclaim, for my own health, so bear with me:

first of all, i want to stress that word-of-god is fundamentally meaningless in the sense of actual canon (being a teenager under the reign of that book series about a magic school written by a bigot + the whole 2010s fondness of declaring characters to be gay maybe if you keep watching *wink wink* only to turn around and call queer fans deranged for caring too much... ive got no time for that nonsense)

on the other hand, i think there's also something to say for a show that's about 99.999% canonically queer characters and that sometimes narrative is showing not telling... that is to say... even if there hadn't been any kind of word of god, especially in a verse in which relationship structures are built along fundamentally non-heteronormative dominant lines, one gets to analyse different forms of queerness with far more deliberation than one might in a Very Straight Show In Which We Are Aware That This Was Not Intentional

on the... third? hand. specifically aspec identities, still very underrepresented, still very disputed, still very hard-done by, even when the visuals really do lean into a show-don't-tell obviousness (see: all that marketing for alastor being very aromantic and supported by his narrative in the canon, and it's still not "enough," often simply because many people haven't even heard of ace, never mind aro... i digress, but i think, for relevant reasons), so fizzie being read as demi by people who know

what the heck demi even means

have the ability to engage with an aspec-analysis lens

is probably still the vast vast minority!

all this to say. it's not canon, in the way that, say, his being gay is canon, or blitzø being pan is... more canon (in the sense that the word "pan" may not occur to everyone, but it's more obvious within the queer community and those without may at least land on "bi" and be in the correct ballpark) and moxxie being bisexual is 100% indesputably-stated-out-loud canon

in order for it to be canon, it would have to imo:

either be stated out loud in canon (and even then, we get the word "ace" on hazbin and it's StiLl DiSPuTeD okok im calm...)

fizz would have to have a narrative or speech or some kind of important Beat explicitly dedicated to the fact that he Does Not Feel Sexual Attraction unless he's in love (which... honestly... if that were in connection with some kinda beat in blitzø's narrative about feeling like he's unworthy of love... im just sayin.... + it would lean very neatly into exploring fizzmodeus' being an in-universe very non-normative relationship)

in this case, i do think it's a neat little easter egg, without being pandering or *pat pat on the head,* that is supported by the text, and so yeah. fun. if they backtracked on that and in some way decided fizzarolli has had tons of casual sex that he's enjoyed/pursued... i mean, honestly without the word of god, i'd think that was kinda out of character, which leads me back to "yeah, fun easter egg, only canon insofar as it's not disputed by canon!"

disclaimer over:

this tweet stating the creator said these words, liked by the creator, this was my original reblog of it (although I do note the original poster seems to have taken it down since then)

[bittersweetcanary]

Arcana Twilight BUT it's queer as FUCK

Coming in hot to throw some cannons at your head- Here are some of my basic head cannons of the cast! I mighhhhht use these when writing in the future when making stories for my persona in an artw au.

[Disability | Neurodivergence | Mentions of sexual relationships(no details but sort of NSFW) | Disorders | Cute shit | I love them]

Viewer discretion is advised beyond this point O-O

・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・

Alpheratz HCs

The First Sorcerer of Andromeda

Gender/Pronouns: No gender, any pronouns. Alpheratz doesn’t care what pronouns you use.

Sexuality: Doesn’t care to explain, too much energy. Will remain uneducated.

Health-Related Content: Mana Fluctuation.

Magic Specialty: Excellent Overall.

Love Language: Likes to Give: Quality Time / Gift Giving. Likes to Receive: Quality Time / Physical Touch.

Alfie’s Flower: The Pink Camellia, it symbolizes longing.

Other

Alfie's spell book(catalyst) feeds off the wielder's mana to remain bonded thus leading though this isn't the cause of the fluctuations it does worsen them if the book takes from him when his mana is low. Alpheratz is almost always fatigued, due to the reasons above he sometimes refers to his condition as Chronic Fatigue.

Nap time with the Summoner is Alpheratz's favorite way to spend quality time. With cuddles of course!!

As Sirrah in Alpheratz’s past life Alfie once took down a flying whale with Polaris, they were close but how close? At the beginning Alpheratz doesn’t recognize the Summoner as Polaris nor does Alfie trust them, warms up to them slowly, but as Alfie gains memories of Sirrah, Alfie is noticeably more fond of the Summoner.  

・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・

Arcturus HCs

The First Sorcerer of Bootes

Gender/Pronouns: Unlabeled he/she

Sexuality: Asexual/Panromantic is a term that describes people who can experience romantic, or emotional (but not sexual) attraction to any person, regardless of that person’s gender, sex, or sexuality.

Health-Related Content: ADHD.

Magic Specialty: Inducing Magixs.

Love Language: Gives: Words of Affirmation / Quality Time. Likes to Receive: Physical Touch / Words of Affirmation / Quality Time.

Arcky’s Flower: The Yellow Rose is a symbol of sympathy and empathy. When your friends get sad or sick, you can entertain and brighten your friends days. 

Other

Those with ADHD have difficulty completing tasks due to a lack of motivation because their brains have an extremely low quantity of the chemicals that reward you with happy vibes if you complete it so they tend to hyper-fixate on whatever gives them that bit of reward.

Arcturus, as typical of people with ADHD though not all, tends to get that reward when she completes tasks for others or helps them, but she tends to hyper-fixate on this and forget to take care of his own needs, like eating, drinking, and using the toilet. Please remind her Summoner!!

・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・

Pollux HCs

The Second Sorcerer of Gemini

ESFP-T

Gender/Pronouns: Genderfluid [he/they/she] usually goes by he/him

Sexuality: Pansexual, fluid. A term that describes people who can experience sexual, romantic, or emotional attraction to any person, regardless of that person’s gender, sex, or sexuality though he feels this change from time to time and doesn’t prefer to stick to any singular sexuality, not even Pan.

Health-Related Content: Bipolar disorder is a mental health condition that causes extreme mood swings that include emotional highs (mania or hypomania) and lows (depression).

Magic Specialty: Destruction Magic.

Love Language: Gives: Physical Touch. Likes to Receive: Gift Giving / Words of Affirmation / Physical Touch.

Polly’s Flower: The White Rose, this flower represents pure and innocent love.

Other

Often needs time alone to just decompress, Alpheratz typically keeps an eye on them just in case they ever need help.

Everyone has a case of cuteness aggression towards him whenever he is near, Alpheratz is always the first to act on it and coo at him!

Sirius was dating him for a time, or so Pollux thought but it was never made official. It was more like sexual benefits. Pollux would like to think they’d at least been Friends with Benefits. He behaves hostilely towards the Summoner at first because Sirius began avoiding him, giving him the cold shoulder in favor of the Summoner… Pollux warms up to the Summoner after they are there to comfort him despite his hostility.

Sirius previously referred to Pollux as Bunny in a sexual way. Arcturus once looked over Pollux’s shoulder at his phone screen and asked what that meant. Pollux was mortified and refused to answer.

・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・

Sirius HCs

First Sorcerer of Canis Major

ENTP-A

Gender/Pronouns: Mirror Pronouns. Your pronouns are his, and he is running away with them. His legs are too long, you will never catch him!! (I tend to use he/him for Sirius when not mirroring them to other characters though any other usage of pronouns or just his name would work)

Sexuality: Omnisexual. Similar to pansexual, it is used to describe people whose sexuality isn’t limited to those of a particular gender, sex, or sexual orientation

Health-Related Content: If he has any, well, you don't know. Sirius isn't one to let others know such personal information... Though Polaris might know.

Magic Specialty: Transformation Magic.

Eyes:

Red: Love, desire

Orange: ? Haven’t seen them but I assume they’d be joy & love

Yellow: Delight, joy

Green: Jealousy, anger?, annoyed

Blue: Sadness, dissapointment

Icy Blue: Shock, surprise, worry

Purple: Fear, determination, anger?

Squinted, blank Purple: Desperation

Red/Purple: Love and Determination

Love Language: Gives: Gift Giving / Physical Touch. Likes to Receive: Physical Touch / Words of Affirmation.

Siri’s Flower: The Purple Rose represents individuality and artistic flair but the closer to black they are their meaning could double with Black Roses which symbolize, grief, anger, hatred, unrequited love, mystery, subversion, resistance, and dark side of desire and passion.

(Definition may vary from other sources because I tailored it to Sirius.)

Other

Sirius just likes to occasionally visit the Summoner while they are studying in the library. If the Summoner is short he’ll pick them up, sit down, and place them on his lap like it’s nothing. The Summoner has become used to this, they recognize his presence before he even approaches so they are already mentally prepared- but when Sirius begins whispering in their ear he becomes quite the distraction.

Loves playing with your hair, especially if it’s long enough to style!!

Has no idea how to react when you actually flirt back or make a move, possibly tenses up or asks if what you did was a cruel joke… (poor baby has self-esteem issues)

Does shit to make you distrust him because he doesn’t trust himself

Very torn up about Polaris not quite being there as they once were for him. 

Sirius likes to roleplay as your student sometimes, maybe he was Polaris’s student once and he wants that time back.

Sirius cannot let go of the idea of Polaris, he will often project onto the Summoner when roleplaying with them and tell them vague stories with minor changes about himself and Polaris in hopes of triggering memories.

Sirius adores you, the Summoner, Polaris, seeing you as his only safe space but still he has trouble opening up because he knows you aren’t his Polaris but so very much wishes you to be… To an unhealthy degree, wishing that in the first place is unhealthy and projecting.

Floor 8-17 The Summoner asks Sirius if he knew Polaris personally, he asks them what they think. Sirius did and does.

Pollux was his rebound. Sirius never thought much of their “relationship”, he never intended to make it one.

・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・

Spica HCs

The First Sorcerer of Virgo

Gender/Pronouns: Cisgender Man [he/him]

Sexuality: Bisexual, a sexual orientation that describes people who experience sexual, romantic, or emotional attraction to people of more than one gender. Old man energy. Prefers binary, cisgender, individuals with few exceptions. Uses it like one would use Pansexual. When Spica quotes himself "When I was younger Bisexual was the “pansexual”." the others refer to it as Spicaism. Spica lectures them over their supposed misuse of grammar.

Health Related Content: Severe OCD(Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)

Magic Specialty: The Half of the Traditional Sorcerer. (I assume that refers to magic that is considered traditional to practice, possibly to his home or family.)

“Spiky Spica, you aren’t spiky but your personality is sometimes!” - A Summoner Quote

Love Language: Gives: Acts of Service / Physical Touch. Likes to Receive: Words of Affirmation.

Spiky’s Flower: Yellow Tulips symbolize of unrequited love, though this is an older tradition and less relevant today.

Spica CANNOT sleep till he has completed everything necessary and then some each day leading to barely even getting 4 hours of sleep a night! Summoner make him SLEEP, please!!

Everything in his room is COLOR and ALPHABETICALLY ORDERED. If even ONE THING is out of place he will not stop till it is back in its rightful place.

Washes his hands like a million times or they aren't clean enough to him. Germs... ... Everything is sanitized. Daily. Possibly more. Arcturus helps him not go overboard.

・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・

Vega HCs

The First Sorcerer of Lyra

Gender/Pronouns: Transmasc/enby he/it

Sexuality: Demisexual because the only attraction he’s felt was the crush he has had on the Summoner since childhood, despite being apart for so long it didn’t take long for those feelings to rekindle.

Health Related Content: Autistic

Magic Specialty: Pathfinding Magic

Love Language: Gives: Acts of Service / Physical Touch. Likes to Receive: Words of Affirmation.

Vaggie’s Flower: The Pink Camellia, it symbolizes longing.

Other

Due to sensory processing disorder, common in Autistic individuals, he will need time to decompress for a variety of reasons likely related to that or socially.

Vega often avoids non-packaged yogurt tube foods because the textures are overwhelming for him, though he'll try whatever the Summoner makes it's best to keep it separated and simple to not overwhelm it as this could cause a sensory upset

Alpheratz tries finding Vega new safe foods whenever old safe foods aren't safe anymore.

Vega sticks to a very strict routine, typical of Autistic individuals. If anything throws off his routine he may need to take a break before trying to get back on track or won't.

All his clothes are made with soft sensory friendly fabric, including uniforms. Contell Academia makes sure to accommodate all its student's needs.

Likely possessive due to his abandonment issues, he doesn’t want the Summoner to disappear again.

Incredibly possessive of Summoner to the point of threatening Sirius and attempting to have their magic sealed once they reconnect with Ursa Minor and find that they were once Polaris.

THIS 'TIS THE END MY LOVELY READERS, thank you for being here, existing, and reading this :3 buh byeeeeee~

[correctproseka]

Ok but- and I am saying this with respect for your point of view bc I think you are correct on a wider societal level- I keep seeing this argument of 'There is more m/m fanfic therefore this fandom is lesbiphobic and misogynistic' and it has bothered me for a long time. As a queer girl myself, asexual and somwehere on the aro spectrum, who has many wlw ships and enjoys looking at art for them... I don't enjoy reading wlw or straight fics bc I subconsciously project myself into the relationships too much (this is also why i generally avoid reading straight romance books lol). When I read mlm fic, there's a degree of separation from me that means I can enjoy it without getting anxious about imagining myself in that position.

I'm not trying to be like 'oh woe is me i cant read yuri', im just explaining my own reasons, and trying to get across that other people have their own reasons for what they enjoy- ranging from long winded explanations like mine to 'idk I'm attracted to guys and I like writing about them'. People have preferences, and that comes across in most fandoms, even in heavily female casts like prsk. Like I mentioned, lack of wlw content IS an issue.... when it comes to mainstream media. But when it comes to fanfic... the majority of writers are queer, many are women, hell, some of the most prolific writers of mlm fic I know are lesbians. People have their own reasons for writing what they like, and they do it for FREE. I think it's silly to say a fandom is misogynistic when most of these fandoms are full of queer female writers writing what they want to write.

And again I say this with respect because I do see where you're coming from- instead of saying 'write less mlm', because absolutely one will listen to that.... say 'write more wlw'. Write what you want to see in the world! More fics are always a good thing!! And if you don't want to read about guys, that's what the ao3 filters are for lol.

If you actually read all this, thank you, I really appreciate it. Sorry for yapping in your ask box LOL I just wanted to express my opinion on this topic bc it's something that I care about a lot. Also, like I said, while I don't read fic for it I still love wlw ships so..... ANHANE YURI FOREVER 🌈🌈🌈🌈

See, the thing is, i agree with you, but is that really the only reason for A LOT of people?

What im advocating is not for people to write less mlm, is for they to look at themselves and wonder why they like it more, i know a lot of people who claim to like the boys more for this reason or that, then turn around and act completely misogynistic 5 seconds later, some of them in this fandom, even.

Im just saying that in a fandom with way more girls than boys, it makes not much sense how much more content of the boys there is.

The ao3 filters exist, yes, but they dont stop me from having barely any content even on bigger wlw shipps, from rereading the same fics over and over again because that's all I have for days/weeks, months even on the leoni/mmj side of fandom.

Sincerely, I have myself over 50 prsk fics, only one includes mlm and that one is a multi, focused mainly on platonic ships, and is still somehow my most famous fic.

I see your point, really, and I agree with it, but it only comes so far in a fandom like prsk where there's way more girls, or Alien Stage, that my friend got me into and the girls have been canon for so long but the boys have nearly always been more famous, even before they became "canon". As a wlw enjoyer its tiring to see this over and over again in every fandom im in, you know?

Plus, its not just not writing girls, its how the fandom ACTS with them. Saki as just a fodder for Tsukasa angst, Honami might as well not even exist, Mizuki themselves exist only to be a friend to Rui to a lot of people, An and Kohane? They're only backgrounds on Akitouya, that is when An doesn't get in between the ship, of course. Emu can't even be shipped with one of the boys, because she's a child obviously, but she can be shipped with Nene, just leave her to the side its alright.

Its a lot of double standards, and not only "not writing fics", the fics are just a quick way of showing what I mean.

[riverstixxelf]

I love the SPN fandom but honestly it’s so stressful sometimes 😭

For example earlier today I googled “Misha Collins girlfriend” because I heard a rumor that he has a girlfriend, I couldn’t find much besides stuff talking about Vicky so I scrolled down and saw a tumblr post saying something about Misha being attracted to men (which I don’t necessarily disagree with, but I don’t want to tell another person what they are) and women so I clicked on it and it was a huge post (like, a couple paragraphs) talking about some strange things. I don’t remember exactly but at one point the user brought up the “fact” that Misha makes jokes about women and sex?? As in making jokes at the expense of women… and I was like… are we talking about the same Misha here? He DOES make jokes about sex but I don’t recall him ever making jokes at the expense of women. Only thing I can think of is that one story about one of his earlier acting jobs and he didn’t know the “no tongue rule” but that was mostly at the expense of himself. Then I scrolled and found another post that was pretty disturbing…

Someone had screenshotted a regular instagram caption that Jensen posted just talking about how he just got done traveling, he wanted to take a nap, something like that—nothing sexual about the post at all or anything that would suggest that—and someone captioned it with something talking about him and Misha rubbing their [babymakers] together??? I audibly laughed out loud because wtf 😭😭

I don’t want to shame Jenmish shippers (I say Jenmish because Cockles is just a… very interesting name), even though I think it’s the slightest bit strange to be shipping real people… but again I never want to put anyone down for anything because I myself have said some stuff about Jensen and Misha that might suggest something between them.

Another thing is just the amount of hate for various cast members. Mostly the hate I see is for Jared and Misha; J2 fans who hate Misha, Jenmish fans who hate Jared, etc. There’s a lot of love in this fandom but ohmygOD there’s so much hate too. I guess that’s true for any fandom, but it’s so tiring sometimes.

Also, in this fandom, you’ll get hounded for any opinion you have. If you don’t like destiel, you’re homophobic. If you do like destiel, you’re also homophobic for some reason because queer bating or whatever… for the record i’d like to state that I am a proud destiel shipper just fyi. But I see so many people take it to the extreme, make little things into big things or something along those lines. Same thing with cockles shippers I was talking about earlier. I feel like I have a pretty neutral viewpoint on stuff regarding destiel; I see most things how they are, and I make my assumptions based on CANON things. I don’t say “Dean and Cas are definitely fucking”, I say “Dean and Cas love eachother but they cant express it, because Cas wasn’t even sure what love was and Dean’s highest ideal of love is family, which is why he says Cas is like a brother to him”. Now, if you don’t agree with me, guess what… that’s okay! If you don’t think destiel exists, that’s a valid point, and i’m not gonna dox you just because you have a different opinion than me. Because that’s just it, it’s an OPINION.

I could get into Sam haters and Dean haters and stuff… but I’m tired. Actually, you know what, screw it. I WILL GET INTO IT!!!

I’ve had a few experiences with Dean haters especially, and most of the time they just ADORE Sam and thinks he’s done nothing wrong. Let me clarify that I don’t hate Sam- like- at all. Then again, Dean haters who happen to be Sam stans have warped my view on Sam a little, but I won’t let that get in my way of honest judgment.

Sam. has. done. bad. stuff. DEAN. has. done. bad. stuff. Please don’t compare their trauma, they both have their own issues, one isn’t better than the other.

I might be biased because I relate to Dean so much (like a crazy amount it’s not even funny…), but for the millionth time in a row I DO NOT HATE SAM. I saw someone saying how Dean was the cause of almost every single world-ending event that happened in SPN… like honey no. Another person replied to their comment listing all of the world-ending events… and guess what… Sam was the cause of most of them!! Does that make him a hate-worthy character? No!!

I don’t know what point i’m trying to make here. I just think there’s so much in-fighting within the SPN fandom and as much as I love being in the fandom sometimes you just gotta have a break from all the drama. If you made it this far… go outside or something don’t pay attention to me i’m chronically online.

[cloudroots]

Happy Pride 2024🎉🎉

Hope it’s been a good pride month for everybody! Wanted to celebrate it with something before the month ended :)

Here’s three of the Cloudverse cast that I mentioned are queer in their bios. Here we have Eminence Rays, Center Stage, and Andante. Pretty much all my character are queer in some way, these are ones y’all are familiar with! Don’t care too much that the progress flag might not make sense in Equestria, I wanted to use it :)

Em and Cici usually celebrate pride together. They like to get all dressed and go to pride parades and such, they like to be loud are proud. Center especially likes to go all out and cover herself with sparkles and the colors of her flags.

Andante always knew that she was queer in his attraction to all kinds of ponies, but only recently in her adult life did they realize that they were genderfuild too. She is overjoyed in her new identity and has pride in it, but just doesn’t show as loudly as others do. Especially compared to Center and Em.

People celebrate pride in so many different ways, which I find absolutely wonderful! Hope whatever way y’all celebrated was a fun one, and wishing a happy rest of Pride!!

[tvfangirladdict]

Rant about all the Bi-Buck Arc hate surfacing.

Made the mistake of scrolling through comments on Instagram surrounding 911 and the cast.

I need to blow off steam, so this is gonna probably start harsh.

While there was so much heartfelt appreciation for Buck's storyline, the negative comments kept stealing my attention. I'm so tired of hearing(reading) that people think the whole show is ruined because two grown men kissed. Like, get the fuck over yourselves already. You don't agree with the relationship, you're just gonna have to deal with it the same we've dealt with Buck and Eddie's half-assed, flat, forced heterosexual relationships for the last 7 years, okay?

They all want to justify their biphobia/homophobia by saying that it's "forced" or it "doesn't make sense," or that they "never saw Buck even hint at it and it's just pandering to fans." Like, bitch, welcome to real life. If you're a real fan of this show, and you watched from the beginning, you know Athena and Michael's marriage ended first thing when he came out as gay. A muscular, "straight", black guy with a wife and two kids who'd been in the closet/denial his whole life, came out to his family, and none of them saw it coming, even if they might have suspected "deep down". This shit happens every day, okay? They're all mad cause "if he was gonna be gay, they should have made him gay from the beginning". Why? So you could form your opinion of him based on who he's attracted to? Why does this bother you so much. You were okay with it when it was Michael and Hen cause you knew from the beginning and they were your token gay characters that you've just learned to "put up with" to appease the rainbow crowd.

And it's not even the ones who are just straight up, like "it's wrong"/"it's a sin"/"it's gross", etc. that bother me the most. It's the "I don't care, you do you, but don't shove it down my throat", people that make me mad. Why is simply witnessing a queer person or relationship "shoving it down your throat"? Y'all realize they exist in real life too, right? Like, personally, I have family, friends, co-workers, bosses, who are all apart of the lgbtq+ community, and I'm from a smaller suburban/rural area of Ohio. Those are just the people in my life who are out. Why is seeing them represented in modern media so bad? This isn't covid, it's not fucking contagious. If it was your brother, your cousin, your best friend, would it be okay then? Both of my brothers have only ever dated women, but if one of them came out and said "hey, I think I might like guys too," I'm not gonna throw a fucking fit and invalidate them by telling them it's not possible because they've only ever dated women. No, I'll thank them for trusting me, and gush to them about boys because I never had a sister to do that with.

Every time I read those comments, all I can think is, you just proved that you're not a safe person to be trusted if someone in your life wants to come out.

Just, how do you give up on an entire show after one kiss? And then claim that you don't have a problem with it? You can't have it both ways. If it didn't matter to you, you wouldn't react so strongly and so negatively to it. 911 and ABC's intention isn't to question your sexuality. You don't have to worry that you're suddenly going to have to kiss Buck too, okay? Chill.

The whole "Buck has only ever slept with women" and "suddenly he's gay" responses are exactly why this storyline is so important. So many people to this day refuse to acknowledge sexualities outside of straight and gay. Why is it always, "made gay"? It doesn't have to be one or the other. It can be both, or neither.

I say this with the experience of having a mom who's still in the "I don't care as long as I don't have to see it" camp. If seeing it upsets you, you've got a problem. If it really doesn't matter and you're cool letting everyone be themselves, seeing two men together should be just as accepted as a man and a women together. Unless you're also saying we need to stop portraying men and women in romantic, sexual relationships together with kissing scenes or more graphic ones, then you can't rule with a double standard. Me and my mom loved watching Teen Wolf together, but any time there was a scene with Danny kissing another guy, she'd get uncomfortable. She even told me once, that she didn't think they should show scenes like that but she wasn't sure why when watching het couples together didn't make her feel the same way.

Safe, sane, and consensual. As long as they follow that, and are happy, why can't you just be happy for them?

If you're old enough to have been following along with this show, you're old enough to know that everyone is different. And life as an adult is about opening yourself up to the outside world and learning about what makes people different. From race to religion to sexuality to nationality and beyond. Your views, beliefs, ideologies, etc, are not the only ones that matter. Getting and giving acceptance goes hand in hand.

I get it to a certain extent. Coming from a different time and all that, but it just means you've had more time to learn. Being stubborn and holding onto what you were brought up in doesn't mean a whole lot to me if you refuse to open your mind up as an adult to look beyond yourself.

Okay, I'm done now. That felt chaotic, but I feel better. If you've made it this far, thanks for coming to my TED talk☺️