#also 'but we need bi rep'. yeah more bisexual rep would be great!

[dc-lot-correct-quotes]

Anyways reminder that gary green is canonically PANSEXUAL and I won't be reblogging anything that says he's bi.

[ratguy-nico]

I read this today and many thoughts came to mind so yeah this is another rambling.

'til this day I don't get over the fact that only last year we had the Last Season of The Owl House, the rushed end of one of the greatest series of the decade, that could have mark a new course for many series yet to come, the spiritual successor of another of the greatest series of all Gravity Falls.

The Owl House was released in 2020 just four years ago and it was cancelled in 2022, two years ago, presumable cause it had too much representation for Disney's taste.

This is obviousley not confirm, but everyone in the industry and Dana Terrace herself had made clear that this was the main reason.

All this just 2 years ago, many like to say we live in a time were LGBT+ community had all the representation they need, that everything is gay now days and and that this excess of representation is becoming tedious. And then this is a case from fucking 2 years ago.

It just so sickening, to think that yeah we have representation nowdays but it has to be a certain tipe of rep, it can not be too much, in the Owl House I think there was just one straight couple in the main cast, it has not to be too on the nose, gods forbid for the main character to be gay, lesbian, bi or the non existent trans representation, and it cannot be normal, if you are gay it has to be your main trait, your whole life, you have to have like many crisis as you can and have a whole out of the closet episode, it has to be the revelation of the century.

I still remeber Alex Hirsch puteando a Disney cause they didn't let him do many things he wanted with his own serie, among them the relationship betweenm the two town sheriffs, one of the cutest things in the show, and very funny too.

Alex Hirsch has always been very vocal about he's own despite for Disney as a creator that work for them. And thats why I love him.

I still remeber cartoon network forbidding Rebecca Sugar to say that the Gems were womans, cause that would imply that all the gems were lesbians and that was a totally No No for fricking Cartoon Network, the one everyone point when saying is only Disney the non inclusive one.

(why they never bring this back? what is wrong with Steven Universe?)

Though this end like a tiro en la culata which means backfire cause suddenly the gems were non binary or no gender which was fricking funny cause even more hard to explain XD

This also happened with Adventure Time, another Cartoon serie, were everyone was lost whith the Bublegum and Marcy kiss in the last episode, cause we were told they had a relationship in fricking Season 3 but no, they didn't tell explicitly that they were in a romantic relationship, cause you know... lesbian equal bad.

Their relationship keep getting explore and we had amazing episodes with this two navigating their feelings for each other, the past mistakes in their relationship and how to become better together. But all this while not telling us that they love each other, cause they weren't allow to tell us.

This is merely frustration on my part, I know we have better represantation nowdays, but... is not nearly enough, like I said, theres still close to non rep for ace or trans people, bisexual are getting better, though the rep still is plagued of horrible stereotype and fetization, but this is something lesbian and gays can have manage to avoid yet so what we expect.

So yeah we should celebrate our representation, and not let anyone tell us that is enough or too much, cause til this day the best ace representation I have seen comes from Todd from Bojack Horseman a serie from 2014 that ended in 2020, that set the bar and none had even try to fight, I hope Alastor become a better rep in this front, I really hope so. Lilith made an absolute great work, but sadley cause the serie was cut out we missed a lot of this character T^T

And Im not gonna talk about trans rep cause that's just sad.

I will always hold resentment to Disney cause of what they did to the Owl House, for sure, that something I hold near my heart everyday.

So yeah I totally use this persons post to talk about me me me, and I dont know them so prefer not to involve them in this.

And if you dont notice I keep this Animation Series only, cause theres too many series and I have not watch nearly enough, I know thers some with really good rep and others that are lit hot shit. So yeah the world is wild and full of shit.

Adventure Time 2010-2018

Gravity Falls 2012-2016

Steven Universe 2013-2019

Bojack Horseman 2014-2020

The Owl House 2020-2023

[akajustmerry]

How would you fix Lestat's bisexuality then?

[ARMAND VOICE] there is no fixing lestat('s bisexuality).

yeah this is why I don't really like talking about it because it's so baked in that there's no real use, and also it's pretty low on the list of priorities (personally I'd rather fix the racism first). moreover, the actual solution to the problem of bad bi rep is just more rep in general. lestat being bad bisexual representation wouldn't be a problem if representation for bi men wasn't so borderline non-existent. iwtv is probably the show I've seen with the most bi dudes in it ever (3, Armand, lestat, and Daniel) but excluding iwtv I'm aware of maybe 3 other current shows that have bi guy characters just living normal lives. My point is I don't need to take a hacksaw to the homophobia/biphobia of a character like lestat because, thankfully, we have other bi dude characters. Not many but they're around, thank the lord. We even have them in the show itself. like. I desperately want to arrive at a point in lgbt representation where lgbt people can be pieces of shit and it isn't marked as a symptom of their identity and I actually think iwtv is the closest I've ever gotten to a show like that. I truly believe that Anne Rice harboured deeply homophobic/biphobic sentiments that are very obvious in her books in the way her characters are written. However, I don't think the show is written that way. I genuinely think the show goes to great pains to show that the issues with these characters aren't their sexualities, it's that their flawed and shitty people. But I'm also aware those bigoted sentiments will never be fully exorcised from the story because they're so baked in because Anne Rice was weird about gay people. It's unfixable and honestly I don't want to fix it and I don't need to because last time I checked Lestat De Lyingcunt wasn't the only bisexual guy ever in all of media. let's celebrate that <3

[lady-lazagna]

I'm Concerned About Our LGBT Headcanons

If you take issue with this, I offer you some copium🤲

Despite most people in this (and pretty much every) fandom being LGBT to some degree, I've found that most of the widely accepted LGBT headcanons follow the same general pattern that is boringly stereotypical at least- and lowkey harmful at most. Seriously, they are all the same in every fandom, and it doesn't look like they're getting more diverse any time soon. I don't want my favourite fandom to be stuck in this mould, so I thought I'd share a few observations I've made about these stereotypes to see if we can avoid the more concerning ones and branch out a bit.

(Some of the problems listed aren’t really related to the Beyblade fandom, just thought I'd list out all of the issues I've seen for future reference.)

(Also, if you yourself happen to be similar to any of these stereotypes, then that's okay! You are a real person, not a character.)

To start us off, I'll introduce my absolute favourite example of this- the poster child of stereotypical headcanons (hcs), Voltron. You don't have to know anything about Voltron to understand this, just tell me if any of these sound familiar...

The Flirty One is Bi (Lance)

The Nice One is Pan (Hunk)

The Nerd is Ace/Aro (Pidge)

Any Androgynous Character is Nonbinary (Any of the fucking aliens)

Every other man is gay because it isn't as hot and sinful to ship a man with a woman as it is to ship one with another man(🙄) (Shiro and Keith)

And every other woman is a lesbian because there is a significant lack of women in this specific media and we're desperately starved for actual rep (and their relationships with each other are solely based on being the only two women in close proximity to each other) (Allura and Romelle)

Any familiarity there? I'm sure you found some, at least.

Look, if it just so happens that a character fits a certain mould and also feels a certain way to you then that's fine. It's not like we need to be constantly breaking stereotypes all the time. But when that's all the headcanons? All the time with every character? Then it's a problem.

We'll start with the first two- Bi and Pan. I'm not here to get into the whole Bi vs Pan debacle, but there are certainly elements here that fuel that fire. Namely that all the pansexual characters are the sweet and friendly ones while the bisexuals are... slutty? I guess?? Yeah... I can see why most bisexuals take issue with this.

There really isn't anything to determine whether you hc a character as bi or pan, so most people turn to personality. I'm sure you know this by now but in case you don't, THAT IS NOT HOW SEXUALITY WORKS. I am not a lesbian because I'm a stuck-up bitch (another great stereotype), I was just born this way. God put me in the randomiser and dealt me a shit hand, and now I can't talk to women.

ANYWAY… I know people choose the sexualities of characters/who to ship with who based on how they interact with other characters, but again, personality shouldn’t be a factor. For example, Lance from Voltron flirts with every woman he sees, and because people were so desperate to pair him with Keith, they just decided that he actually flirts with everyone, and thus is a bisexual bitch. The reality was actually that he was an insecure straight boy who thought getting bitches would make him cool, and any “flirting” that he did with the male characters was just him being snarky (y’all also need to stop taking being rude as secret attraction. Seriously. I get a little rival x rival is nice, but enemy x enemy is dodgy territory.)

As for Hunk, he’s the gentle giant kind of guy; he tries to be nice and friendly towards everyone he meets. Which of course, to the fandom, meant that he was open to a relationship with everyone. The idea that someone being nice to someone else means that they’re attracted to them is an insane concept that needs to die. Have we not learned this from the infamous Nice Guys?

Bisexual people aren’t inherently flirty just because they have more options open to them, and every friendly ray of sunshine isn’t pansexual. If you must decide which out of these two sexualities to give a character, flip a coin.

The stereotype that I have the biggest gripe with personally is the nerd being ace/aro, which is great because it appears in Every. Fucking. Fandom. Peridot from Steven Universe? Entrapta from She-Ra?? Twilight from My Little Pony??? And of course, Pidge from Voltron!

As funny as it is for everyone to collectively think "Wow, this dork gets no bitches" for every single nerd character, it's also kind of concerning- especially considering that the first two characters I mentioned are supposed to be autistic coded. Idk, it kind of gives "autistic people can't love or have sexual feelings" vibes. Like, people say "asexual people don't focus on sex, they focus on whatever they're biggest interest is!!!" Honey... that is an Autistic Person. "They don't waste time on talking to anyone because they're not attracted to them :D" My Brother in Christ… most of them don’t know How to communicate. And again, why do you think communication instantly means attraction, anyway?

Asexual and aromantic people don't have some common personality trait that makes them ace and aro, because again, personality has no correlation to sexuality. They could be literally anyone. Why don't you make any of the "attractive" characters ace, hm? Why not make the one who's fun, bubbly and friends with everyone aro? Let's expand our horizons a bit. Step away from the autistic dudes. Let us love, for once.

Another small issue I want quickly to point out is only headcanoning the younger characters as asexual. I shouldn’t have to point out why it is an issue, but if you can’t figure it out, ask yourself this: Why are the only asexual characters the ones that you can’t imagine having sex with each other? Sus.

The problem of only the alien/non-human characters being nonbinary isn’t really a Beyblade problem, since the show is severely lacking in aliens. I just wanted to point it out because, you know, nonbinary people are actually human, and only presenting them as otherwise is terribly harmful. There are obvious examples of this, like Double-Trouble from She-Ra and Stevonnie from Steven Universe. Just be wary of show creators that try to show off their inclusiveness by going “You see this literal monster we’re introducing? This amalgamation of two people? They’re an enby!” Like, my dude… just make a human. Any human. And then give ‘em the old “they/them.” It’s not hard.

Now that being said, we do still have a bit of a gender headcanoning problem in this here fandom- and not the neopronouns, 'cause I don't give a shit about those. The problem is when you take every gender nonconforming (gnc) character and make them nonbinary to some degree. There are two obvious problems with this:

Not every nonbinary person presents androgynously. Like my favourite quote from I don't know where says, "Nonbinary people don't owe you androgyny. They do, however, owe you a little dance or jig."

Not every androgynous person is nonbinary. Men and women can also, shockingly, present in ways that aren’t typically masculine or feminine.

What makes this quite a bit concerning to me is that most of the cast of Beyblade is male, so pretty much all of the gnc characters are male. So, when you take every male character that isn't completely masculine and think that they must be nonbinary... do you see the problem here?

Shockingly, men can actually be gnc. Crazy, right? Men can wear makeup, and have long hair, and have any speck of pink on their body and still be just a man. Yeah, it's fine to hc a few of them as nb (you are starved of representation, after all), but all of them? And none of the typically masculine men? Now you're just being unrealistic. Maybe Jack is just some dude who likes makeup. Maybe Tithi is just a five-year-old with pink hair. Maybe quirked-up white boy Chris is an enby. Idk. Going off of “vibes” alone is a bad idea, because we all know vibes is a fancy way of saying how they look in this instance.

This one definitely isn't just a Beyblade problem. In fact, something interesting *cough cough* offensive *cough* that I've noticed is that, in any fandom, it is usually only the canonically male characters that get this treatment. Why? Because when women are androgynous, they're lesbians. They have to be, right? If woman not lesbian then why woman have short hair? She imitate man!

Other than that fun one, though neither Voltron nor Beyblade have many women, there are still quite a few harmful stereotypes for us. Great. Other than the shoving two random girls together for the sake of it that I mentioned above, there is also:

The Soft™ lesbians, being completely infantilised, precious babies who don’t have any flaws or relationship problems. They’re just perfect and cute and sweet all the time and they have no personalities in themselves other than being in a wlw relationship.

And the Angry™ lesbian, any girl in the show that has a glimpse of power or anger. She’s a bitch, and men don’t like bitches, so she has to date a girl or be forever alone.

I think I’ll expand on more of my lesbophobic gripes another day, since a lot of them transcend stereotypical headcanons and go into straight-up villainy. But yeah, we’ll burn that can of worms when we lie in it.

In conclusion, headcanons are great, but we should all be wary about avoiding overused and/or harmful stereotypes. This is honestly why I think the best commonly accepted headcanon in this community is that Kyoya is trans, because it is solely based on the one (1) detail that makes it look like he's wearing a binder in Fury (although he does too much exercise for that to be healthy, so I like to think it's more of a sports bra).

Just some food for thought. Let me know if your brain is fed or if you have further questions.

[austajunk]

Please PLEASE go into detail about how protective he is over Chiaki!! I literally am begging to finally hear someone else actually acknowledge their friendship/relationship especially after having to deal with a pretty toxic anti-bi/pan Nagito rper I was on a server with for a good part of a year! (Sorry went kinda ranty but hopefully my anguish is understandable!)

Oh my lord, you’re giving me a chance to shine with my fixations?! I can’t thank you enough! Now, please understand that this is based on my perception of the series as I’ve played through the second game twice. I’m pretty good when it comes to being the person who has unpopular opinions and ships and I know claiming that Nagito is bi/pan/Demi is probably one of them. But honestly, it comes from the desire to see this boy get as much love as possible. Because he sure needs it.

Ultimately, Nagito’s sexuality is never canonly specified, so I think whether gay, bisexual, Pansexual, or what have you, we’re all well within our rights to just have fun and see what we want to in a really flawed and relatable character. And that’s what makes it interesting.

That being said, let’s talk about Nagito and Chiaki. Friendship or romantic, I don’t think you can deny that Chiaki is at least special to Nagito in some way.

Upon replaying the second game, I’ve realized how protective Nagito actually is towards Chiaki interestingly enough.

In chapter 2, she leaves to go question Fuyuhiko but Nagito stops her and tells her not to let Fuyuhiko get rough with her. Every time Chiaki’s skills help them advance, he deeply praises her. Even after he’s stopped praising all the others (which he does mostly after Chapter one, hinting he does not like some of them as actual people). But for some reason, especially during the trials, Nagito is quick to jump in and mention how wonderful Chiaki is and compliment her (only to be usually cut off by someone when he starts to ramble).

It should also be noted that Chiaki and Nagito both share an appreciation for games. Nagito seems to like more luck-based games for obvious reasons, but he also mentions that like Chiaki, he likes the Twilight Syndrome series. Both of them similarly state that they felt Monokuma was butchering a favorite game of theirs.

They also both have an odd way of trying to cheer Hajime up and joke with him, the examples shown coincidentally beside one another. Chiaki says she’s gonna look for a dirty book, throwing Hajime off and Nagito “jokingly” tells Hajime to lick his boots and now to him, but Hajime is extremely put off when he claims it was a joke. These oddballs get each other in the weirdest of ways is what I’m saying. They’re both incredibly antisocial, but their hearts are reaching the same place too when they try to make an effort.

In chapter 4, when Chiaki teams up with Nagito and Kazuichi, then leaves because they’re both being clingy, Nagito quickly follows and chases after her to make sure she’s okay. Then he chastised her for running off, looking deeply concerned. Even after his attitude change, he will answer her more directly and not ignore her. When she tells him to be quiet, he politely obeys... or maybe it’s because he’s deep in thought about her motives as he mentions he was watching the trial carefully to decide on who the traitor is.

I may just be mentioning this because they’re my OTP, but if you know about their school time together and pay attention to Nagito’s Hope versus Chiaki’s Hope, I think it’s fascinating.

Okay, now let’s head into Danganronpa 3 territory. Now this is the part where I am the most shaky as I’m still trying to determine what I take canon from this series. The thing is, a friend who got me into the series informed me that the production was way rushed and that Kodaka never wanted to do the anime in the first place. But! That being said, Chiaki and Nagito have some great moments in this and the anthology comics along with it, so let’s get into some stuff.

First of all, Nagito warmly mentions that Chiaki being their class rep makes her the true Hope of their class. And you can tell he’s serious because as he’s saying it, he’s doing that thing where he’s staring at his hand desperately like he wants eat it. You know the look.

Moving on, it’s clear that aside from Chisa, Chiaki is the only one to value and treasure Nagito. And this makes sense. In her own dying words, she loves her classmates. They are the world to her. All of them. And of course, she loves Nagito too with all her heart. As evidenced as she cradled him protectively in her arms while he’s injured. At first when Chiaki and the others are determined to stand up to Junko and get their teacher back, Nagito pleads with Chiaki not to. That his luck could not overcome them. He knows they can’t win in this situation and I do think he was actually trying to talk Chiaki out of it. But of course, when Chiaki pushes back and says she wants to go anyways, he literally can’t help himself when it comes to wanting to see Hope shine. So he agrees and praises her again because of course he does.

Until it all leads to the Pain Train with Despair coming out on top. Chiaki is brutally slaughtered and we see something new from Nagito. He breaks down crying. Tears are streaming madly down his face as a forced and twisted smile appears on his lips. He even beseeches Chiaki’s name. “You understand right? You know you’re a stepping stone for Hope!” “What has been done to Nanami is unforgivable...” Nagito’s already trying to cope. To rationalize something horrible that he just witnessed in his mind. He’s trying to protect himself as he’s utterly being destroyed and breaking down like all of his classmates. Chiaki’s death literally shatters his mind. It’s a pretty well done scene even if I’m not a big fan of the brainwashing stuff. Not to mention, the way he says “You understand right, Nanami?” As if he’s begging for her forgiveness as he falls apart. It’s so very very tragic. And of course, when being made apart of the Neo World Program, his desire to see Chiaki once more, just one more time like his classmates, brings her back to him(and the other classmates) in AI form.

Honestly... it’s pretty beautiful. Chiaki is apart of Nagito in some way and is imprinted into his mind and heart. He longed to see her as much as everyone else. This person, who doesn’t seek out relationships because his luck either gets them killed or he finds their Hope to be too weak, has a connection with Chiaki like that. This is literally a person who believes his life is just a stepping stone for better and more worthy people, someone who knows their existence is a formality at this point. And still, he does have connections. There are people capable of caring about him and loving him and Chiaki was one of those people. And he wanted to see her again in the Neo World Program. Like Chiaki said, it’s no less than miracle.

But alas, this is getting rather long, isn’t it? Well in the D3 anthology, Nagito also is concerned when Chiaki avoids eating because of her hyperfixation on gaming. Chiaki skipping out on self care?! Not cool, Chiaki. And so he challenges her to a game to make sure she’ll eat lunch. Fucking protective as hell. And yes yes, the anthology isn’t canon... but that’s the thing about Danganronpa. The series is over. Any additional info and stuff added to it is meant to enrich the experience for the fandom, so it’s canon to me. What’s the fandom gonna do? Whine at me and tell me it isn’t? That Nagito wouldn’t do these things when official anthologies and content that’s sold for Danganronpa tells me he would? So... yeah.

Ultimately, whether you ship them or not, I think this fandom is missing out on the Komanami side of things and how good their relationship is when you really observe it. :3

[xaibaugrove]

Addressing the Casual (and Direct) Biphobia in the Korrasami Community

So this will either get a lot of flak or fade into obscurity. I am a member of the Korrasami community who has not been here for nearly as long as the more notable members and I am not very active to say the least. But this platform gives me the ability to speak my mind and after letting this topic fester within me for as long as I’ve been in this community, I am going to speak my damn mind because this shit needs to be said.

The Backstory

I won’t bore anyone with my whole confused bisexual life story, because this isn’t about me. But just for some background here, I was a confused bisexual for my entire life until Korra and Asami basking in the light of the Spirit Portal made me see the actual light and recognize my sexuality. Which was a little crazy for me to realize that, yeah, there is a way to be attracted to men and still be attracted to women.

I saw so much of myself in Korra. She was super awkward around guys she thought were cute, she was buff, she was tough and sometimes she just blurted out all her deep seated feelings towards guys she just met and you know, I felt that. She also fell in love with her female best friend and I felt that, too. Naturally after rewatching the series as an adult, I wanted to see if there were others out there who appreciated this couple as much as I did.

The Issue

While I found a vast online community that had as much love for Korrasami as I did, I quickly found that there were a large majority of lesbian/WLW fans who didn’t have as much love for Korra and Asami’s very real attraction to Mako. 

Take a look at the Korrasami AO3 tag. I’ve actually had someone tell me that no one who reads Korrasami fanfic wants to read anything featuring Korra or Asami with Mako. I’ve seen fics that have a timeline that starts with both women being toddlers growing up into adults without one single mention of them being attracted to boys or men at all, nonetheless attracted to Mako. And in the rare scenario that a relationship with Mako or any male is mentioned, then comes the frustrating storybeat that they either dated men because they were too shy/scared to approach each other (thus rendering the men as just things to do in the meantime) or worse yet, because they were CONFUSED OR CONFORMING TO SOCIAL/GENDER NORMS.

In the 3 or 4 years I’ve been part of the fandom, I’ve had actual conversations with lesbian friends who have found every way possible to wave away Korra and Asami’s attraction to Mako. Or even reacting in disgust to Makorra or Masami at every mention of it. Which is fair, if you’re a KA fan of course that’s an expected reaction to another ship involving your OTP but, to completely dismiss the importance of it...? There are those who would call those parts of the series “pointless” or “ridiculous”. It’s really disheartening to know that a lot of lesbian KA fans consider the queer rep in the series soured by the 2 seasons where they had to watch Korra and Asami, two bi women, be attracted to a man.

It was jarring to say the least, to have conversations with friends where I couldn’t bring up Korra or Asami’s relationships with Mako during discussions about their development without being shot down and having the relationships be dismissed. The reaction to Korra and Asami’s attraction to men was so strong that I even started to feel ashamed about how “frivolous” or “trivial” my own attraction to men was perceived. 

Not too long ago, I saw a meme on Reddit that sent me over the edge and inspired me to write this post. The user has since deleted the post, but I remember it very vividly, only because I’ve seen some version of it many times before. The meme basically referred to how frustrated the viewer had been after being told that TLOK had great queer rep, but feeling as though they were cheated having to watch them “fuck around with guys for 2 seasons” (their words), only to be saved at the end, when Korra and Asami finally get together.

When I saw it, I was immediately fuming. Because at that point, I had seen this shit so much, it hurt more than anything else. And the pain mixed with the rage but...I think the pain still comes through in my reply to the post. 

I’ve seen sooo much content and sooo many posts or comments where a user asks whether TLOK has good LGBTQ+ rep, only to have someone reply that it’s a letdown because the queer rep doesn’t happen until the finale. Another all too common discussion I’ve seen is where fans call Korra and Asam’s bisexuality into question. One example 

I understand that it sucks that we didn’t get more romantic interactions between the two women during the show for external reasons outside the creators’ control. I wish there had been a kiss here, more blushes there. But the crushes on Mako were real. And their interest in each other, albeit all too short in its depiction, is also real. And that means something to me, a bisexual woman. To say the rep is a letdown is...sad. Because Korra is featured in every episode starting from the first and Asami is featured in every ep from the 4th or 5th episode. And they’re both wonderfully, beautifully bisexual. Seeing that mattered to me. 

So, to anyone who is a lesbian or WLW and a Korrasami fan and you’re reading this post and feel attacked, just stop instead to examine your language within the fandom. I understand you want “pure” WLW content or whatever... but just stop making me feel ashamed for being a wlw who is also attracted to men... and please stop erasing that attraction from two of the few bisexual characters I have that are like me... I’m tired, so tired of having to defend my attraction to both sexes with people outside the LGBTQ+ community and those within it. 

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

I love that we as a fandom have declared the clem comic an noncanon lmao. i'm curious tho, do you believe clem will get a new love interest? do you think it will be amos or someone else?

Yeah, gotta love seeing a fandom come together to agree on something.... even though that something isn't exactly invoking happy feelings, y'know? Like yeah, the comic sucks and at this point I doubt the trilogy will be much better unless Tillie suddenly starts to understand Clementine and makes some impossibly massive improvements..... but it's nice to see all of us mostly getting along?

As for the whole love interest thing, I'm like 98% sure that Clementine's going to get a new girlfriend in the comics. That's my prediction.

During the dumb xpo thing, Tillie talked about how she's excited to explore Clementine as a queer character in the apocalypse and considering Tillie's other works, I will bet literal cash that Clementine gets a new girlfriend. I don't think Amos will be the love interest, and if he does end up being that for Clem or if Clem gets a boyfriend, then I will genuinely be shocked.

.....Y'know what, I need to get this off my chest and this seems relevant enough-

I was talking with my roommate about this the other night actually. I told her all about my predictions for Clem getting a new girlfriend and how annoying this whole comic is, but also how annoying people are being to Tillie over this and like.... everything is a mess.

My roommate, who knows that literally everything is wrong in the 12 page comic and who I told about the xpo where Tillie talked about Clem being queer is important, asked me how I would feel if she ended up getting Clementine's canon bisexuality wrong, and what if she decides to make Clementine a lesbian?

And like...... I actually stopped what I was working on because this wave of dread crashed through me at the thought of that, and I could actually imagine it happening because she already got everything else wrong and if she hasn't actually played the games and is pulling this shit out of her ass.... I can't even describe to you the feeling I felt...

I want to believe that Tillie would at least know and respect the fact that Clementine is a canon bisexual. From what I've gathered, Tillie herself is wlw and I don't believe she would erase a bisexual character. She knows that Clementine is a queer character. Clementine's bisexual.

Like obviously, if I'm right and Clementine gets a girlfriend, she'll still be bisexual. Nothing will ever change that.

But I'm going to tell all of you this right now because just thinking about it upsets me.... if for whatever reason, if Tillie Walden actually erases Clementine's bisexuality and makes her a lesbian in the graphic novel trilogy while "exploring what it means to be queer in the apocalypse," I'm done.

I will have nothing left for Tillie. I will no longer support anything she does. I won't condone harassment towards her because that makes you just as shitty, but I will absolutely call that bullshit out and then never support her again. I will never talk about the comic again because how dare you think you can get away with that and still expect me to waste brain cells on your comic? Hell, I will probably be so fucking livid that I'll drive my ass all the way to barnes and noble just to return the books I bought of hers.

Dramatic? Yeah, but y'know what? I've never really touched on this outside of a few "Clem being bisexual is important representation and we love it" but her being bisexual means so much to me. It truly does, I mean.... after the dumb "btw Javi is bi, we just wrote him straight and threw in a line of flirty dialogue with jesus so we can have our cake and eat it, too-- the straight homophobes will still buy our game and the lgbt+ community will love us, win win," I cannot explain the joy I felt when Clementine was written as a bisexual woman and that she was given two love interests that meant so much to the players.

Like.... I dunno, I never got any real bi rep in games or books or movies, especially bi girls, when I was a teen trying to figure shit out. In jr high and high school, I could never find stories that has bi women as a lead because I was too afraid to look anything up. I didn't wanna be caught reading/watching things that were lgbt+ because I had a shitty boyfriend at the time and our friend group were heavily religious and judgmental. My best friend [who I haven't spoken to for years now] was one of those people who claimed to support lgbt+ people.... but also once told me that she thought lesbians were okay but gay men were lowkey gross and probably only into other dudes because girls wouldn't date them. Oh, and I'll never forget the time she told me that bi people don't actually exist because you either like one or the other.

That's a great thing to here from the best friend you've know since you were an infant after you've realized that you aren't only attracted to boys.

But now I'm out of that environment and I haven't talked to anyone from high school since I graduated, and I've felt more free to intake all the things I wish I could've before...

I just.... Clementine is important to me for a lot of reasons. I've played these games forever, I've gotten to watch her grow for years, and she's just so well-written and amazing in tfs, and the fact that the writers wanted to write her as a bisexual woman means so much, I just.... even though it's not canon, I can't help but take this disaster of a comic personally. Just from those 12 pages, everything about Clementine is destroyed and it sucks. It hurts..... but I'm still not holding anything against Tillie herself. Her comic is bad, but that doesn't mean she's bad..... however, erasing Clem's bisexuality would be the last straw for me.

.....This turned into a rant. Sorry about that. You asked a simple question and I dumped my life story on you but I dunno, I needed to get that off my chest because it's been bothering the back of my mind.

I do wanna add once more that I don't think Tillie's actually going to do that... she should know that both Louis and Violet are canon love interests, plus Clementine canonically had a crush on Gabe in ANF. I think if she's going to get anything right, it'll be the fact that Clem is bi.... I'm just expressing a major fear I have and what it would do to me, and others, if it happened..... y'know?

[popculturebuffet]

The Owl House: Enchanting Grom Fright: Happy Valentine’s Gays

Happy Valentine’s Day owl ladies, gentleman and non-binary folks! It’s time to finish off this holiday in proper style with a LONG overdue review of enchanting Grom Fright and even longer overdue coverage of the Owl House.  The Owl House was one of the best debuts of last year if not THE best, only in contention because Close Enough also started last year and looks to surpass regular show in terms of quality. But with stunning animation, tons of representation, and colossal worldbuilding. And given how i’m on record for thinking Star Vs went so far down the tubes they bumped into where Cthulu is sleeping, it’s nice to have another magic based show that seems to be on the right track: carefully building i’ts world, supporting cast and for today’s topic main romance. It also rather than just obliquely hint one character was bi and the other pan, actually goes out of it’s way to have a bisexual protaginst with a gay love intrest. As my good friend @jess-the-vampire has brought up quite a bit, star had plnety of options. .but no willingness to actually campaign for any queer rep, the way Gravity Falls head Alex Hirsch tried to, he still gets credit for trying, and Owl House creator Dana Terrace gets full credit for. 

Terrace got her start working on Gravity Falls in line production before working her way up to directing for ducktales, being instrumental in how Webby was animated and how she moves and acts, and being the director for several classic season one episodes including “Woo-Hoo!”, “The Spear of Selene” , “Day of the Only Child!” which was one of my faviorites from season 1 and “The Beagle Birthday Massacre!”. And while I can’t 100% confirm she’s the only part responsible for starting Weblena, given she was director on an episode where a lot of the romantic subtext was in the visuals, she certainly helped so thank you Dana. Thank you a lot. Their adorable. Point is she’s a talented lady and wasn’t satisfied with directing, so she pitched her own show, combining tons of ides and stuff including of all things, Pokemon Red. I checked the article wikipedia had sourced, it was one of her happy childhood memories as it was one of the last things her dad gave her. Awwwwwww. That’s as sweet as it is painful. She’s also currently dating Alex Hirsch, something I was entirely unaware of but find also adorable. Point is i’m glad I looked into her as she’s a very nice person, and very much my kind of weirdo and i’m happy for her sucess and her singuarly weird show that sprung from that sucess. 

Now that part of it’s out of the way the episode itself was an uphill battle as you’d expect. As anyone familiar with this blog is aware, but just in case your new, you tend to hear me bitching about Disney’s handling of queer represntation a LOT

For the most part Disney’s pretty bad at it: There was the string of “FIRST GAY CHARACTER IN AN X” they had going for a while.. that consisted of a character I dind’t realize was gay, a kiss I didn’t see, and a talk with a character who I honestly wouldn’t of been looking for had disney not patted themselves on the back with some giant sized hands because htey saved some pym particles for that occasion. Ducktales was unable to have Penumbra come out as gay more clearly because I don’t know Ducks can’t be day.. but they can be IMPLIED to be gay or pansexual as hard as the crew possibly can so they win anyway. Pixar was able to have a gay lead character for one of it’s sparks shorts out and even focused on him coming out of the closet and it’s very good and something I WILL give Pixar credit for... but not Disney Plus who go out of their way to not mention the lead being gay.. despite the fact the short opens with a gay space cat riding a gay space dog out of a rainbow and then it being revaled our lead is in a relationship not long into the short. My point is the idiots who won’t watch this for having gay characters are just going to turn it off, who cares what they think, why are you like this Disney. They need to do better, and be better and i’m getting tired of this shit.

That being said... this episode is a step in the right directoin as despite having to get past one obstructive asshole, not her words but damn if it isn’t the truth, as the rest of hte execs were fine with having a gay character, Terrace fought hard for it and WON, having a clearly gay character, and a clear road to a gay romace as the lead one, all because she wanted some representation in her works. So to honor this, I present this review in honor of love, effort and saying screw you to not having represntation because money. Join me under the cut and allt hat. 

We open in the owl house, in the owl house, duck dodge push and shove, it’s how we show our love in the.. you get the point. Luz is learning yet another Rune, this time plant runes.. and already something I love about the series pops up: the fact Luz’s rise in skill is gradual but noticable. Each spell noticably improves in potency with time,  going from simple lights to shaping them into simple constructs, and learning to control or time her spells and glpyhs so they launch she she says so, with each one getting more powerful the more she learns. And on top of that osmething I just noticed on rewatch of this episode is her tecnique in finding them evolved, something I dind’t notice the first time because I hadn’t fully caught up and checked this one out to see if Disney would actually let them go through with it.. and they did. Point is her first spell is found by accident, her second by realizing how her magic works fundemntally, both require skilled deduction and on the fly thinking and casting, so she’s already pretty skilled.. but now sh’es ACTIVELY seeking out a new spell here for the first time. She knows how she gets them, she knows each school is tied to a form, and she likely got the plant from williow since that’s her thing and she’s a saint. A demon but also a saint. They can have those too. It’s what I assume relicor is. 

I miss that goblin demon bat man. Point is it shows an evolution in Luz’s thinking: while it’s a subtle thing she took a more proactive approach this time even if it took a lot of practice.. and it pay soff as by the time of her next rune, while it’s once again sorta handed to her she has less time to learn it, almost none, and finds it singed onto a ball.. and learns it effortlessly to the point where by the next episode it’s a crucial plot point. IT’s subtle but clever character progression, and stuff I really enjoy, showing our hero going from a bit inept but not helpless or incomptient.. to a force to be reckconed with and far more clever and strategic than yo’ud expect given her sometimes reckless and almost always happy go lucky attitude. 

Luz worries teaching King about the internet was a bad idea because he gets excited about a literal cat fight which .. yeah... it was a bad idea but not because of that.. but because next he finds someone saying the earth is flat and she wisely yanks it away. It’s.. very sad that the absolutley maddening and easily debunked flat earth theory is still RELATIVLEY more sane than the stuff we’ve had pop up during the trump era and the cornoavirus pandemic. 

But one of the main conlficts of the episode pops up as Luz’s mom messages her and Luz can’t bring herself to tell her anything and just sends a thumbs up.  I do think this episode helps even things from the pilot a bit as it was a bit lopsided: While I got that Camillia was genuinely struggling with how to deal with Luz, and was offered an out and had to take it... the fact she sees NO problem with the normalcy camp, which comes off intentioanlly or not a sa parallel to conversion camps or camps to make autistic kids “Normal”. And as someone whose both bisexual and autistic, I naturally relate to luz way more as someone whose intrests sometimes just don’t quite fit with everyone else, and who dosen’t get how bad some of their actions were.  THat’s why this episode feels like a necessary course correction: Luz is shown to genuinely love her mama and feel guilty.. but we see camilia genuinlely loves and supports her daughter a bit more. While it was clear from the pilot this shows it more, with her genuinely just wanting to know her daughter’s okay and checking up on her, and giving me the feeling that possible consequences or no if something bad WAS happening or she didn’t hear from her for a long time, she would’ve drove up there to get her. It feels like the writers realized the implications they accidently created and wanted to fix it, though I can’t say for certain. But if so good on you for course correcting, not every show does that. 

But King encourages her, telling her she’s doing the right thing by lying and to “trust the demon on your shoulder”. Keep this in mind for later, but that joke is great on it’s own. But soon i’ts time for school and Hooty.. barfs out Luz’s books for her. 

I haven’t been this disturbed since.. (Looks at the clock) About 2 maybe three hours ago when I watched a man have, if apparently shorter than the oriiginal cut as I wanted to see everyone else’s reactions dammit, sex with hiis car which was possesed by the mad ghost of his dead wife. Because that’s the kind of stuff i’m into when i’m not reviewing stuff. And before that Tinky.. just everything about tinky. 

I do not have enough time to get into TInky here or why he exestially horrifies me. Or why Jeff blim is a living god. I will save that for a proper review if I have the time tomorrow. Point is I saw a lot today and that still tops it. Willow and Gus are likewise grossed out and want to leave. 

Cut to school where Luz wonders what’s with all the decorations.. that remind me of this honestly

And frankly given the whole state of the boiling isles it REALLY wouldn’t surprise me if the decorations were indeed well cooked faces. But i’ts Grom time, which means elaborate gromposals (Some Dude asks Skara out with a beating heart and an elaborate medical proposal.. which.. points for effort. And for using an actual heart. Couldn’t get one for mine. ), dancing and someone being chosen for Grom Queen. WHich Willow hints isn’t as nice as that sounds. Before we can get into that though Amity bumps into them and gets into a tizzy before meekly greeting “Luz.. and Co”. which.. not going to lie.. is my faviorite gag of the season. Just htw way she adds them and just the way Willow and Guz both smile widely at it as if to say “That’s us!”. Amity drops a note and snatches it back. This will be important later, you all know why, point is Amity becomes Grom Queen.. and is heavily depressed with Luz following her to find out why.  At the gym.. she does indeed ifnd out why: Turns out Grom is not some mutation of an earthname but is based around a horrifying entity lurking beneath the isles, Gromethious the Fear Bringer, who emerges from his slumber once a year and must be fought back and brings out his target’s greatest fears. Just like groundhog day only with less time loops and rodent abuse. Amity is scared of hers, and i’ll obviously get into this more later, and Luz simply suggests asking bump to opt out and Amity appricates the support. Awwww. 

Luz heads home and we find out Eda is chaperoning and King is mcing. Eda is also rocking a suit. Just damn girl, damn. But Luz considers taking her place.. and gets laughed at, with Eda assuming she’ll have to save her and King just being kind of a dick. I mean he’s a loveable thoroughly cuddly dick but he’s still a dick... just more like a stuffed plushie of one.  So basically exactly like Tinky. Look I mention him more than once in this review he dosen’t put me in the bastard box. It’s a great system.  Naturally this makes Luz more determined than ever to prove herself and she finds Amity in the night, with Amity having been unable to get out of it.. and Bumps a resonable guy, he just wants a substitute and no one wants the job.. except Luz who galdly volunteers and insists ntohing scares her before the giant spider on the back of her head proves otherwise. Because of course it does, spiders are fucking terrifying. Kill then all.. except the pokemon ones. Galvaltula are sweethearts. As are Ariadoses. Sweethearts who can elctorcute or poison you but still. 

So the next way Luz begins preparing.. and by that I mean it’s time for training. Sadly we don’t get an episode of Luz and Amity getting trapped in an 80′s fashion montage... I mean yes Rise of the TMNT also did that plot the same year, but we had two diffrent plots about someone getting trapped in an eldtrich sitcom and a THIRD this year, all entertaingly unique. Though we do get Luz pulling out an otter suit that’s adorable and she sadly still hasn’t worn yet. “This one says i’m an otter, with a dark side”. She also got thrown out of a school dance for.. wearing an otter suit. Okay the other things we saw in the pilot were understandable but htis is just.. baffling. Who cares what you wear to a dance as long as it isn’t horribly racist of nothing at all. 

Damn you flanders and your glorious ass. Point is Amity shows up and threatens hooty’s life because.. he’s hooty. The fact he isn’t dead already is a testiment to how badass he is and how much money he’d cost Eda to replace. Owl Tubes don’t come out of a stygian hole in the unvierse every day you know. That’s only every three years. It’s basic styigan owl tube science. 

But Amity wants her to be ready and that she’ll have to face her greatest fear.. and cue hooty popping up, poking amity in the face and asking if she wants to know her greatest fear. Really he can clearly hear everything in the house given he heard that, so he heard the death threat he just chose to ignore it. That.. was a mistake. And by mistake I mean we get a hilarious cut to the outside of the house as Luz tries to stop her love intrest from murdering her second mom’s tube monster. The result is some bandages and an eyepatch. To be fair that last one was just flaring up from a  previous beating. 

For this solem task of training, Amity has brought in her local disaster bisexuals.. aka her twin siblgins Eldric and Elmyra, whose greatest fears are dying alone and being stuck with Eldric. Both understandable. They conjur luz’s greatest fears which are.. some of the funniest shit I heard all year.. and also very relatable. Human souls in cat bodies, which is genuinely terrifying good job Luz, Jerks on the internet who mansplain things, relatable, and soy milk. 

But Amity knows this is just the openign act. it needs to be something deeper.. so while Luz dosen’t realize it’s probably her mom issues she brings up her issues with her other mom: that Eda dosen’t think she can do this. Hence we get a giant eda putting Luz in a babychair. Before we can unpack how wrong that sentence sounded, Eda comes out, and marvels at how hot giant her is. But she’s quickly distracted from sex with a giant version of herself, which is not an easy feat, by the relization “Wait Luz is going to fight grom isn’t she.. fuck i’m going to have to save her”, though Luz holds firm on doing it to prove she’s fine and dosen’t need to be saved constantly. it’s a good conflict. Eda IS right that Luz is not ready for this alone, that she’s overcompensating and that Eda would, in normal circumstances be the one to rescue her. As we’ll see it’s not her who does it but still, were this any other foe she probably would be. But Luz’s motivations are equally understandable: She wants to help her friend not have to do this and she wants to prove she can do it. She just wants her mentor, the only person in her life up to meeting her that GNEUINELY supported her in magic to respect her. To have faith in her and actually see how far she’s come. And given how her own mother writes off her dreams, if not unrealistically, and before this she had no friends or support system to speak of outside her mom, it’s easy to see why this is so improtant to Luz: she just wants to make the one person in her life whose ever support her actually think it was worth it when in truth Eda already thinks it does and just dosen’t want her to die. 

She’s just not good with talking to her or not condescending to her as her own ego is stacked sky high, probably because the whole curse thing meant Eda was an outcast by default and the system wants to either chain her to one form of magic and one only or shackle her to them as a hired goon. Her ego, while justified, is also a defense mechanism: a way to shield herself from the fact almost no one cares about her and one of the few people who DOES, dosen’t care what she wants or needs. Once the curse happened she lost just about everything and had to rebuild and thus build up walls around herself and kept everyone else at arms length till Luz changed her for the better. It’s just a tragic clash of two wills both with similar problems but both unwilling to talk about them. 

But with time up, our heroes need to get to the diggity dance. So they indeed do and we get some fun sight gags, Willow makes corsages,  that one girl with the cresent head somehow ended up with Mathomule and is not happy, as anyone who ends up with him should. And it’s time for Luz to face her destiny.. in a tux with a tutu because of course, and Amity likes it because also of course. 

IT’s time to rumble, with King getting nervous due to eda’s prodding about mcing since his co-mc gus is really good at it, and introducing our champion.

No wait sorry he’s still trapped in Mojoworld. no it’s still Luz who shows off a seasons worth of skill by easily dispatching the first few fears and saying to grom let’s finish it.. before grom puts a tentacle on her head. 

It’s to downlaod her fear.. which is Camillia. Granted we could all see it coming but still Luz obviously can’t fight her own mother or her own overwhelming guilt.. her mom did hurt her.. but she gets why and just loves her and wants her to be proud but dosen’t know what to do: tell her the trutha nd possibly loose a happy and fufilling life or wait until it all blows up. It’s a painful choice. So luz and king end up running. King runs first because he can’t handle it and Gus talks him back into the groove while Luz runs away because she can’t fight her own mom, understandable, and Gus encourages king to lead the crowd which he does. Amity and Eda follow Luz. 

So Luz is backed down, facing down a monster tha’ts going to go on to everyone else next if she fails... and Eda prepares to interfere.. but it’s AMITY who faces her fear and dives in. And we find out just what her fear was as grom turns into a humanoid shape and rips the letter in half.. it was a grom invitation. Though conviently the who it’s adressed to was ripped out. 

And yeah not going to save this one: It’s Luz. You know it I know it I didn’t even hide it in the intro. Even before the reveal in a bit it was obvious. But it also makes perfect sense. I’ve avoided talking about her character arc up to this point because I was waiting for now. Amity’s growth is the third major arc of the season behind Luz’s slow learning of magic and eventually induction into hexside and eda’s curse, which I lump in with Lilith chasing her since both were mildly entertwined and then entirely are once the reveal hits in the finale. When we meet her she’s an outright bully.. but we slowly see there’s more there. That she’s not really HAPPY or content, is contstantly under pressure by her family name, is outright bullied by her own siblings who don’t understand her. So Luz coming in, seemingly only being intrested in magic because i’ts neat.. understandably bothers her. She’s not a great person, bullying her old best friend because tha’ts what’s expected and being close with outright bullies because of that.. but it’s through Luz she starts to grow, realizing Luz is genuinely nice and genuinely sorry for any trouble she caused Amity, and evne then both cases were causaed by Amity’s own dickishness and outside forces, so it’s easy to see why she defrosts faster. Her siblings realize they’ve genuinely hurt her, and actually try to be good siblings from then on and help her, and slowly Amity learns to truth luz, trust in her, and accept her... and thus accept her feelings for her. There are gradual hints she’s growing attracted to her.. but her walls had to come down first, and it wouldn’t of worked from the outset. The show cleverly has the two build a genuine friendship, two opposities who work well together, so when feelings do happen it feels natural. It’s not “I’m in love with this person because I have to because you can’t be friends with someone your attracted to” bullshit or anything like that, cough star vs cough, it’s just well built catching feelings. I’ts how this kind of thing SHOULD go: niether went in intending for this to happen.. it’s just happening. 

And Amity’s reluctance is painfully understandable, as Luz is the ONLY friend and support she has. Sure she and willow are patching things up, but WIllow would understandably choose luz over her and she’s terrified of loosing the one good thing in her life. Of course Luz would either say yes, and probably will some day, or let her down gently, she’s nice.. but it’s also understandable to be afraid that someone won’t take the reveal well. I’ve been there trust me, it’s easier when you let it out even if you get rejected, but I get it being hard to let out because you don’t want to loose a friend. I did not, and niether would she, but I can see why she wouldn’t want ot take the plunge. At least not yet. We’ll see this summer hopefully. 

But we do get a shiptastic, gorgeously aniamted scene of the two dancing an fightin gin perfect synch, combinging luz’s new use of plant magic with amity’s mastery of abominations resulting in the two utterly decimating grom, likely in part because with two fast moving targets he can’t get a lock on and likely nees more fear and mass to attack multiple targets at once. Or just more tendrils. it’s a quick, beautful sequence that’s utterly glorious, being framed as romantic as any hetero scene of the type and rightfully so. A triumph and well deserving of this praise. 

Our heros have won, get crowns, and King gets praise. All is well.. except Luz drops the crown once she gets home because she feels like she failed and feels lost about her mom.. though at least king gets it “I’m king and queen, best of both things!”. You tell em sister. 

So we end with Luz genuinely responding to her mom, with some montage stuff as we see Gus and Willow poke a fear blob, willow fears bugs, understandable and Gus fears clowns... 

Also understandable. Though I didn’t put up a bug picture because

And Amity looks out folornly into the night. Camilla responds to Luz.. and mentions letters.. which while Luz brushes those off.. we see someone sent them. And by someone I probably mean king since we now know only eda and him had acess to the portal, and given he was actively encouraging her to lie.. yeah i’m supscious. But we’ll see next season. For now this episode is fan fucking tastic, showing off tons of character development, being representative and sweet as all hell.. and being really funny. Tons of great gags in this one including the turtle guy from an earlier episode being forced to be adisco ball.  This is easily the series best so far and if you haven’t checked it out, please do it’s fantastic as is this show. Check both out. Until the next rainbow i’ts been a pleasure. Tommorow more disney shenanigans this time with pete. And also more of this possibly we’ll see what I get done. 

Goodnight everybody!

[anomenofdarkness]

Alright so first, i know i don't have anywhere near a big enough following for anyone to give a shit abt my opinion, buut idgaf.

So, for those of you who don't know, in the latest chapter of My Hero Academia, the character Mineta Minoru supposedly came out as bi

This purple piece of shit.

You may be wondering why i say "supposedly". That would be largely due to the fact that I've seen multiple people who speak Japanese claim this is a mistranslation, which I am inclined to believe.

In the panel above, Mineta is talking to the protagonist of the series, Midorya Izuku (a guy).

Now that we've got context out of the way, fuck this shit. And fuck people like this jackass:

Oh wait more context is needed. Why can the person who made the Tik Tok above get fucked? Because the message they were going with, or at least my interpretation of what they were saying, is that we should just accept any LGBTQIA+ rep we can get, with no regard for the quality. This is also what leads me to believe that they are not a part of the LGBT community, and therefore not qualified to tell us what good rep even looks like. I might be wrong, but i found no evidence to suggest i am.

But where *does* the queer rep lie in terms of quality? Well, let's go down the list.

According to the mfer who made the tik tok, there are 7 queer characters in MHA; 1 gay man, 3 bi people, and 3 trans people

The gay man im question?

One of Mineta and Izuku's classmates, Yuga Aoyama

In the TikTok they create immediately after the one linked above, OP claims that it would be extremely obvious that Aoyama is gay in any medium other than anime, and while they *are* right in that aspect, they then claim that this automatically means that Aoyama is canonically gay. That is incorrect, which means our Canon Queers tally is down to 6.

Now for the three bi people.

Up first is obviously Mineta, then Toga Himiko and finally Toshinori Yagi, AKA All Might (spoiler alert, All Might is not a canon bisexual)

Wether he actually is or not, Mineta is disgustingly bad bi representation in that he is a raging pervert who has sexually assaulted all but one of his female classmates on multiple occasions. For those who don't get it, Mineta being bi perpetuates the negative and incorrect stereotype that bi people are hypersexual pervs by virtue of their sexuality.

Now for Toga, who, despite also being terrible bi rep, is my favorite character. "But why is Toga bad rep?" I hear you asking. Well for one she's a villain, which right off the bat villainizes bi people. But don't worry, it gets worse! It gets worse in her reason for being a villain, that being that she gets off on killing people. Yeah this is a shitshow.

So far the two canonically bi characters we have are abnormal freaks that aren't entirely fit to interact with society. Going great.

As for All Might he has no canon sexuality, and while it *is* heavily implied he was in relationships with two male colleagues prior to the beginning of the series, this is far from canonization of anything.

Now for the trans characters (spoiler alert 2: electric boogaloo: only one is explicitly canon out of the two that are actual characters)

First up, Tiger of the Wild, Wild Pussycats. As can be seen in the second image, he is in fact canonically trans. Surprisingly, he isn't the explicitly canon one. How? Because the second image is pulled from a character encyclopedia separate from the actual series, and as far as I'm concerned, any time you have to find materials outside the actual series, that is not explicitly canon (that's not to say im denying that tiger's trans. He is.)

Now for the explicitly canon of the two actual trans characters, Magne. A villain. So, again, villifying a queer identity. Oh yeah, and the episode we find out she's trans is the same one in which she fucking dies. Specifically blown in half. It also doesn't look particularly good for Horikoshi that her quirk is based around gender.

And now for this dumbassery. This is a friend of Magne's, another trans woman. Or rather, an absolute caricature of one, who is barely even a character, as evidenced by the fact that she is unnamed and only appears once.

So, let's go back to our tally of Canon Queer Characters

Aoyama and All Might aren't canonically queer so that brings our count down to 5. Still not bad for an anime.

As for quality of queet rep, it's pathetic.

Two bi characters, both freaks

Two trans characters, one of whom you could watch the entire series and not know is trans, and the other is dead.

And, of course, one trans caricature.

In conclusion, I didn't need to make this, the fucker that made that TikTok just pissed me off.

[theprologues]

***Pro: If you read this crazy long theory and think I might be on to something, I don’t mind if you wait to post this. I don’t know what blogs Sc00ter’s team looks at and I definitely don’t want to jeopardize any plans. Or I might be delusional, so I’ll trust your judgement!***

Yesterday I started thinking about what Taylor and Karlie want. Like what’s their end game, here? Why are they still bearding and perpetuating the feud narrative and hiding? If they’re together, they’re not doing all this because it’s fun or easy. So I worked backwards– I theorized some things Kaylor might want at the end of all this, and thought about what they would need to do to achieve those goals. I came up with an interesting theory. 

Taylor wants to own all of her music. It seems like she also wants to stop the games and hiding and secrecy– see Daylight, the willow music video, and a lot of rep-era lyrics and imagery. If she was happy in the closet, I would expect her music to reflect that. It doesn’t. I think she also wants all of these men to stop ruining her plans. I get the impression from Mad Woman, Cowboy Like Me, her statements re: her masters, and Spade’s “fervent revolution exonerates everyone” message that Taylor wants to expose something big in the music industry. I think she wants to tell the truth, which is (imo) that she planned on coming out in 2019 and Sc00ter tried to profit off her sexuality, which forced her back in the closet. Maybe there’s more. But basically, she must want the option (at least) of telling her story, otherwise she could have signed that crazy NDA.

So if these are Taylor’s goals, how does she achieve them? And how does she protect herself and Karlie from retaliation from Sc00ter? Sc00ter is manipulative and well connected. If he can sabotage Taylor or Karlie’s plans, he will. Karlie is not managed by him anymore, so she is free professionally-speaking (this happened in or after November 2019, after T’s masters were sold). But Karlie is still tied to Sc00ter through Jerk, so Taylor can’t make any moves until the Jerklie contract is up. Then Sc00ter won’t have any power over Karlie. And the moment Taylor releases her old albums, Sc00ter loses most of his power over her. So first, there needs to be a Jerklie divorce, to prevent Sc00ter from retaliating as revenge (again).

I think a lot could happen very quickly after a divorce announcement. Taylor can release her re-recorded music. She could come out at the same time, if she wanted. It would probably boost sales, tbh. She can stay with Toe for safety if she comes out as bi or pan. And as soon as she comes out, she can tell the world what Sc00ter did to her– how he forced her back into the closet, and how he used her friend, Karlie (who was still being managed by him at the time), against her. How he manipulated her and tried to screw her over any chance he had. It’ll be the truth, and it will NOT be a good look for Sc00ter. This is the “fervent revolution” and Karlie is exonerated in the process– it’ll be made clear that she didn’t betray Taylor, and that was just the narrative Sc00ter pushed. This gets Taylor her music, fewer games (she can keep Toe until she’s ready, but she can be seen with her “friend” Karlie in the meantime), freedom from Sc00ter, and the karma she craves.

So, if Taylor can’t re-release her music until Jerklie splits, why is Karlie STILL with him? Couldn’t they have divorced by now? Karlie was going to be tied to Sc00ter no matter what until her management contract was up– which was November 2019 at the earliest. So yeah, a divorce could have happened at that point or any time after. I wonder if Karlie offered to extend her contract with Jerk to try to stay on Sc00ter’s good side. Maybe she damaged her own reputation by staying with Jerk through the election so maybe, just maybe, Sc00ter would be willing to negotiate with Taylor in good faith (“she cut herself so I could be whole” from Spade). It didn’t work, but she couldn’t have known that in July 2019, if that’s when Karlie decided to extend the contract. She tried. 

It’s also possible that Karlie extended the contract as a way to keep Sc00ter from interfering with their plans. What would have happened if Jerklie divorced, Karlie was publicly single, Taylor wasn’t allowed to re-record yet, and Sc00ter started pushing all these rumors that Taylor isn’t straight? He’s a snake. We know he wouldn’t hesitate to write article after article about the “sapphic themes” in Taylor’s earlier albums, to make people listen to them again so he could make more money. Inevitably he would connect Karlie to Reputation. Once again, Sc00ter would be manipulating Kaylor for his gain. He would be dictating the narrative. He’d have no reason to sell Taylor her masters. He’d be profiting off rumors about Taylor’s sexuality.

But what if Karlie was still tied to Jerk? Jerk is Sc00ter’s client, and he’s obsessive about his image. Sc00ter couldn’t do anything that might hurt Jerk. If he tried to out Taylor, he would end up outing Karlie, too. He would need Karlie to sell the “Taylor is not straight” narrative– there isn’t enough Swiftgron or Taymily evidence. I don’t think Jerk wanted his “marriage” scrutinized– people might realize he’s gay. Or, having a bisexual wife might not be a good look in the conservative business world. Karlie staying with Jerk longer meant Sc00ter wasn’t able to spread rumors to profit off of Taylor’s work before she could re-record. Maybe they assumed Sc00ter wouldn’t do anything in good faith, so Karlie damaged her reputation to protect Taylor from Sc00ter for the 16-ish months before she could start re-recording.

I think it’s a good sign that we didn’t see Jerk in December and that Taylor seems to be re-recording as quickly as she can. There are so many moving parts and things that could go wrong, so I don’t think they’re going to give Jerk or Sc00ter or anyone a chance to wreck their plans again. They’re going to move fast, and then the internet can go crazy while they’re offline with their new baby. I imagine Jerklie will divorce because they were separated/seeing other people over the summer, Karlie got pregnant with some guy in California, she and Jerk tried to work it out, but ultimately he couldn’t raise a baby that wasn’t his. Something like that– Jerk will insist on being the “good guy” of course, and Karlie will insist on making it clear her child isn’t a K*shner. Publicly, Karlie is a new, single mom and she and Taylor are friends again. Maybe Taylor has Karlie and the baby move in so she can help out Karlie in her time of need. And then maybe Karlie and the baby just don’t move out. :) I thinkkkk this theory accounts for most of the craziness that we’re seeing and gives all parties the end games they want (except for Sc00ter, eff him).

---------------------------------------------------------------

Pro: This is a great theory. I think it explains a bit of the craziness that is happening right now. I do think Karlie made a sacrifice along the way. I don’t think Scoobs would expose Tay as not being straight. He would in turn be exposing jerk as well who is more powerful than Scoobs. 

I bolded the parts I think are important to remember. 

[lilytriestoexist]

heIion is not good bi rep

hi, i'm lily, i'm bisexual, and i'm angry, in that precise order. someone on tiktok decided to say that sarah janet had decent lgbt representation so i'm going to discuss why heIion specifically is not good rep.

the following excerpts are from A C0urt of Wings and Ruin (final book in the AC0TAR series) by Sarah J Maas, pages 937-939. i have altered the names to follow tagging etiquette so stans don't see this post.

“Well, now I look as bad as Beron.” He strode straight past me with a wink, stalking into the sitting room. He grinned at AzrieI. “You handing Eris’s ass to him will be my new fantasy at night, by the way.”

AzrieI didn’t so much as bother to look over his shoulder at the High Lord. But Cass/ian snorted. “I was wondering when the come-ons would begin.”

right off the bat in this scene, it's established that heIion is flirtatious and often makes [sexually] suggestive comments. why is that questionable in this context, you may ask? because the idea of bisexual people being incredibly hormonal is a stereotype that's persisted for a long time.

this is the second time she's had a bi character with some semblance of significance to the story be hypersexual (the first was aedi0n in t0g, who was known as adarIan's whore and spoke of his sexual prowess). i'm not saying bisexual people can't be written as flirtatious and sexual, and i am in no way saying it's a bad thing to enjoy sex, but it's highly questionable when an author continuously writes bisexual characters with that stereotype. it reinforces that harmful stereotype and continues to give false impressions about the sexuality, as well as leaning into the idea that we are more likely to cheat due to this supposed universal high sex drive, which is totally untrue.

“It’s been what—four centuries now, and you three [AzrieI, Cass/ian, and M0r] still haven’t accepted my offer.”

M0r lolled her head to the side. “I don’t like to share, unfortunately.”

“You never know until you try,” HeIion purred.

The three of them in bed … with him? I must have been blinking like a fool because Rh/ys said to me, HeIion favors both males and females. Usually together in his bed. And has been hounding after that trio for centuries.

we've got heIion's bisexuality explicitly stated in the text! i really do think that was something sarah janet did right, instead of leaving it ambiguous and only slightly hinting at it. unfortunately, that's where the things she did right end.

so, heIion is bisexual. great! but in this scene this sexuality reveal is accompanied by heIion wanting a foursome with azrieI, cass/ian, and m0r, which he's been asking after for literal centuries. it's also stated that he likes males and females 'together in his bed.' not so great. why? because the idea of bisexuals being into threesomes and the like is a shitty and harmful stereotype that is seriously offensive to most bisexuals. it feeds into the idea of bisexual people being lustful and up for anything, which i can assure you is not an accurate generalisation at all.

i'm in awe at how sarah janet decided to write her lgbt representation here. it's honestly shocking how blatantly stereotypical this portrayal of bisexuality is, and how if you want to write good rep, you would not adhere to and perpetuate stereotypes. and no, i'm not overreacting, because heIion is a minor character without much pagetime and development, so this is the extent of his sexuality being discussed and portrayed, and it is pure, unjustifiable garbage. it's clearly stated that heIion likes threesomes (males and females together in his bed) and is even after a foursome with cass/ian, m0r, and azrieI. it's an obvious and well-known stereotype, it's completely unnecessary, and it's incredible that sarah janet decided this was how she was going to write her 'bi rep'.

in case it needed more stating: bisexual people aren't keen on threesomes just because they like more than one gender. bisexual people aren't there for you to fantasise about a threesome. not all bisexuals have a high sex drive. bisexuals aren't more likely to cheat.

I considered—Helion’s beauty and the others … Why the hell haven’t they said yes?

Rh/ys barked a laugh that had all of them looking at him with raised brows.

My mate just came up behind me and slid his arms around my waist, pressing a kiss to my neck. Would you like someone to join us in bed, Fayre darling?

My skin stretched tight over my bones at the tone, the suggestion. You’re incorrigible.

I think you’d like two males worshipping you.

My toes curled.

of course rh/ys mentioning heIion's bisexuality and interest in threesomes is used as a lead in for faysand's mental sexting. of course a character's bisexuality is used as an excuse for our least favourite heterosexual couple to fantasise about having their own threesome. i've got a bad feeling sarah janet only made heIion bisexual to use the infamous threesome stereotype so she could have faysand talk about having one, and if god forbid i'm right, that's incredibly shitty.

in conclusion, heIion is bad bi rep because he's portrayed using harmful stereotypes about bisexuals (lustful and hypersexual + threesomes) and isn't given any depth beyond that since he's a minor character, and sarah janet's attempt at being inclusive and having well-written diversity was an abject failure. i'll probably dissect m0r's disaster of a coming out as well at some point because holy shit, that was a trainwreck. but yeah. the end. 🏳️‍🌈

[takaraphoenix]

Buffy Season 8: Review

It’s bad. It’s just... really... bad. That’s the TL;DR of this review. There was one (1) good thing about this season and that was the return of Oz. So if you’re looking for something that hypes season 8? This is not it. If you are confused, angry or salty about season 8? Hi, yes, me too.

Starting at the beginning. At first, I was really happy that they introduced more characters of color, with Renee and Satsu. And when Renee was then even “promoted” to Xander’s love interest? Nice. The two were even cute.

But no. That was all just the set-up to fridge her. Which, I am so very tired of that trope. And that is what that was. That wasn’t just a slayer dying during a fight. The entire issue of her death focused on her and Xander, building up to their relationship, setting them up for their first date, having her be prominently featured, just to then kill her off and have Xander avenge her.

What made it feel even worse - worse than just the fridging - was that they really had to fridge one of their very few women of color. And, to top it off, spend the entire issue in which she dies having her subjected to racism. Just great. Really, you managed to make an already shitty trope even worse. That’s impressive.

The racism itself too. Dracula. They just decided to make Dracula totally racist now, huh? and it doesn’t get a pass just because Xander points out in the comic that he doesn’t remember Dracula being this racist. Because he wasn’t. This Dracula just throws around slurs left and right in a way that feels more like the writers just really wanted to use slurs. Because the character? He was suave, charming, heck he charmed the straight men and the lesbians too when he was on the show. He was a smooth talker. This Dracula? He just... He was just racist and rude in general. Why.

Moving on from the racism to the next failure in rep. The gays. At this point in time I am simply convinced that Joss Whedon is entirely unfamiliar with the concept of bisexuality.

I know I’ve already made a separate post complaining about this, but it needs mentioning in the review of the season too. Having Buffy hook up with a lesbian twice, but #NoHomo, just a straight girl in her “experimental phase”. That’s just cringey and also offensive. Just... make her... come out as a bisexual? It’s not like the writing in the show hadn’t already set her up with quite the bi vibes.

Instead, the narrative made it sound like the only options would be to be straight or to now suddenly turn “into” a lesbian. Which is also offensive on itself, because - as this very show had proven on screen - lesbians can come out later in life and genuinely, I adore Willow’s arc. For her narrative, it fit to have her come out as a lesbian, the circumstances and her life fit for that. I absolutely agree that it would have been weird for Buffy to have a sudden coming out as a lesbian at that point in her life and after everything, but referring to it as turning into a dyke was just not great.

And lesbian wasn’t the only option. Though, I’m unsure Whedon knows that, considering that 6/6 canon queer characters are homosexual and 4/4 wlw are lesbians. They just keep introducing more lesbians - which, as a lesbian I am always in favor of more lesbians. However, when you have a very small number (2) of queer characters, it figures you can not cover all the sexualities and it’s even fair that even with two, you still choose to have them both be the same sexuality. But... the more you add? The more questionable it becomes that you limit it to one sexuality only.

This arc would have so beautifully set up for Buffy to come out as bi. But no.

And while we’re on the wlw; one of the things I always loved about Buffy was that the lesbians weren’t just there for the male gaze, they weren’t oversexualized. They desired each other, they even had sex. But... in a normal frame work, to a normal amount, meaning equal to how the straights were handled. I always liked that, because especially in early days, lesbians were usually just there to look really hot and have hot sex that straight men could get off to. Well, consider me very unimpressed with the comics, because... man are lesbians sexualized now. Willow gets a hot constantly naked snake goddess girlfriend whom she can only contact by - and I am not making this up - having an orgasm. So we prelude the trip by her having sex with Kennedy, before waking up all nude in snake goddess’ realm and usually having am makeout session or sex with her too while doing whatever business she has with her. So much nakedness, so much oversexualization. Really... disappointing.

Staying on the romance but turning to the other Summers sister, I truly can’t believe they made Xander/Dawn canon. Like, I can not comprehend they decided to make that a canon ship.

Sure, Dawnie’s had a crush on Xander since the literal beginning of Dawn. And that was... cute, honestly. Fifteen year old girls have crushes on cute older guys who are nice to them. Figures. Adorable. But she kind of... grew out of that over the course of the show? Or so it seemed...

And Xander. One of the things I loved about Xander was that Dawn was always a total no go. She was Buffy’s sister, heck, she was kind of every Scoobie’s little sister. He had always had brotherly advise for her. Heck, in this comic he points out that it’s weird since he’s known her since she was little - and yeah it is. It’s not weird when two people were both little together, but when one was sixteen when the other was eleven and one has babysat the other? That’s weird.

Getting infinitely more disturbing by the fact that she... literally... just turned eighteen. If they had put this into a rather later season, or a bigger time skip, had Dawn been A WomanTM for a few years now and Xander had gotten around to separating the idea of kiddo!Dawnie from the woman she has become, but Dawn is only eighteen, she hasn’t become a woman yet. She just turned legal to bang and thus, a switch was flipped in Xander’s mind, putting her on his radar. And just... no. Why.

And even beyond this decision; Dawn spends the first third of this season being slut-shamed in ridiculous ways. Which is also tiresome. I am the last person to defend cheaters, but there’s a difference between “You cheated and are being held accountable for it” and “You cheated so now you are cursed to be a giant, a centaur and then a porcellain doll for weeks at a time, being publicly humiliated and having control over your body taken away from you”. That was... sure a choice.

Moving on to the actual main problem of this season. The plot.

Starting with the incomprehensibly dumb idea of “hey let’s retreat to Tibet, put a huge target on Oz’s new home and get rid of all of our magic. surely that will not come to bite us in the arse when the bad guys find us”. Naturally, it came back to bite them in their collective asses. This was just... No one objected or pointed out how dumb that plan was? Really? No one? Really?

Anyway, let’s talk villains. And work our way up there. The return of Amy and Warren. Once again, I ask why. I’m still salty about the 180° Amy did from sweet Wiccan to wicked bitch after her stint as a rat, but having her now... hook up with Warren, the second biggest misogynist on this show, who is also skinless. She used a spell to keep him alive but she couldn’t... give the spell a color? Anything? Anything to not make him look flayed? Because this was just unnecessarily gross body-horror.

Not to mention the... lack of reaction? Sure, some spoke grumpily against working with Warren. But... this is Warren. The guy who killed Tara when he was trying to kill Buffy. There really should have been more breather-scenes of the Scoobies talking about this, digesting the fact that the guy was still alive and more so when they worked with him.

But nevermind them, because they’re working for Angel. Because Angel’s the villain behind this season. I mean, he was manipulated into that by Twilight, but manipulated means he still chose to do it.

Now let me preface that I might not ship Angel/Buffy, but that really only factors marginally in here, because this plot would be bullshit even if it were my OTP.

We now retcon the creation of the Slayers as not just being something dirty old men did in a cave, it was now all the greater plan of the universe. Which. Might have worked had Slayers been... naturally occuring. And not created by men, forcing this upon a young woman. Sure, what people do can be seen as the greater plan of the universe too if you will, but that seems like a cop-out that absolves bad people of their bad choices and deeds.

Anyway. The universe created Slayers and vampires and the ““balance”“ between them (which is bullshit anyway because 1 Slayer vs thousands of vampires... not balanced at all), including the now supposedly destined romance between Angel and Buffy.

Both get rewarded with super-powers now so they can super-fuck and thus give birth to a new universe. That universe is called Twilight and manifests as a burning, winged, green lion who can talk (because that sure is how I always headcanoned Angel/Buffy’s children to look like /s) and who, through time-travel shenannigans, has been manipulating Angel into his own creation.

The magic pull between them is so strong that it overrides the “Angel just caused the death of over two-hundred Slayers” so Buffy fucks him.

At which point I just... this season was flat-out character assassination of Angel? He was manipulated by the bad guy. Not controlled, manipulated. He caused the death of hundreds. He threw everything he stood for and believed in out the window for the promise of a paradise where he could be with Buffy, when the real Angel has chosen other things, higher goals, over being with Buffy over and over again, because that’s what they do. That is their whole thing, they choose the good of the world over being together. They have always been a “will they/won’t they?” where the answer is they won’t, because they know they are needed elsewhere, by others. But now Angel just... doesn’t care about all that anymore, or heck about his own son and his friends, ready to abandon everything for this.

And then when Twilight is born and consequently abandoned by Buffy, who still prioritizes her friends, family and the world over being with Angel, Angel actually... needs convincing in the abandoning? Because, again, character assassination. Ultimately, Angel gets controlled by Twilight and used to kill Giles and try to kill Buffy.

But thanks to the Deus Ex Machina of Spike dropping in in the final arc, they know how to stop this. He hasn’t been in this season so far, because - truly in line with this season - he was off being the king of a race of alien bugs, traveling in their space-ship.

To stop this all, they go back to Sunnydale, where of course the “heart of the Earth” is located, the seed that contains all magic, and destroy it, and with it all magic. Also, the Master was apparently always just there to guard that seed. He is now back from the dead!

Let me summarize that once more, just for emphasis: The universe wanted Buffy and Angel to fuck so they can give birth to a new universe that personifies as a green, winged, burning lion but before it can destroy our universe, Spike, now king of an alien bug race, delivers the solution to go back to Sunnydale and destroy the seed of all magic that is being guarded by a resurrected Master.

How do you read that with a straight face? How do you pitch that? This is just so incomprehensibly stupid.

We end the comic with Buffy as a waitress, hated by many, Xander and Dawn now have an apartment and are playing house, Willow broke up with Kennedy because she realized she is in love with the snake goddess she will now never get to see again, Giles is dead, Faith somehow inherited everything from Giles and she is also the designated Angel-sitter now.

[dominicvail]

thjslove replied to your post

“do you think this could be end in one of them getting killed and...”

omg what CM receipts? ��

@thjslove cm is one of the most convoluted behind the scenes messes i have ever witnessed and i am just Astounded till this day like, i’ll bullet point for you because i Genuinely will be here writing this for 3 hours if i do details;

think of all the female cast members that have ever been on cm?? yeah?? a lot! well, the only ones who left in non suspicious circumstances? Lola Glaudini (elle) and Jennifer Love Hewitt (kate). Literally. The only ones. 

one time (between seasons 8 and 9) they almost cancelled the show because aj cook and kirsten vangsness decided they didn’t like that their male costars were making $70,000 more PER EPISODE than they were (this was back when they did 24 eps a season so like... i’m not gonna do the math but that is A Lot Of Money). (they renewed it last day of renewals, it was the same year cote de pablo walked from ncis because of the same reason, legit the only reason they got anywhere was b/c they said ‘we both get raises or we both walk’. 

btw while this was happening, minus Moore, the rest of the male cast was holding up negotiations so they got perks on top of being paid over 50% more than the women. 

this sequence is the kicker

u know season six, the jj and prentiss absences??? 

it was because they both got fired, listed as ‘creative decisions’ (that’s important later), which basically seemed to amount to ‘we want both less women and for her to be younger than both of you’. 

they fired aj cook flat out as her contract had expired that year, in the middle of a 2 parter, and didn’t even want to let her do an exit???? they legit had to fight for the right to have her to film an exit episode (they negotiatied 3 episodes, one for finishing the 2 parter, one exit, and one for when prentiss exited). 

brewster’s contract had Not expired (also important later), they just only decided she should be in 8 episodes. 

it’s important to the sequence of events that i mention outside influences, b/c the cm fans were PISSED. There was a straight up public outcry, i have Never seen a response like it in my many years of obsessive TV watching. People were Very fond of Prentiss and JJ and were Not impressed they were being booted as unnecessary to the narrative, those pesky creative decisions!!! the petitions and public support towards them were pretty incredible actually. 

by that point there wasn’t much that could be done about Cook, but seeing the response CBS kept making Brewster film Way more than those 8 episodes she got slotted for actively dragging her along, Still fired but p much unable to find other work realistically??? b/c they kept calling her back in???

public support was still Overwhelmingly on the actresses side. 

To the point that CBS started ardently claiming the actresses were fired for Monetary reasons. Yeah, they straight up lied, and still lie about it today. I have seen cbs affiliate websites print said lie bluntly in their articles (i no longer read cbs affiliate anything). 

I listed the pay scandal first for perspective on the money lie. At that point i think the men on the cast were wearing about $110,000 an episode, and it got out Cook was earning about £50,000 an ep, and we never heard about Brewster’s salary But when i say she made a Big Deal over finally getting paid as much as the men in the past couple of years i mean it, so we can assume she was also being paid a lot less. My point being, if they needed to save money, it would have been more profitable for them to fire One man on the show than two women. They pay gap was that much. 

so they lied, still lie, about why they fired them and it wasn’t even a good lie. 

ANYWAY

i know the show’s writing isn’t really applicable but Prentiss and Seaver  were never meant to be main characters on the show together, where they dragged out prentiss’ exit, they overlapped and Rachel Nichols had very little to do. 

Anyway, by the time the late eps of the season were airing (and i assume they looked at how many viewers cut loose when brewster left) cbs straight up rang up aj cook and asked her to sign back on (why she was in the last ep despite only being hired for 3 eps that season). She said she hated them but she had a young kid at the time and regular work that was local was helpful (plus, u know, i bet it was a great ego boost).

the season finishes airing, it goes on hiatus with the cast listed 4 season 7 as the men, garcia, jj and seaver. 

u know how i mentioned paget had a contract for s6 still but they cut her episodes down??? Well, CBS used the fact that they wouldn’t let her work on the show anymore despite being signed on as evidence that she was breaching contract if she didn’t go back as a regular for season 7. They threatened to sue her for breach of contract. The only reason prentiss was in s7 was because they used what they did against her that she had no power over to threaten her. So, u know, super nice. 

meanwhile, they fire rachel nichols, don’t bother to actually tell her they’d done it!!! and she found out on fucking twitter (and rachel is such a nice person, and she was absolutely vilified and abused by every idiot on the internet too thick to realise none of the above was her fault jeez). 

so s7 happens w/ the same cast as before, but brewster will Only work to contract and refuses to sign on again for s8. Understandable, tbh. 

they hire jeanne tripplehorn, fandom is disgusting as usual, like, absolutely vile, not surprised just disappointed. 

at the end of season 9 (they have 2 year contracts so like.. it was the end of her contract), despite everything in the  storyline process indicating otherwise and how much of a farce for her character what went down was... Blake left???? No more Jeanne???

Not one peep from bts over what happened.

if that sounds suspicious to you, it is, one of the crew members let slip they’d all been gagged and were not allowed to talk about it. So cbs learnt it’s lessons in as such that they learnt to hide their shitty actions rather than not do anything shitty.

p sure there was another pay scandal in here somewhere too??? 

in terms of The Gay(tm), Reid was like, conceptualised as bi from the get go but that thing in season one with Lila happened so the execs said he could not possibly be bisexual. Yeah. Yeah u read that right. Most ppl laugh at that one and say uhm do you not know what bi is??? but honestly it was just an excuse they knew full well what they were doing imo

why? they did it again! the writers, producers and Brewster all agreed on a scene where an episode opens w/ prentiss waking up in bed with another woman, guess who nixed it!!!! cbs. They also put a gag order on That little fact too! Kirsten Vangsness, bless her, did a podcast a few years ago on afterellen (before it got fuckawful and was with it’s original owners) and, i’d say ‘let slip’ but she knowingly dropped that truth bomb knowing full well she shouldn’t have. I love her. 

lately they’ve made brewster do “interviews” with some of those cbs affiliates where they try and get points??? for saying prentiss was gonna be gay??? like they’re not the ones removing the rep from the show??? and expecting a pat on the back for... refusing to have any kind of gay rep in a show that is by this point conspicuously straight (not that LA isn’t, but it’s not nearly as bad as cm). 

the whole mess with Gibson is... Wild b/c as much as i Loathe the dude he supposedly attacked cbs would not just fire their white guy show lead for no reason and i didn’t see any above the level sites claim any funny business there, but he got fired and cbs rang up Brewster and asked her to be the show lead which, honestly, after being fired for being old and irrelevant must have been AMAZING.

she also takes the time to point out to anybody who asks about her and aj being fired for money reasons that no, it was not about money at all. She basically calls her bosses out for being liars in public interviews frequently and it’s Amazing. 

i’m sure there’s more crap but i’m not recalling it rn

honestly cm bts drama is Wild and this doesn’t even get into the Patinkin drama (which while drama, is not actually anything to do with cbs). 

Interestingly enough, it’s super hard to find out all this stuff unless u were in the fandom the whole time because they’ve bloody lied So Much it’s all everyone even believes anymore. It’s disgusting. 

Still can’t believe  ncis:la’s female cast has done this well for so long???? These are just CM’s reciepts, they have a history of doing this stuff over and over on multiple shows, i know of it as far back as when trek tng was airing in the 80′s and can name more in between. 

[tumblunni]

I dont understand why wishshipping isnt more popular, like honestly it has the most shippy moments in canon and theres even literally a scene where yugi says "joey i love you" and the anime dub cut it but the manga dub kept it and there was even an interview with the dubber talking about how the line absolutely definately was a thing that really existed in japanese and how important it was to keep it in the translation. Like in context its supposed to be a probably platonic "youre my most important person" thing but the language used is something very close to a romantic confession in japanese even if it wasnt intended to be one. And the early chapters actually had A LOT of moments of like..outright gay jokes about joey and yugi. Again, this is a series that doesnt exactly have ant positive lgbt rep and is terrible and sexist with its straight romance so its VERY unlikely they were canonically meant to be bisexual and canonically having shipping BUT there are a lot of moments that are huge shipping potential AND even literal 'lol look he gay' dialogue. Just like..in a negative 'funny' sense.

And just seriously yugi is so important to jonouchi, the anime cut down their backstory a lot but it was REALLY EMOTIONAL in the manga! Jounouchi used to be a sort of nihilistic bully who just did whatever he wanted because he needed to find some form of fun/outlet for his anger to deal with living in poverty, never seeing his sister, and his dad being an abusive parent. And him and yugi met when jou outright bullied yugi, it was so friggin uncomfortable and sad to be thrown into that as a first chapter when i was so used to him being such a supportive friend. He was just an immature bastard who made fun of the 'weird kid' and said it was because he couldnt stand looking at someone who seemed like..sensitive and honest about his feelings. It was a surprisingly complex motivation for how a not actually very bad dude would become a bully to a dude he like..actually admired and was jealous of, and he was just so wrapped up in his own pain without the words to really articulate why he felt that way. He felt like a 'real man' should be silent aboyt his feelings and never ask for help, and that friendship between men could only ever be non-emotional assholeness where you have to be the biggest jerk and do bullshit together and if you ever show a moment of weakness everyone will leave you. So we have this situation of yugi himself feeling like he's a wimp but to jou he looks like the biggest fuckin badass for being honest about his real self and being able to step outside toxic masculinity even if it means being alone. And it was just so goddamn emotional how the friendship started?? Like jounouchi was just being an immature petty sort of bully but then a more physically abusive bully comes along and attacks yugi, and jou gets attacked by the same guy in the process and theres SUCH A GOOD MOMENT!! Where jou sees yugi and is like "so youre working with this guy? So you sent him to get revenge on us right??" like he's so ready to believe that yugi is really just as bitter and petty as he is BUT also he sounds so outraged and betrayed about it, like he feels he was tricked into believing that good people actually exist. But then yugi runs forward and starts treating his wounds because of course he wasnt actually involved in it. And even more than that, he stands up to this dude who's ten times taller than him and even managed to defeat jounouchi! And he says its because jounouchi is his friend and he "wasnt bullying, he was just teaching me to be a real man". And HOLY SHIT the look on jou's face when he says that! Like he never even considered the sort of awful influence he could be causing on this poor dude's mental health by gaslighting him into thinking 'this is just how men are'. Like he'd got this image all twisted in his head of yugi being some spiteful taunting figure who's always 100% unswayable in his kindness and must only be that way because he doesnt have any real problems or something. And now he's faced with the reality that this dude's kindness is 100% real, so real that he'd risk his own safety to help someone who's been so cruel to him because he saw a spark of goodness in jounouchi's heart that jounouchi himself never saw. And the only thing that could shake that kindness was jounouchi's own words..he had to face how his 'harmless fun' was having consequences and how he came so close to crushing this dude's will and turning him into a bitter bastard just like him and it was BY BEING FRIENDS! the bullying wasnt even the worst part it was the dangling friendship over his head and promising youd care about him if he just jumped through all these hoops to become a hardenened 'real man'. Another hardened 'real man' who was really just a soft genuine man who'd been broken and learned to hide himself.

So yeah jounouchi gets a great redemption early on, and a lot of chapters dedicated to examining it in detail, showing his abusive father and the toxic friends who influenced him into being a toxic friend himself, and how some of them (tristan/honda) were also good people who were redeemable while others (the goddamn terrifying yo-yo gang guy) were straight up criminals that yugi fuckin knife fights to save him from. Theres a scene of jounouchi getting tazed and having glass thrown in his eyes and yugi + yami fuckin defeat a whole damn gang in the most badass way and then yugi embraces jou's unconcious body and he wakes up in his arms and screams his name in relief while hugging him as hard as he can with his partially paralyzed arms like HOLY SHIT TJAT WAS SO INTENSE

And seriously their friendship is already awesome cos jounouchi is a lot more openly affectionate and cuddly than most friendships between dudes in this series. (Hence the gay jokes in the manga...) But having the context of his first manga chapter makes it even sweeter because he used to be such a heavily repressed super macho man who feared even HAVING FRIENDS AT ALL despite desperately wanting them. It just feels like yugi sorta.. saved him?? Helped him recover from that and become more open with his true self. Its so nice to see him gradually becoming more adorable and cuddly as the series progresses, when the absence of that sort of stuff was his biggest problem causing his goddamn depression. And yugi even helps him reunite with his sister and be able to help her get surgery! Is it any wonder that jou is yugi's biggest cheerleader? Seriously when so much of the show seems to sideline yugi and focus on yami later on, its good to have this one dude reminding us that yugi rocks and specifically yugi's 'wimpyness' is actually a good thing nd his strongest strength and seriously!! Just!! Its so good!! Gahh, joey is a big buff scary dude who sees this sweet dude as THE BIGGEST BADASS who SAVED HIS GODDAMN LIFE and HIS MENTOR IN BECOMING SOFT ALSO! Jou has so much fuckin character development that was lost by shortening down this part of the story and only showing it in flashback form a bunch of episodes after the beginning instead of BEING the beginning yknow??

So yeah seriously this entire character arc is so good and this is why jounouchi is the best character and deserved to keep that kind of focus in the series instead of being degraded to more.of a comic relief role. And also this is why thier relationship has such a great foundation and could be even more resonant if it was romantic! Like srsly theres so many parallels here with the idea of a closeted dude that THE MANGA OUTRIGHT MAKES GAY JOKES ABOUT HIM ALREADY

Oh also the manga backstory also adds more nuance to jounouchi and kaiba's relationship because you could see it as jou becoming rivals with kaiba because he sees him as a mirror of the kind of repressed asshole he once used to be. Which is another reason why gay/bi/pan jounouchi just fuckin enhances everything about his entire plot and also the whole series ok yes.

Also i just fuckin love jounouchi please appreciate jounouchi today

[sol-falloutblog]

Actually, nevermind I retract an earlier tag of mine, I do have other problems with FO games (3, NW, 4). Specifically the sexism (and not just the racism).

TW for mentions of murder/death, violence & brief mentions of racism & biphobia

Some might try and argue they aren't but please, everyone and I mean EVERYONE makes fun of the recurrent theme of the dead Wife/Girlfriend within the series and if we don't limit it to just partners the number of times this occurs goes up even more. Boone is the main one that everyone always talks about but I also like to include Raul in this because even though the women/girls in his life weren't romantically related their back stories in his life are just so violent and it doesn't escape me that most of them were Mestizo. In F3 their is literally an Asian girl with a Evil Karma requirement whose a sex slave to a Black man who is also the main enslaver (just... so much going on in that game ). Also would like to include the FO3 protagonist, the character we play has a Dead mom who died shortly after giving birth. Im probably missing A LOT but I don't remember much of anything from FO3 and despite having played FNV plenty of times a lot of my memory is still lacking or needs to be refreshed so this is as far as I'm going into these games for now.

Moving on to FO4, we got Deacon with a murdered partner, Pre-War Nick Valentine had a fiance that was shot in head used as motivation for Synth Nick Valentine, MacCready with a Dead wife killed violently by feral ghouls, Longfellow's partner who was abducted, brainwashed, miscarried then murdered and the Sole survivor if you're Male.

Also not to mention the fact that most women companions or any that show attraction to men are used more so to pander to male audiences then to be their own unique characters. Piper, Cait, and Curie all have no prior relationships, Cait is the sexual one who may even count as biphobic representation in some aspects similar to how Cass is within FNV (over sexualized and shows passing interest in women to mainly titillate the player). I don't know what to say about Piper, I don't think she's as bad as the others at least & she might even be okay however, I do still think she lacks in unique characterists & somewhat agency & even though she might not count as biphobic representation I still feel it is mainly there as entertainment for a specific group of their audience. As for Curie she very much falls into the "born sexy yesterday" trope.

I would like to add real quick that having a dead, beaten, or whatever wife, girlfriend, mother, sister or just any women character isn't automatically sexist the problem is that this is something done over and over and over again normally only to further the mens stories as motivation for them OR used purely for shock value. Not to mention that non-white characters tend to get more devastating or violent backstories or plots compared to their white counterparts or are given hardly anything of there own & used only to further white characters stories.

And also keep in mind that there are probably plenty of instances besides just the few I mentioned in which race and sexism intersect I just for now don't plan on going further then what I've said (but I would like to add one other example like Marcy Long from FO4). I would real quick like to point out though that of all three of these games there are only 2 WOC companions in total and their representation is not even good (if we count the temporary companions in NV then we would have one more but the one from Honest Heart is just done so poorly all around as well & no I don't see C). Also just the enormous lack of Companions of color IN GENERAL within these games (and/or just lack of DECENT portrayals). But thats not what this post was for.

Anyway yeah, sexism is to be expected of course with how most industries are but I just felt like I had to talk about it a bit. I could also go more indept with this but I don't want to have to do too much more research at this time. I might one day but probably not because most likely other women have talked about this already and too a much better degree then I could ever but maybe this will be interesting to someone.

Edit:

Hmmm... i guess I also have problems with the biphobia even though there isn't much but it is still there. And, even though the courier could *technically* be Bi+ in NV I don't believe it makes up for the other instances I've talked about and I'm actually not sure how I feel about it counting as actual representation honestly but that's something I need to research a little bit more before I make a solid judgement. However, at this moment I don't believe it does any better then FO4 in this regard. And, look, I understand Cait and Cass both aren't confirmed Bi+ & that one is definitely suppose to be straight because of things I've read about it BUT considering Bisexuality isn't really a thing thats talked about or referenced at all in these games I have to go off the little that is there. If there was other actual instances of good rep these could be looked over but because there isn't I can't.

ALSO even though I don't believe very many games have done this well, or any mainstream media but let's not forget sex workers are probably VERY poorly represented within the series but Im not that great at analyzing that specific stuff since I'm not one and don't know much about the issues and such sex workers face.