#all the characters are LGBTQ in some way :$

[pinutpancake]

Why the heck are you so angry about people shipping some pixels, dude? Try to meditate why this annoys you so much. It's not a real story, and people can ship whatever the hell they want. Cannon means nothing if people want to ship, or else LGBTQ+ ships would barely exist, for instance. They are ficcional characters, and if shipping them makes someone happy, then that's fine. I don't really see the problem.

I could talk about how calling someone "son" doesn't necessarily mean you see them as a literal son, or how if the author says something that's not explicitly said in their work it doesn't count (like when JK Rowling said that Dumbledore was gay when there was no info about it in the books), or how even Clancy Brown, the actor who interpreted Hank, said that he doesn't think that Hank sees Connor as his son:

But that DOES NOT MATTER if you don't ship them. All the evidence in the world does not matter either way. You ship them? Good. You don't? Also good! They are just pixels! Just let people be, for Christ's sake.

Reposting this because that Valentine's Day edit from QD (on IG) made some people believe their ship is now canon. No, it's not. And stop harassing other fans because of it.

"When you have an emotional moment, it's not just a moment, it's the confession that that's been going on underneath the surface the whole time, but neither of the characters have said it. It's been left unsaid. And that's so much more powerful because of the way the whole relationship up until now comes out in one moment where you realize Clancy, or Hank, loves Connor. Loves him like a son. And he's gone from hating him to loving him, but didn't admit it at any point"

This is canon, it was written that way. Hank called Connor "son" in the game. What else do you want? It's like people are too dumb now and be like "it wasn't spelled out, so it's not true". It is true, the writer says so. It's obvious. Why is it so offensive to some people that canon exists?

[ell-if-i-know]

thinking about arthur lester through an aromantic lens is very interesting

how he feels like no one would understand his point of view, like there's something just wrong that he can't describe. how he reacts with scorn when it's implied that he got cold feet, because he does care about her but he just. doesn't love her. and he can't change that. he got married because he got bella pregnant and her father made them get married. obviously this doesn't make him ditching her okay, but it is a really interesting insight.

now, this doesn't necessarily prove he's aro, or even queer, but as an aro person myself i can relate to the feeling of not being able to put into words what you feel, and for arthur lester, private eye in the 1930s, there would have been even less of a conversation about anything queer related, considering it was still illegal for people to engage in same-sex relationships.

aromantic people are commonly described by alloromantic people through their lack of attraction, through what they percieve as missing. a lot of aro people, however, say that we aren't missing anything because we don't need romantic love to be whole, and romantic love is not the only kind of love there is. arthur lester views platonic love as deeply important (even calling it "the purest kind" of love when talking to antoine) , and he deeply values his bond with john, his closest friend.

this also feels very familiar to me as an aromantic experience, the value placed onto platonic relationships being higher than romantic relationships.

i don't really have a conclusion, just that a lot of arthur's experiences are deeply relateable to me as an queer, specifically aro, person, and that's why i headcanon him as aromantic or aro-spec. i do definitely think there are some other interesting lgbtq readings to be had with his character, but ultimately i believe that arthur lester is queer in a definite way, even if it's the ease with which he loves his friends and they love him back. the way he struggles to articulate his feelings, the way his friend doesn't understand what arthur means, the way he views platonic love as deeply important, it all resonates with me as an aro person and it's just. aughhhh me when podcast men me when the podcast is podcasting me when i have headcanons

[arttsuka]

How does one know about their sexuality? How do you figure it out?

[arson-09]

The main cast for my acotar tamlin healing fic✨

Tamlin- we know him, we love him on this side of the internet he doesn’t exactly need an introduction

Novae- A species of fae known as the partial, she doesnt have many memories but she sees potential in the ruins of the spring court…

Rosetta- A plant fae with a passion for learning about mortals and has traveled the mortal lands extensively with her dear friend. Shes one of the few fae to actively practice a strange religion…

Squid- A strange water creature who can shapeshift into a human, hes best friends with rossetta and she has accompanied rosetta on many travels to the mortal realm

Cassandra- An illryian female tired of the night court not doing anything for the women in the camps. Shes moved to the spring court with a large group of illyrians and her mates. She is the groups general. (yes. mates, plural)

(i feel pretty solid with my cast so im dropping them and hopefully some doodles soon. im attached to all of them now.)

[goetzeusismyotp]

This is just gave me my motivation back to finish/continue writing my novel(s) and short storys 😭 ain't no story of mine without a aroace spectrum character!!! (Self insert some may call it🙄)

being on the aro spectrum would be a lot easier if being single wasn't made to feel like a literal death sentence

[befemininenow]

Tired from constantly facing the exhausting and brutal realities of a post-pandemic real world, our main character finds solace by immersing themselves with feminization. Recently, there has been a new fashion trend for women involving brown skirts, high boots, and black bodysuits. One night, while getting aroused with some very persuasive captions involving these kind of girls after an exhausting day of work, the main character transports themself into a different world. An organization named B.U.S.T. recruits our main character and aims to forever change their future in the most supernatural of ways. As enticing as it is, our main character also faces an internal battle involving sexual identity and doubts of reality throughout the storyline. One may wonder if this alternative reality is a creation of the main character’s subconscious and the events they experienced beforehand. There’s so many questions to ask, and the fear of losing direction is very high, but the main worry about going deep in this new world is: is there a way to go back (to the real world)?

Preview post-description: Ever wondered what real feminization would be like without the hardcore and explicit tasks? Ever wanted to express your feminine side without the humiliation you will encounter? Most importantly, ever wanted to become a woman even though you were not born female? Well, if that sounds like you, you came to the right place! With B.U.S.T., you can make your transgender dreams a reality! No more sissification or humiliation! This is a real feminization program for real girlies like you! Join us, darling, and explore a new side of you like never before!

List of chapters:

Preview

Prologue: Part 1

Prologue: Part 2

Prologue: Part 3

You're hired!

Your first day with Alexa

C'mon, let's meet up with Samantha!

Your meetup with Raelene, or Rae

Rae-Rae's confused, but she has the spirit

The name's Hannah and I'm not from Montana!

Wear this for me, sweetie

Time flies when you're this sexy!

How would you like to be a full-time woman?

A girl needs to look good for a night out, babe

Moments before your change

Transformation complete!

Born this way

California Gurls

Am I... dreaming?

I need my pumpkin spice

An unforgettable scene

It was all a dream?

And if you don't know, now you know

I'm your worst nightmare

Say you can't sleep? Baby, I know

Work it, girl

I kissed a girl and... I didn't like it!?

I'm such an attention whore

I'm sexy and I know it!

Hot flashes, and not those kind

Deja vu?

Not my fault you're like in love with me!

We'll be right back.

Let it go, let it go...

Are we there yet?

Not like those other girls

From good girls to baddies

An unexpected visit

Hey, I saw you on my dream last night!

Did I just change the future?

The big day

Come to daddy

This is the real me! (I think.)

Winter has never been this hot!

Say it. Say...

Playtime is over! Snap out of it!

Is this... real?

An unexpected ally

I'll be there for you...

The Final Boss of Feminization

Epilogue: Welcome (back) to the Real World

Genres of this story include, but not limited to: Feminization, science fiction, sexual identity, forced feminization, questioning, LGBTQ+ fiction, transition, supernatural, etc.

[artist-issues]

“At least it's not ferociously attacking God quite as directly as Steven Universe did…”

Not that I’m surprised by this statement, but can you elaborate on this? Kinda intrigued by your thoughts on Steven Universe.

Okie dokie, you’re not the only one who has asked me about this, so I suppose I’ll poke the hornet’s nest. 😅 I haven’t talked about this before because I assumed that everyone who wanted to hear my kinds of opinions on stories wasn’t watching or interested in Steven Universe.

It’s like asking vegetarian if they enjoyed a turkey dinner. The turkey dinner was so obviously not made for vegetarians to enjoy, so why would the vegetarian even bother analyzing the turkey?

But I think if some people are asking me why I think Steven Universe is anti-God (of the Bible) its because maybe they don’t know what the turkey is. Not completely. (Maybe not you, because like you said, you’re not surprised by my comment.) So I’ll explain my thoughts on Steven Universe.

If you’re just following me because you liked some stuff I posted, but didn’t realize that I’m a Bible-believing Christian and don’t want to hear about it, unfollow me now. Because I’m going to talk about some hot button issues here and the trolls will come out.

Steven Universe is really well-done. The jokes are funny, the writing is believable, the characters have great chemistry, great design, the concept is fascinating, the slow build-up and reveal of the plot elements is great. But when you watch the throne room scene in the last episode of Season 5 “Change Your Mind,” it’s alarmingly clear how much the whole show is not just settling for defending and championing the LGBTQ+ worldview—it goes all the way to attacking what Christians believe, on the other side.

Anything that’s pro-LGBTQ+ is doing that by default, but this show goes out of its way to do that.

You have to understand: God created and designed us. Deeper than that; He created and designed romantic relationships, and invented marriage. He didn’t just create love—He is love. So when humans come along and do what we’ve always done since the fall, and say, “I’d rather define what Your thing is and how it works for myself, God,” it’s not only an incredible slap in the face, it’s an attack on God’s actual identity—and it’s destructive for us and the people around us. Like a fish insisting it can breathe oxygen.

But Steven Universe goes beyond that. It knows that the Christian worldview is it’s biggest opposition. It digs right down to the heart of the worldview-battle. LGBTQ+ worldview says, “I should get to love what I want and be who I am, because I’m me. Love is love. (By which I mean, any action or relationship I choose to call love is love, because I’m the one calling it that.)”

Biblical worldview says “No, wait, you shouldn’t base your decisions on you alone; what you want changes day to day, and you’re broken, so you can’t ever be satisfied based on what you want—the Bible says God made you for something, and you rejected that, and it broke you. You’re not how you’re meant to be: even what you want and what you think love is is twisted up and can hurt you and others. But if you submit to God He’ll help you, He’ll fix what’s broken and give you new life by making you how you were supposed to be: He’ll live in you and through you.”

Are we beginning to get the picture?

See, the whole thing with the opposing views between LGBTQ+ and Christian people is as old as time. It’s not a new debate. It’s Satan and Eve in the garden. She says, “This is not how God said things should be,” and Satan says, “Are you sure that’s what He said? He knows if you do this thing, you’ll be like Him. You’ll be god: you’ll get to decide ‘how things should be’ for yourself.”

He lied and said that disobedience would satisfy her. That she knew what her own heart needed better than the God that made it did. That the very act of being imperfect would make her godlike.

And then Steven Universe comes along and says “if every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hotdogs.”

And has a cast of created being characters who’s imperfections (Garnet’s forbidden “love,” Pearl’s obsession, Amethyst’s insecurity) are supposedly “the best thing about them; what makes them who they are.”

And has a main character who used to be a part of the god-like creator relationship, but used her power to come down to earth and completely change who she is into a fully different person.

And has a godlike Creator character who claims she “doesn’t need” her created beings (just like the God of the Bible) but they all have a little part of their creator in them so she has to repress their imperfections; she holds them all to a standard that’s impossible to reach called “perfection” and punishes them when they don’t meet it even though it hurts them to try; she expects them all to do what they were created by her for; she fixes them when they can’t meet her standard by shining her light through them and making them extensions of their Creator.

And has a main character who argues, fights back, tries to stop her, and is answered with lines that sound surprisingly like what LGBTQ+ people hear when Christians argue with them: “you’re only making things worse; you’re just deceiving yourself; even while you resist it your actual light can’t help shining through,” etc.

White Diamond just wants everything to be perfect. Like her. She just wants her created beings to “be themselves.” But what she means is, be how she created them to be.

And she’s the bad guy. She’s playing God in this show, and Rebecca Sugar is saying, “If God is telling us that can only be happy by being perfect, as He is perfect, and doing what He created us to do, then He’s wrong. Our imperfections are what make us special—unique—individuals—free—and there is nobody who has the right to take that freedom away from us, not even out creator!”

And you know what?

If God were like White Diamond, like Rebecca Sugar believes Him to be, Steven Universe would be right.

But He is NOT.

God is not a dictator who forces us to conform to a standard of perfection and then smashes us when we don’t meet it. He is a King who made us perfect to begin with, and we rejected him, because He allowed us to do that. He knew that true love was love that had to be chosen, and He wanted us to love Him by choice, so he gave us the option. But Rebecca Sugar doesn’t understand—there was never “Choose God or Choose Yourself.” There was only, “Choose God or Choose Nothing.” There was nothing except God. Then He created everything. There is no version of reality where you have something better than God, or even slightly less good but different, to pick. You’re not jumping from one ship into a smaller one, but at least it’s yours—you’re jumping from one ship into a void, and then complaining that there’s no other ship. That’s humans. That’s not God. / White Diamond didn’t make her creations perfect (Amethyst) and she didn’t make them for love. She made them for power. That’s not the God of the Bible.

Even when we did choose to try and love ourselves instead of God, and therefore warped our ability to perfectly love at all, He didn’t smash us. True, everything fell and was cursed, which is exactly what He warned us would happen if we chose it, but it was a natural consequence of breaking ourselves. And then He didn’t leave us that way. He didn’t give up on us. And He certainly didn’t just zap us, snap His fingers, quick-fix it and turn us all into robots who are extensions of Him, who say they love Him but only because it’s His voice puppeting us to say it.

No. He came to us, chose to give up His life at the exact point on the timeline when Romans, masters in the art of slow, humiliating, torturous death, would be the ones to carry out His crucifixion, and saved us Himself. Through the sacrifice of His own life. And even then, we still have a choice. We get to choose to accept that incredible self-sacrifice when we don’t deserve it, and be given new life and a relationship with the Creator who knows us and loves us better than we can love ourselves or receive love from others—OR we can just keep stubbornly insisting that our slavery to the opposite of what God wants is somehow freedom, and our twisted versions of love are genuine, and we’re not broken, and die like that. Die broken creatures who lived their whole lives stomping their feet and screaming “I’m not a creature, I’m a god!”

White Diamond sacrifices nothing, because Rebecca Sugar doesn’t know the God of the Bible. She just knows her idea of Him. She’s never actually gotten to know Him. If she had, she’d learn how silly and twisted her idea is.

Because you know what, yeah, if every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs. But people aren’t pork chops. And hot dogs have flavor (not better than pork chops) but they are awful for you.

Christians aren’t perfect cuts of meat with no individuality or flavor. Just because we all know and love the same God doesn’t mean we have no personalities. It just means we don’t think so freaking much about what we are, or who we get to be, or what we like and want. Jeez, what a self-centered, narcissistic, self-obsessed way to live. She plays Steven like he’s this wonder-child, innocent and full of heart, who encourages his friends to love and keep trying. But honestly?

This is very pretty animation but it’s not real. Steven looks happy hugging Steven but self-love doesn’t ultimately get you that.

That’s all based on the premise that what he’s encouraging them to do is actually good, and will make them happy, and will help them love better. And it just won’t. Not in real life. That’s not how any of this works. Self-love is just self-obsession. And that is a sure-fire way to hurt you, and everyone around you.

You’ll never be free by choosing to run to a worse master. You’ll never be satisfied with your crappy attempts at loving yourself, because you were made to be loved flawlessly and forever by someone who is Love Himself.

And choosing to identify with your imperfections doesn’t make you uniquely you. It just makes you exactly like every other human being marching in the same line since the Fall.

White Diamond’s not relational. She’s up high and distant. That’s not God. He made you to be in relationship with Him. He loves you, totally and perfectly, and He proved it by sacrificing for You.

So yeah. That’s the problem with Steven Universe. Come get me, SU fans.

[fratttymatty]

Nerd No More

(All characters are 18+)

Elliot Chambers had never fit in.

At 18, he was the definition of an outcast—shy, awkward, and painfully thin. His curly brown hair always looked messy, no matter how much he tried to fix it, and his thrift store clothes hung loosely on his frame.

Being gay in his small-town high school hadn’t exactly helped either. The jocks ignored him at best and mocked him at worst. The girls saw him as harmless, like some kind of fashion accessory they could rant to about their boyfriend problems. The only place he felt comfortable was in online political debates, where he proudly argued for LGBTQ+ rights, feminism, and every progressive cause he could defend.

But none of that mattered, because tonight, Elliot was alone in his bedroom, celebrating his high school graduation in the saddest way possible—by watching Scream 6 for the twentieth time.

And, like always, his eyes kept drifting to Ethan Landry.

Ethan was everything Elliot wasn’t.

Tall. Muscular. Charismatic. A man’s man. He carried himself with confidence, the kind that made people listen when he talked. He didn’t stutter. He didn’t overthink. He owned every room he walked into.

And Elliot…

God, Elliot wished he could be like that.

As the final scene played, he muttered under his breath, "I’d give anything to be him."

The moment the words left his mouth, his laptop screen glitched. The audio distorted into a deep, warping sound. The lights in his room flickered. His stomach twisted like he was on a roller coaster—his head spun, his skin burned, and before he could scream—

Darkness.

Elliot woke up somewhere else.

His first thought? His body felt weird.

Bigger. Stronger. Heavier.

He blinked, adjusting to the light, and realized he wasn’t in his cluttered bedroom anymore. This was a sleek, college dorm room. The sheets were expensive. A faint smell of cologne and sweat lingered in the air.

Something felt off.

He sat up—and immediately noticed his arms.

Thick. Veiny. Powerful.

His chest? Hard muscle.

His stomach? Sculpted abs.

He shot out of bed, his movements effortless, natural, as if his body knew exactly what it was doing. He turned to the mirror on the wall, and when he saw his reflection—

He froze.

Gone was Elliot Chambers, the skinny, nervous high schooler.

Staring back at him was Ethan Landry.

Chiseled jawline. Piercing blue eyes. Broad, commanding shoulders. His once scrawny frame had been replaced with pure masculinity. His thick, wavy brown hair was perfectly styled.

His lips curled into a smirk.

Wait—why did I do that?

His heart pounded. His hands gripped the edge of the dresser as a wave of thoughts flooded his mind.

His old memories—the ones of Elliot—began to fade. His liberal ideals? Slipping away. His insecurities? Erased. His attraction to men? Warping. Changing.

Instead, new thoughts took their place.

Memories of hitting the gym, feeling his muscles burn as he lifted heavier and heavier weights.

Memories of locker room banter, laughing with his boys about girls they’d hooked up with.

Memories of dominating debates, not with nervous, overthought arguments—but with pure confidence, shutting people down with facts, logic, and sheer presence.

His lips curled again—this time, it felt right.

Liberalism? A joke.

Feminism? Annoying.

Being gay? A phase.

No—he was straight now. Powerful. Unstoppable.

And most importantly… he was a man.

His phone buzzed. Without thinking, he grabbed it, his large, veiny hands dwarfing the device. A text popped up from:

Jessica ❤️

Jessica? His brain rewired instantly. His girl. His property.

Later that night, Ethan strolled into the frat party like he owned the place.

Jessica was on his arm—a gorgeous blonde in a tight dress, her curves displayed perfectly. She clung to him, giggling, tossing her hair, worshiping his every move.

"Like, babe," she whined, "you totally ignored me for, like, two whole hours today."

Ethan smirked, gripping her waist. "You’ll survive, babe. I got business to handle."

Her pout disappeared as she melted into his touch. "Ugh, fine, but you owe me, kay?"

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, barely paying attention.

He wasn’t here for her. He was here for the boys.

Spotting his best friend, Chad Meeks-Martin, Ethan broke into a grin.

"Bro," Chad called, clapping him on the back.

"Bro," Ethan responded, handing Chad a beer.

They leaned against the wall, watching girls grind on the dance floor.

"Man," Chad muttered, shaking his head, "these chicks pretend to be all independent, but get a few drinks in them and they’re begging for attention."

Ethan laughed. "Right? It’s embarrassing. That’s why I don’t take ‘em seriously, bro. They say they want ‘respect,’ but then they chase after guys like us—not some soft-ass ‘male feminist’ loser."

Chad snorted. "Facts. These woke dudes think being ‘sensitive’ is attractive. Meanwhile, we’re out here running shit."

Ethan smirked, taking a swig of beer. "Exactly. We provide, we protect, and they submit. That’s how it’s always been, and that’s how it always will be."

Chad raised his bottle. "To real men."

Ethan clinked bottles with him, smirk widening.

Elliot Chambers was dead.

And Ethan Landry was here to stay.

[interact-if]

Our fourth edition of the Black History Month Author Spotlight series, features Becky (@losergames)!

(I’ve been in awe of Becky’s multi-talents (art, writing, coding, excuse me??) for a long time now, and am super excited to get to interview her and introduce her awesome game, Chop Shop! The portion on morality and finding a middle-ground between harmful stereotypes of “bad” POC characters and angelic, one-dimensional ones who can do no wrong was a really interesting and insightful take.)

Author: Becky

Hello hello!!! I’m Becky! I am a black bisexual woman from the UK, lover of games, TV and food. I have a Bachelor's degree in Animation & Visual Effects and currently work as a technician at a college 😁

Games: Chop Shop (crime, action, LGBTQ+, meaningful choices)

Short blurb: A crime action interactive fiction game.

Quote from the interview

There are a few main themes I keep in mind about when writing Chop Shop but the big one I think everyone understands is morality. What is right and wrong, and the various shades of grey in between, has been written about a thousand times in a thousand ways but it is continuously interesting to me in a changing world. What does it mean to be a bad person doing good things and a good person doing bad things? Is there a chance for redemption? What are the consequences? Race and class are also massive factors, made all the more complicated when we’re looking at sets of characters on either side of the PC’s life. I want to write black and other characters of colour make bad, questionable, and unredeemable decisions whilst also remaining aware of stereotypes and archetypes. I want them to be loud, messy, and rude, attributes that are always attached to minorities, but I also want them to be smart, calculating, and deceptive. I think a lot of people are scared to do so and we end up with plain, can-do-no-wrongers that lack any depth.

Read on for the full interview!

Can you tell me a bit about what you’re working on right now and your journey into interactive fiction? What inspired the game/story you’re currently writing?

I am currently working on the crime action interactive fiction Chop Shop. There are a mix of inspirations that went into Chop Shop but above all else I’d say the kicker was my circumstances at the time.

During covid I walked away from the WORST job I’ve ever had and moved back home, which I realised a while after was an extremely huge blessing. I had a major burnout and was processing what my ex-managers had put me and my colleagues through. So, in my freetime I was playing a lot of cyoa/ romance games (shoutout Love Island the game) and found a whole fandom that also enjoyed them. 

I made some friends, did art commissions, and wrote some fanfic here and there, yadda yadda. A close friend recommended I try out a very popular COG game at the time (🧛) and it all spiraled from there. I fell in love with the format, endless creativity, and community and never looked back.

I loved the Need For Speed games as a kid, the og Most Wanted, Carbon, and Underground 2 are, in my eyes, amongst the masterpieces of games from the 2000s. It got to the point I was going over to friends houses just to play on their PS2 lmao. I am also a Fast and Furious fiend (shock) and I will defend that god awful series till I die. Fast forward to being a teenager/ young adult I’ve become a massive fan of fictional crime shows. Breaking Bad will always be my first love, but I also love The Sopranos, Fargo, The Wire and more.

How has your identity, heritage/background, upbringing, or personal experiences influenced your storytelling or writing process? OR How does your work feature aspects of your identity / experience?

The real catalyst for Chop Shop was my previous job. A lot of the PC’s experiences are based off my own. A few examples I love sharing are how I had to make breakfast for my boss every morning and had to keep the office freezer stocked with a specific supermarket ice lolly because he ‘needed’ one every day at 3pm. I truly wish I was making this up because people think I’m crazy when I tell them. But I really was catering to a man-child because I was desperately trying to get my foot into a creative industry. Woof!!!

That said, the industry I wanted to work in was and still is extremely competitive. I came out of uni with a tonne of friends, but also a tonne of competition. It stung very badly to see my peers excel and surpass me when it came to careers but that’s just a part of becoming an adult. That life really was not for me and I’m glad I’m out of it now.

My mother is an extremely influential person in my life. Bits and pieces of her stick with me, not just in my writing but my every day. She’s worked in corporate all her life, from the early 80s and still to this day. She laughs about it now but she tells stories about the times she was laughed out of meetings or undermined by subordinates because she was a black woman in positions that were not occupied by minorities. It hurts to think about but I can only dream of having the type of strength she does.

Now that I think about it, Chop Shop is a massive fuck you to the past.

Are there any specific themes or messages you hope players take away from your work?

There are a few main themes I keep in mind about when writing Chop Shop but the big one I think everyone understands is morality. What is right and wrong, and the various shades of grey in between, has been written about a thousand times in a thousand ways but it is continuously interesting to me in a changing world. What does it mean to be a bad person doing good things and a good person doing bad things? Is there a chance for redemption? What are the consequences?

Race and class are also massive factors, made all the more complicated when we’re looking at sets of characters on either side of the PC’s life. I want to write black and other characters of colour make bad, questionable, and unredeemable decisions whilst also remaining aware of stereotypes and archetypes. I want them to be loud, messy, and rude, attributes that are always attached to minorities, but I also want them to be smart, calculating, and deceptive. I think a lot of people are scared to do so and we end up with plain, can-do-no-wrongers that lack any depth.

What does your writing process look like? Any rituals or habits? Any tips, tricks, philosophies or approaches that have worked very well for you?

I write way better outside of my bedroom. I know writing is supposed to be fun and a hobby but sometimes it’s… not. If I get stressed out in my room, it’s all a mess. The brain needs to be away from where I sleep to get work done. Last summer, when all the teachers were on holiday time, I was the only one in my department for weeks and it was the best writing stint I ever had haha.

Oh and I keep a huge spreadsheet. All the episode breakdowns, outlines, character details etc. It looks insane to anyone else but it is my prized baby.

Do you have favourite interactive fiction games, characters, scenes or authors that you’d like to recommend?

My goto game rec is always 180 Files: The Aegis Project. So quick and punchy, more narrative/plot than romance focused. The action sequences are fun and the interactions are so delicious, ugh. I love it. I’ve played it at least 20 times to get the different endings and it’s never not satisfying, just… chefs kiss. I’m also really enjoying Thicker Than right now AAHHH I NEED TO CATCH UP!!! 

Any books, music, movies etc. you’re obsessed with at the moment, or which changed your life (or perspectives on something)?

Not anything specific but I do have some books I’d like to recommend to my fellow black readers:

The Psychosis of Whiteness: Surviving the Insanity of a Racist World by Nicola Rollock

Black Skin, White Masks by Franz Fanon

The Strangers: Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them by Ekow Eshun

Black England: A Forgotten Georgian History by Gretchen Gerzina

The Hard Road To Renewal by Stuart Hall

Honestly I’d recommend anything by Stuart Hall lmao. RIP king, you would be shocked at the media literacy today.

This-or-that segment: (bold = Becky's pick)

Coffee or tea?

Early mornings or late nights?

City or countryside?

Angsty or Cozy romances? (Or enemies-to-lovers or best-friends-to-lovers?)  

Steady progress or frenzied binge-writing followed by periods of calm?

Summer or Winter?

First drafts or editing?

Introvert or extrovert?

Plotter or pantser?

Characters or plot first?

Becky’s custom “either-or” pairing: Driver or passenger?

[drdemonprince]

We sometimes treat avoiding Annoying Queer People as if it’s essential to the LGBTQ community’s self-preservation. We agonize over event descriptions and identity-based admittance policies, wondering how to discourage all the Annoying (and often, it’s implied, fake) Queers from attending without restricting any actual queers. (This always fails, because it turns out that actual queer people are humans, and therefore pretty annoying. And being annoying, by the way, is not a crime.) In order to fortify ourselves against Annoying Queers, we mock all their signifiers and regard them as massive social red flags: straight husbands, bolo ties, sexual inexperience, ukuleles, rainbow pins from Target, misconceptions about what hormones do, and Picrew avatars all somehow get treated with equal venom, no matter where they are coming from and why. The problem is, none of these traits tell us anything about how safe a person actually is to be around. Only observing their patterns of behavior can do that. By demonizing “cringey” and irritating attributes as the signs of a deep character flaw, we ignore the fact they tend to cluster among the closeted, questioning, or newly-out for a reason. When a socially isolated queer person in the suburbs feels that nobody sees them as they are, they might cover themselves in rainbow swag from the local big-box store to an ‘annoying’ degree. When a closeted lesbian teen hasn’t had the chance to form genuine relationships with LGBTQ people, all her reference points might come from shows like Our Flag Means Death and Heartstopper which yeah, might seem fangirlish and irritating to a more seasoned adult. When a profoundly repressed trans divorcee still believes the misinformation about hormones they’ve been fed by the press, they might repeat some downright offensive myths about pelvic floor damage or body hair being disgusting. This too, is incredibly exhausting to help someone process again and again. I don’t think any of us literally believe that the more irritating a person is, the more of a pressing political threat they are. But we behave as if we do. We devote huge amounts of time to complaining about the types of queer people that irritate us, and develop complex taxonomies for describing why they are so annoying and why defeating that annoyingness matters. This person is a tenderqueer, that one is a tucute, and in their style of dress and annoying mannerisms we can tell that they represent all that we hate most about ourselves and how we are seen. It’s easy for us to wind up directing more attention toward the queer people that annoy us than we do to our shared enemies. It’s not a good use of our time. It’s not good for our shared futures. And it’s all rooted in internalized shame.

I wrote about biphobia, acephobia, transphobia, and the troubling respectability politics of hating the "Annoying Queer Person." The full essay is free to read (or have narrated to you!) on my Substack.

[wimpywompythethird]

I recently browsed the Hazbin Hotel subreddit (seriously, don’t go there—it’s a minefield of die-hard defenders), and I stumbled upon a post responding to a critical take about Vivziepop’s apparent lack of attention to the broader LGBTQ+ community. The critical post raised some valid points, but the reaction from the posters was… interesting, to say the least. Here’s what they shared along with their response to it:

Critic: “Hey, maybe we should include more representation in the show since you claim to love diversity and call it a queer show! :D”

Hazbin hotel Reddit: “They’re forcing Vivzie to slap random labels on characters! It’s unrealistic to develop every character’s identity!”

Somehow, though, they conveniently overlook the fact that characters like Barbie Wire (who appeared in just one episode), Octavia (who had only two), Vassago, Mammon (who had a single episode at the time of this post), Beelzebub (one episode), and Chaz (who appeared in just one episode before presumably meeting their end) all had little to no development prior to their respective Pride Month reveals—and yet, they all had their sexualities confirmed out of the blue. In fact, Vassago’s sexuality was even revealed before his debut, all the way back when the trailer for Season 2 first dropped.

On a more serious note, if you believe that representation only “counts” when characters explicitly state their queer, trans, or otherwise marginalized identities, here’s something to consider: a character’s sexuality or gender identity doesn’t always need to be the focus of the story nor does it need to be justified. By that logic, why is Blitzo pansexual? Why is Angel gay? Why are Loona and Charlie bisexual? Why is Mammon asexual? Why is Vaggie a lesbian? These identities are just part of who they are and they don’t need to define their entire narrative. In most cases they might only be mentioned in passing or through jokes. Visibility doesn’t always require a spotlight or a deep narrative explanation, sometimes, it’s enough for it to simply exist.

[glow-worms-are-believers]

Tim Drake: Ugly Duckling (dp x dc)

So this is the last day of pride month, and so also the last day of me trying to write as many LGBTQ+ canon dc characters. It’s been fun (and I got to read a whole bunch of comics which was actually much more fun than the first time I’d tried to read those!!)

Now even though this is the end of June, feel free to send an ask if you want me to write a blurb with any character. I make no promises, but I will very much try! (It might take a while especially if I’m in a Tumblr hibernation phase.)

Anyways, for the last day of pride month I wanted to do Tim Drake coz he’s dc’s “it girl” with the gays. I’ve been working on this Dead Tired fic for ages, based on the post about Tim getting turned into a swan and meeting Danny, who as a prince has to give him a kiss to change him back (I can’t find the prompt but it was hilarious so this was my take on it).

Here’s the beginning of the fic:

Red Robin was on patrol duty, while Batman and Robin were following a lead on possible joker safehouses. All in all, It was a pretty quiet night with only two muggings, both low-energy as both perpetrator ran away as soon as a bat-shaped shadow moved. 

So Red Robin had spent most of the night chatting with Babs. He was grappling around town, as they started on the new date app they’d both found out Jason was using.

“I told him he can’t put only photos of his motorcycle but- wait I’m getting a call,” Oracle interrupted herself. Tim waited before the earpiece came to life again.

“Sorry to cut this short Red Robin, got a full-attention request from Canary. If you need anything, beep me, and Keep your coms open.”

“Bye, Oracle,” he said, and like that, Red Robin was alone once again.

 He stopped on Grand Avenue Station and just let himself take in Gotham. The city was beautiful at night, and Tim was itching for a camera. He seen hundreds of pictures of the city’s skyline but they always managed to be unique. The night sky may always be covered by dark clouds above, but Gotham had its own stars in the lights shinning on top of the skyscrapers. So lost in his thoughts, Tim was, he almost missed the soft noise that sounded behind him. The voice that sounded behind him was harder to miss.

“Wither away so late, Little Red Bird?”

Red Robin turned to see a tall woman standing half in the shadows

“Sorry, can I help you?” Answered the vigilante despite the bad feeling creeping up to him.

“I’d like to know where I can find your guardian,” the woman said, still in the shadows.

“You mean Batman?” He chanced.

The woman nodded and Tim resisted the urge to sigh.If this was another one of Bruce’s ill-advised fling, Tim was going to hack every electronic device the man had to play sex-eds on loops for at least a week.

“He’s busy at the moment.” Then feeling like he shouldn’t assume what the woman wanted Bruce for, he continued. “But if you need any help, I’ll do my best.”

The woman stepped forward, and Tim could see her better. Her face was bare, but her distinctive outfit seemed to indicate she was some kind of vigilante-slash-criminal. The outfit did, in fact, ring a bell in the back of his mind, but it was dim. Tim didn’t tense up, but he did angle his body in a way to accommodate for a better escape through grappling. She continued walking until she was within arm’s reach of Tim, towering over him. She extended a hand to lightly caress his cheek, and Tim went still at the touch.

“Such a kind Little Bird you are,” she said gently. “You know, you remind me of my daughter.” She sighed. “Oh, what pretty children you both are.”

“Thank you,” said Tim as he sidestepped out of the way. “I’m sure she’s a lovely person.”

“Oh she was,” the woman said and through his growing wariness, Tim spared a thought for the girl. “She had dark hair and the fairest skin, just like you. The most beautiful girl in the land some would even say.”

That niggling feeling came back as a feeling of familiarity poked at him once again. “You must’ve been very proud.”

The woman let out an airy laugh before saying playfully/contemplating. “mustn’t I?”

A shiver ran down his back. Alright, there was something wrong with this woman, and Tim wasn’t waiting around to find out what. Not without any information or backup.

“Well, if there’s nothing I can do for you, I really have to get going,” Tim said as he took out his grapple gun. In a second, the gun was ripped from his hand , and he was slammed to the side of the staircase leading up to the roof. He let out a gasp at the impact and his features tensed in pain. The woman hadn’t even touched him.

“Not so fast, Little Bird. We don’t want you going back to the Batman just yet.  I’m not ready to make him my Knight yet.”

“Your knight?” Tim managed to get out. He tried to move his arms, but some unseen force was pinning him in place. Shit, that meant he couldn’t reach the comm to send out a distress signal. Hopefully Babs would check in soon.

The woman smiled as she approached him once again. “What better for a Queen, than a Dark Knight?”

And just like that it clicked. “You’re the Queen of Fables.” 

“Well look at this, you’ve got the brains and the beauty,” she teased, her voice as smooth as honey.

“What do you want with Batman?” Tim asked though he could guess from previous encounters she had had with the Justice League that the villainess wanted to turn Bruce into a fairytale character of some sort. She’d done the trick on Clark, and twice on Diana, so it was probably Batman’s turn now. So, yes, Tim could guess, But the longer he kept her talking the more time he had to figure out a way out of this.

“I told you, he’ll be a Knight of the Queen,” She extended a hand and tilted Tim’s face up. “Do you know what that would make you Little Bird?” 

Most villains assumed the batclan worked like a crime family. So the family of a knight? “Nobility,” Tim guessed, unsure where this was going.

“Exactly.” She smiled, and then she moved. Tim braced for the hit.

Instead of a punch though, he only felt a tingling sensation. Cautiously, he opened his eyes, only for them to grow bigger as he took in his uniform. Or the lack thereof.

He was in something-century clothing, in some sort of frilly shirt and pants, all in white. This was worse than a punch. Then, as the thought hit him, Tim’s hands flew to his face only to come in contact with the silky fabric of a masquerade mask. He sighed in relief, and as he calmed down, he realized he was now free of the force pinning him down.

“The color is for my daughter,” the Queen said. Then, she let her head fall to the side before tracing a line across his forehead and Tim could feel something like a circlet setting down on it. “There you go. Now, it’s perfect. You could practically be siblings.” 

“No thanks.,” Tim answered.

The Queen tsked him. “That’s no way to behave Little Bird, has nobody taught you to say thank you when you receive a gift.”

“I don’t want anything from you,” Tim disagreed mildly as he took stock of his weapons. Everything was gone, including the earpiece, which meant Babs had to have been alerted and someone was en route.

The Queen frowned. “I was going to be merciful, for you guardian’s sake, but I no longer feel generous.” She raised her hand and Tim tried to roll away, but the magic beam swerved and hit him in a blinding flash of light.

When he managed to open his eyes once again, the world seemed quite a bit bigger than it had been moments before. 

“What did you do to me?” He said. Or tried to say.

Instead a strange squawk echoed and Tim took a step back in surprise. However, he lost his balance and started to fall and as he tried to catch himself with his hand, two large white wings unfolded. He dropped down, which wasn’t as far as he would’ve estimated and laid stiff. He moved his left arm, and a white wing followed suit. 

Oh, no. Oh no no no.

A grating laugh interrupted his freak out. “There you are my pretty Little Bird, all better. White really is your colour, don’t you th-“

With a loud hiss, Tim propelled himself towards the woman. Making use of his newfound beak, he pecked and bit everything he could, as he flapped his wings.

“Blasted creature- Get off! Stop it, you despicable, puny-“ 

Finally she managed to grab Tim and throw him away from her. He landed with a squawk, but managed to get himself back to his feet quickly. “You little/awful brat,” she snarled. “You’ll pay for this!”

But as the Queen threw out her hand, something rippled in the air between them and the magic beam seem to explode midway into a green vortex. Tim’s clumsy attempt at waddling away had him head straight towards it, and it was in vain that he tried to redirect the course. She and Tim made eye contact as the swan-boy tipped right into the swirling green vortex, both of their eyes wide-open in surprise.

Danny was exhausted. He was currently on week one of the full month of Royal Duties he’d promised Clockwork. Being Prince of the Infinite Realm was not all that it was cracked up to be, and that was saying a lot since he had already been expecting it to be awful. 

When Clockwork had made the request, Danny had proceeded to freak out about his new status, and then tried to abdicate. It was only the master of time reminding him of all the terrible possible candidate for the throne per rites of combat (such as Vlad) that stopped him from washing his hands of this mess. And now Danny was forced to spend one whole month of his summer vacation in the Ghost Zone to fulfill his duty as a Prince. 

He thought it would be some paperwork, maybe a battle or two, nothing too bad, but nooo. Because, of course nothing was easy, Danny had to show up at Events, and be Diplomatic. It was meeting, after meeting, after weird parties that were a mix between Medieval Banquets and Debutante balls. 

And worse of all were the marriage proposals. Danny could sorta understand, marrying into royalty was a definite plus for a lot of more powerful ghosts but when they called him a half-breed behind his back, only to smile in his face with a marriage contract in one hand and flowers in the other, that was where he drew the line. 

Plus there was also the fact that he was, like sixteen.

Suffice to say, Danny was exhausted and hiding out in Pariah Dark’s old castle as a last resort. It wasn’t his favorite place all in all, but the gardens were absolutely beautiful, which was where he was walking. He was currently headed to the hedge maze, since it was the best way to get rid of any tails he may or may not have. 

The maze was nasty if it didn’t like you, and it didn’t like anybody but Danny, and even then, it still tried to take a bite every once in a while. Despite the snaking vines and roots trying to capture anything that moved, the flowers that wailed softly when disturbed or the sharp thorns of the hedge plants themselves, it was still a beautiful place. Uniquely, the closer you got to the centre, the more colorful (and dangerous) everything got, which was why he liked it best. 

He reached the centre much quicker than the first time he tried, thanks to the maze actually helping him, and something pale caught his eye right in the middle of the open area, right next to the bench Danny loved to use. As he got closer, he realized it was a swan laying on the floor, seemingly unconscious.

“Oh no,” Danny said as he approached. “What happened to you?”

As if awakened by the sound of his voice, the swan started to shift, its wings twitching and it rose its head groggily. As soon as it clocked in Danny, it let out a surprised squawk, followed by a long hiss as it struggled to move away.

“Hey, hey, none of that, Duckie, you’re ok.” Danny raised his hands placatingly. “I don’t want to harm you, ok? I just want to make sure you’re ok.”

The hiss subsided by a bit, but that may have only be due to the swan managing to get further away.

“Sh, sh, it’s ok,” Danny repeated as he slowly inched forward. The swan stopped hissing but still observed him warily. “I don’t want to hurt you Duckie, but I do think we’d better get you out of this maze.”

Danny took another step, and this time the swan stayed still. “How about bringing you back to my rooms just for now.” The swan hissed louder at the statement. “Don’t worry Duckie, I’m not keeping you prisoner it’s just this maze has been known to eat people. And you’re too pretty to be eaten,” Danny flashed a smile at the swan which had it stare back with a gaze saying really?

“So what do you say, wanna crash at my place?” Danny asked. The swan didn’t move forward but he didn’t move away either.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t trust a guy who talks to birds either,” Danny allowed. “And the place where I’m staying is a little gloomy, so I don’t blame you, but I can’t leave you here. The maze is honestly really dangerous, especially for a nice bird is like you. “

The swan seemed to hesitate before it hesitantly made its way to Danny. Ghost animals were usually smart but the swan seemed to understand English, which made communicating that much easier. Danny smiled and opened his arms. “I can carry you.” The swan just looked at him, with what Danny would’ve thought was a deadpan stare. “It would go much faster.”

If the swan was human it probably would’ve sighed, but instead, its wings just fell a little before it waddled towards Danny and looked up as if to say ‘get on with it’.

Danny smiled and gathered the animal in his arms. “Buckle up,” he said before flying off towards the maze exit, which was accompanied by a low hiss. Making sure there was nobody there to ambush him, Danny made it back to the castle in record time.

“Here we are Duckie.” Danny set the swan back down and it plopped down on the ground and just steadied themselves for a while.

Tim was a swan. He had wings and no fingers, and his feet were webbed.

He was handling it though. By which Tim meant he was shelving the impending panic attack for later when he wasn’t stuck in a swan body. 

Ok, so he’d been turned by the Queen of Fables, so there had to be an answer in a fairytale,a way to make him normal again. He knew the ugly duckling story. That had a swan in it, right? He didnt know any other swan stories, except maybe as a dish during the wedding banquet of whichever princess. He vaguely remembered a Barbie movie that had passed on the TV when he was younger but the only thing that came to mind were a scary-looking Troll thing, and ballet.  So with lack of better alternatives he was going to go with the ugly duckling. The ugly duckling’s happy ending was reuniting with family, so maybe all he needed was to make his way back to Gotham.

“Are you ok?” 

And that was another thing. The guy. The one Tim had at first wanted to get away from. He seemed nice and all, but he also had neon green eyes, and fangs. Unfortunately, while they suited the boy very well, they also marked him as an unknown. 

On the other hand, if the glowing portal wasn’t enough of an indication, the green tinge of everything around was clear indicator that Tim wasn’t in Kansas anymore. The guy seemed to want to help him, and having an ally wherever he was could only help.

Tim nodded as best as he could with his long weird neck, and he had to take a few steps to regain balance.

“That’s good,” the boy smiled with his white pointy canine. “How did you end up in the middle of that maze?”

Tim just looks back tiredly. He didn’t know how to even try and explain when he couldn’t say a word and had no opposable thumbs.

“Yeah, sorry.” The boy winced. “Maybe stick to yes or no questions.”

There was a sharp knock at the door that had the boy turning away.

“Prince Phantom!” A voice rung through the door.

Prince? 

The newly-dubbed Prince Phantom got up to open the door, “yes, what can I do for you?”

“Your meeting with Queen Dora is approaching. Do you still prefer to forgo an escort guards?” a purple lady was saying.

“I’ll be fine without, Maj but thank you very much,” Phantom answered with a polite smile.

“I’ll pass it along, my Prince.” She bowed and closed the doors behind her.

Phantom walked back to lay on the bed with a sigh. “I really hate that they call me that.” He turned towards Tim to continue. “I bet swans don’t have royalty. You guys had the right idea.”

[blazinghotfoggynights]

Can Team Tuck and Team Buddie please agree that both can exist and serve as positive spaces for queer male representation?

I've been thinking. Let me run something by you.

Oliver says he has always felt Buck was a bi-coded character? Right?

Does that mean when TK thought Buck was hitting on him, he was?

If Buck was always bi, but just didn't know it, are we supposed to believe he never flirted with Eddie just because his first kiss was with Tommy?

Was Tommy his bi awakening or was Tommy the embodiment of the attractive traits he has seen in a man he's been falling for over five seasons?

You can like or even love multiple people. Even at the same time! 😮

Believing that Buddie is or should be the endgame does not negate or disrespect Buck's arc with Tommy in any way. I question if Tommy was just a convenient character. He's a safe guy to explore Buck's evolution with. He has a history with members of the 118, but he is not integral to the cast. If it doesn't work out, he is easily explained away. Remember Natalia?

I think it is possible to have a Buck and Tommy centered arc, focused on Buck becoming comfortable with his sexuality and exploring it in a healthy, positive way and still have Buck and Eddie eventually realize they have been each other's person for years. Having both doesn't make the other any less important. How many people have dated others when their eventual life partner was right there? They had no idea they saw that person in that way.

Now that we know Buck is bi, it could lead to different interpretations of scenes:

Buck is looking at Eddie. Tommy is not there and we don't know for sure who Eddie was speaking to.

2. Look at that smile and his eyes at the end. Buck positively beams and bats his eyes when he realizes Eddie is going to look at him. That's how platonic friends look at each other?

3. But we can take it all the way back if we have to. Look at Buck when Eddie compliments him.

3b. Do you know what that reminds me of?

4. If Buck has subconciously been into guys for a long time, then this scene takes on a whole new context.

Moving closer to the other man? Check.

Eye contact? Check?

Smile and shy head duck? Check.

*I'd like to state that I have no doubt Edmundo Diaz knew Buck was into him. Look at the reaction.

5. When I'm into someone, you know what I don't talk about? Someone else.

6. Wow. Look at how Buck looks at Tommy.

6b. We have never seen that before have we?

Buck x Tommy and Buck x Eddie can coexist in harmony. Life stories are long and have jumpscares, plot twists, plot holes, etc.

Buck being genuinely attracted to Tommy doesn't mean that all the scenes from the past five seasons that made us all side-eye Evan Buckley didn't happen.

If we never get Buddie, let's just take the win. ABC said, "There are queer men in the world who are masculine, hot, and relatively stable. Let's show that."

Do we really need to talk about how the LGBTQ community was represented on their former network? I could stand on that soapbox and go off for days. Let's just say I know others who also felt some way about it, whether they were straight, queer, or allies.

I am just going to enjoy what is shaping up to be an amazing season. Moving to ABC breathed new life into 911 and I am excited. (Season six? Can we just not talk about it?)

[monsters00km]

Im gonna kick a hornets nest. I think it needs to be said. Comments like "i hate Caitvi/ I didn't want Caitlyn and Vi to end up together bc Caitlyn IS Classist" Like. Just admit your homophobic. Or sexist.

I think every person who says this is homophobic or sexist. Full stop.

Why? Bc i have seen too many shows/movies/books where a poor girl/boy ends up with the rich boy/girl. Sometimes even royalty.

And you know what i never hear in those fandoms? "I didnt think character A should be with character B bc character B is Classist"

And don't say you never see those characters being classist. Bc a lot of times, THEY SHOW YOU THAT. but people are like. Omg they didn't change their ways at all, but I heard a vocal apology, and thats better, WOW TRUE LOVE.

And I am not saying people have to like them. But if you like ships that have this wealth disparity/power dynamic and they are hetero or gay men. But you don't like Caitvi? You need to ask yourself some harder questions.

And some of you need to look at your other ships to even realize this. If you like Javik and not Caitvi. You need to take a good look at Jayce and Caitlyn. And if you can't see that Jayce did just as bad if not worse things to the undercity. Then you need to look at yourself. And evaluate that sexism.

And dont come at me with the: I'm a lesbain/lgbt person and I am not homophobic/sexists and I hate them.

I'm going to hold your hand when I say this. We live in a society where racism, sexism, xenophobia, and homophobia are literally systematic. And is taught at the most basic of levels.

To focus on sexism and homophobia. Women uphold sexism just like men do. LGBTQ+ people uphold homophobia just like straight/cis people do.

You saying that you're not homophobic because you're gay/lesbian/etc. Means nothing in a society where grindr crashes from overuse during the USAs Republican National Convention. NOTHING. All it tells me is you have not done the work to unlearn these things.

[idkplzhalp]

What do you know about Caroline in full? /genq

Some background for those who don't know, Caroline from Portal 2 is my favorite character as of 6 years and at some point I started keeping a big list in which I document everything such as info during development, things from devs/voice actors, debunking theories, literally any of her appearances anywhere and other silly stuff too. I also made an image folder with any potential reference or appearance to her in the series/behind the scenes, which i started to upload to a google drive folder and i need to finish it. When I finally make the entire Caroline post & drive folder, I'd wanna post it to my Valve fact blog @thatvalvefanatic. I'm super into getting canon/official facts about things and Caroline is the funnest for me to do as she's so obscure.

So here's some facts (know I have way more but this is already long enough..) since it'll be awhile since I do the big complete analysis post (or the Caroline lore bible, as I call it) that I've been promising for like 3 years lol!!!

Her heels are red! (This is her face model, Laura Dubuk, when she was at SDCC 2012 with Bill Fletcher, Cave's face, for the Neca booth)

Caroline's name was taken from Jay Pinkerton's (the writer's) mother. Erik Wolpaw says the name also means coincidentally "free man/woman". It's also a variant of the name Charles/Charlie (which is a coincidence to Aperture Desk Job's character Charlie (who is likely more of a reference to Chell)).

She has Argentinian and French roots as that is her face model Laura Dubuk's ethnicity (she's stated she's Argentinian, her last name is french, though).

The brand of her dress is "Daniel & Rebecca", an Italian brand made in the 80s/90s. Laura got the dress specifically for Caroline from a thrift store.

Caroline is referenced by Jerry the Nanobot. If you slow his audio down and reverse it, you hear "his injury is not expected to end but she's in charge instead". Hearing is subjective here but that's what I've seen as widely accepted. Though Portal 2 has done similar before with the Ghost of Rattmann track, which was just cut up audio of Marc Laidlaw reading an entirely unrelated paragraph. Or like the Dinosaur_fizzle audios from the radios in Portal 1 that people theorized was Caroline screaming from the radio, when it wasn't that at all as that update came before Caroline was created.

Unlike popular belief, Ellen Mclain did not refuse any of Caroline's lines. People spread rumors that the deleted GLaDOS related lines made her cry and that JK Simmons refused to say his lines due to how they sounded like SA, but that's not true at all.

Also, Caroline is NOT Chell's mother. She's too old and too white to be her mom! GLaDOS' arc towards Chell has been confirmed & implied to be queer/romance-esque. You can see some of that in my LGBTQ Valve post, though I need to update it, and I will be making a singular post just for queercoded GLaDOS since there is SO much. One of Valve' employees, Makani, confirmed Chell was not her daughter.

Cave and Caroline aren't married, confirmed by the Portal 2 guidebook. Though they were still likely good friends, based on some of Cave's cut lines, in which he trusts her to do a lot more.

Cave wanted Caroline to be taken care of and respected as CEO/GLaDOS! That part of his GLaDOS speech had been cut though. Those lines are, "Treat her just like you’d treat me." and "Just make sure she’s taken care of."

Portal RTX has a bunch of hidden codes you can find. There are some you use to change the design of the companion cube. Inputting Caroline's name changes it to the pillow cube!

According to Josh Weier, Caroline wasn't added to the game until one month before its release. Originally she wasn't a part of the story and Cave's assistant was a man named Greg. They didn't want to hire an actor for just a couple lines, so they decided to reuse Ellen Mclain, thus creating GLaDOS' human backstory. Though Greg was reused for Perpetual Testing Initiative and the Cave Johnson DotA announcer pack.

Caroline appears in the spinoff/tech-demo Aperture Desk Job, though only as her portrait. This confirms that she can be in other universes just like Greg, though we don't know what happened to her in this one. She's potentially dead, as Aperture Desk Job had Cave live long enough to be put into the machine. The machine was started and he killed some of the scientists. Also Caroline's portrait there is partially covered, covering her side.

I personally believe Caroline to be biromantic asexual! This one isn't a confirmed fact but more speculation. I think the "she's married- to science!" bit could indicate not being apart of traditional straight relationships, also knowing she was never married to Cave either. We already know GLaDOS is biromantic due to her liking Chell (and in spin-offs liking Claptrap and Batman for a time), and she could be considered ace to her cut line in co-op mode saying she found human reproduction ridiculous. Presumably the same would apply to Caroline.

The "Say goodbye, Caroline!" / "goodbye, Caroline!" Bit is a potential reference to The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show (1950) or Rowan and Martin's Laugh In (1968) as both had bits similar to that, and would make sense for Caroline and Cave to reference due to when the shows aired. Some people interpret that line as Caroline being dumb, though that's not true at all! We know she was intelligent from Cave's high praise of her, and if she was actually making a reference to a TV program then it would be even smarter and show that Caroline probably had inside jokes or references with Cave.

Want You Gone says Caroline and Chell are similar (“She was a lot like you”). If true then Chell, as officially described from the Collaborative Disposition Test, “Resolute and tenacious, you won't quit until a puzzle's solved. Your inability to give up against impossible odds makes you a bad match for cooperative test partners who give up against any odds at all, racing to the internet for answers” Could give insight into Caroline’s personality. The Collaborative Disposition Test could give even more insight into her from Cave’s description “You don't see crises - only challengitunities. you choose to scale like mountains. You're a can-do, shoot-from-the-hip, silver-tongued self-starter. You're a good match for any cooperative test partner, providing they shut up and listen.” Caroline didn’t have much dialogue and we know she did the majority of what Cave asked of her/they worked together for at least 30 years. Caroline may very well be Cave’s testing partner who will “shut up and listen”.

Caroline was in the Steam 25th anniversary artwork! Art by Claire Hummel. It is her and Cave drawn over this meme:

okay that's it for now but I did find an iceberg chart I made a few months ago about her so I'm including it even tho some things gotta be adjusted because it's not 100% correct. It's the same as this but I wanna share it anyways. Happy Caroline Portal 2 lore learning. I'll make a part 2 with more stuff later.

[thebestofoneshots]

SERIES MASTERLIST

Gilded Constellations | (wolfstar x reader)

Summary: You meet Sirius and Regulus at a family vacation in the Caribbean, but things don't go as planned and you end up losing contact once the trip is over. Years later your family moves to England and you get accepted at Hogwarts where you finally meet Sirius once again, along with all of his friends. One of them with a mysterious secret, that you'll uncover as you embark on your own Hogwarts adventure. Mostly canon-compliant. This IS a wolfstar x reader fic, but it's incredibly slow burn. They won't start all dating each other until we're very deep into the story, but I promise the long wait will be worth it.

Read Gilded Constellations on AO3

Read the French Translation by @nagareboshi-chiyo

Paring: Sirius Black x Reader / Remus Lupin x reader / Wolfstar x reader

Chapter average: 5k - 6.5 k

Content: Smut in later chapters, Poly!Marauders, throuple, graphic descriptions of violence, MAJOR and minor character death (this is The Marauders Era guys, you know), jealousy, angst, pining, love triangle, LGBTQ+ themes, The Wizarding war 1.0, implied child abuse, possible proofreading errors, mental health struggles, hurt no comfort, hurt with comfort, period typical attitude, first war with Voldemort, canonical character's death, fluff, Requited Love, F/M/M, mostly canon-compliant.

Status: Ongoing (Weekly updates)

♡ Indicates SMUT

PLAYLIST

01 | Summer Breeze

02 | Escape

03 | Bitter Sweet Symphony

04 | Rainy Days and Mondays

05 | Good times

06 | Crazy Little Thing Called Love

07 | Peaceful Easy Feeling

08 I Fooled Around and Fell in Love

09 | The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke

10 | Black Dog

11 | Do Ya

12 | You really got me

13 | Rebel, Rebel

14 | Maybe I’m Amazed

15 | No One Like You

Interlude (Q&A Event)

16 | Boogie Wonderland

17 | Tonight’s What It Means To Be Young

18 | Friends will be Friends

19 | Silver Bird

20 | Bad Moon Rising

21 | Fox on the Run

22 | Long Long Way From Home

23 | Hungry Eyes

24 | Peace of Mind

25 | I’ll get Even With You

26 | Hooked on a Feeling

27 | Can’t Take My Eyes Off You

28 | If You Want BIood, (You’ve Got It)

29 | With a Little Help From My Friends

30 | Bridge Over Troubled Water

31 | Strange Magic

32 | Come a Little Bit Closer

33 | More Than a Feeling

34 | You Belong to Me

35 | Chill of Desire

36 | Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy

37 | Gimme, Gimme, Gimme

38 | Let the Good Times Roll

39 | Running With the Pack

40 | Hot Stuff

41 | Urban Adventure

42 | Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

43 | Sympathy for the Devil

44 | No One But You

45 | Hold The Line

46 | Comfortably Numb

47 | Let Me Take You Home Tonight

48 | Dust in the Wind

49 | High Hopes

50 | Love the One You're With ♡

51 | Some Guys Have All The Luck ♡

52 | Twentieth Century Fox

53 | Too Much Love Will KiII You

54 | Sail Away Sweet Sister

55 | Noone Together

56 | Who Wants To Live Forever

57 | Play the Game

58 | Staying Power

59 | Break on Through

60 | Stone in Love

61 | Mr. Blue Sky

62 | Born to be Wild

63 | Something About You

64 | Put Out The Fire

65 | Spell Binder

66 | Hot Love

67 | What's On My Mind

68 | Mysteries and Mayhem

69 | Livin' Thing

70 | Back Talk

71 | We've Only Just Begun

72 | Relentless 

73 | Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’

74 |

75 |

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BONUS TRACKS:

Your Theories, The Note, The Costumes, Sirius and the Chimney, Sirius and Vix after the bad moon, Evans and Vixen, Remus and Vixen at the infirmary, Remus holding Sirius at DADA, Remus and Sirius’ height difference, the FOXSTAR picture, Art by @nineloseteeth, We're going French,

Leave a comment telling me if you want to join the tag list

A/N: Most Poly!Marauders fics are oneshots, where the relationship between characters is already established, and they're all happy and pleased with it. No issues, no drama, but I WANTED the drama. Couldn't find it, so I set myself up to write the story behind the stablished relationship. I wanted to know how they started dating each other, the jealousy, the will they won't they, because getting into a poly relationship can't be an easy task, and I wanted to explore that story. If you're interested: Welcome to Gilded Constellations!