#also half the main cast is gay and you know I love that

[terrainofheartfelt]

Do u have any book and movie recommendations?

sooooo many. you might regret asking.

I love books very very much, just in case you didn't know, so let me fire off at random some of my all time faves with and without blurbs.

poetry: Devotions, Mary Oliver | No Matter the Wreckage, Sarah Kay | Leaves of Grass, Whitman | Post Colonial Love Poem, Natalie Diaz

nonfiction:

My Life in France, Julia Child --- her memoir of moving to France with her husband post WWII and her discovery of cooking and deciding to write her cookbook and it's so charming and so her and it's just a delight

Open Me Carefully, Emily Dickinson --- a chronological collection of letters, poems, and letter-poems Emily sent to her lover sister-in-law Susan Dickinson. it's intimate, playful, kind, passionate, and the editors do a great job of putting it all together. and you read it and just know that you are only skimming the surface of the deep love these two women had for each other i gotta lie down

What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding, Kristin Newman --- funny sexy travel memoir by a TV writer who spent her hiatus months in the aughts summers by traveling solo and having whirlwind romances and also her reconciliation between being the woman who can't be tied down but also wanting to build a life with a partner.

The Real Traviata, Rene Weis --- an opera book because me. a biography about Marie Duplessis, the French woman who inspired Dumas to write La Dame aux Camellias and therefore Verdi's Traviata and THEREFORE Baz Luhrman's Moulin Rouge. she had by the most objective accounts a difficult and short life full of fear and illness and abuse but also full of strength and color and love and I found it really moving.

fiction: aka the novels I am thinking most about right now.

House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende --- an all time favorite. a historical, multigenerational epic that left me staring at the ceiling after finishing it. and cemented Allende's place as one of my fave authors

The Sentence, Louise Erdrich --- it's about ghosts and independent bookstores and indigenous women and community and love and trust and the pandemic. great novel.

Sex and Vanity, Kevin Kwan --- people are always looking for who they should crown the modern Jane Austen, and it's him. it's kevin kwan. this is a modern remix of A Room with a View and it is funny and sexy and sweet and was a delight to read.

Beautiful World, Where Are You, Sally Rooney --- my favorite of hers. I love how the chapters of story are interspersed with emails between the two leads. yes there's romance, but the real center of this story is the friendship between the two women.

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong --- entirely lives up to the tumblr hype. possibly exceeds the tumblr hype. I told my best friend to read this book. which she did. then scolded me because while she agrees it's beautiful it's also so heartbreaking. truly some of the most beautiful prose I've ever read. I checked it out from the library but i really want a copy of my own to mark up.

Bright Young Women, Jessica Knoll (out Oct. 3rd) --- i got this ARC at the librarian convention. I'm in the middle of it right now but I have to talk it up because it is sooooo good. It's about women who meet because they have the worst possible thing in common: their best friend was murdered by the same serial killer. It hops around between the '70s and the present day, reads like a thriller, and the thesis is really about destroying the myth of the criminal mastermind, a la all those true crime docs about dahmer and bundy. I'm almost halfway through and the murderer is only referred to as "The Defendant." It's about taking the narrative away from him, the universal defendant, and recentering it around the exceptional women whose lives he ended and/or destroyed. Again, please check it out when it comes out this fall. But be forewarned that the subject matter is dark.

as for MOVIES, well, if I tried to make a list like the one above I'd be here all day, so why don't I just list a handful that I consider central to understanding who I am as a person:

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

The Life of Brian

The Blues Brothers

The Princess Diaries 1 AND 2

Little Women (2019)

Juno

The Holiday

Pride and Prejudice (2005)

Star Wars, the OG and prequel trilogies

and, last winter I stumbled across The Four Seasons starring Alan Alda and Carol Burnett, and I thought it was delightful.

[alinedreams]

Uryu and Chad are gay married by the end of the manga. In this essay i will

[ghostofdiamonds]

alright having watched the first half of dungeon meshi here are my impressions of the main cast + a couple other funky little guys.

overall: they literally seem like an actual dnd party from a campaign. my headcanon is that when falin died, the dm asked her player if they wanted to make a new character and the player created senshi.

laios: himbo. BIG himbo. I love him. I know he was concerned for his sister but it sometimes felt like he was more excited about eating monsters than saving his sister. I don't even think Falin would blame him she seemed pretty excited too when she found out they were eating monsters. also not to diagnose people with autism but like. if he's not autistic I have no idea what he is.

marcille: I love this girl. she's gay as fuck and I love her. she was least open to eating monsters but by the time they reach Falin she's acclimated to it. she does magic by the book yet she specializes in forbidden magic. her main combat spell is blowing things up. she's an icon.

chilchuck: this is a man who knows what he's about. middle aged man in a union who got paid upfront. you think marcille is the normal one but I'm pretty sure it's actually chilchuck. AND YET he grew to care about the party and will go back down to the dungeon with them.

senshi: SOMEONE GET THIS MAN A COOKING SHOW STAT. imagine that you study a super niche thing for years and one day you're minding your own business and you hear someone say "aw man we're all out of options guess we've gotta do *very niche thing you specialize in*. That was Senshi. he'd been waiting his whole life for this moment. I just KNOW he was having the time of his fucking life down in the dungeon with them. he's living his best life with people who appreciate his cooking and I love that for him.

falin: absolute sweetheart. deserves better in every way. can the universe give this girl a fucking BREAK and also a girlfriend (*cough cough marcille*). she seems normal at first glance but I feel like she's just as crazy as her brother.

kabru: MY BOY. loved his design ever since I saw him in the opening. he and his party are so bad at staying alive oh my god. I can't wait to see more of him.

namari: okay I didn't like her for abandoning Falin but I get it money is tight. if nothing else I respect her for apparently (according to my friend) being bisexual and crushing on the twins she works with.

[liesmyth]

Anon with the friend who's reading tlt on the reverse order: Yes, he knows he's being a lab rat, he doesn't keep motes on the books because he's very much a casual reader (and thus perfect for the experiment) and so far we have only done Nona The Ninth and The Unwanted Guest, plus some chapters of HTN & Doctor Sex. There's the slight chance of osmosis corruption because I occasionally reblog modern au memes on my main blog, which I think is how he got Palamedes' whole deal.

There's not much he guessed, and even less he guessed correctly. He did call the fact Crown and Ianthe are related a pleasant plot twist, and he initially thought John was Varun.

The most interesting guess he had, which he arrived through flawed means, was Paul's existence, and the fact Pyrrha had some sort of connection to Gideon The Ninth — mostly because he guessed the average Lyctorhood to be Camilla and Palamedes', and with the reference of Gideon and G1deon as 1) permanently dead, in a setting where he's aware necromancy exists and he thought zombies to be actual resurrected people 2) connected to Pyrrha, and 3) the fact Pyrrha had "some weird vibes" (he refused to elaborate) led him to thinking Pyrrha was half Gideon, half someone else, and the reason Kiriona was vaguely off-putting to people was because she didn't have a full soul. Anyways he did think the same would happen to Palamedes and Camilla, which it did, and that Kiriona was pissed at Pyrrha because of an ambiguous degree of relationship

We have paused rn, as the labrat experiment is in return for me reading a webcomic per book

Oh yeah also im doing this because i either dreamt a post proposing it up or actually saw it, and honestly i wanted to see how much biases and previous narrative impacted the relationship of the reader with tlt characters, their relationships, and worldbuilding, as i absorbed tlt by osmosis as an agender aroace. so yeah giving a gay guy tlt without previous context in the reverse order to complete the trifecta (lesbian woman reading it in the correct order, aroace agender getting to know it by osmosis and figuring out the plot best I could before reading it, gay guy reading it in reverse)

ANON THANK YOU FOR COMING BACK! @mayasaura and everyone who wanted a follow-up to the first part.

"Thought John was Varun at first" is soooo big brained actually! I'm always thinking about John's more RB-like traits. I'm also very amused that he cast Pyrrha as the zombie puppeteer, I bet he's going to love tiny Harrow walking around her dead parent's bodies for a decade.

I also feel like the worldbuilding in NtN is veeery different from the general #vibe of the first two books — it feels like an "anime filler arc" kind of sidequest plot — and I'm very curious if going from NtN to HtN is going to make the settings vibe changes feel stronger or weaker than reading it normally would.

Anyway, I love that you decided to do this, and please let us know what he thinks about HtN! I hope you enjoy the webcomic :D

[breadlover64]

BINGQIU VS LIUSHEN/ANY OTHER SHIP WITH SQQ PART 1

BEWARE I HAVENT READ SVSSS IN A WHILE AND I MIGHT’VE MISSED SOME STUFF! Feel free to correct and give your opinions about this.

Theres gonna be two parts to this bc tumblr can’t take all my writing sooooo 😛

In the SVSSS fandom, I’ve noticed that compared to other mxtx’s novels, the mc gets shipped with half of the cast more often and is more widely accepted in the fandom compared to the tgcf and mdzs fandoms (if you ship Hualian or Wangxian with anyone, it will get you death threats, istg 😓). However, with Shen Qingqiu, while of course he gets shipped with his love interests, another really popular one is him with Liu Qingge and many other characters in the novel. I do think this also has to do with the fact that the fandom is more chill than the other two fandoms. Shen Qingqiu in general is just VERY shippable. But why? Why do some people like liushen more than bingqiu? Obviously, I know this is simply a preference, but why do people prefer it more than the canon couple? Well, I have some speculations. First, while I love Bingqiu, I can admit that their relationship is not for everyone; even for me, they’re my least favorite main couple of the three (it's just my opinion, DONT ATTACK ME🙏) because their dynamic can be seen as somewhat toxic. Luo Binghe is very obsessive and kind of yandare like in the novel, and yes, he does have character development and regrets his actions and never really wanted to hurt Shen Qingqiu. I personally don’t feel like we see as much of this development until the very end. At least for me, I feel like we should’ve spent more time with a changed Luo Binghe, and I KNOW he was influenced by Xi Mo. I still didn’t feel completely satisfied with the Luo Binghe arc. I do think we see more of his development in the extras, which is what made me like Bingqiu a lot more, but I just wish we could’ve seen this in the main story instead of optional extras because I think the extras really show Luo Binghe’s growth and his love for Shen Qingqiu in a healthier way. I am aware this boy is very mentally ill. While I’m not a writer, as a reader, I think mxtx could’ve done more for him because he can end up more dislikable for some people and just less appealing of a love interest. I personally LOVE Luo Binghe and how chaotic he is, but again, that is not for everyone, so I can definitely see why some people don’t like him as much. With Shen Qingqiu, this is a bit different. I felt that by the end of the novel he had massive progress and huge development for his character; even if he still has his flaws, you can really tell he has changed and grown throughout the story, but he’s still himself if that makes sense. I felt wayyy more satisfied with his arc than Luo Binghe's; however, I will say that Shen Qingqiu has this sort of shame. While I wouldn’t necessarily call it internalized homophobia, he does have this sort of stigma towards gay people and him being gay himself. And while it can be funny, if you really think about it, even by the end of the novel and in the extras he still has this shame of sleeping with Binghe and showing basic affection, but I won’t really criticize this much because he does improve in this a lot by the extras. By that point, it really feels more like shyness than the shame he felt at the beginning when he first discovered Luo Binghe's feelings. So I will argue that Shen Qingqiu arc is pretty well done and concluded by the end of the book; at least to me, it really did feel like he changed. Okay, so the second reason is because Bingqiu got together when they were both still ‘not at their best’. What do I mean by this? Well in tgcf Xie lian had to endure a lot of torture and experience several traumatic situations and almost released face disease and killed a bunch of people with it. He was clearly very mentally unwell! And for Hua Cheng, he also went through a lot of trauma with his mom dying when he was young and the abuse he went through from his father and the kids who made fun of him to the point where he wanted to end his life, and then later he became a ghost with his parasocial attachment to a god. We see these characters at their worst, but when they get together, they are already 800+ years old and have lived a long life and matured and learned from their experiences.

[aworld-inpink]

just a quick warning, I do read most of the cast as trans in some way, especially the siblings, so if you get easily triggered by stuff like that, just don't interact please 😸

please be respectful of the space I have curated ★

Trans Obey Me! Headcanons ("brothers" edition)

Lucifer:

transmasc Luci genuinely brings me so much joy

like, the idea of him being the oldest and first to come out?

im in love

Lucifer is one of the more cut and dry ones to me

but I do love people who draw/write him as transfem, theyre the biggest troopers ever

Luci definitely acts as the main support for a lot of the others

especially when it comes to appointments for hormones

he/him, FtM

Mammon:

i am so insanely obsessed with this man

me and him are t4t trust

nah, but for realz

trans guy Mammon with the COOLEST top surgery scars, you will not catch them lacking

probably got a sick ass tattoo to give them a cool shape too

similar to the white on his chest in his demon design

off topic, but chubby Mammon actually makes me 🤤

need to be squished between his thighs yesterday bro

jjhjhjhjh they're so handsome look at that little guy go

i feel like he would say his pronouns are he/him but secretly wouldn't mind they/them also

he just feels like he would be seen as less of a guy

i love them

he/they, FtM (and so devastatingly bisexual (affectionate))

Levi:

everybody say thank you to Levi for inventing being transgender

she ..... she's my everything

if Mammons my boyfriend she's my wife bro

(Mammons my favourite, Levi just has more whimsy)

gamer girl

i NEED her bathwater gang you don't understand ......

i made a whole post about transfem Levi, you should check it out ;)

tho trans guy Levi also has a special place in my heart and my bed (he's just like me fr)

do you wanna know the good that flat girl Levi would do for the ecosystem??

it would end climate change

she/her, MtF, Ruri chan was her trans awakening (half joking (not really))

Satan:

oh Satan the demon that you are

yknow they do say that Satan invented the gays

this NERD

book lover? likes cats? BLONDE?

how much more she/he/they can you get bro

demon born out of hatred, aged from transgenderism

that's all I'm saying

do you think Satan would feel the need to tie himself down to one specific gender identity?

fool.

Satan is everything and Satan is nothing

she/he/they, shrugs (genderfluid would be most accurate, but they're mostly unlabeled)

Asmo:

see the fandom argues about Asmo all the time

"is it ethical to headcanon them as trans just cause they're feminine?"

well, no, not necessarily, but that's besides the point

Asmo's similar to Satan in the way of not being tied to one specific gender or expression

but I feel like she's much more aligned to being a guy than Satan is

like, he doesn't mind other pronouns and sometimes enjoys them

but I think she's bigender with a heavy masc lean

expression wise he's more fem, but gender wise she's more masc

she/him, bigender and so full of love

Beel:

him.

i. i love him so much.

he's genuinely one of the sweetest characters in the game, and someone I would genuinely like irl

anyways however

I feel like this one is very stereotypical of me

cause this is the same headcanon as most of the trans part of the fandom

but Beel is so very trans man

like, didn't have top surgery just exercised to turn his boobs into pecs typa trans man

he's so powerful

and so lovely

and so, so transgender

he/him, FtM

Belphie:

similar to Levi, I do actually have a separate post just about Belphie

so if you want a less brief headcanon, check it out

anyways

Beel and Belphie are both trans to me, even in scenarios when I don't see the others as such

but my thing about Belphie is massively projection and based off my own identity

I think Belphie is also trans, but doesn't pass, doesn't want surgery, and doesn't necessarily want testosterone

like, I think he would feel a bit isolated from his siblings, especially Beel sometimes, since they're all relatively passing

but Beel would reassure him and they would cuddle on bad dysphoria days together, tons of snacks piled onto the bed for Beel and movies on autoplay for background noise :)

he/him, nonbinary

[yourstrulyray]

hi do you want to talk abt isaac.

basically i'm writing a cbs ghosts fic with a focus on some original characters but with a lot of nisaac and plenty of the entire cast in general

it'll have a lot of isaac's pov as well, with his thoughts about two people who can be openly queer in the modern era

but. since ive only watched like,, probably less than half of the show. i thought talking to someone else abt it could help me characterise everyone?? i also just want to talk abt it bc it's kind of a fixation right now haha

no pressure though!! hope you have a nice day

AAAAA yes please i would love to talk about my son hehdhd

let me list out some timelines pre-death first :3

isaac's marriage to beatrice: before or during 1773 the american revolutionary war: 1775-1783 nigel's death: 1776 isaac's death: 1777

so since the start of season 1, despite isaac's efforts we could all still see the fact he does not find women attractive (he literally called his wife, beatrice a handsome woman) so we're thinking bad comphet for our guy here.

(this only applies pre-nisaac) there are five male ghosts of the main cast, so when they all collectively agree that one girl is attractive (maybe not pete), isaac naturally plays along with it, but. plays along badly. everyone could tell that he did not find that girl attractive

as during nisaac, he is still obviously hesitant to be open because he had never been in a relationship with another man. a homosexual relationship. but not only is he hesitant, he is scared.

why is he scared? take a guess of what punishment you'd get for being gay in the 1770s (especially 1776).

the death penalty.

and we all know our guy isaac likes to talk about himself, he was so heavily disappointed to see that all he was in history was a footnote, and how he was jealous that his rival, hamilton, got a whole MUSICAL made about him (isaac loves musical theatre so thats twice the angy) so it's reasonable for him to be scared of death.

but hes already dead, why still be scared?

i actually dont know why but it's probably muscle memory for isaac to pretend. maybe he only found out that queerness was legalized/modernized through sam, not even through the recently dead ones. gotta hand it to him though i cant keep up a facade for more than a century XD

anyway, him being hesitant isn't the only problem, it's also the way he handles his relationship with nigel. his only other serious relationship was with a woman he wasn't even romantically interested in, so he has no healthy base to rely his current relationship with. also, his god-forsaken terrible communication skills, bros been pretending so much that even his personal feelings should be hidden 😭🙏 who hurt u man?

honestly his poo communication skills can still be linked back to his marriage with beatrice. maybe he had no problem with her, therefore no feelings were required to be shared, and he didn't have the need to communicate. but with nigel is a whole different situation.

oh yeah speaking of nigel, like isaac he doesn't have a healthy basis for a relationship. in this case, he previously was in a homosexual relationship, but it was only a sexual (?) one (with jenkins, but idk about the sexual part so jenkins fans back me up 🙏🙏).

we do see in the series that isaac is taking baby steps in the relationship, as opposed to nigel who rushes the starting-to-adjust stage, because this isn't his first gay relationship (whos gonna tell him) which then results to isaac having certain feelings about it, which then results to isaac not communicating as to pretend he can manage their relationship.

one thing about isaac's "certain feelings", it's usually about little things not even serious stuff. he had gone on many respites (temporary break up) with nigel because of their political beliefs (TGE WAR FUCKING ENDED GET OVER IT), hobbies, and personal likes. instead of adjusting to each other, they still choose to follow what they want instead of each other's wishes.

so, TLDR; nigel and isaac, despite having been in previous relationships, are doodoo at expressing themselves and adjusting to one another. (boo)

if you'd like the characterization of the other ghosts/sam and jay, my askbox is open at all times!! :3

[mimithelion]

I love furina so much, I hate the infantalization of her sm it's not even funny. I was talking about this to my friend yesterday and it's genuinely infuriating, so let's start

1. Her backstory was extremely sad and it made the fandom feel sympathy for her (as it should). But it really does get to a point. The fandom instantly started babying her and turning her into a "Traumatized silly who eats cake 🥺". I really hate to bring this up, but regarding how people in the fandom treat neuvifuri just says it all. "Furina's literally his daughter" She's a grown ass woman who's his FRIEND 😭. That is a popular headcanon, one that I genuinely hate because it's literally just another way y'all baby her. The fanart with this headcanon just says it all, with furina being extremely short and being insufferable to neuvilette for some reason.

2. The reaction you get when you find her attractive in the same way people find characters like yelan, chlorinde and ei attractive. She's short (like most of the female cast) and flat chested so people think that makes her a child. "She's cute not hot" it low-key just shows how half you people who were "excited" about her not being oversexualized and having normal body proportions aren't actually all that accepting, because the second you aren't curvy like the other female characters, they instantly see them as a child.

3. "She's one of wriolette's children!" ☠️ No hate to normal wriolette enjoyers but the main reason why this fandom sees her as a child is because of this ship. For some reason, this fandom thinks female characters get in the way of gay ships, so they have to make them pick-mes or children. Same thing in the hsr fandom, with mozeqiu and how they babied feixiao.

4. 98% of her fanbase has an extreme victim complex and it's genuinely concerning. Most of the genuinely bad Furina hate stopped after 4.2 when her backstory was released. Everyone had a valid reason to dislike furina before her backstory dropped because nobody likes an 'bratty' archon who SEEMINGLY does not do their job, especially after a lot of us were hyped for a female character who could do her job instead of abusing her people for a couple hundred years and then instantly being forgiven..⚡ "proud to say I never hated furina" I know 50% of people who say ts are lying LMAO. She's also a fictional character. Dislike her if you want, you're not a misogynist.

5. Too much focus on her trauma, it's been months, I get it, it's tragic, but what else? Y'all done gave her the aventurine treatment and then claimed to love her ☠️

6. I understand headcanoning her as aroace for fun but I can tell when it's because y'all don't like a certain ship, it's just another way to baby her. "She needs healing, not a boyfriend!" And it's coming from a wriolette shipper?? Neuvilette needs healing too but I don't see you headcanoning him as aroace. Fandom acts like significant others are just people who hurt you more, like you can heal WITH the person bro 😭👻.

Anyways, thanks for reading, Mimi blesses you :3

@ironunderstands friend I talked to yesterday go follow them 🧍🏽‍♀️

[wizardnaturalist]

I am not about to sit here and claim that any work is above reproach, but so many criticisms of RENT are either directly addressed within the show or are just. not true. and this perennial discourse about how Problematic it is annoys me, so here we go

Why don't they just pay the rent?

are you kidding me

did you watch the show??

they don't have any money

the situation established at the beginning is that Benny has allowed them to stay in their apartment rent free for the past year because Roger was unable to work and he and Mark wouldnt be able to afford living expenses as well as Roger's medication otherwise.

Benny then tells them that unless they break up Maureen's protest, they will not only have to immediately start paying rent, they will also have to pay back the entire previous year's rent or else be evicted

needless to say if you ware barely scraping by, you do not have a year's worth of rent and then some just sitting on hand

Mark was cosplaying poverty, he could've gone back to his parents' house at any time.

perhaps

all we know about Mark's parents from canon is that theyre pushy and he doesnt want to live with them. We don't know any details of their living situation or home life

but even if he would have been fine moving back home, it would have meant abandoning both the community he had grown into, and Roger.

Roger literally had not left the apartment since April died, and was not well enough to work to support himself at the time. Mark leaving would mean leaving Roger without support.

Mark's view of the homeless is often voyeuristic and expoitative.

yah

the conflict between Mark's comparatively privileged upbringing and the poverty amongst which he now lives is a major part of his character

remember when that homeless lady told him to fuck off

that didnt just slip in by accident

The whole show is about not being able to afford things, and then Mark quits his job for his Ideals.

Mark was not entirely jobless before being employed at the magazine. He wasn't going from having a job to unemployment. He always had money for food, clothes, medication, etc., even if it was tight

he just wasn't employed in his field. it wasnt a question of Having A Job or Not; it was about whether Mark was willing to accept the chance to get closer to making a living off of his art, even if it went against his morals, or whether he could be content carving out filmmaking for himself in a way that felt right

I thought Jonathan Larson was gay and died of AIDS.

not his fault??

neither Larson nor his estate ever claimed either of those things, you just jumped to a conclusion and made it everyone elses' problem

I can't believe this is a common "criticism"

A straight man has no right to write about the AIDS epidemic.

I dont know how to tell you this, but AIDS is not a gays-only disease. what are you, a politician from 1986?

RENT was not about being gay, it was about the disease. Roger, Mimi, Mark, and Benny- half the main cast- are all straight as far as the audience is aware. other than gay people, the most at-risk groups at the time were IV drug users, sex workers, people of colour, and impoverished people, all of whom are represented in the show

Larson may not have had AIDS, but many of his friends and loved ones did, and died of it. how incredibly callous to say that someone cannot write about the tragedy they personally lived through, just because they are not of the demographic you most associate with it

Larson plagiarized the whole cast and all the major story beats from Sarah Shulman's People in Trouble.

this is one that cropped up on tiktok a couple years ago

have you read the book?

I have

the only similarities are that they are both about poverty and AIDS in New York, and there are characters who cheat on their partners. that's it.

it's like saying Veep plagiarized The West Wing because theyre both about white house staffers. or like those guys who claim any fantasy story featuring swords and the hero's journey is a Star Wars ripoff. it' absurd.

RENT is directly and openly based off the opera La Bohème by Puccini, as well as incorporating autobiographical elements from Larson's life

stop just repeating things you hear

in conclusion: there are real criticisms and analyses to be had with RENT, but these are not them

[its-tea-time-darling]

things i did NOT like about shadow and bone (netflix):

the darkling looks Old. he's supposed to look the same age as all the other main protagonists. this highlights alina's future of staying the same & young where everyone around her dies. it also blurs the line between good and evil more bc 'oh he's the older bad guy' is just such an easy solve. also while ben barnes is a snack imo the darkling was supposed to have a more alluring, youthful magnetism.

making genya's scars barely a few scratches. she's supposed to objectively have lost her former self perfected beauty!!! this is a thing!!! she doesn't just have some deep scars, she's supposed to look hideous at first sight, where is show adaptation teams' courage to show characters that are supposed to be mutilated as just that???? i promise audiences can survive on literally everyone else on the cast being very stereotypically pretty/handsome 🙄🙄🙄🙄

changing wesper's storyline so that they had a one night stand before canon sets in??? what kind of bullshit is that??? fucking robbing me of the "just girls?" -"not just girls" gay ANgST will they won't they, does jesper like him too, will they ever - BAM. KISS. !!!!!!! succession??? making wylan cute and awkward does NOT compensate their book storyline At All what were those show writers thinking??? 😭😭

this one i will forgive but i still rly liked it in the books so im a tad sad they didn't manage to include it: that alina has a time where she thinks she is morozova's second daughter's descendant. in many respects she has learned she is Special, and the shame she feels when she realizes this isn't another one of these cases, this isn't a way to finally show her A Path, that in this respect she is ordinary and mal is tied to fate that way, that's just such a good touch.

malina going seperate ways. what happened to "they had an ordinary life full of ordinary things--if love can ever be called that."????? "choice is true north" my ASS 😤😤😤😤 malina have always been in love and will always be in love idc abt the firebird amplifier thing that was just sth they had to do they've always been people and they've always loved each other there is no way around it

things i DID like about shadow and bone (netflix)

david and genya. specifically the delivery of the lines "I … I don’t understand half of what goes on around me. I don’t get jokes or sunsets or poetry, but I know metal. Beauty was your armor. Fragile stuff, all show. But what’s inside you? That’s steel. It’s brave and unbreakable. And it doesn’t need fixing. You don't need fixing."

genya telling the queen how she poisoned the king, and genya spitting at nikolai how his apologies are of no use and that he needs to prove a better king. generally just genya. 💞

nikolai sending his mother away + what he says to her.

all the malina flashbacks to the meadow <33

malina last night together 😳😳 they love each other sm!!!!!

the scene at morozova's home. baghra sharing her past, all the reveals happening there, and of course the darkling weeping over his mother's body. "know that i loved you. know that it wasn't enough." like OkAY.

sankta neyar's speech. so deeply touching, and doesn't just apply to immortals but to all of us who have been hurt and suffered loss before.

the darkling begging alina to let him be her monster. A+ delivery.

"How will you have me? Fully clothed, gloves on, your head turned away so our lips can never touch? I will have you without armour, Kaz Brekker. Or I will not have you at all." generally the entirety of kanej in this show. inej's hallucination. the mirroring to the last scene. breathtaking showstopping flawless.

little rabbit.

[michixoxo]

"𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩'𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙚𝙩𝙝𝙣𝙞𝙘𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙨𝙚𝙭𝙪𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮?"

what is the unO main cast's ethnicity's and sexualities?

Sera

bi queen

the head of the bisexuals actually

perfect arc sera probably had a hint that she liked girls but shoved it so down into her soul that pretty much no one would've guessed

she probably tried forcing herself to like arlo but that lasted for like 30 minutes at best...

during cripple john, she probably didn't really care about her sexuality, only being able to finally admit she liked girls.

she's not in the closet anymore really, she just doesn't tell anyone about it unless they specifically ask.

she's never brought up anything sexuality related with her parents. leilah did once and it didn't go over very smoothly.

her childhood gay awakening was shego from kim possible

she's russian but lived in the U.S. for her entire life

she doesn't speak the language but can understand certain common words and learned multiple swear words from leilah when they were kids

John

omnisexual brat

he never really cared about the genders of people he liked

he'd just see someone and think they were hot, regardless of what they presented themselves as.

though, i think his kryptonite is most definitely boobs

he blushes pretty much whenever a pretty girl talks to him

when he was younger he had the teenest, tinest crush on zirian for like two months or so

but it quickly went out the window once he dethroned him

he also may have a thing for people stronger than him, both ability wise and physical wise

he was never really in the closet so to speak, he once asked his dad if it was normal to like both guys and girls and william was the most supportive dad ever about it all

he makes jokes that make it obvious he likes guys as well, but he'll only specifically state his sexuality when asked about it.

his childhood gay awakening was shang from Mulan.

he's half-german half-american, at least thats what his dad tells him

he only really considers himself american since he doesn't know his mom

william tried both learning german himself and teaching it to john but john got bored so fast that it was a complete waste of time

like sera, he knows a few swear words and will just shout them out randomly

Arlo

bi king

so far into the closet its actually insane

at least he's well dressed (unlike a certain joker cough cough)

he definitely didn't understand anything about being gay or whatever. his parents aren't too conservative but they definitely didn't teach nor tell him anything about same sex love, and not in a positive light anyway.

he barely had any girl crushes and almost never any guy crushes, so he didn't even think about his sexuality at all.

until he entered wellston and became a little too involved with a certain blue haired king (fly high rei)

he gay panicked so hard the first time he saw rei without a shirt on, like his entire body malfunctioned and started convulsing.

till tomorrow, he'll never come out. he might have some internalized homophobia and be concerned about how the people closest to him might view him, especially his aunt.

the closet is sealed shut and bulletproof at this point

his childhood gay awakening was both aladdin and prince eric

he's french and has all the audacity of a parisian

he speaks the language pretty fluently already and takes french class at wellston for the easy grade.

he lived in Paris until he was 7 and learned to suppress his accent a lot, though it comes out whenever he's extremely pissed.

he just screams in a raspy parisian accent and its either extremely hot or viscerally terrifying depending on who you ask

Remi

pansexual girlboss

she loves everyone with no preference at all

shes always just been really non-judgemental about everything and so kind

"omg he's so cute! wait he's non-binary? omg they're so cute!"

like John, she'd just see someone and think they were cute, regardless of their gender

she remembers having her first crush on a girl at 13.

remi: mom, can i start dating yet?

mama lightning: ABSOLUTELY NOT! no boys until you're 30!

remi: ...well do I have news for you

speaking of girl crushes, I think the wellston lesbians love her. like, she's friendly, pretty, and strong to the point where its intimidating but not absolutely terrifying.

evie probably wrote fanfics about her and posted them on ao3

this sweetiepie also might've had a crush on perfect arc seraphina for about a month, but she quickly got over it once she saw just how different their idealogies and personalities were.

her childhood gay awakening was calhoun from wreck it ralph

her parents are both canadians and she made trips to both vancouver and quebec to visit family very regularly.

she picked up a little quebecois and tried speaking it to arlo. she still remembers the absolute look of disdain he gave her.

Blyke

demisexual malewife

he never felt anything like love at first sight, even towards remi

it takes a lot for him to begin liking someone, even platonically. he isn't the nicest guy and wasn't all that interested in making many friends, especially very surface level ones.

that said, he didn't really think much of it. his sexuality wasn't ever really on his mind.

it wasn't until remi that he knew what it meant to really, truly like someone. from the way they blinked to the way they breathed.

it was like his eyes were opened for the first time in a long, long while.

that said, he was low-key kinda afraid to tell his mom about it.

he just didn't want it to change anything, didn't know if it was important enough that he should even waste his time on telling her.

but when he did finally, it didn't go how he expected.

blyke: mom, I think I'm like, demisexual... or something...

blyke's mom: demisexual and still can't get a boyfriend nor a girlfriend? bless your heart

blyke: that's not even what it's.... y'know what? idk why I bother

his childhood gay awakening was Danny from Danny phantom

WHAT THE FUCK IS A KILOMETER?!?!? 🦅🦅🦅

american born and raised in the mid-west

he was really confused the first time isen came over to his dorm and blyke slapped his hands on his knees and said "welp, guess it getting past my bedtime." and the dumbass responded with "it's like 7:00, are you a child?"

he then reverted to saying get the fuck out

Isen

queer prick

the most non-committal person to ever exist

went on a tangent about how "gender and sexuality constructs make people feel inclined to label themselves as something to fit into the boxes society sets up for them-"

blyke started fake snoring just to piss him off.

he's out of the closet only to his close friends like remi and blyke

his parents are conservative so he pretty much assumes that they wouldn't support him.

he isn't as upset about it as he was when he first figured it out, he guesses that's just how the world works, and he got the short end of a straw.

he's gay panic personified. he kinda thought arlo was hot after the fork incident, but it multiplied by like 100x when his growth spurt hit.

he's equal parts terrified and equal parts enamored.

same thing with cecile, there's no way he didn't show up to the press club on his first day, get absolutely berated by cecile for a shit article he showed her, and then came back for more the next day.

for some reason I always saw him as latino.

like he'd just randomly start cursing people (arlo) under his breath in spanish.

blyke will ask him for notes and he'll say okay just to write it all in spanish.

blyke: what the fuck is this dude. you fucking know I cant understand this shit

isen: sounds like a skill issue

[blackbird-brewster]

CM Unpopular Opinions

Just a couple of weeks out from the new season, the new trailer just dropped, and people are getting hyped. For last season, I made a CME predictions post (which mostly came to pass, bc this show is so predictable) -- but this season, I'm going to post some unpopular opinions going into S17. Don't like, don't read.

WILL. Since we know Will won't be in this season, there have been speculations that JJ/Will will be getting a divorce, or that Will is going to die. I do NOT want Will to die. I hate that guy, I've never liked his character, but you know who I do love? JJ. She has already been through SO much, I do NOT want Hotch 2.0 in S17. I don't want Will to die, because that would be like ripping half of JJ's soul out of her chest and she deserves better. What I actually think will happen -- is just that Will is going back to being an off-screen partner like he was for most of the series.

JEMILY. I've already written my thoughts on Paget's Jemily hints on social media and why I think that's simply queerbaiting. There's no way Jemily is going to be canon, and I am HAPPY about that. I don't want Jemily to be canon!! Look at how this show treats canon relationships!! How many female romantic interests have been tortured and killed???? Why would I ever want Jemily in that crossfire? Also, as a fanfic author who has been writing Jemily for the past decade -- I don't want them to become canon, because that will squander so much creative potential. Fic authors fill in the gaps and subtext of canon, that's our job, when a relationship becomes canon it really loses it's appeal. That being said, I would love to actually see Emily and JJ interacting again. S16 really ignored their decade-long friendship altogether. Shit, I would love to just see them in the same fricking scene again.

REBECCA. All I want is for Rebecca to survive this season. As mentioned above, the way this show treats romantic interests of main characters is HORRIBLE. I'm forever furious with how the show handled Tara/Rebecca's relationship last season. I know fans hated Rebecca for getting pissed at Tara, but I still don't agree. What I do hate is how as soon as Tara's queerness served it's plot point (getting the inmate to admit he's gay too) -- the show nuked Tara's relationship altogether. I seriously love Rebecca, I think she adds a lot to the show. And since we already know Rebecca is in S17, I would LOVE to see Tara/Rebecca sit down and actually talk through their issues (like real adults!). I would LOVE for them to get the happy ending they deserve.

GARCIA'S ROMANCE. For real, I do not care about any of this love triangle bullshit with Garcia between Tyler and Luke or whatever tf is happening. I seriously hated what they did to Garcia's character in S16, it felt like they completely erased the prior 15 years from her character and replaced it with the most basic hetnormative romance plot. I don't ship Garvez (nor her and Tyler), so I don't really care about that side of things. But I would LOVE to get our Garcia back. I miss her so much.

RETURNING CHARACTER RUMORS. If one of the past cast members comes back in S17 I do not want it to be MGG. CME already focused an entire season on Rossi's man-pain (literally the only reason they killed Krystal was for him to be angry 🙃). I do NOT want another season of white-male centric plot lines (even though that's clearly what's gonna happen with Voight) If anyone actually comes back to guest, I want it to either be Matt or Derek. Alternatively, I do have a crack theory that the unsub/Gold Star is actually Elle Greenaway. A trained government assassin, she became a vigilante after leaving the BAU and she's been operating for all these years without detection. Now THAT would be a good twist.

Listen, overall, I'm not looking forward to another season of Evolution. I think they're trying way too hard to turn CM into some edgy, gritty, Norwegian-type crime drama and in doing so, they've ruined some of my favourite characters irrevocably. I don't have high hopes for S17.

[chuunijianghuyuri]

One of the wonderful things about When They Cry is not only how Ryukishi07 noticably improves as an author and builds upon his themes and ideas from his previous works, but also how each successive work gets more blatantly queer than the last.

Higurashi has quite a bit of plausable deniability on whether its characters are lgbtq. The most obvious ones are Furude Rika and Houjou Satoko for each other, but this can plausibly be denied by someone who doesn't see it without too much of a strech in the original eight episodes. Personally I'd argue that literally the entire main cast of girls are lgbtq of some kind except maybe Hanyuu, but each of those arguments do require interpretation. This is Higurashi from 2002.

Umineko gets more blatant with explicitly queer characters, more often on the magic side but there are some on the human side as well. It's a coinflip on whether Zepar or Furfur is trans (though some clowns will use real life voice actors to try to give a definitive answer). Bernkastel and Lambdadelta are notorious toxic witch lesbians. Furudo Erika and Dlanor are in a less explicit relationship that's a bit dicey at times and coming after Furudo Erika's unpleasant breakup with her boyfriend. Williard seems to be in a relationship with Ushiromiya Lion by the end even as Ushiromiya Lion explicitly states they're unsure of their gender and or don't want to say on the matter and Williard accepts that without hesitation and explicitly states that the audience should too. Ushiromiya Ange has a relationship with Mammon that can be interpreted as romantic as well, and with the open ended ending of her future, one can imagine Ushiromiya Ange as all sorts of sexuality and potentially still in that relationship with Mammon if not closer. And then of course there's Yasuda Sayo or as I'd like to call the queerest and most gender and sexuality character of all time. If I tried to count their potential queer identities, I'd probably miss at least one or two, but they ain't straight and they ain't cis even if their individual personalities might be. There's even more that you could say about the themes of Umineko overall that also tend to involve Yasuda Sayo to some extent, but I'll leave it there. By the latter half of Umineko or the answer arcs, some people reading at the time were wondering basically "Where'd all this gay shit come from?" among other things. Some people couldn't handle it at the time and many still can't, and some are somehow still in denial of Umineko's queerness to this day more than likely. This is Umineko from 2007.

Ciconia even with only one episode out and presumably an eighth of the way done by traditional When They Cry standards manages to be EVEN MORE explicitly queer within said one episode. This time, with no interpretation or any serious level of reading and understanding the text and characters needed, the main protagonists Mitake Miyao and Mitake Meow who share a body are either transgender one way or the other with Mitake Miyao being a boy and Mitake Meow being a girl. To this they're like Yasuda Sayo except they definitely know their sex, and like Ushiromiya Lion they'd rather not say at least yet. Mitake Meow's boyfriend Jayden respects this and that his girlfriend might be trans and that she can tell him and they can work whatever out when she's comfortable about it. There's a whole ass scene or so about this and is impossible to deny. Ciconia also mentions explicitly there being surgery to acquire a penis in the futuristic setting as well, and possibly even artificial wombs if I'm not mistaken too, things that are at the moment still medical hopes and dreams for so many trans people. There's also discussions about the struggles of lgbtq people as well as gay moments mostly among girls but even with a guy as well (not listing them partially because my memory of some of their names is fuzzy, lol). There's a pro yuri nun idol squad even who states that love has no bounds and yuri is the best thing ever essentially, you literally can't get more explicit and in the text than this unless your measure of gayness deems sex to be the epitemy and ideal of gayness at all times. I'm not even sure how you could be a queerphobic When They Cry fan without blatantly ignoring at least one work or malding about it constantly. This is Ciconia from 2019.

This post doesn't say much about Higurashi GouSotsu from 2020 because I haven't watched it myself, but that's pretty explicitly gay too and much more explicit than the original and makes the queer content in the original as well more blunt and obvious. Not necessarily recontexualization so much as a potential fragment that builds upon what was already previously alluded to for nearly two decades by that point.

To people who genuinely think any When They Cry work is definitively and undeniably straight...I really don't know what to tell you lol. Like there's room for intepretation for quite a bit of this including towards a cis or heterosexual explanation at times, but at some point you're just not reading the text very well to think that it's all just cis and straight and that the gays are just delusional somehow, lol.

[polycraftory]

Dragon Falls (How to Tame a Husband) by Davis Lavender

Reviewed by Meghan 💜

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.5/5 | 🌶️🌶️ 2/5

GENRE: Cozy Portal Fantasy REP: mlm, achillean demi male mc, gay male mc, queer scs CW: mentions of cheating, manipulation, minor injuries LENGTH: 357 pgs

If you are looking for a sweet and funny gay romcom in a fantasy setting, I highly recommend this book! It manages to deliver an interesting isekai / transmigration narrative with a cast of incredibly lovable characters. This is exactly the sort of novel I had wanted when I was growing up looking for queer romance in a fantasy setting. Added to that just a little bit of spice and a whole lot of humor. It's technically an adult novel, but it's a lighthearted one that is also light on the smut. Also, I desperately want this to be a new au setting so fanfic writers please read this. Overall, this is a delightful indie book that I am very glad I got. I really love this Rainbow Crate @rainbowcrate edition from their Cozy Fantasy box.

Below the cut you can find my full review! You can find more reviews like this on my Storygraph or in our "meghan reviews" tag. Check out our pinned post for links!

If you want to avoid spoilers skip the section labeled "The End".

The Main Characters / Core Romance Feliks is an incredibly relatable and very sweet ADHD hot mess. He isn't explicitly neurodivergent, but the way he describes his "brain squirrels" and the everything else about him was deeply relatable to me (my whole household is some flavor of neurodivergent). He is an absolute ray of sunshine, and he gets isekai-ed into a dragon riding warlord with the Ruthless as his moniker. It is incredibly funny to watch him try to do damage control on all the awful things that the old Ryszard did. To differentiate them both in the narrative and for the reader, Feliks has people start to call him Rys. I found him absolutely charming, even though he so often speaks before thinking and puts his foot in his mouth. I thoroughly enjoyed watching him win over everyone, including his husband. Also! He's demisexual and demiromantic! I have literally never read a book before where I saw myself represented like that! It was honestly so wonderful and validating even though its inclusion is very subtle.

Marek is a classic and wonderful example of the grumpy half of the grumpy/sunshine dynamic. He has incredibly good reasons not to trust his husband, who reappeared after being presumed dead for two years. Yet, he can't resist Rys' charm no matter how much he doesn't trust his husband's new polar opposite personality. From his best friend Kasia to the denhands he teaches, I enjoyed how much he cares for everyone despite being so very grumpy. I feel like that personality type tends to be portrayed as a loner, but Marek is at the heart of his community and they all adore him. The relationship between him and his dragon is also incredible, and there is quite a lot of humor in how infuriated he is that his dragon suddenly adores his husband who used to treat them both horribly. Rys calls their dragon Honey Bunny despite there being a Whole Thing (TM) about Dragons not being owned and therefore not being named. It does not at all infuriate Marek that his dragon now only responds to Bunny! Don't be ridiculous!

Their dynamic is everything you'd expect from this sort of grumpy/sunshine pair up, especially with the added component of Rys often saying exactly the wrong thing to Marek since he doesn't know their theoretically "shared" history from before he transmigrated into the story. Rys has absolutely no knowledge of the plot or world he gets thrown into at all, so it leads to quite a lot of unintentional hurt. Still, they have an incredibly sweet romance and both work hard for their happily ever after. For me, this was a very low spice book but I didn't come here for that.

The Worldbuilding I had to give this it's own section because the worldbuilding is so fun and I want people to immediately adopt this as a new fun AU setting for fanfiction. Only nobility can become Dragon Riders. In order to be a Rider, you have to court and marry yourself a Dragon Tamer. Each Tamer has one Dragon that they tame and train. Tamers can be anyone who earns the position, and they often start out as Denhands (basically, like, squires; they help with upkeep around the Den and help care for your dragon). Denhands get adopted by a Tamer and a Rider, so their entire family structure is based around the dragon riding system and I just think that's such a fun build! Once a Tamer and Rider get married, the Rider starts to bond with their dragon and learns how to ride. Once you are done training as a Rider, you have your final test which is the Claiming Ceremony. You take a leap of faith off the cliff and if your dragon catches you, you are a fully fledged Rider. If they don't, well, you fall to your death. Womp womp. Until their Claiming Ceremony, Tamers must protect their Riders from all harm so you get an extra layer of bodyguard romance. Seriously, I need this as an AU setting for every ship I've ever seen immediately. The Plot Very straightforward! Rys thinks his only way back to his world is to survive till his claiming ceremony so he can reuse the whistle at the top of the Falls to reopen the portal. Most of the narrative is a combo of the training leading up to the ceremony, the building romance, and Rys figuring out how to be a good husband (and father lol they adopt a kid. Damon/Demon I adore you). You also see Rys unravel all the harm the character he took over did to all the people of this training camp and home city. It has plenty of found family vibes, and honestly I loved the whole main cast. Overall, this was a very lighthearted plot even though murder / being trapped in another world / falling to his death were all theoretically on the table. The humorous tone keeps the plot from getting dark or serious. It has a good pace and was exactly the right amount of plot based on what I was expecting, which is basically a romcom in a fantasy setting.

The End Spoilers time! It almost goes without saying, but this is a nice, easy, unequivocal happily ever after. I was pleased that there was still plenty of book left after the climax. We got a really nice falling action with the main characters getting together and figuring out how to stay together. Also, this nicely side-stepped any of the usual portal fantasy or transmigration angst from having to choose between returning to their world and staying with their love interest. Feliks/Rys gets to have the best of both worlds since he has a portal he can open and close with the whistle reforged. I do wish we got to see Marek meet his brother and mother, I am dying to know how that went. Also, my edition had a nice little bonus story, The Trouble With Tybald, about two of the side characters getting together as well as a closer peek at the side romance between Demon (Rys and Marek's son) and the son of the bartender. It was a fun little surprise snack at the end, even though the bonus content wasn't for the main couple!

[grifff17]

Audiodrama Sunday 5/5/2023

Most of what I listened to this week was binging season 2 of Mockery Manor, but there was some new stuff too. I decided to get on the boat I missed the first time around and listen to the Re: Dracula rerelease.

I spent a lot of time listening to season 2 of @longcatmedia's Mockery Manor. I finished the season, and I really liked it. I love Margot, she is such a good character. This show does a great job distinguishing character voices, especially with so few VAs. There is a very large cast but it's still always clear who is talking. This show also has great music, you can tell that this team also made a musical (Check out The Ballad of Anne and Mary if you like gay pirates!). Give Us a Smile Love has been stuck in my head for the last week.

The first episode of @midnightburgr miniseries Welcome To The Horizon came out! I can tell that I'm going to love this show. I'm curious how it's going to tie in to the main show. Young Leif became relevant in the finale of the last season, so we'll see where this goes. Related to that, what is Verge doing here?

This week's @midstpodcast was a lot. The narrators just fully losing control of the narrative was very funny. The visceral descriptions of Weep as Imelda fawned over him were so dissonant. Highly recommend checking out this week's bonus content, it's very entertaining.

Spout Lore this week was really funny. I laughed out loud at the Swamp Heron and Morgan Freeman jokes. I also can't wait to see Billie's hometown, we're so far into the show to have never gone there. I guess we've kinda seen spirit Billie's home, but this is the other half of Billie's home.

We're nearly at the end of the Dear Liisphyra season. This was a fun episode, making fun of online personality quizzes. I'm excited for the callback episode, it's going to be changing up the format of the show which is interesting.

I decided to listen to @re-dracula this year! Last year I didn't hear about it until it was half over, and it felt too late to start. I know very little about Dracula, so it will be an interesting experience.

New SCP: Find Us Alive this week too. I liked Love and Harley improvising silly party guests, which also made me realize that this show has not referenced pretty much any other SCPs, including the well-known ones. I think that this was a cool decision, to intentionally focus on a small aspect of the world and not acknowledge the rest.

That's all for this week. Next week I'm probably going to catch up on Breaker Whiskey, listen to some Skyjacks: Courier's Call, and maybe listen to the Mockery Manor miniseries.

[tiffany-smith]

You know, what's cool about Order of the Stick is that it dares to be a story where only half the major characters are in a romantic relationship. (Less, depending on who counts as 'major.' I'm counting just members of the Order here, not Team Evil or the various characters like the paladins, Hilgya, or Minrah they've picked up on the way.)

Haley and Elan are, like, the "token representation" characters. Roy gets tossed a girlfriend bc he's the hero ig? She's rarely around.

V had a spouse who was known about for a while offscreen, got three pages onscreen and promptly served divorce papers.

Durkon? Had an affair one (1) night which resulted in a kid 1000 strips and two irl decades later, the mom wants nothing to do with him. Otherwise probably completely celibate.

Belkar will sleep with anyone and romance nobody.

None of the paladins have relationships. Not even O-Chul and Lien, or Hinjo and Lien.

None of the long-lost parent figures are still in a relationship. Elan's parents are divorced and Tarquin had like nine wives (none onscreen, also he's Evil about it). Haley's mom and Durkon's pa are dead. Who KNOWS abt Belkars parents. Roy's are both dead and took 'till death do us part' with gusto.

None of the airship crew have any romances (except for the one throwaway gay couple who got one panel of screentime).

Team Evil does not do any of that. Not Xykon, not Redcloak, not the monster in the dark, not Jirix. Tsukiko was the only one with any relationship drive, and she got brutally murdered (unrelated reasons).

Straining to remember any other romantic relationships ever.

OH! Sabine and Nale! (But that also specifically parallels Haley and Elan, like they explicitly said 'evil opppsites.')

Therkla fell in love with Elan and it was not reciprocated (?) (he cared abt her but not like that. Not to cheat on Haley.)

The gods have their whole thing I suppose but that hardly counts.

Not even Julia, the high school hottie, is ever mentioned having a significant other.

There is one (1) actually married couple. Two soldiers who were nameless until they took offense to being called nameless soldiers and changed it. They got married and she's pregnant.

Order of the Scribble had one couple.

The cast is SO HUGE and there is SO LITTLE romance. Only half of the six-member main cast is in a relationship. Unheard-of. And of the huge cast of side characters, there are 3 only stable relationships. That's all! THATS ALL!

I love it.

Thats the real aspec rep: not just one character who doesn't care, but a whole world where that's Not The Focus.

Instead, OOTS focuses very strongly on familial relationships. Parent (singular) and child(ren). Siblings (twins). Aunts and uncles, even.

And in the midst of all that... the platonic bonds of deep friendship forged between the main cast.