#and my favorite thing about this is it wouldn’t suddenly become a queer show because it already has been

[happyjackmhafanboy]

Personally, with a dash of optimism and realism, I think 2 is what I’m expecting. They’re too far gone at this point in the manga to suddenly say they’re not gay, but there’s also going to be a large backlash if they do end up confirmed queer and probably a backlash if they aren’t. I think Uraraka’s story was about moving on from Midoriya as she was more than just her admiration for him, so suddenly having her turn around and go back would feel forced to me (personal opinion). Thinking both about Horikoshi’s safety from harassment and what he’s been writing, I think 2.

On that note if 4 did happen I would be absolutely over the moon. I truly hope it is what happens.

I was going to do a voting poll, but I also want to hear opinions via comments/reblogs if anyone is able to:

for the bkdkbk fandom, how do you think hori is going to end bkdk/dkbk?

do you think he will end the manga open-ended and leave everything to the reader?

do you think that hori is planning to, at the very least, imply the bkdk's relationship is romantic (ex: crepe date, forehead touch, romantic hand hold, etc)

do you think that hori is going to keep the relationship platonic and have midoriya end up with ochako?

do you think certain accounts are going to be right and hori is going to make bkdk explicitly canon (love confession and/or kiss scene)

or do you have another theory of how it will end?

[thebibliosphere]

So I'm currently unemployed because I got fired for taking too much sick leave (it was legally sketchy blah blah blah but in the end I just can't work and take care of myself and investigate my mystery health problems at the same time). So I've been spending more time writing!

I really admire your writing and loved Hunger Pangs. I'm looking forward to the poly elements developing and I'm wondering if you have any advice for writing about poly. I've made one of my projects a snarky take on "write what you know" ... Apparently what I know is southern gothic meets Pacific northwest gothic, chronic illness pandemic surrealism, and falling back-asswards into threesomes.

I know this is a very open-ended question and I don't expect an answer, I'm just curious about it if you have the energy. As a writer, trying to write honestly / realistically about polyamory/enm, I'm curious if you have any thoughts on what's different about portraying monogamy or nonmonogamy in books, romance or erotica or otherwise.

I'm trying to read examples but it's hard to find examples that fit the niche I'm looking at. Excuse me if this question is nonsense, it's the cluster headaches.

I'm sorry to hear you've been dealing with all that and solidarity on the cluster headaches. But I'm glad you're finding an outlet through writing! And I hope you're happy with an open-ended ramble in response because oh boy, there's a lot I could talk about and I could probably do a better job of answering this sort of thing with more specific questions, but let's see where we end up.

There's definitely a big difference between writing polyamory/ENM (ethical non-monogamy) and what people often expect from monogamous love stories.

Just even from a purely sales and marketing standpoint, the moment you write anything polyamorous (or even just straight up LGBTQIA+ without the ENM) you're going to get considered closer to being erotica/obscene than hetero romances. It's an unfair bias, but it's one that exists in our society. But also the Amazon algorithm and their shitty, shitty human censors. Especially the ones that work the weekends. (Talking to you, Carlos 🖕.)

So not only do you start out hyper-aware that you're writing something that is highly stigmatized or fetishized (at least I'm hyper-aware) but that you are also writing for a niche market that is starving for positive content because the content that exists is either limited, not what they want, or is problematic in some fashion i.e. highly stigmatized or fetishy. And even then, the wants, desires, and expectations of the community you're writing for are complex and wildly varied and hard to fit into an easy formula.

When writing monogamous love stories, there is a set expectation that’s really hard to fuck up once you know it. X person meets Y. Attraction happens, followed by some sort of minor conflict/resolution. Other plot may happen. A greater catalyst involving personal growth for both parties (hopefully) happens. Follow the equation to its ultimate resolution and achieve Happily Ever After. 

But writing ENM is... a lot more difficult, if only because of the pure scope of possibilities. You could try to follow the same equation and shove three (or more) people into it, but it rarely works well. Usually because if you’re doing it right, you won’t have enough room in a single character arc to allow for enough growth, and if ENM requires anything in abundance, it’s room to grow.

And this post is huge so I’m going to put the rest under a cut :)

There's also a common refrain in certain online polyam/ENM circles that triads and throuples are overrepresented in media and they may be right to some extent. Personally, I believe the issue isn't that triads and throuples are overrepresented, but that there is such minuscule positive rep of ethical non-monogamy in general, that the few tiny instances we have of triads in media make it seem like it's "everywhere" when in actuality, it's still quite rare and the media we do have often veers into Unicorn Hunter fetish porn. Which is its own problematic thing. And just to be clear, I’m not including this part to dissuade you from writing "falling back-asswards into threesomes." If anything, I need more of it and would hook it directly into my brain if I could. I'm just throwing it out there into the void in the hope that someone will take the thought and run with it, lol.

I’d love to see more polyfidelitous rep in fiction, just as much as I’d like to see more relationship anarchy too. More diversity in fiction is always good.

Another thing that differs in writing ENM romance vs conventional monogamy is the feeling like you need to justify yourself. There's a lot of pressure to be as healthy and non-problematic as possible because you are being held to a higher standard of criticism. Both from people from without the ENM communities, and from the people within. Granted, some people don't give a shit and just want to read some fantastic porn (valid) but there are those who will cheerfully read Fifty Shades of Bullshit and call it "spicy" and "romantic," then turn around and call the most tooth-rottingly-sweet-fluff about a queer platonic polycule heresy. That's just the way the world works.

(Pro-tip for author life in general: never read your own reviews; that way madness lies. I glimpsed one the other day that tagged Hunger Pangs as “ethical cheating” and just about had an aneurism.)

And while that feeling of needing to justify yourself comes from a valid place of being excluded from the table of socially accepted norms, it can also be to the detriment of both the story and the subject matter at hand. I've seen some authors bend so far over backward to avoid being problematic in their portrayal of ENM, they end up being problematic for entirely different reasons. Usually because they give such a skewed, rose-tinted perspective of how things work, it ends up coming off as well... a bit culty and obnoxious tbh.

“Look how enlightened we are, freed from the trappings of monogamy and jealousy! We’re all so honest and perfect and happy!”

Yeah, uhu, sure Jan. Except here’s the thing, not all jealousy is bad. How you act on it can be, but jealousy itself is an important tool in the junk drawer that is the range of human emotion. It can clue us in to when we’re feeling sad or neglected, which in turn means we should figure out why we’re feeling those things. Sometimes it’s because brains are just like that and anxiety is a thing. Other times it’s because our needs are actually being neglected and we are in an unhealthy situation we need to remedy. You gotta put the work in to figure it out. Which is the same as any style of relationship, whether it’s mono, polyam or whatever flavor of ENM you subscribe to* And sometimes you just gotta be messy, because that’s how humans are. Being afraid to show that mess makes it a dishonest portrayal, and it also robs you of some great cannon fodder for character development.

Which brings me in a roundabout way to my current pet peeve in how certain writers take monogamous ideals and apply them to ENM, sometimes without even realizing it. The “Find the Right Person and Settle Down” trope.

Often, in this case, ENM or polyamory is treated as a phase. Something you mature out of with age or until you meet “The One(tm).” This is, of course, an attempt to follow the mono style formula expected in most romances. And while it might appeal to many readers, it’s uh, actually quite insulting. 

To give an example, I am currently seeing this a lot in the Witcher fandom. 

Fanon Netflix!Jaskier is everyone's favorite ethical slut until he meets Geralt then woops, wouldn’t you know, he just needed to find The One(tm). Suddenly, all his other sexual and romantic exploits or attractions mean nothing to him. Let's watch as he throws away a core aspect of his personality in favor of a man. 

Yeah... that sure showed those societal norms... 

If I were being generous, I’d say it’s a poor attempt at showing New Relationship Euphoria and how wrapped up people can become in new relationships. But honestly, it’s monogamous bias eking its way in to validate how special and unique the relationship is. Because sometimes people really can’t think of any other way to show how important and valid a relationship is without defining it in terms of exclusivity. Which is a fundamental misunderstanding of how ENM works for a lot of people and invalidates a lot of loving, serious and long-term relationships.

This is not to say that some polyam/poly-leaning people can't be happy in monogamous relationships! I am! (I consider myself ambiamorous. I'm happy with either monogamy or polyamory, it really just depends on the relationship(s) I’m in.) But I also don't regard my relationship with a mono partner as "settling down" or "growing up." It's just a choice I made to be with a person I love, and it's a valid one. Just like choosing to never close yourself off to multiple relationships is valid. And I wish more people realized that, or rather, I wish the people writing these things knew that :P

Anyway, I think I’ve rambled enough. I hope this collection of incoherent thoughts actually makes some sense and might be useful. 

----

*A good resource book that doesn't pull any punches in this regard is Polysecure by Jessica Fern. It's a wonderfully insightful read that explores the messier side of consensual non-monogamy, especially with how it can be affected by trauma or inter-relationship conflicts. But it also shows how to take better steps toward healthy, ethical non-monogamy (a far better job than More Than Two**) and conflict resolution, making it a valuable resource both for someone who is a part of this relationship style***, but also for writers on the outside looking in who might have a very simple or misguided idea of what conflict within polyam/ENM relationships might look like, vs traditional monogamous ones.

** The author of More Than Two has been accused of multiple accounts of abuse within the polyamorous community, with many of his coauthors having spoken out about the gaslighting and emotional and psychological damage they experienced while in a relationship with him. A lot of their stories are documented here: https://www.itrippedonthepolystair.com/ (warning: it is not light material and deals with issues of abuse, gaslighting, and a whole other plethora of Yikes.) While some people still find More Than Two helpful reading, there are now, thankfully, much, much better resources out there.

*** Some people consider polyam/ENM to be part of their identity or orientation, while others view it as a relationship style.It largely depends on the individual. 

[connorandersons-blog]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Connor/Gavin Reed, Hank Anderson & Connor Additional Tags: Pride, Pride Parades, Nonbinary Character, Bisexual Character, Gay Male Character, Hank is an ally, Good Parent Hank Anderson, First Kiss, Coming Out, Gay Disaster Gavin Reed, Gavin Reed Being Less of an Asshole, Connor Deserves Happiness, Deviant Connor, Post-Pacifist Best Ending ,Gay Disaster Connor

Summary:

Connor comes out to Hank who takes it very well and decides to take his android son to his first ever pride parade. Connor wasn't expecting to see a certain coworker there and what happened after he did.

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

He knew it was silly to be so nervous, acceptance of the queer community had gone up quite a bit, but there was still so many people who hated them. Who’d hate Connor, but he had to believe Hank wouldn’t be one of them. The man was one of his closest friends, he saw him as a father figure, but Hank could be a little old fashioned on some things. He had really hoped this wouldn’t be one of them. 

He had made Hank dinner that night, not fancy at all, just food he knew Hank would love. He sat at the table watching him eat, trying not to tap on it when Hank told him to just spit it out. 

“I’m bisexual,” he blurted, ducking his head. It wasn’t the only thing, but this was more accepted than the other thing he needed to say. 

Hank took a second, putting his food down which said a lot. “Thanks for telling me, kid. I know I can be… fucking stubborn but I fully accept you, no matter who you love.” 

Connor smiled and opened his mouth to speak before closing it again. He tried again and again until finally the words came out. “I’m also non-binary.” 

“Alright, that’s cool too, you wanna go by a new name? Oh and pronouns, what do you want?” Hank picked up his fork and took another bite, watching Connor carefully. 

“I like everything as it is now! I like my current pronouns and name. I just… I know I’m not a guy? But I’m ok with being called one. I kind of want to try feminine clothing but I also like my current clothes.” It had been so confusing, still was honestly but he felt comfortable with saying he was non-binary 

Hank nodded, smiling slightly and reaching out to pat his arm. “That’s alright kid, you do what makes you happy. Fuck knows the world needs some happy in it.” 

And that was that. Hank took him to the mall the next time they had off from work and let Connor pick out a few new clothes. It wasn’t much given their salaries but he still got two dresses, two skirts, a shirt, and a pair of heels. 

He was too terrified to wear any of it to work even though Hank promised no one there would be a dick about it. He didn’t say it outright but Connor could tell he was implying that Connor wasn’t alone in being queer. Connor did wonder who there was but apparently his ‘gaydar’ was subpar and he couldn’t tell with anyone. 

That was until Hank took him to his first ever pride parade. 

It shocked absolutely no one when the queer community welcomed androids with open arms, and the parade was filled with a wide range of people and android. Connor stared wide eyed at how big it all was, all the colors, all the scents from the food stalls, so many people. They were all dressed differently, some finally able to dress how they want and Connor is no different. 

He had decided on one of his skirts, a white button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows to keep cool. He had decided to not wear the heels given there would be so many people and he didn’t want to stumble or step on anyone. 

Hank and him found a good spot to watch the parade and Connor felt so light and jittery. There was this energy in the air of complete acceptance and joy that Connor couldn’t stop smiling. Even Hank had grinned a bit seeing Connor so happy, pointing out different areas of the parade. There was the vendor area, the food area, and the main parade route. It was all in or right near Hart Plaza so there was plenty of room to just stand and talk with friends too away from the parade. 

Connor got quite a few compliments from those around him, and each time made him blush and duck his head. He almost didn’t see him going by because of it, but he glanced up and there he was. 

He didn’t know what organization he was walking with, but Gavin Reed was strutting down the road like he owned it. He had a rainbow flag on like a cape but that certainly wasn’t what caught his attention. No, that was the chest harness, pants so low and open that it showed off the trail of hair down towards his crotch and if the pants were any lower everyone would be able to see his dick. He also wore very tall boots that had at least nine inch heels. The collar he had on was leather and had a chain attached to it that he held, but he let some take in and drag him along with a laugh. 

He had rainbow eyeshadow, silver eyeliner, and fake lashes on. Not to mention the amount of glitter that had already gotten all over him. He looked damn good and Connor’s jaw was on the ground. 

He was so used to seeing Gavin hidden behind slightly baggy clothes, his leather jacket too, hiding how wide his shoulders really were. At work he kept himself hunched a bit but now he had his back straight and looked so confident. 

Gavin didn’t see him or Hank, and Connor was far too distracted by the sight of him to see Hank’s raised eyebrow at Connor with a small smirk on his face. 

The person beside him noticed Connor’s expression, snorted and bumped his shoulder. “Good choice, he’s always a favorite, comes every year.” 

Comes every year? To… pride. That meant Gavin was queer in some way? Or maybe he was just a very enthusiastic ally. “I, yeah, wow.” Was all he managed to get out before shaking himself. He tried to focus on the rest of the parade but soon Hank was dragging him towards the food stalls. 

Hank almost spit his new food out when someone came up to him and asked if he was single. Though, they also called him ‘daddy’ and Connor decided he’d rather never think of that ever again. Hank did knock over his drink, just a little close to the person which Connor saw as purposeful. 

“I’ll go get you a new one, Hank.” Connor said, patting his shoulder. 

“Yeah kid, I’ll go look at the vendors a bit while you do that. I thought I saw someone I knew.” Hank waved him off and Connor only tilted his head when he recognized the lie. It was fine, if Hank didn’t want to say why he was actually going over there. 

Connor jogged back to the stall they had gotten Hank’s lunch, waiting in line patiently for it. He laughed off the situation, but the person gave him a free replacement. 

Connor glanced around the crowd and suddenly it felt like too much. The heat was beating down on him, he was too aware of his clothes and the people accidentally brushing against him as they walked past. 

He moved quickly away, finding a nice big tree to lean against. Hank wouldn’t be upset if he took a few extra minutes, he’d probably think someone stopped Connor to talk once again. 

He wasn’t too far away, he could hear everything very clearly still, but the tree’s shade helped cool him down and he felt himself calming. That was until he heard someone walking up to him. He opened his eyes and looked at the man, he had a chest harness on like Gavin had but it didn’t look nearly as good on him. Not that appearance made much of a difference, it was still nice to see beautiful people. 

“Hey pretty boy… or girl, or whatever you are.” The man grinned, winking at Connor. It reminded him of Gavin trying to wink and it brought a grin to his face without thinking the man would think it was for him. “What are you doing all alone?” 

“I just got a bit overwhelmed,” he wasn’t sure what else to say. The man kept looking at his LED and licking his lips. Connor had a bad feeling but had no real evidence to back it up. Hank had taught him he didn’t always need evidence to be right. 

The man nods, stepping a little closer. “Aw, well I can keep you company. You know… you’re one of the few ‘droids that I’ve seen that’s kept their LED in. I like it, shows the real you.” 

From anyone else Connor may have taken it at face value but every scan showed the man was aroused and Connor felt even more uncomfortable. “I’d rather be alone. I'm… waiting for my boyfriend. Thank you, though.” 

“Come on baby boy, don’t be like that. I like your kind, don’t worry. I’m sure your boyfriend is willing to share.” He stepped forward again and Connor held his hand up to stop him. 

“I said no. Please leave me alone.” The panic was coming back, and he didn’t want to get violent. 

“I don’t see him around here either. Just a little fun, no one has to know.” The man was sneering now, and Connor got ready to run or defend himself. 

“He’s right here, jackass!” A voice said, and then an arm was going around Connor’s waist. Connor froze, glancing over to see Gavin Reed of all people glaring at the man. “Now get lost.”

Connor went along with it, leaning into Gavin, the heels making him taller than Connor, and even placing a hand over his chest like he was scared and needing comfort. He wouldn’t say anything, he didn't want the man to get aggressive. 

He glanced at Gavin, before scoffing. “I could give you so much more, but if you say so. Just come find me if you get tired of him.” 

Connor wouldn’t, they weren’t actually together, but he’d never go to someone like that. Gavin gently rubbed a hand up and down Connor’s side as they watched the man walk away. 

“Ok, can you take your hand off my chest now?” Gavin asked, letting go of Connor. 

He jumped back, face turning bright blue. “I’m sorry! And thank you, that could have gone a lot worse.” He smoothed down his shirt and skirt, running a hand through his curly hair. 

“Yeah, no problem dipshit. So you actually have a boyfriend or just wanted that creep gone?” Gavin leaned against the tree, showing off his very nice abs, and Connor tried not to follow the trail of hair down. 

“I don’t, Hank brought me here after I… came out.” It felt so odd to say, but Gavin was here too. “I went to get him a soda but it all got too much.” He picked up the drink, glad it hadn’t gotten knocked over with everything that had happened. 

Gavin nodded, rubbing his hands together almost anxiously. “Congrats then, takes a lot of guts to come out.” 

Beaming at him, Connor ducked his head quickly. “I was very nervous but Hank has been incredibly kind and supportive. Can I ask, well, are you here as an ally or…” he trailed off. 

Gavin actually laughed at that before motioning to himself. “Do I really look straight? Nah, I’m hella gay.” 

Of course, Connor couldn’t help but follow where his hands motioned, trying to not let on just how affected he was by Gavin’s appearance. “I’m bi, and non-binary,” he blurted, and even though he was still nervous to say it, it felt good too. He motioned down to his skirt, copying Gavin slightly. 

Gavin glanced at the skirt, smiling slightly. “That looks good on you, and thanks for telling me. Are you going by a new name or pronouns? I won’t use them at work obviously, unless you say so… not that we see each other outside of work.” 

“No, I like my name and I’m still using he pronouns. Thank you for asking.” He wished he could say they should spend time outside of work, but he could barely consider them friends. Gavin hadn’t been outright rude to him, their bickering was more good natured and teasing than anything else. 

“Cool cool, well you wanna go find Hank? Don’t want him thinking you got kidnapped or trampled in the ground.” Gavin pushed away from the tree, nodding back to the stalls. Connor followed after, watching how well Gavin walked in the heels even in the uneven grass. 

“This your first pride parade?” Gavin asked as they made their way back into the crowd. Connor reached out and very carefully put a hand on Gavin’s arm so they wouldn’t get separated. 

“It is, I love all the colors and happiness, you can just… feel it everywhere. It’s a lot of fun… I saw you in the parade and was a bit shocked, you know. Someone said you come every year?” If so then maybe they could make this a thing. They could come together, spend some time outside of work. 

Gavin grinned, waving at someone before nodding towards Connor. “I do, Tina comes with me normally but she had work. I came with Cecil Sunshine… or well that’s his drag name. He’s somewhere around here.” 

Oh. Well Tina wasn’t too much a surprise given the two were best friends but he’d never heard of the drag queen. Were they together? “I see, that sounds fun. I love your makeup, I’d love to learn to do that.” 

Gavin perked up even more, turning around to grab Connor’s hand. “I can teach you! If you want, of course, if we find Sunshine, she has my makeup.” 

Connor’s pump was pounding, having Gavin hold his hand, and he nodded mutely. He tried to clear his throat, glancing around. There were so many people, but off to the right side was a very large group. “What’s going on there?” 

Gavin looked over, then frowned. “Protesters. Those that can will surround them to protect the kids and everyone else from them. Wanna go see? If not it’s ok, I couldn’t be around them for a while, now I like messing with them.” 

Connor nodded and Gavin kept a hold of his hand as he led him over. He could hear those screaming about god and repenting, how unnatural this was. He could also see the signs, some of them were also specifically anti-android. 

“How do you mess with them?” He was pretty sure that they weren’t allowed to touch each other, which helped both sides. 

Gavin smirked a bit. “Find someone willing and kiss him right in front of them. Freaks them out a lot.” Gavin was looking around, probably trying to find someone that would be willing. 

“We could,” he mumbled, probably not loud enough for Gavin to hear over the yelling but his head whipping around said otherwise. “We don’t have to! I just, considering they are also anti-android it would add to the effect, right?” He reached up, tapping his LED. 

Gavin stared at him with wide eyes before grinning. “Definitely. Come on, let’s get to the front.” He dragged him forward, politely pushing his way through until they were right in front of the group. 

They stood so Connor’s LED was facing them, and Gavin carefully reached up to cup his cheek. It was clear he was giving him time to back out, but Connor wouldn't. Those that were queer or supporting started cheering realizing what was happening. 

Connor leaned up, pressing his lips against Gavin’s. They were warm and a bit wet given the lipstick he was wearing. It sent a buzz from his lips down his spine as he pressed closer. He ignored the anger shouts of the protesters and even the cheers, just focused on Gavin pressed against him. 

It was hard, and long, sweet and indulgent, over far too quickly. Gavin broke it, panting, and then pushed back in for another, this one far more heated. Connor grabbed the chain connected to the collar he wore, keeping him close that way. It got wolf-whistles and catcalls, all in good nature though. Connor reached to hold Gavin by his waist with his other hand, titling his head to help deepen the kiss, their tongues sliding together. 

They pulled back slowly, both grinning widely. It was Connor’s first kiss and one he would never forget, not that he could, given he was an android. “That was fun,” Connor giggled. Gavin nodded and dragged them away from the group, getting a few pats for the show. 

Once away Gavin paused, reaching up and swiping his thumb across Connor’s lips, he froze, licking his lips without thinking. His tongue brushed against Gavin’s thumb, and he stopped breathing. 

“Sorry… had lipstick on you.” Gavin murmured, pulling his hands away. 

Connor reached up to touch his own lips, feeling how they still tingled from the kiss and now from the touch. “It’s ok, I don’t mind. Listen Gavin, I-“ 

“Connor!” Hank called and he spun around to see the man come up. “Damn kid, I couldn’t find you anywhere. You good?” He glanced at Gavin who looked like he just got caught stealing. 

“I’m ok, Gavin found me and we messed with some protesters! Here’s your drink,” he held it out, smiling widely at Hank. 

“Huh. At least you didn’t get lost… I uh, got you something too.” Hank shrugged, trying to play it off nonchalantly. 

Connor tilted his head, seeing how Hank had one hand behind his back Connor figured he was hiding something. “Oh?” 

Hank shrugged again and held out a package. Connor gasped when he saw what it was, looking between them and Hank. “Thank you!” It was the non-binary flag. He could hang this up in his room! He stepped up and threw his arms around Hank, pulling him into a tight but quick hug. 

Hank glanced at Gavin who had a fond look on his face before it quickly turned into a scowl and he looked away. Connor saw none of that, but stepped back from Hank. “Yeah, no problem kid.” 

Connor showed the package to Gavin who gave him a small smile and nod. Then he glanced down, biting his lip before unclipping the flag and pulling it away. He hesitated only for a second before putting it over Connor’s shoulders, using the two holes meant to put it on the pole to clip it together to make a cape. 

Connor went completely still as Gavin did so, feeling like his thirium pump was pounding away in his chest. He brought a hand up to touch where it was clasped together, his fingers brushing over Gavin’s. 

“Happy pride, Connor,” Gavin muttered just loud enough for Connor to hear over the chaos around him. 

Connor could help but beam at him, touched beyond words. He felt so loved here, so accepted by people who didn’t even know him, by Hank and Gavin. It was one of the most wonderful feelings in the world. “Happy pride, Gavin.”

(my art do not repost)

[greengay]

Thank you for being one of the only blogs to talk about rpf 🧡 I like it a lot, but I feel like it’s become taboo to mention it? I don’t post about it because I’m worried people will think I’m weird

LOL JUST DOIN’ MY PART....

TBH!!! sooooo many people feel like you do LOL like, a lot of people enjoy it and know it’s harmless and SO MANY PEOPLE follow my nsfw gd blog (sorry for not answering the asks yet......executive dysfunction....)

1) i don’t care about followers or whatever, i am just here to scream into the void and if people tune in, cool

2) YA it’s become taboo moreso recently because I think fan culture has gotten.....younger? because of people being able to access the internet easier? like back in the day, you used to have to either have a computer or log onto the family computer IF you were allowed, so fandoms skewed older? like at least 15+....now 9 years old all have iphones and can access fan communities etc. which is....terrifying tbh.

BUT! with that, i think especially with l*rry and r*den and ph*n (disregarding if the relationships were real or not) younger people don’t understand boundaries as well and can’t really comprehend the fact that the people they’re reading fic about AREN’T the same people that they’re tweeting/commenting on ig posts of.......i mean they are, but i think it’s pretty much understood that in fic.....none of these things have actually happened. it’s just taking a daydream about a hot celeb and writing it out, or it’s using gerard way’s face + likeness + personality traits gleaned from on stage/interviews and creating a character based on that.

3) ALSO. celebs/musicians/etc. have gotten 1000x more accessible? AGAIN, with ryden.....back in the day it would stay on livejournal or tumblr and ryan and brendon (i know he’s cancelled or w/e but i think ryden is the best example) wouldn’t be exposed to it unless they actively sought it out (except for the crazy fans that would wait for them in airports LOL but that was v few and far between). but then. instagram and twitter became WAY more popular and suddenly fans could access the love of their life any time they wanted!!!! and why not use that access to confirm/get more “lore” about their favorite ship? /s which kinda related to point #2 bc it was mostly young people doing this.

now if you see frank iero MENTION gerard way the twitter replies will be FILLED with “frerard” 😬 and 1) if you do believe they had something (i believe they DID....not currently tho) it obviously wasn’t public, so why not respect their privacy lol. not to mention that it’s in the PAST and we don’t know if it was a painful split (frank was HEARTBROKEN after mcr broke up and would shit talk gerard in interviews lol so) its best to assume it was and NOT bring it up to hurt him more and 2) it affects their real life relationship at this point!

there’s a difference between knowing something is out there and being tagged in it/having it shoved in your face. for the most part, bands have never cared abt ships and actually would tease them a little cos they knew it would “sell” the band better and excite fans and show that they aren’t like......abt to go into a gay panic bc someone thought they were fucking their friend.

THIS IS ANOTHER ESSAY/RANT ENTIRELY, but i think band rpf is a safe and healthy way to explore sexuality + emotions if you are too scared/traumatized/whatever to go out and try everything you ever imagined. especially if you are afab and you want to have sex with men. it’s scary out there!

like. real men might be assholes and take advantage of me and could hurt me. but projecting onto billie and mike is completely safe, especially because i’m so far removed from it. there’s also like....this is fake deep, but whatever....the aspect of exploring Queerness in a safe way? like in fics that aren’t just smut. LIKE 12-17 year old me reading NOTHING but m/m fic with some f/f thrown in there and still thinking i was straight LOL. and it just being....completely normalized for me until i was comfortable enough to admit that i was bisexual to myself? IDK IF Y’ALL KNOW THE COMPARTMENTILIZATION PEOPLE THAT GROW UP IN VAGUELY CONSERVATIVE AREAS WITH NO REPRESENTATION GO THROUGH. i would LITERALLY stare at my friends (who were girls) lips and think about kissing them and just be like....HM! THAT WAS WEIRD! LET’S NEVER ADDRESS THAT INTERNALLY.

you can argue that there’s an aspect of fetishization, but i think the concept of celebrity & stan culture is fetishization in and of itself. like.

Fetishization refers to a process of imbuing an object or idea with power. A fetish object is often associated with sexual gratification, desire, and worship. Fetishization marks a cultural, psychological, and social technique of fetishizing things by making them appear larger than life, animate, or sexually desirable (→ Sexualization in the Media). It is argued that this process has profoundly influenced contemporary consumer culture (Fernbach 2002; Jhally 1987; Schroeder 2002). (x)

like if you even vaguely idolize a celeb/put a celeb on a pedestal or reblog a text post about them........that’s fetishization, babey! you don’t ACTUALLY know them!!!! they’re just.....some guy! billie joe is just.....some guy who’s really good at writing songs. he’s actually kinda ugly but we all find him attractive and go 😍 over his traditionally unattractive features cos he is talented and famous. if he was some dude at your gas station you would NOT be posting abt him on instagram.

but because i love and respect him i think he is beautiful 💖 and the only reason i can “love” someone i don’t know is celeb worship culture.

and the people who compare girls liking m/m fic to LESBIAN PORN. LOL. i think that’s so deeply insidious that, again, it’s another post. ACTUALLY i think i’ve already posted abt it waaaaay back.

omg i’m sorry this turned out so long...

[kitauji-king]

‘Liz and the Blue Bird’ Recap Part 3

Our favorite trumpet and euphonium duo are getting ready to practice.

The cracks in Nozomi’s facade are beginning to show.

Nozomi still attempts to preserve the illusion nevertheless.

Speaking of being perfectly in-sync with each other, say hello to the poster children for a perfectly healthy relationship. To me, KumiRei has to be one of the best pairings based on how well they get each other and how they consistently support each other throughout all of their endeavors. They both see the other’s flaws but they still remain devoted to each other regardless. This is represented by them playing Mizore and Nozomi’s duet perfectly in time and in tune with each other.

Mizore overhears the duo practicing too and stops to take a look. She doesn’t stick around for too long though.

We love to see it.

It was a confession of love, after all.

That’s true, if Kumiko and Reina were in the position of Liz and the bluebird, their parting would take on a different meaning. As I said only a moment ago, Kumiko and Reina are always in support of each other. If one of them felt as though the other one was being held back from achieving their full potential and becoming special, they wouldn’t hesitate for a second in letting the other one go. They’d have no doubt that letting the other go would be the correct choice.

Nozomi second guesses herself.

Mizore has read the story through multiple times, but she still can’t seem to get into Liz’s head.

Another area where Mizore and I are quite similar. Just like her, I find myself getting extremely attached to certain people I care deeply about and I even go as far as creating this idealized version of them in my head. The idea of letting that person go is almost unspeakable.

Yuuko is extremely passionate about this because after Nozomi quit, she was the only one Mizore had left. She saw firsthand how strongly this abandonment affected her, even to the point of her getting physically sick. So, it makes sense that she’s frustrated at Nozomi for doing the same thing all over again.

Well, sometimes, but communication is also important too. When was Mizore supposed to find out, then?

Niiyama makes a very astute assumption about Mizore and her sentimentality, to which Mizore can’t deny. Then, she gives Mizore a different perspective to think about.

Back in the fairy tale world, Liz finally breaks the news to the blue girl. She takes it pretty well.

Seemingly out of nowhere, the rug was pulled out from underneath the blue girl. She had been living with Liz and the two of them had been pretty much attached at the hip for a while now. They had come to love each other deeply, but now Liz is telling her she has to leave. 

Liz has come to terms with the fact that the blue girl cannot truly be free or happy if she chooses to stay with her.

This particular shot with the way Liz looks at the blue girl and the way she speaks this line really melts my heart. All of her love is being reflected in her eyes. I think what makes this even more emotional is the addition of Liz pulling back for a  moment to recompose herself before she speaks. It’s a painful decision to make, but she has to peel off the band-aid. The blue girl is reluctant to leave, but she does so anyway out of respect for Liz’s decision.

Also, I’m going to use this shot to reaffirm my statement that this is a queer movie. Liz’s one line in this shot hints at the nature of her relationship with the blue girl. It’s not platonic. In Japan, there are quite a few ways to say “I love you,” all of them having their own nuances and context. Liz uses “aishiteru,” which is normally used only in romantic situations; for instance what two spouses or two lifelong partners would say to each other. “Aishiteru” marks a very deep, committed, romantic relationship. It has such great meaning that the word isn’t even that commonly used in normal settings. Yes, it’s a bit bold of me to label their relationship as romantic, but I still find it a little ridiculous to assume that the two of them are just friends and nothing more. I would even say that it was willful ignorance. Clearly, whatever this relationship is, it transcends friendship.

But also, it is just a fairy tale.

Suddenly it starts making sense.

All this time, Mizore had been restraining her playing so that she wouldn’t leave Nozomi behind. The whole reason she plays the oboe in the first place is because of Nozomi. Now she realizes that because she loves her, she has to convey her love and all her emotions through her playing to give it back to her. Music is the best way for someone like Mizore to express themselves after all.

Here Nozomi finally comes clean and comes to terms with her own jealousy. She admits that it hurt to see Mizore getting all this attention when Nozomi is also passionate about music. She has to learn to accept that Niiyama just happened to see a greater potential in Mizore that Nozomi just didn’t seem to have. She has to accept that Mizore is going places where she cannot follow.

Originally, they thought of Mizore as Liz, and Nozomi as the bluebird. Nozomi was a strange miracle that came into Mizore’s life when she least expected it. And then, just like the Avatar, when Mizore needed her most, she vanished.

The roles have been reversed.

The bluebird has gone away to be free with others of her kind, and Liz is left to watch as the bluebird soars higher and higher and farther and farther away.

A stray bluebird feather descends from the sky. Liz grabs it and holds it closely, accepting is as something to remember her companion by. Ultimately, she made the correct decision in letting the bluebird go free, but god it still hurts. Now Nozomi knows she must do the same as well.

This last shot is so stunningly gorgeous from color to composition. I like that the film lingers here for a good few seconds.

Act 3 begins at the start of another rehearsal. In a seemingly uncharacteristically bold move by Mizore, she asks if they can go all the way through the Third Movement in Liz.

Niiyama approves.

As they begin playing the duet, Nozomi immediately notices that something is different.

Mizore is playing her part now with a new vigor and liveliness. All of her inhibitions have been thrown out the window and she doesn’t restrain herself to allow Nozomi to keep up. She’s soaring like the bluebird.

This specific portion of the song gives me chills and goosebumps every single time. The music is at a low rumble, Mizore leads as the piece is building up and building up until the cymbals crash and a trumpet fanfare begins, marking the climax of the movement.

Nozomi is so overcome with her emotions she can hardly play. She can’t focus enough to even move her fingers and fake it. The camera going in and out of focus really enhances this.

Nozomi finally drops out, laying the flute down in her lap in defeat. She just can’t keep up anymore.

She firmly grips the instrument in her lap as the tears begin to fall. It’s no use, and she knows it. Mizore has flown too high and far away for Nozomi to even reach her anymore.

Mizore concludes the solo on a literal high note.

The film goes silent. Everyone in the room is left utterly speechless or in tears because of Mizore’s solo. I had the same reaction. Not Niiyama-sensei though. She knew all along that Mizore could play like this; she’s merely proud.

If even Reina offers her kudos to your playing, that’s how you know you’re an amazing musician.

Even with all this praise, there’s still one thing on Mizore’s mind.

Mizore finds Nozomi sulking alone in what was previously her own hiding spot: the blowfish tank in the science lab. 

Mizore’s in a difficult position. She doesn’t have that same type A personality that someone like Reina has. Mizore is happy to play as long as she gets to do it with Nozomi, the competition aspect isn’t that important to her. So I can see why she would hold herself back for Nozomi’s sake.

Nozomi’s in a tough position as well. She’s extremely passionate about music and she is a skilled flautist; she was the president of Minami Middle School’s band, the principal flautist to boot, and she only quit Kitauji’s band because she couldn’t stand being around the upperclassmen who didn’t take it seriously. We know this. So it really sucks for her to realize that she’s coming up short in her playing. Now this girl, whom she introduced to concert band in the first place, is turning out to be more skilled than she is and is even getting more attention for it. I don’t care who you are, that’s gotta hurt, petty or not.

This is reflecting the part in the short story where Liz claims to be just “a cage that confines you” and tells the bluebird that with her flight she can go anywhere she chooses.

Mizore is done being talked over and is ready to finally speak her mind.

Nozomi severely underestimates how much of an effect her disappearance had on her friend. It’s even affected how Mizore saw her other friendships (though she didn’t have very many to begin with). For the entire year that Nozomi was gone and Yuuko stuck by her side, Mizore was so sure that she was only doing that out of pity. She didn’t see herself as being worthy enough to be considered someone else’s friend. And now that Nozomi’s back, Mizore felt she had to live with the fear that it could happen again.

Mizore’s main fear is that she’s just another one of Nozomi’s many friends, and that if she ever stopped doing it, there would be no reason for Nozomi to continue to be her friend. Whether or not she actually liked band was irrelevant in that equation. And as we learned in season 2, when asked why she never quit the band even after Nozomi did, she explained that the oboe was the only thing keeping her connected to Nozomi.

Mizore’s as serious as a heart attack when it comes to how much she loves Nozomi.

Nozomi is referring to the part of herself that she doesn’t let anyone else see. The part of her that is petty, jealous, and selfish. She doesn’t feel she lives up to the perfect, kind hearted, divine being that her peers have made her out to be.

It is physically impossible for Mizore to even entertain the idea of hating Nozomi. She loves her, flaws and all.

Cutting Nozomi off from downplaying her confession, Mizore raises her hands in another I Love You Hug attempt. Nozomi is rendered speechless.

Mirroring the last I Love You Hug attempt, the two are froze in time and we, the audience, are left wondering “will they, or won’t they?” Boldly, Mizore is the first one to move; she wraps her arms around Nozomi and clutches onto her. Very hesitant and calculated, Nozomi slowly places her hands on Mizore’s waist.

For some reason, I don’t believe that, Nozomi.

In true I Love You Hug fashion, Mizore gushes about all of the good things Nozomi has brought into her life just by saying hi to her that one day.

Just typical things straight people platonically say about their friends.

This line can be interpreted many ways as I’ve seen when I look at other people’s analysis on this film. Some people say that this is Nozomi rejecting Mizore’s love confession seeing as she doesn’t compliment her on who she is, only what she does (her being a hard worker, and being skilled at the oboe). But I don’t agree with that interpretation. The point of this scene is for Nozomi to let go of the bluebird, just like Liz. I think that’s why she puts herself down, saying things like Mizore had to hold herself back for her sake, that she is very talented and has the whole world ahead of her. She does that so that Mizore will see how great her potential is and choose to live her own life and be free. I believe that if she had returned Mizore’s confession at this very second, that would defeat the entire purpose of her trying to release the bluebird.

Nozomi suddenly bursts out laughing. Maybe at the realization that all they needed to do was communicate with each other? I still stand by my opinion that giving each other cute nicknames would’ve resolved all of this a lot sooner.

See, I think you remember it perfectly, Nozomi.

We get this silent shot of two birds flying side by side in sync with each other.

I hope the school is paying this girl.

Mizore is trying to renew Liz again after who knows how long it’s been, and the librarian’s still trying to nag her. Luckily, Nozomi is there to save the day. However, she’s also there on a mission: she’s here to study for college exams. 

This scene is meant to mirror the one at the beginning of the film with both of the girls walking to the band room and with Nozomi leading. In this scene, now the girls are independently following their own paths for the future. Mizore is practicing her oboe to get ready for music school, and Nozomi is studying up for a regular college.

Nozomi left a little doodle for Mizore on her sheet music as a reminder.

Looking through the windows of both domains, we see the same lone bluebird fly across the sky, showing us that both girls have learned to let go.

Some time later, Mizore is leaving the school building and up ahead is Nozomi’s smiling face waiting for her. She hurriedly runs up to catch up to her. Overtop of this is a voice over of Nozomi and Mizore deciding what they should eat on the way home. What’s significant about this scene is that now girls are being depicted as equals; gone are the days of them walking with Mizore trailing behind from a distance. Now they are walking side by side and both of their opinions for what they wanna do are being taken into consideration. It’s not just Nozomi calling the shots anymore.

Some things never change.

This line has kind of a double meaning. Yes, she really is going to practice and learn to play her solo with as much fervor as Mizore, but she also wants to use this time to work on herself as a person. She needs to get over her jealousy and learn to support her friend. And then maybe someday she’ll be able to return Mizore’s confession. She just needs a little time first.

Mizore agrees to keep practicing too, for a different reason though. She’ll keep following her own path.

Further demonstrating that they’ve never been more on the same page with each other than they are right now, Mizore and Nozomi hivemind for a second. Mizore recalls the conversation with Hazuki and Midori she eavesdropped on and uses the ‘Happy Ice Cream’ trick. I don’t think Nozomi realizes she’s going to be the one who has to pay for those ice creams, but you guys can cross that bridge when you come to it.

My god, what do you think she said!?

Wow, what a ride.

If you’ve actually managed to make it to the bottom of this review, I just wanna say welcome, and also thank you for taking the time to read this!

Like I said back in the intro ages ago, this immediately became my favorite film upon watching it. This is becoming one of those films that I can look back on every now again and still love it just as much if not more. KyoAni never fails to disappoint. Shoutout to Naoko Yamada, the amazing director. Would definitely recommend this film to anyone who has eyes and ears.

I’m really glad this film gave us all a chance to get a deeper look at Mizore and Nozomi’s relationship. After their 4-episode arc in season 2 of Hibike is concluded, we don’t hear much about them. This was a lovely aftermath to see how they’ve both changed and grown since their falling out and reuniting.

Now I wanna open this up for further discussion on the film. What are your thoughts and interpretations? Do you agree or disagree with me at any points? What did Nozomi say at the end!?! Leave a reply or send me and ask and I’ll try to respond to as many as I can.

Part 1

Part 2

[thearvariblues]

The Bard And The Wolf - Chapter Seven

(AKA Geraskier in the Metal Band AU you didn’t know you needed)

AKA me desperately trying to catch up my Tumblr with what’s already been posted to AO3. ;)

The masterpost for this fic can be found HERE.

7 – You Stop This, Jaskier

All eyes turned to the door when Jaskier entered the rehearsal room, a big paper cup of coffee in one hand, a paper bag in the other.

“Fifteen minutes late with Starbucks,” Renfri smirked.

“I have two things to say to that, dear heart,” Jaskier said, taking a sip of his coffee. “First, I’m merely three minutes late. And second, I would never ever in my life set foot in a place as wretched as Starbucks, so don’t ever accuse me of something so horrible again!”

“Did you stop for a coffee or not, Jask?” Geralt chuckled.

“No. I stopped for something to eat. The coffee was an afterthought.”

He placed the cup on a little table next to the couch, sat down right next to Geralt and reached into the paper bag, pulling out a big sandwich which he immediately took a big bite of.

“Wow. Your night must have been really taxing,” Lambert laughed.

“Is Ciri around?” Jaskier mumbled.

“She’s walking Roach,” Geralt said.

“Good. In that case, my dears, I can tell you that my night was exquisite. I spent most of it in the middle of a very lovely, well… sandwich. Our fans really do get enthusiastic after a good show!” he grinned, but then he frowned. “Wait, who’s Roach?”

“What do you mean, who’s…” Renfri blinked. “Oh, of course, you haven’t met her yet. Roach is Geralt’s dog. Technically, she’s Roach number two.”

“Oh,” Jaskier said. “Right.”

“She’s a husky,” Eskel added.

“Of course she is. And… She’s coming here with Ciri?” he beamed.

“Yeah. In a few minutes,” Geralt nodded. “But don’t touch Roach. She doesn’t trust strangers. I adopted her a few months ago when Roach number one died. She wasn’t even one year old, but her life must have been really shitty before, so…”

“Poor little thing.”

“Yeah, she’s definitely not like Roach number one,” Renfri sighed. “That was such a sweet girl. This one is like a tornado.”

“But of course Geralt still adores her,” Eskel said.

“Yes. I seem to have a thing for totally unpredictable and crazy individuals,” Geralt smirked. “Jesus, Jask, are you seriously going to wolf down the whole thing? This must be the biggest sandwich mankind has ever seen. How does it even fit in your mouth?”

“Lots of practice.”

“Eating sandwiches?” Lambert said, cocking his eyebrow. “Or stuffing large things into your mouth?”

“The latter,” Jaskier grinned. “And stop giving me that look, Geralt. I’m hungry and I refuse to look like a starving bag of muscle like some of us do.”

“Some of us, Jaskier?” Geralt asked.

“Come on, I saw you getting dressed before the gig yesterday. I mean, yeah, big muscles, ripped body, it’s meant to be sexy, but it only means you should definitely eat more. A little layer of some nice, protective fat would do you good.”

“Don’t waste your breath,” Renfri muttered. “He keeps his body like that because Yennefer liked it.”

“I keep my body like that because I like it,” Geralt growled.

“Well, don’t mind me then,” Jaskier shrugged, getting another bite of his sandwich. “I just tend to like men who are strong and a little bit soft at the same time. Like Eskel here. But that’s just my problem. If you want to look like this, go on. Hey. Hey! That’s my sandwich!”

“You said I should eat more, didn’t you?” Geralt smirked, effortlessly wrestling Jaskier’s snack out of his hands.

“Yes, but I didn’t mean my sandwich, you ass!”

“Too bad,” Geralt said, biting into it. “Oh, this is delicious!”

“So glad you like it,” Jaskier muttered. “I’m hungry over here, you know?”

“Shut it. You already have that layer of nice, protective fat,” Geralt mumbled.

“Yeah, yeah. Didn’t use to, you know?” Jaskier sighed, grabbing his coffee. At least something to soothe his hunger. “I used to be really thin. Always hungry. Because Valdo always used to tell me Oh, Julian, look, those tight pants would look so nice on you, too bad you’re not a size smaller. Oh, Julian, sweetie, look a this guy’s thighs, they don’t even touch each other, isn’t that beautiful? Julian, is that a tiramisu? Yeah, it’s a fucking tiramisu, you ass, and I’ll have as much as I want. Ugh. Can’t believe I wasted two years of my life with that bitch.”

A complete silence fell in the rehearsal room and Jaskier suddenly saw everyone was staring at him with mouths agape.

“I’m sorry,” Lambert finally said, after a few long moments. “Did you say Valdo?”

“Mhmf,” Jaskier muttered, trying to hide his face behind his coffee cup.

“As in Valdo Marx?” Eskel specified.

“Might have,”Jaskier peeped.

“Are you telling us that you dated fucking Valdo Marx for two years?!” Renfri yelled. “And you starved yourself for him?!”

“We broke up three years ago!” Jaskier said, throwing his arms open and nearly knocking the sandwich out of Geralt’s hand. “I was an idiot, okay? I thought I was glad to have found him, thought no one would be ever able to love the real me, blah blah blah. Took me way too long to realize I was being a total idiot and break up with him. He’s hated me ever since and my mother’s yet to speak to me again.”

“Your mother?” Eskel frowned.

“She thought Valdo and I would get married, adopt a kid and I would become a perfect housewife for him,” Jaskier sighed.

“Wow. She doesn’t know you at all, does she?” Renfri chuckled.

“Not in the slightest, honey.”

Lambert shook his head.

“Honestly, I’m still trying to process that someone like you would spend two years fucking that insufferable prick. Valdo Marx. Fuck.”

“Could we maybe stop discussing Valdo fucking Marx?” Geralt grunted. “Has anyone read the reactions to the gig yet? Because I haven’t.”

“Yes. Thank you, my lovely white wolf. Absolutely. Let’s focus on the reviews, because I kind of haven’t had the time yet to...”

The door swung open and a large husky came barging in, heading straight for the couch.

“Roach! Stop!” Ciri yelled behind the dog.

Roach stopped in front of Geralt, sniffed at his sandwich, and then turned her head to Jaskier.

The bard, remembering that the dog didn’t like strangers, avoided her eyes and merely offered her his hand. The next thing he knew, he had a massive dog in his lap and a wet nose was enthusiastically sniffing at his face.

He yelped when a broad tongue licked his nose.

“What was it you said about her not liking strangers?”

“I’ve never seen her do anything like this before, I swear!” Geralt chuckled, taking a coffee cup from Jaskier’s hand so it wouldn’t spill. “Roach, get down. Bad girl.”

The dog gave a tiny, desperate whine.

“I said get down,” Geralt repeated.

Roach turned her body to Geralt, eyed his sandwich and whined again.

“What did we say about begging for food?”

She lowered her head and looked pleadingly at her owner.

“Oh, I love her already,” Jaskier laughed. “Will love her even more when she stops crushing my crotch. Hi, Ciri, by the way.”

“Hi, Jaskier,” the girl replied. “Sorry, dad. I didn’t think she would do that. Where did you get the sandwich?”

“Stole it. Shamelessly!” Jaskier huffed. “Geralt, your dog is heavy as hell, you know it?”

“Roach. Get. The fuck. Down.”

Another whine.

“Oh, dear,” Jaskier chuckled. “Well, can someone at least read me those reviews and make me happy before I die?”

“Don’t you have your own phone?” Geralt asked.

“I do. In my pocket. Underneath your dog.”

“Right. Ciri?”

The girl already had the phone in her hand.

“On it.”

“Good,” Jaskier muttered. “And give me back my coffee, Geralt, because if you decide to steal that too, my chances of survival will grow even lower than they are now!”

“You really are such a drama queen, Jask…

*

“The Bard and the Wolf? What the hell is that?” Geralt frowned after the third (very positive) fan review of their gig. He had already finished Jaskier’s sandwich, and even managed to get Roach down from Jaskier’s lap. That seemed to be a mistake, as the dog clearly decided to hate him for that – judging by the fact that she was currently sitting on the floor by Jaskier’s leg and tapping his hand with her paw every time he had the audacity to stop petting her. She was completely ignoring Geralt’s very existence.

“Oh, that’s a new hasthtag. My creation,” Renfri said. “I needed to tag a pic with you two, and I thought of this...”

“What, instead of The Witcher and the Witch?” Lambert asked.

“And what’s that?” Jaskier asked before he could think better of it.

He should have expected the answer, of course.

“The hashtag people used to use for Geralt and Yennefer,” Eskel explained. “It was her character. A witch.”

“Oh, good,” Jaskier muttered. “Shouldn’t it have been The Witcher and the Bard, then?”

“Doesn’t have the same ring to it,” Renfri shrugged. “Besides, Geralt’s more of a Wolf, really.”

“True,” Jaskier nodded. “But to be honest, I don’t think it’s gonna stick.”

“You’re probably right,” Renfri nodded. “I’ve seen it used like… four times. But everyone calls you The Bard.”

“Perfect,” Jaskier grinned. “What do you think, Roach, isn’t it perfect? No, no, no! Roach! My coffee!”

He shrieked as the dog suddenly turned and jumped back onto his lap, knocking the cup out of his hand.

“Oh, dear, even dogs adore him,” Lambert sighed. “How is that fair?”

“Geralt!” Jaskier yelled. “Geralt, would you help me instead of fucking laughing?!”

“So sorry, dear heart,” Geralt chuckled. “But I think Roach has found her new favorite human.”

“I’m really glad to hear that! Oh, Geralt, you’re so gonna pay for this shirt!”

*

A few hours later, Jaskier was sitting on the couch in his living room, sipping wine and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling through his social media.

He knew he shouldn’t. He knew that it was narcissistic and, well, stupid. But he had to see. Had to convince himself that it hadn’t only been his imagination that afternoon.

He had to convince himself that yes, Kaer Morhen’s fans really did like his mad, cheeky, queer self. There were even a few who claimed that he was an improvement on Yennefer. An improvement! It was a dream come true.

He forced himself to stop and he put his phone down. Took a sip. Picked his phone back up.

He couldn’t help himself.

He gulped when he saw that Ciri had posted a new photo from the rehearsal room. A photo of Jaskier and Geralt sitting on the couch, with Roach on Jaskier’s lap. It must have been shortly after Roach knocked the coffee out of Jaskier’s hand, because Geralt was clearly laughing and Jaskier was just starting to.

Roach meeting @jaskierthebard for the first time. In case you couldn’t tell, she really hates strangers... #thebardandthewolf #andawolf #loveatfirstsight #husky #dogsofinstagram

Jaskier smiled and liked the post, and then kept looking at the picture a little longer.

He really loved Geralt’s expression there. It was so open, so happy and so damn beautiful.

Jaskier sighed, forced himself to put the phone down and closed his eyes, but he couldn’t stop himself from seeing the white haired man’s face.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” he whispered to himself. “You stop this, Jaskier. You stop this right now, because if you don’t, you’ll only get in trouble.”

He could stop his thoughts, yes. But he couldn’t stop his heart from beating a little faster.

*

Geralt knocked on his daughter’s door.

“Ciri, it’s eleven already. Lights out.”

He waited, but she didn’t answer, so he opened the door carefully.

The girl was asleep on her bed, dressed in her pajamas, with her laptop next to her.

Geralt took the laptop and the screen lit up. He stopped and blinked. Ciri had a new wallpaper – of Geralt, Jaskier and Roach in the rehearsal room.

He looked at the picture and smiled. He really had never seen Roach fall for someone so fast, but here she was, sitting on the bard’s lap, happy as ever.

And Jaskier…

Geralt shut the laptop and shook his head to clear it.

No. He wasn’t going to go there. No way.

He placed the laptop on a table, covered Ciri with a blanket and kissed her forehead.

“Good night, honey,” he whispered to her. “Sweet dreams.”

He turned off the light and closed the door behind himself.

Continue witch Chapter Eight

[gra-sonas]

Down to Earth With Tyler Blackburn

I‘ve never met Tyler Blackburn before—except that I have. Maybe it would be more accurate to say I’ve met versions of Tyler Blackburn. I’ve spent time with the actor on multiple occasions while covering his TV series Pretty Little Liars, the soapy teen-centered murder mystery that regularly generated more than a million tweets throughout its seven-season run. Just two weeks ago I reconnected with him in a lush meadow of flowering mustard outside Angeles National Forest, the site of his PLAYBOY photo shoot. But the Tyler Blackburn I’m meeting today at his home in the Atwater Village neighborhood of Los Angeles is in many ways an entirely different man.

When he greets me at the front door, Blackburn is relaxed, barefoot and still wearing what appears to be bed head. His disposition is unmistakably freer—lighter—than it’s been during our previous encounters. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised by this. Six days earlier the 32-year-old actor came out publicly as bisexual in an online interview with The Advocate.

The announcement is clearly at the forefront of his mind as we sit down at his dining room table.

Almost immediately he starts to gush about the positive, and at times overwhelming, feedback he has received over the past few days. Within minutes he’s in tears. He tries to lighten the mood with a self-effacing quip, but now I’m in tears too. Then he tells me he can’t remember my question.

I haven’t even asked one yet, I reply.

“It just makes me feel, Wow, the world’s a little bit safer than I thought it was,” Blackburn says.

The most affecting response he’s received thus far has been from his father, whom Blackburn didn’t meet until he was five years old. Although he avoids offering any more details about that early chapter, he says, “Feeling like I’m a little bit different always made me wonder if he likes me, approves of me, loves me. He called, and it was just every single thing you would want to hear from your dad: ‘That was a bold move. I’m so proud of you.’ It was wild.”

Blackburn can’t pinpoint the exact moment he knew he was bisexual but says he was curious from the age of 16. It wasn’t until two years ago, though, that he decided to approach his publicity team about coming out publicly. At that point, Pretty Little Liars had wrapped, and the actor was without a job. So Blackburn and his team agreed they needed to hold off on making an announcement until his career was stable again. The lack of resolution weighed on him. “A year ago I was in a very bad place,” he says, adding that he has struggled with depression and anxiety. “I didn’t know what my career was going to be or where it was going. My personal life—my relationship with myself—was in a really bad place.” His casting on the CW’s Roswell, New Mexico, adapted from the same Melinda Metz book series as the WB’s 1999 cult favorite Roswell, seems to have come at the right time. Blackburn portrays Alex, a gay Army veteran whose relationship with Michael, a bisexual alien, has attracted legions of “Malex” devotees since the show’s January debut. Roswell, New Mexico has already been renewed for a second season—a feat for any series in this era of streaming, let alone one involving gay exophilia. Playing a character whose queerness has been so widely embraced by fans no doubt nudged Blackburn closer to revealing his truth for the first time since becoming an actor 15 years ago. (As he told The Advocate, “I’m so tired of caring so much. I just want to…feel okay with experiencing love and experiencing self-love.”) Still, he was somewhat reluctant. His hesitation was rooted in the fact that he wouldn’t be able to control what came next: the social pressures that often come with being one of the first—in his case, one of the first openly bisexual male actors to lead a prime-time television series. “If you stand for this thing, and you say it publicly, there’s suddenly the expectation of ‘Now your job is this,’ ” he says. “Even if someone’s like, ‘Now you’re going to go be the spokesperson’—well, no. If I don’t want to, I don’t want to. And that doesn’t mean I’m a half-assed queer.” Full disclosure: I previously wrote for a Pretty Little Liars fan site. In 2012 I published a listicle that ranked the show’s hottest male characters. Blackburn cracks up when I tell him this and wants to know whether he bested Ian Harding, his former co-star. After I inform him that his character (hacker with a heart of gold Caleb Rivers) finished second behind Harding’s (Ezra Fitz, a student-dating teacher) I promise to organize a recount. The always-modest Blackburn concedes that Harding is the rightful winner. (If anyone ever compiles a BuzzFeed article titled “Most Embarrassing Moments for Former Bloggers,” I’ll be offended if I’m not in the mix.)

Blackburn makes it clear that he has not always been comfortable with his status as a teen heartthrob. Knowing he was queer made it “hard to embrace it and enjoy it.” Growing up, he was bullied for being perceived as effeminate and was frequently subjected to slurs and homophobic jokes. He describes himself as a late bloomer who took longer than usual to shed his baby fat. He didn’t have many friends, nor did he date much in high school. A lifelong fan of musical theater and the performing arts, Blackburn signed with a Hollywood management company at the age of 17. His team at the time warned him that projecting femininity would hinder his success. An especially painful moment came after he’d auditioned for a role as a soldier and the producers wrote back that Blackburn had seemed “a little gay.” “Those two managers were so twisted in their advice to me,” Blackburn says. “They just said, ‘We don’t care if you are, but no one can know. You can’t walk into these rooms and seem gay. It’s not gonna work.’ I remember the shame, because I’ve been dealing with the feeling that I’m not a normal boy for my entire life.” After landing a recurring role on Days of Our Lives in 2010, Blackburn scored his big break when he appeared midway through the first season of Pretty Little Liars. “I was in Tyler’s first scene, so I got to be one of the first to work with him,” Shay Mitchell, who starred opposite Blackburn, tells PLAYBOY. “Right away, I knew he was special. Since the day I met him, Tyler always struck me as very authentic and very true to himself.” Fans instantly adored his on-screen love affair with Hanna Marin, played by Ashley Benson. The pair became known as “Haleb,” and Blackburn went on to win three Teen Choice Awards—surfboard trophies that solidify one’s status as a teen idol—in categories including Choice TV: Chemistry.

According to Blackburn, during the show’s seven years on the air, he and Benson bonded over their mutual distaste for the tabloid stardom that comes with headlining a TV phenomenon lapped up by teens. Today he fondly reflects on their on-camera chemistry. “It felt good,” he says. “It felt real.” Of course, rumors swirled that the pair’s romance was actually quite real. “We never officially dated,” he tells me. “In navigating our relationship—as co-workers but also as friends—sometimes the lines blurred a little. We had periods when we felt more for each other, but ultimately we’re good buds. For the most part, those rumors made us laugh. But then sometimes we’d be like, ‘Did someone see us hugging the other night?’ She was a huge part of a huge change in my life, so I’ll always hold her dear.” Blackburn also shares a unique connection with Mitchell outside their friendship. Similar to what Blackburn is now experiencing with Roswell, Mitchell was embraced by the LGBTQ community for playing a lesbian character, Emily Fields, whose same-sex romances on Pretty Little Liars were among the first on ABC Family (the former name of the Freeform network). Over the years, Blackburn had come out to select members of the Pretty Little Liars cast and crew, including creator I. Marlene King. But as the show approached its swan song, he started to recognize how hiding a part of himself was negatively affecting his life. He entered his first serious relationship with a man while filming the show’s final season. Not knowing how to tell co-workers—or whether to, say, invite his boyfriend to an afterparty—caused him to “go into a little bit of a shell” on the set.

“My boyfriend was hanging out with me at a Pretty Little Liars convention, and some of the fans were like, ‘Are you Tyler’s brother?’ ” Blackburn says. “He was very patient, but then afterward he was like, ‘That kind of hurt me.’ It was a big part of why we didn’t work out, just because he was at a different place than I was. Unfortunately, we don’t really talk anymore, but if he reads this, I hope he knows that he helped me so much in so many ways.” At that, Blackburn tearfully excuses himself and takes a private moment to regain his composure. “I never remember a time when I didn’t enjoy being with him,” says Harding, Blackburn’s former co-star. He says he saw the actor “start to become the person he is now when we worked together” but believes Blackburn needed to first come to terms with the idea that he could become “the face” of bisexuality. “Tyler’s discovering a way to bring real meaning with his presence in the world,” Harding says, “as an actor and as a whole human.”

Once the teenage Blackburn realized he was attracted to guys, he began “experimenting” with men while taking care not to become too emotionally attached. “I just didn’t feel I had the inner strength or the certainty that it was okay,” he says. It wasn’t until a decade later, at the age of 26, that he began to “actively embrace my bisexuality and start dating men, or at least open myself up to the idea.” He says he’s been in love with two women and had great relationships with both, but he “just knew that wasn’t the whole story.” 

He was able to enjoy being single in his 20s in part because he wasn’t confident enough in his identity to commit to any one person in a relationship. “I had to really be patient with myself—and more so with men,” he says. “Certain things are much easier with women, just anatomically, and there’s a freedom in that.” He came out of that period with an appreciation for romance and intimacy. Sex without an emotional component, he discovered, didn’t have much appeal. “As I got older, I realized good sex is when you really have something between the two of you,” says Blackburn, who’s now dating an “amazing” guy. “It’s not just a body. The more I’ve realized that, the more able I am to be settled in my sexuality. I’m freer in my sexuality now. I’m very sexual; it’s a beautiful aspect of life.” Blackburn has, however, felt resistance from the LGBTQ community, particularly when bisexual women have questioned his orientation. “Once I decided to date men, I was like, Please just let me be gay and be okay with that, because it would be a lot fucking easier. At times, bisexuality feels like a big gray zone,” he says. (For example, Blackburn knows his sexuality may complicate how he becomes a father.) “I’ve had to check myself and say, I know how I felt when I was in love with women and when I slept with women. That was true and real. Don’t discredit that, because you’re feeding into what other people think about bisexuality.” He clearly isn't the first rising star who's had to deal with outside opinions of how to handle his Hollywood coming-out. I spoke to Brianna Hildebrand just before the release of 2018's smash hit Deadpool 2, and she explained that she had previously met with publicists who had offered to keep her sexuality under wraps, even though the actress herself had never suggested this. Meanwhile, ahead of the launch of last fall's Fantastic Beasts sequel, Ezra Miller told me that he's "been in audition situations where sexuality was totally being leveraged."

Fortunately for Blackburn, his recent experiences with colleagues have largely been supportive ones. He came out to Roswell, New Mexico showrunner Carina Adly Mackenzie when he first arrived in N.M. to shoot the pilot but after he had earned the role of Alex, which for him was the ideal sequence. "I think he takes the responsibility of being queer in the public eye very seriously, and waiting to come out was just about waiting until he was ready to share a private matter—not about being dishonest to his fans," Mackenzie tells PLAYBOY. "I have always known how important Alex is to Tyler, and I know that Tyler trusts me to do right by him, ultimately, and that’s really special." Blackburn finds it funny that he’s known for young-skewing TV shows; the question is, What might define him next? He’s grateful for his career, but he grew up wanting to make edgy dramas like the young Leonardo DiCaprio. He also cites an admiration for Miller, the queer actor who plays the Flash. “I most definitely want to be a fucking superhero one day,” Blackburn says a bit wistfully. His path to cape wearing does look more tenable. The day before his Advocate interview was posted, he booked a lead role in a fact-based disaster-survival film opposite Josh Duhamel. Blackburn jokes that his movie career was previously nonexistent, though his résumé features such thoughtful indie fare as 2017’s vignette-driven Hello Again. There, he plays a love interest to T.R. Knight, who tells PLAYBOY that Blackburn “embraces the challenge to stretch and not choose the easy path.” For now, Blackburn’s path appears to be just where he needs it to be. “I may never want to be a spokesperson in a huge way, but honestly, being truthful and authentic sets a great example,” he says. “To continue on a path of fulfillment and happiness is going to make people feel like they too can have that and it doesn’t need to be some spectacle.” As it turns out, he may already be a superhero.

- Playboy

[abeautifulblog]

12 and 6 for the writing asks?

Yassssss~

12) My favorite place to write is our courtyard patio:

We live in the literal desert, so it gets too hot to be out there during the afternoon, but it’s lovely in the mornings and the evenings, and I’ve got my chair set up with a little rolling desk I built for my laptop. It’s also enclosed, so it’s safe for my blind & stupid cat  to come enjoy the outdoors with me. (No really, I love her but she’s an idiot and also completely blind.)

(And yes, I gave Gene my own hobby when I wrote him as a gardener.)

*

6) Hardest story to write: haaah, I think you guys can probably guess the answer to this, based on which installments took the longest to get out – “Bodies in the Lake” and “Love Like Light.” And the common denominator there was making those nerds bone.

So yeah, now that I can finally talk about what was going on behind the scenes – why did those take so long?

Part of it was just that as the fic came to an end, there were fewer things left to write, so if I got stuck on one thing, there was really nothing else for me to work on in the mean time. “The Old College Try,” for instance, had been in the works since “This House,” but when I was blocked on it, I could put it on the backburner and write six billion remixes of the bake sale instead.

So after the Thanksgiving chapter, when they finally clear the air about Robert’s mental illness, the next item to check off the list was “nerds get sum fuk” – and I really thought they were ready to get down to it. I was planning a comedy romp at a bigfoot-themed ski lodge that would end with them hopping in the sack. I thought their issues were resolved already.

And then it just.

Wasn’t.

Happening.

Was the setting wrong? I’d chosen to put them on holiday as way to shake up the scenery, get them out of their usual (sexless) routine and perhaps embolden them to try something new. Should I have left them at Gene’s house, where Robert feels safe and comfortable? But then what’s the catalyst that makes them do it NOW, when they haven’t done it BEFORE? What makes Robert decide that now is the “right time”? How do I signal to the readers that it’s okay for them to have sex now, when earlier (like in “Ghosts in the Attic”) it would have been disastrous?

But yeah, I had been trying to make them fuck since chapter 18. It’s why that chapter is shot through with sex, why Robert has a boner for basically the entire first half – and not in the freaky-dissonant way that he did in “Ghosts in the Attic,” but as a natural, healthy reaction to his beloved boyfriend rubbing up on him in slinky yoga pants. It was to telegraph that sex is on the agenda, so that it wouldn’t be coming out of left field when they consummated at the end of the chapter.

It’s why the working title for “Bodies in the Lake” was sex_happens.doc – until it became clear that sex wasn’t going to happen. That the issues raised in “Ghosts in the Attic” were still completely unresolved. Indeed, Gene still didn’t even know those issues existed.

Gene is very good at handling Robert’s crises when it’s something he’s been through before with Alex – but when Robert steps off-script, Gene’s suddenly winging it, and it shows. Alex had a lot of sexual partners in the past too – as people who are outgoing and bisexual and dtf often do – but he never did Robert’s brand of self-destructive, self-loathing promiscuity, and so Gene has no understanding of the psychology behind that behavior, or why it’s different from Alex’s form of slutting around.

And then Mary was supposed to just smack some sense into him and shove him back into Gene’s loving arms, but holy shit, did that conversation get derailed. And as an author, when a character looks you in the eye and says, It’s time to talk about this, you let them talk.

That was when my housemate-beta, who’d been there for all my agonizing over how to make them fuck, said, “You have to break this up into two chapters. This conversation here, it’s the emotional climax.” And she was absolutely right, but that’s why the sex got delayed another year. 😫

(I had not, going into that chapter, intended for them to have that conversation. I thought I was showing their character growth in the gym scene at the beginning, which features a number of deliberate callbacks to the first chapter except for all the ways that they’re healthier now, drinking smoothies instead of mimosas and actually TALKING about feelings. I had not realized they were going to DOUBLE THE FUCK DOWN on character growth later.)

So that was “Bodies in the Lake” finally out, after only eleven months (and I do consider that chapter a conscious bookend to “Ghosts in the Attic”), but I still had yet to make them fuck.

(I feel like some exotic zookeeper – like, I have created the perfect conditions for you, have I not, so why won’t you two just fuck already??)

Because it’s not just about being horny and wanting to get their rocks off (anyone with a sex drive knows how to take care of that on their own), it’s about the profoundly intimate connection that sex can be for sexual people. (The misunderstanding around this is something I find distressing in asexual discourse, when it reduces sex to a one-dimensional, even selfish, urge. I understand that not everyone experiences sex the same way, but there’s nothing selfish about wanting to feel that kind of connection with your partner.)

Not to mention that the hard ban on sex would inhibit other forms of intimacy too – that Robert can’t do ANYTHING without part of his brain keeping track of whether it’s okay or not, worrying how far is too far, knowing that there’s a stopping point coming up. It feels analogous to how queer celebrities, before they come out, seem to have almost no public personality whatsoever – Anderson Cooper and Kristin Stewart are the ones who come to mind here – because they’re having to police themselves so stringently lest anything ‘kinda gay’ slip out, that they wind up clamping down on themselves far beyond that. (And then when they do come out and are free to be themselves, it turns out they’re smart and snarky and all-around cool people!) I feel like after the sex barrier’s been broken, Robert would become a lot more relaxed and uninhibited with non-sexual intimacy too.

I’d had the first half of that chapter written for ages – the conversation after Robert comes back to the house and he explains that period of his life to Gene – but I couldn’t seem to give them that final push. I made a lot of attempts, tweaking my approach in subtle ways, but nothing quite rang true.

It was my friend Sam (dude who wrote the Craig fic) who finally said, They need to fight.

(And also that Gene needed to get pushed off his pedestal – “Because I have BEEN that endlessly patient and supportive boyfriend, and it gets old.”)

And as soon as he said it, I realized he was right – I’d done the thing, the thing that every guide on writing sex tells you not to do, which is to neatly wrap up all the characters’ interpersonal issues and tie them off with a bow and then let them fall into bed. It’s what feels logical, but it is death to drama, because then there’s no tension, and no reason for the reader to pay attention during the sex scene that follows, because there’s nothing going to be accomplished in it.

…Buuuut, when I’d spent 100k words writing a love story about careful consent, and a protagonist who doesn’t have a good handle on his own desires, there was no way for me to let them barrel through sex on a full head of passion and talk about it afterwards. It’s why they had to stop halfway through and dial it back a bit, touch base and explicitly confirm that yes, I want to proceed, bring them back from the edge for a while so it clearly wasn’t just their downstairs brains doing the decision-making.

The result is that it’s not as sexy as I might have hoped for, and while I’m a little disappointed about that, it’s checked by the knowledge that – realistically – there’s no way it could have been. Scorching hot sex requires the participants to be uninhibited, and Robert and Gene can’t afford to throw caution to the wind when they’re venturing into a known minefield. They’ll be able to relax into it later, for sure, but for their first time, they had to be mindful and deliberate about it.

(And also hearkening back to a thought Robert had in “Ghosts in the Attic,” that he wanted to make Gene smile and laugh during sex. In essence, that his vision for them, what he wanted out of sex, was more for it to be intimate than for it to be hawt.

Ah well. Stay tuned for the hookup AU – basically, all the scorching-hot sex they weren’t having in Beautiful Day wound up in the hookup AU instead)

So yeah, getting them to bone was definitely the hardest part of this fic. There were so many factors involved thanks to Robert’s various issues, that required a lot of careful calibration – and in the end, he still had to take a leap of faith. And while it’s not my favorite part of the fic, now that it’s done I can get on with finishing the rest of it. The final chapter doesn’t have anything really fraught (that hasn’t already been written), so I’m optimistic that it’s not going to give me as much trouble as the previous two chapters.

[neven-ebrez]

The continuing saga of narrative betrayal...

Back when SPN S13 aired I compared it a lot to Star Wars: TLJ. So I was very interested to see specifically how hand holding and touch would correspond to the final Star Wars movie. And OH BOY is the new movie a lot like SPN S15! There’s only one problem. The final Star Wars movie made a HUGE narrative betrayal. I’m on mobile so I can’t put a read more here but STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER SPOILERS BENEATH THIS PARAGRAPH!!

Touch as healing was a very important part of SW:TROS. Touch is about forging connections and mending that which has been broken. Touching, taking someone’s hand, is choosing them and choosing to care for them. We see it when Finn takes Rey’s hand in chapter 7. We see it when Rey doesn’t take Kylo Ren’s hand in chapter 8. And we see it when Rey puts her hand over Ben’s when he heals her near the end of chapter 9. At the heart of this entire series is how students become teachers. The past becomes the present then the present becomes the future. So onto narrative betrayal.

Using the Force to heal was visually introduced this week in The Mandalorian. And we now know why the episode was released early, because this ability would play a key narrative role in the final movie. Rey showcases this ability early in the film. She is rewarded when she does. Then she showcases it again after fighting Kylo Ren. She stabs him fatally then decides to save him. Two things are established: 1.) Healing is good and positive, and 2.) healing does not cost the healer their life. This is important. In typical student becomes the master format, structurally Kylo Ren (as Ben Solo/Skywalker) must then use it to save Rey. In TLJ they each saw a different future for the other. This vision of the future is experienced through the touching of hands. When Rey and Ben reach for each other a profound connection is made.

In TLJ Snoke says he forced their connection, but in TROS we see them maintain it. It’s much of the focus of the final two movies. They find each other with it. This living Force connection is said to have not been seen in a very long time. Rey teaches Kylo everything he needs to save her and then he does. And here is where our narrative betrayal comes and fortunately there’s enough of the ghost narrative here for me to make a solid enough guess why.

I believe when Carrie Fisher passed away unexpectedly that the final movie was forced to rewrite several key structural things. And one of those things is why Ben Solo had to instead die. In Dark Youth/Light Youth tales, the Dark Youth is usually saved by learning something explictly from the Light Youth. The LY is positioned to teach and the DY is positioned to redeem themselves by learning the lesson. This is sadly not what Star Wars executed. Ben touches Rey, heals her, then he kisses her and dies. It’s not *quite* as bad as what VLD did (at least Ben gets a heroic moment and we see him learn) with Lotor and Allura, but it’s the exact same relative betrayal. Ben was supposed to revive Rey in sacrifice, (maybe not kiss Rey, it doesn’t matter there one way or another; saving/redeeming =/= romance), and die temporarily but then get resurrected by all the dead Jedi. Instead we only hear the dead Jedi in one sequence when Rey fights Palpatine.

Since Leia doesn’t disappear until Ben disappears, this structurally links the change in narrative and gives it context. I think the kiss probably wasn’t in there originally but was added after the edits were made. Everything between Finn and Rey also feels edited as a result. The red flag for this is when Finn tells Rey he has something to tell her before they (almost) die in the quick sinking pit. He doesn’t get to tell her in time tho. Then! They survive. Rey prompts Finn to tell her what he was about to say but he says he can’t in front of Poe. This is never bookended. Rose is also sidelined without a real reason why. If originally they planned to continue the Rey/Finn romance on Finn’s part then this would make sense. In TLJ Rose’s structural purpose was to make Finn fight for more than just Rey. He never stops prioritizing her tho. The lack of bookend to Finn’s silenced confessional to Rey in TROS is a dead giveaway something was dropped/altered there tho. I can only guess this fragment of the final film’s ghost narrative remained in due to the fact that filming was likely already complete for this scenes and that suitable redubbing could not be made out of the plot situation they were currently in.

I just finished watching TLJ and we see Rey’s reaction to Finn caring for Rose’s injuries and she gives this a sad smile. I think originally Rose’s affection for Finn was probably more resistance hero worship and that her own arc was about learning to be her own hero. I think the romantic angle there was probably supposed to remain one sided. All this clarification seems to be dropped. Finn’s pursuit of Rey, to mimic Ben’s physical pursuit still shows up in several places tho. With the other ex-stormtrooper, Finn follows Rey across the dangerous water as she fights Ben. I think in the original script this character was likely Finn’s sister. Rey is seen protecting Finn from Ben but otherwise Finn’s physical pursuit of Rey here makes little sense unless we consider that originally it was supposed to emotionally lead into something else. Finn was always gonna be left behind whether he was on the shore or beside her.

Another thing that struck me as odd were the final bows. We see several romantic pairs. Some are unions (first queer onscreen SW kiss) while Poe’s is a story of rejection (bless). Then Poe and Finn are suddenly back in scene together for when Rey approaches. Since Poe was just left with his old flame in the shot before, this union should initially just be between Finn and Rey. Where Poe stopped, Finn kept going. So Poe being there again so quick makes no sense.

Both Finn/Rey and Ben/Rey are the last series’ key structural relationships. Equally important is Poe become a leader, a position he goes onto share with Finn. Of Rey’s two relationships one gets resolved structurally, while the other... does not. And the only good explanation I got for it is that I believe Carrie Fisher’s passing facilitated a rewrite that was unavoidable. In legacy, I believe the series decided to rewrite a good chunk of the final movie in order to focus more on Leia’s overall impact in the series as the past defined it.

For Voltron: Legendary Defender, Lance had a similar arc in the original S8 ghost narrative. Lance pursued Allura, then he was supposed to give her up to let her choose (and save) Lotor. Now. If you ask me if TROS did a better job with their editing than VLD S8 did I’d say YES. By a MILE. That doesn’t change the fact that each of these narratives ended up changing the exact same story now. And like with VLD, traces of the original remain and just couldn’t be removed at key points. If I had to guess, I’d say some Lando and Leia stuff was also removed, likely because filming never made it to that point. The awkwardness of Lando alone talking to the ex-stormtrooper girl feels strange, like some context there is otherwise missing. Earlier Lando tells Finn to give Leia his love and Finn tells Lando to tell her himself. Then he never gets the chance. It’s another missing bookend, dropped. When all the fighters are gathered for the final fight, it seems like maybe originally Leia was supposed to have gathered them through using the force to speak to them and convince them to fight. And Leia was supposed to do this by traveling with Lando.

I think originally Leia was probably supposed to teach Rey the healing, too. There is otherwise a focus on Leia as a fully trained Jedi and also on Leia as teacher. Having to drop and repurpose these plot elements, focusing on a Leia legacy narrative, over a full and complete “dead Jedi come together” narrative is reflected in the movie, again, still retaining both storylines. I think originally more dead Jedi should have appeared alongside Luke at different points. This conclusion comes from looking at the framing of Luke against unaccounted for narrative space.

And I’m going to be rewatching this movie tomorrow so I’ll try to get some photos about what I’m talking about. It’s clearly there tho. Finn being force sensitive is also dropped.

The comparison here to what VLD S8 did is uncanny. Unlike with VLD, I don’t think the narrative betrayal here was malicious. Just unfortunate and sad. Unlike with VLD, I think TROS managed to save most of itself tho. I at least enjoyed it. The trend of not letting the Dark Youth learn and redeem themselves and LIVE is a disturbing one, however. All this is just my theory btw. I knew Carrie Fisher managed to film some of the movie and I was curious going in as to how they were going to keep her in and maintain their original story. Well, obviously they couldn’t. I like all the movies, but I wouldn’t say I have a favorite character tho (except the porgs). So all of my opinion here comes without trying to see things a certain way. I have no shipping lens here. I just have an eye for things that lack narrative symmetry and/or thematic follow through.

Anyway. If you found parts of the movie to be strange or missing in some way, I think my explanation here may help fill in some blanks. And regardless of the reason the storyline exists the way it does, the trend of killing off the character that is supposed to be redeeming themselves isn’t a good look.

[EDIT] As soon as I wrote this I went looking for other opinions on this and found this Polygon article! This explains so much and explains why Leia didn’t have a new look for the movie. Her footage is repurposed from footage from Chapter 7/8. Considering everything, it’s amazing they salvaged as much of the original storyline (Leia as teacher) as they did.

I’m going to rewatch the movie assuming all this should have happened to see how much sense it now makes. This is just what I picked up on by watching one time.

[EDIT2] Okay then there’s this. It confirms what I thought. A person in the thread below this tweet mentions how Finn’s Force connection here could explain why other storm troopers put down their weapons in their respective village raids. Like, they could hear Finn’s distraught inner voice when it was all happening. It’s why Kylo Ren slowly turns and looks at Finn in chapter 7. Finn frees other stormtroopers in other words and the movie drops this off his storyline completely. First Finn runs, then he learns to be a rebel, then he frees his fellow soldiers. I still think Finn’s pursuit of Rey was originally supposed to also be romantic, but more than that she is ultimately his teacher.

I actually think the original script was probably more Finn/Poe friendly, with Finn ready to help Poe (using the Resistance) to free more stormtroopers. Poe learning Finn’s secret: his Force sensitivity, after all, is also cut, against the entire start of the movie showing them as a team. Poe was essential to Finn’s initial escape. They needed each other. Then Poe is essential to Finn’s new mission. They choose each other, completely. I believe that’s the proper bookend we should have gotten there. And it explains Oscar’s PR commentary on Disney company.

I’m.... there’s little they could have done here to salvage what I’ve pieced together of the original script. Not without Carrie. It would have looked great tho. Without her as (continual) teacher to Rey, much of the movie, the original script, sadly fell apart. Seeing how Finn/Poe as a narrative thread didn’t rely much on Carrie I think the editing here is a bit more malicious. I can’t prove that tho. I can only tell some of the outline of what originally should have happened. Finn gives up pursuit of Rey for choosing a mission with Poe. If TROS is to be compared to VLD S8, this feels like the equivalence of editing out Sheith.

[EDIT3] My bow commentary here is off. I remembered things wrong there. I’ve struck several things for my original post. I have a lot of screenshots now tho so I’ll write something more on this later once more time has past. Maybe JJ Abrams will talk about the rewrite process tho. I doubt the Finn/Poe stuff will be discussed, but I also don’t think it was ever intended to be textual, just subtextually coded. The repurposed Leia as teacher stuff tho, that may get discussed publicly. That one Hobbit actor looks to be written in to cover Leia’s intended plot explanations for why certain stuff is happening. Maz’ involvement, along with Rose’s was much regaled to this as well. Whatever their original storylines were, I believe they unfortunately got axed in the rewrite.

[gone-to-oregone]

So, for pride, I thought I’d share my story (that I promise relates to Starkid, so bear with me) (also I use qu**r as a “label” of sorts in here, just a warning?) (Also there’s a bit in here about homophobia and dysphoria, which I’ve starred, and I starred the part where I stop talking about it)

I was in middle school when I’d first dipped a toe into the world of being queer. A girl moved to our school system after being homeschooled prior, and she was the most beautiful human I’d ever laid eyes on. Her smile could light up the night sky, her hair was silky and shiny, and she was a dancer so calves. I realized, Holy shit, this isn’t like anything I’ve ever felt before. Later that year, I came out as a lesbian. Before that, however, while we were waiting on our club to be called, my two best friends and I (the cute one mentioned prior, and my best friend since kindergarten) were in the cafeteria with the other middle schoolers and we were just dicking around, as eleven year old middle schoolers do. Two girls, I believe they were eighth graders, looked at me with a sneer, and asked, “Are you bi?” Innocent eleven year-Old Tay had never heard of such a thing! Bi? What was that?!

Flash forward to eighth grade, when I started having feelings for a tall ginger we’ll call A. A was very handsome, still is, with nice freckles and a funny personality. He revealed he, too, had feelings for me, so we started dating. Huh, thirteen year old Tay thought. If I’m dating a guy, I have to be straight, right? We dated until February of our freshman year of high school.

Speaking of high school: freshman year was a wake-up call for young Tay. Fourteen years old, confused as all hell. Then, I laid eyes on another gorgeous girl, we’ll call her K. K was two years older than me, with adorable glasses, a warm smile, and a loud personality. She later became my big, and the girl I called my second mother. But that didn’t stop the feelings I had for her. So I realized, huh. Maybe I’m not straight, maybe I’m gay.

That year, a few of my friends had come out as bi. There was that word again, “bi”. I didn’t know what it meant, so I asked one of them, and she told me it was when you’re attracted to more than one gender. That was the biggest fucking wake-up call for fourteen year-old Tay. Finally, finally, my feelings had been put into words. I was bi.

The next year, when I was a sophomore, I joined the drama club at the request of K. She said I’d do really well, and I was already in my second year of the class the woman running the club taught, so I said hell with it, and I joined. I was nervous as hell when I auditioned, and I did so with a My Little Pony monologue. I kept staring down at my feet the whole time, but someone’s soft clap to the side made me look up. It was a boy, a senior, with long blonde hair, dashing wit, and a charming smile. He was all I (thought I) ever wanted, so we started dating. I went to his prom with him, and he was my first kiss. We broke up that summer, however, because we “didn’t talk very much”.

Junior year came, and I was still in the closet about my bisexuality. My friend, who’d become my best friend in eighth grade, had a few classes with me every day, we’ll call her A. I came out to a mutual friend, who told her, and she came to me and asked me why I didn’t tell her. I told her it was because I was nervous, and she came out to me as bi, too, and that she had feelings for me. She was dating a sleezeball at the time, but she wanted to break up with him to be with me. She brought him to homecoming, he pissed her off, and she started crying, so I danced with her. A few days later, she told me she’d broken up with him, and we started dating. Being in a small, conservative town, however, I was super nervous to be in a public relationship with a girl. We went to prom together, and she was my first wlw kiss, and my first time (and several more times after. Sorry, y’all)

A is very loud and proud, and I still love her dearly. We dated until around March of this year, and we were engaged, but some things fell through financially with me, not to mention my parents didn’t approve of our relationship (but I’ll get to that in a bit). Anyway, she’s doing well, she’s a nurse, and she’s dating a wonderful guy and they’re both very happy :)

In October of 2016, I came out to my parents, my gram, and my sister. My gram, conservative as she is, told me that it was okay and she still supported me in everything that I did. My parents, on the other hand...

** warning, this may be triggering to some of you, and I’m definitely crying writing it **

My mom says she still loves me, but in that stereotypical “I love you but I don’t love that you’re gay” kind of way. My dad’s worse about it. He hated A, and a bunch of shit went down I’d rather not talk about on the internet. Anyway, he sat me down one day and asked if I loved A. I said yes. He asked if I wanted kids with her, if I wanted to have a life with her. I said yes. He looked me dead in the eye and told me that it would never be the same, it wouldn’t be like what he and my mom have. No matter how hard A and I tried, we wouldn’t be a real family. And he told me that if A and I had kids, he wanted no part of them. I cried for hours that night, and had a full-blown panic attack because of it. He’s the backbone behind my dysphoria.

** now I’m back to talking about Starkid here we go **

When I finally started coming to terms with the fact that I was bi, I found Firebringer. Suddenly, there was this whole show with two WLW characters, bisexual ones at that, who were doing just fine. They ended up together, and got married, and ruled their dumb tribe together, and it was beautiful. And it gave me hope. It gave me hope that I could be happy as a bisexual woman in a relationship, with a man or with a woman. I could be happy. That was the main thing.

Jemilla is my absolute favorite Starkid Character. I resonate with her so much, with my dislike for change, and my stuffiness, and my bossiness, as my sister so fondly calls it. But most importantly, because she’s bi. She’s so shamelessly bi, and polyamorous. But her being bi isn’t the focal point of the story, and that’s why Firebringer, strange and full of plot holes, is the single greatest gift that Starkid could have ever given us.

Alright, I wanna be done crying now (which I honestly didn’t expect to do oof) so I’ll end this here, on a lighter note.

My name is Tay. I’m bisexual. I am here, and I am not ashamed.

Happy pride, everyone, I love each and every one of you very much. If you ever need anyone to talk to, about anything at all, and you feel there’s no one to turn to, you can always come to me. My asks and messages are always open (speaking of, I’ve fixed my messages, thank you Elle for telling me they were broken) and I will never turn anyone away.

I love you, and keep being totally awesome 🤙

[malexfan10]

I absolutely love Tyler Blackburn

New article today

He is such a gem ❤

So genuine. Deserves all the love and support!

You can tell how much Alex means to him.

Please don't destroy this amazing character or this wonderful ship Carina!

It's a long read but well worth it

https://www.playboy.com/read/down-to-earth

❤

Down to Earth With Tyler Blackburn

The star of the CW's 'Roswell' reboot isn't a poster child of anything but his own path

Written by Ryan Gajewski

Photography by Graham Dunn

Published onJune 11, 2019

I’ve never met Tyler Blackburn before—except that I have. Maybe it would be more accurate to say I’ve met versions of Tyler Blackburn. I’ve spent time with the actor on multiple occasions while covering his TV series Pretty Little Liars, the soapy teen-centered murder mystery that regularly generated more than a million tweets throughout its seven-season run. Just two weeks ago I reconnected with him in a lush meadow of flowering mustard outside Angeles National Forest, the site of his PLAYBOY photo shoot. But the Tyler Blackburn I’m meeting today at his home in the Atwater Village neighborhood of Los Angeles is in many ways an entirely different man.

When he greets me at the front door, Blackburn is relaxed, barefoot and still wearing what appears to be bed head. His disposition is unmistakably freer—lighter—than it’s been during our previous encounters. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised by this. Six days earlier the 32-year-old actor came out publicly as bisexual in an online interview with The Advocate. The announcement is clearly at the forefront of his mind as we sit down at his dining room table.

Almost immediately he starts to gush about the positive, and at times overwhelming, feedback he has received over the past few days. Within minutes he’s in tears. He tries to lighten the mood with a self-effacing quip, but now I’m in tears too. Then he tells me he can’t remember my question.

I haven’t even asked one yet, I reply.

“It just makes me feel, Wow, the world’s a little bit safer than I thought it was,” Blackburn says.

The most affecting response he’s received thus far has been from his father, whom Blackburn didn’t meet until he was five years old. Although he avoids offering any more details about that early chapter, he says, “Feeling like I’m a little bit different always made me wonder if he likes me, approves of me, loves me. He called, and it was just every single thing you would want to hear from your dad: ‘That was a bold move. I’m so proud of you.’ It was wild.” 

Blackburn can’t pinpoint the exact moment he knew he was bisexual but says he was curious from the age of 16. It wasn’t until two years ago, though, that he decided to approach his publicity team about coming out publicly. At that point, Pretty Little Liarshad wrapped, and the actor was without a job. So Blackburn and his team agreed they needed to hold off on making an announcement until his career was stable again. The lack of resolution weighed on him.

“A year ago I was in a very bad place,” he says, adding that he has struggled with depression and anxiety. “I didn’t know what my career was going to be or where it was going. My personal life—my relationship with myself—was in a really bad place.”

His casting on the CW’s Roswell, New Mexico, adapted from the same Melinda Metz book series as the WB’s 1999 cult favorite Roswell, seems to have come at the right time. Blackburn portrays Alex, a gay Army veteran whose relationship with Michael, a bisexual alien, has attracted legions of “Malex” devotees since the show’s January debut. Roswell, New Mexico has already been renewed for a second season—a feat for any series in this era of streaming, let alone one involving gay exophilia.

Playing a character whose queerness has been so widely embraced by fans no doubt nudged Blackburn closer to revealing his truth for the first time since becoming an actor 15 years ago. (As he told The Advocate, “I’m so tired of caring so much. I just want to…feel okay with experiencing love and experiencing self-love.”) Still, he was somewhat reluctant. His hesitation was rooted in the fact that he wouldn’t be able to control what came next: the social pressures that often come with being one of the first—in his case, one of the first openly bisexual male actors to lead a prime-time television series.

“If you stand for this thing, and you say it publicly, there’s suddenly the expectation of ‘Now your job is this,’ ” he says. “Even if someone’s like, ‘Now you’re going to go be the spokesperson’—well, no. If I don’t want to, I don’t want to. And that doesn’t mean I’m a half-assed queer.”

Full disclosure: I previously wrote for a Pretty Little Liars fan site. In 2012 I published a listicle that ranked the show’s hottest male characters. Blackburn cracks up when I tell him this and wants to know whether he bested Ian Harding, his former co-star. After I inform him that his character (hacker with a heart of gold Caleb Rivers) finished second behind Harding’s (Ezra Fitz, a student-dating teacher) I promise to organize a recount. The always-modest Blackburn concedes that Harding is the rightful winner. (If anyone ever compiles a BuzzFeed article titled “Most Embarrassing Moments for Former Bloggers,” I’ll be offended if I’m not in the mix.)

Blackburn makes it clear that he has not always been comfortable with his status as a teen heartthrob. Knowing he was queer made it “hard to embrace it and enjoy it.” Growing up, he was bullied for being perceived as effeminate and was frequently subjected to slurs and homophobic jokes. He describes himself as a late bloomer who took longer than usual to shed his baby fat. He didn’t have many friends, nor did he date much in high school. 

A lifelong fan of musical theater and the performing arts, Blackburn signed with a Hollywood management company at the age of 17. His team at the time warned him that projecting femininity would hinder his success. An especially painful moment came after he’d auditioned for a role as a soldier and the producers wrote back that Blackburn had seemed “a little gay.” 

“Those two managers were so twisted in their advice to me,” Blackburn says. “They just said, ‘We don’t care if you are, but no one can know. You can’t walk into these rooms and seem gay. It’s not gonna work.’ I remember the shame, because I’ve been dealing with the feeling that I’m not a normal boy for my entire life.”

After landing a recurring role on Days of Our Lives in 2010, Blackburn scored his big break when he appeared midway through the first season of Pretty Little Liars. “I was in Tyler’s first scene, so I got to be one of the first to work with him,” Shay Mitchell, who starred opposite Blackburn, tells PLAYBOY. “Right away, I knew he was special. Since the day I met him, Tyler always struck me as very authentic and very true to himself.” 

Fans instantly adored his on-screen love affair with Hanna Marin, played by Ashley Benson. The pair became known as “Haleb,” and Blackburn went on to win three Teen Choice Awards—surfboard trophies that solidify one’s status as a teen idol—in categories including Choice TV: Chemistry.

According to Blackburn, during the show’s seven years on the air, he and Benson bonded over their mutual distaste for the tabloid stardom that comes with headlining a TV phenomenon lapped up by teens. Today he fondly reflects on their on-camera chemistry. “It felt good,” he says. “It felt real.”

Of course, rumors swirled that the pair’s romance was actually quite real. “We never officially dated,” he tells me. “In navigating our relationship—as co-workers but also as friends—sometimes the lines blurred a little. We had periods when we felt more for each other, but ultimately we’re good buds. For the most part, those rumors made us laugh. But then sometimes we’d be like, ‘Did someone see us hugging the other night?’ She was a huge part of a huge change in my life, so I’ll always hold her dear.” 

Blackburn also shares a unique connection with Mitchell outside their friendship. Similar to what Blackburn is now experiencing with Roswell, Mitchell was embraced by the LGBTQ community for playing a lesbian character, Emily Fields, whose same-sex romances on Pretty Little Liars were among the first on ABC Family (the former name of the Freeform network).

Over the years, Blackburn had come out to select members of the Pretty Little Liars cast and crew, including creator I. Marlene King. But as the show approached its swan song, he started to recognize how hiding a part of himself was negatively affecting his life. He entered his first serious relationship with a man while filming the show’s final season. Not knowing how to tell co-workers—or whether to, say, invite his boyfriend to an afterparty—caused him to “go into a little bit of a shell” on the set.

“My boyfriend was hanging out with me at a Pretty Little Liars convention, and some of the fans were like, ‘Are you Tyler’s brother?’ ” Blackburn says. “He was very patient, but then afterward he was like, ‘That kind of hurt me.’ It was a big part of why we didn’t work out, just because he was at a different place than I was. Unfortunately, we don’t really talk anymore, but if he reads this, I hope he knows that he helped me so much in so many ways.” At that, Blackburn tearfully excuses himself and takes a private moment to regain his composure. 

“I never remember a time when I didn’t enjoy being with him,” says Harding, Blackburn’s former co-star. He says he saw the actor “start to become the person he is now when we worked together” but believes Blackburn needed to first come to terms with the idea that he could become “the face” of bisexuality. “Tyler’s discovering a way to bring real meaning with his presence in the world,” Harding says, “as an actor and as a whole human.”

Once the teenage Blackburn realized he was attracted to guys, he began “experimenting” with men while taking care not to become too emotionally attached. “I just didn’t feel I had the inner strength or the certainty that it was okay,” he says. It wasn’t until a decade later, at the age of 26, that he began to “actively embrace my bisexuality and start dating men, or at least open myself up to the idea.” He says he’s been in love with two women and had great relationships with both, but he “just knew that wasn’t the whole story.”

He was able to enjoy being single in his 20s in part because he wasn’t confident enough in his identity to commit to any one person in a relationship. “I had to really be patient with myself—and more so with men,” he says. “Certain things are much easier with women, just anatomically, and there’s a freedom in that.” He came out of that period with an appreciation for romance and intimacy. Sex without an emotional component, he discovered, didn’t have much appeal.

“As I got older, I realized good sex is when you really have something between the two of you,” says Blackburn, who’s now dating an “amazing” guy. “It’s not just a body. The more I’ve realized that, the more able I am to be settled in my sexuality. I’m freer in my sexuality now. I’m very sexual; it’s a beautiful aspect of life.”

Blackburn has, however, felt resistance from the LGBTQ community, particularly when bisexual women have questioned his orientation. “Once I decided to date men, I was like, Please just let me be gay and be okay with that, because it would be a lot fucking easier. At times, bisexuality feels like a big gray zone,” he says. (For example, Blackburn knows his sexuality may complicate how he becomes a father.) “I’ve had to check myself and say, I know how I felt when I was in love with women and when I slept with women. That was true and real. Don’t discredit that, because you’re feeding into what other people think about bisexuality.”

He clearly isn't the first rising star who's had to deal with outside opinions of how to handle his Hollywood coming-out. I spoke to Brianna Hildebrand just before the release of 2018's smash hit Deadpool 2, and she explained that she had previously met with publicists who had offered to keep her sexuality under wraps, even though the actress herself had never suggested this. Meanwhile, ahead of the launch of last fall's Fantastic Beasts sequel, Ezra Miller told methat he's "been in audition situations where sexuality was totally being leveraged."

Fortunately for Blackburn, his recent experiences with colleagues have largely been supportive ones. He came out to Roswell, New Mexico showrunner Carina Adly Mackenzie when he first arrived in N.M. to shoot the pilot but after he had earned the role of Alex, which for him was the ideal sequence. "I think he takes the responsibility of being queer in the public eye very seriously, and waiting to come out was just about waiting until he was ready to share a private matter—not about being dishonest to his fans," Mackenzie tells PLAYBOY. "I have always known how important Alex is to Tyler, and I know that Tyler trusts me to do right by him, ultimately, and that’s really special."

Blackburn finds it funny that he’s known for young-skewing TV shows; the question is, What might define him next? He’s grateful for his career, but he grew up wanting to make edgy dramas like the young Leonardo DiCaprio. He also cites an admiration for Miller, the queer actor who plays the Flash. “I most definitely want to be a fucking superhero one day,” Blackburn says a bit wistfully. 

His path to cape wearing does look more tenable. The day before his Advocateinterview was posted, he booked a lead role in a fact-based disaster-survival film opposite Josh Duhamel. Blackburn jokes that his movie career was previously nonexistent, though his résumé features such thoughtful indie fare as 2017’s vignette-driven Hello Again. There, he plays a love interest to T.R. Knight, who tells PLAYBOY that Blackburn “embraces the challenge to stretch and not choose the easy path.” 

For now, Blackburn’s path appears to be just where he needs it to be. “I may never want to be a spokesperson in a huge way, but honestly, being truthful and authentic sets a great example,” he says. “To continue on a path of fulfillment and happiness is going to make people feel like they too can have that and it doesn’t need to be some spectacle.” As it turns out, he may already be a superhero.

[echodrops]

Why Do Certain Ships Become So Popular? (And Why Should Writers Rethink When They Do?) - Part 2

<- Start back at part 1 or you’re going to be very confused!

This time my victim of choice example is Klance (and Allurance and Lotura too).

In a previous post, I established the premise that shippers focus their efforts and attention on ships between characters who exhibit the most compelling dynamism, the greatest amount of emotional energy--good feelings or bad--that directly relates to one or more of the characters’ growth arcs... or the two characters whose emotional interactions most significantly affect a story’s main plot.

This idea (that shippers are looking for strong, dynamic emotional interactions that are directly tied to plot) feeds directly into my second premise: part of the popularity of slash ships comes from the fact that, very often, the strongest and most plot-relevant emotional events don’t occur between male characters and female characters, but between male protagonists and other male characters--due to a combination of 1) a much smaller number of female characters, 2) a majority of writers for anime/manga and American shows being male; 3) under-developed or poorly written female characters, and 4) the tendency to situate males in the hero, sidekick, and villain positions, increasing the chance that their actions will have greater importance in the story’s main plot.

In short, writers can unintentionally cause fans to prefer non-canon slash ships by writing more dynamic, better developed, and more plot-relevant interactions between their male leads than between the main character and his designated female love interest.  

Now hang on. Before you get all up in arms, yes, I’m perfectly aware there are plenty of other reasons slash ships are popular, including:

A huge desire among LGBT+ fans for positive representation

The fact that m/m interactions appeal to straight women/others the same way w/w interactions are sexy to straight men/others

The tendency of shows, particularly from Japan, to deliberately queer-bait

The fact that many women vicariously ship male characters together because it allows them to imagine a relationship of “genuine equals,” particularly in areas where women feel they are still not treated equally to men

The tendency for “pair the spares” to result in m/m ships simply due to a lower number of available female characters

And so on

This isn’t written to negate any of those reasons or to imply that they aren’t major factors in the popularity of slash ships, not at all, but it has always, always struck me as reductive when I hear things like “Slash ships are only popular because girls think two dudes together is hot” (the fetish argument) or “Girls will ship any two good-looking male characters together regardless of canon. They just hate het ships” (the fetish argument with a side dish of misogyny).

In particular, this last one--an argument I’ve heard from a lot of male fandom members (but of course not all)--has always gotten under my skin, because it implies that girls who ship aren’t capable of critically analyzing the media we consume and identifying characters who have meaningful interactions and interesting potential. That we, unlike those viewers who adhere to the canon (typically heterosexual) relationships, are somehow reading these stories wrong, blind to “real” romance (namely the one between the male hero and his best girl/waifu), and/or misusing male characters with zero regard for their personalities--worse, this argument also implies that female fans deliberately hate or under-appreciate oh-so-perfectly written female characters whose romantic subplots are totally natural and not at all an unfortunate side effect of their position as the token chick on the team...

At its best, the statement: “Girls will ship any two good-looking male characters” is demeaning in its dismissal of a majority of slash shippers and their ability to read characters. At its worse, it’s this exact dismissal that continues to allow so many (primarily male) authors to write under-developed, unimportant, token female love interests: “It’s the girls [or the slash shippers] who are weird; there’s nothing wrong with the way we’re doing things.”

But guess what happens when well-written female characters whose actions are central to a story’s main plot are introduced and highlighted? Guess what happens when the emotional energy between a female lead and her male counterpart is the most compelling and dynamic in the series?

The (often canon) het ship suddenly--somehow--magically becomes well-liked by fans!

Zutara and Kataang vastly out-strip any slash Avatar pairings in popularity. Noragami’s Yatori commands a staggering following in the fandom. Is there anyone in their right mind who thinks Alucard/Integra wasn’t the best pairing to end Hellsing with? No one debates whether or not Ahiru and Fakir from Princess Tutu are true love. In Doctor Who, Rose and the Doctor reign so far supreme in the fandom that none of the other ships even need to exist though I actually prefer River. Terra and Aqua from Kingdom Hearts beat out every other Terra or Aqua ship by a mile (and this is in a series notorious for hating and under-shipping its female characters). Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun has no problem juggling three very well-accepted het ships--even while having a scene in which two male characters sit down and draw a gay manga together. Ain’t nobody suggesting Mr. Bates and Anna from Downton Abbey should be with anyone else, right? And this is just in the handful of shows I personally have time to watch. Anyone who reads or watches a series with well-written female characters can play this exact same game!

The obvious conclusion? Female fans are perfectly willing to ship heterosexual pairings--if they’re well-written.

It’s the same story all over again: when the real emotional energy, the dynamic core, the most plot-relevant interactions occur between a male and female character, they too can become the fan-preferred couple. (Shocking!)

Yes, yes, I hear you saying “B-But wait, sometimes the m/m ship is more popular even though the het love interest is well-written!” or “Sometimes girls ship guy characters who have never even met!” or “So what you’re saying is female fans wouldn’t ship slash if there were better het options available?”

1) Don’t get me wrong--there are certainly always exceptions. I’m pointing out a trend, not a rule. Sometimes a fandom has a separate, specific reason for elevating a non-canon slash ship above a well-written canon het ship. (Someone who is actually in the Fullmetal Alchemist fandom might be able to explain why Ed/Roy is more popular than Roy/Riza, probably?) And in situations where a slash ship and a het ship in a series both have equally strong emotional energy, my bet is that the slash ship will always come out on top because it gets the added benefit of people liking LGBT+ rep and straight girls (and anyone else) who just think m/m is hot.

2) Crack ships definitely do exist. But usually when a crack ship actually manages to become popular, it’s because fans have recognized the potential for a strong emotional energy between two characters. If the two characters could reasonably have strong tension because of similarities, differences, or other elements of their characters, then crack ships are still following the trend of aligning with emotional energy, even if that energy is only anticipated at the moment.

3) I definitely don’t mean to suggest that slash ships are shoddy seconds to fans who would “naturally” prefer het ships if good het ships were available. What I’m suggesting is only that it’s no surprise slash ships are so extremely and consistently popular across so many fandoms, because in terms of plot relevance, depth of writing, and meaningful interactions with each other, male characters so rarely have any real competition. A desire for LGBT+ representation and people living out power or equality fantasies through slash are certainly motivating factors and good and worthy reasons to write slash. But one unfortunate contributor to the popularity of slash ships is that male characters continue to occupy a place of privilege in modern narratives. Our heroes remain overwhelmingly male. Our sidekick/lancer/buddy characters remain overwhelmingly male. Our villain characters remain overwhelmingly male. That is to say: male characters continue to dominate all the most “plot relevant” roles in our narratives, and so long as male leads continue to be placed in roles where their most compelling emotional interactions and greatest sources of character growth are other male characters, slash ships will continue to dominate fandoms’ online presences.

(Hilarious: the dude bros who complain about the number of slash ships in their favorite series are often the very same ones supporting and becoming the writers whose shallow portrayals of female characters further bolster the popularity of said slash ships in the first place...)

Okay, I’ve made you wait long enough.

What does all of this have to do with Voltron?

Well, you’ve probably figured that part out already, actually.

If we consider the “emotional energy” and tension among Voltron’s main characters, there’s absolutely no question who is at the core, where the most plot relevant and meaningful emotional interactions have occurred, where the “heart” of the story is, in essence...

Hint: It’s Keith.

(Just a heads up: I’m going to use Klance as the example because it’s the most popular Voltron pairing according to the numbers, but any Sheith fan worth their salt could obviously very, very easily apply these ideas one-for-one to that ship, because clearly Shiro’s interactions with Keith are some of the most emotionally tense and compelling in the entire Voltron series--they are a consistent core of feeling energy for the show which naturally leads many people to support this ship. A large part of the reason that this post is tagged Sheith is because I am absolutely inviting Sheith shippers to use the theory and lens in this essay to analyze Sheith--using this idea to analyze Sheith will reveal a lot of intense emotional energy to discuss and validate that ship. I’m very tempted to put this paragraph in all caps or something so the Sheith shippers will actually read it and stop badgering me...)

Keith (and his relation with other characters) is the core of Voltron’s main plot, both in that he is positioned as the leader/the hero/the protagonist, and because, obviously, almost all of the series’ emotional high points (with the exception of “Crystal Venom” and Pidge’s search for Matt) somehow feature him. 

Keith isn’t just central in the main plot though; he’s also central in the individual arcs of two other characters: Lance and Shiro. He’s a motivating and driving factor in both of these characters’ stories and change throughout the series, affecting their actions, attitudes, and self-worth, and so it should come as absolutely no surprise that Sheith and Klance are the series’ most popular ships.

But since Klance is the most popular pairing, the person I really want to talk about is Lance.

You can say a lot of things about Lance and the raging debates that occurred over whether or not Lance is a straight loverboy trope or not, but I don’t think any viewer of Voltron would deny that, if we consider the main cast members (Team Voltron plus Lotor), the core of Lance’s emotional energy and tension is Keith. His interactions with Keith--not even in a romantic sense, simply in a storytelling sense--are more important and dynamic than his on-screen interactions with any other main character.

From his laser focus on Keith at Garrison that caused him to invent a rivalry (this word is basically just a synonym for “emotional energy” at this point):

To comedic banter:

To the infamous bonding moment:

To a fledgling “right hand man” partnership:

To Lance’s insecurities:

The story of Voltron itself continuously reiterates that Lance’s interactions with Keith are more dynamic, more intense (even if we’re talking about “Rawr, I hate you, we’re rivals!” emotions instead of lovey-dovey stuff), and more plot relevant than Lance’s interactions with other characters in the series. Lance’s emotional arc is irrevocably centered on Keith until very, very late in the series.

More importantly: Lance’s motivation and personal plot line as a whole are centered on Keith. At it’s most basic, Lance’s character arc seems like it was supposed to center on Lance’s sense of self-worth--despite acting confident, Lance was actually insecure about his ability to help save the universe. Theoretically, his narrative should have focused on him becoming confident about his place on the team and his value as both a friend and fellow paladin to the other main characters. His arc should have been (and I guess theoretically still is? It’s just not... ever given much attention?) about him overcoming his insecurity by learning to recognize his own unique talents and discovering the things that only he can do to help Team Voltron succeed. (Hell, the entire Allurance thing could have been framed as “She’s completely out of my league” ---> “Whoa, originally I was putting Allura on a pedestal but actually she’s as much a member of this team as me--we’re in this together, side-by-side.”)

Whether or not the semi-incoherent narrative of Voltron actually delivered on this promise is iffy, but the set up in season 1-3ish is all there and all Keith:

At Garrison, Lance viewed Keith as a road block in his quest to becoming a fighter class student. Keith’s achievements and talent became a measuring stick for Lance’s own capabilities. He imagined a rivalry to make himself feel better/less insecure. His drive not to lose out to Keith is what dragged Hunk and Pidge along to Shiro’s rescue and ultimately led to the discovery of the Blue Lion. Lance comparing himself unfavorably to Keith as a paladin and pilot contributed to (mostly) one-sided animosity throughout the early seasons that gave way to a scene of Lance attempting to step down from the team because he didn’t see himself worthy of the position in comparison to Keith:

The logical conclusion that I think most fans would draw from these many scenes is that, as part of Lance’s overall character growth across the whole series, he needed to have a moment in which he recognized that he isn’t--and has never been--inferior to Keith.

Ultimately, the first five seasons continually reiterate the idea that, in terms of interactions, energy, and dynamic character growth, the most important main character in Lance’s story (other than Lance) is Keith.

Keith’s interactions with Lance are directly and immediately tied to Lance’s individual character arc/growth, and Keith is definitely the focus of Lance’s most meaningful emotional tension throughout seasons 1-5 at least.

Which means it shouldn’t come as any surprise that Klance is the most popular Lance ship, particularly when you set it side-by-side with the (increasingly canon) Allurance.

I just want to make this abundantly clear before I begin: I have absolutely nothing against Allurance shippers and, until it was done so poorly in season 5-6 (and potentially 7, I still haven’t even finished that one), I actually was okay with the possibility of Allurance being endgame because I thought there was potential for it to be done well. After what we’ve been given, I actually feel the Allurance shippers have been horribly shortchanged by the show’s real writing, and that I can’t personally support the ship the way it’s being written, but that’s not the fault of the characters themselves or anything inherently “wrong” with the ship. So please don’t take the rest of what I say here as ship hate--this is just observations from a literary analysis standpoint.

What has prevented Lance and Allura from gaining significant traction with the fans despite the fact that it’s edging close to canon territory if it isn’t canon already?

Well, one problem might be that Lance’s emotional energy has no bearing on Allura’s individual character development--and Allura’s emotional peaks have no bearing on Lance’s personal arc either (at least as far as it was established in early seasons and then left essentially unresolved).

Allura’s arc has, throughout the course of the show, centered on her ability to defeat her family’s foes, her grief for her lost people and planet, and her desire to follow in her father’s footsteps as a leader and in the Altean traditions as well. None of this has much of anything to do with Lance. Her growth as a character occurs--with the exception of the single shining scene on Naxela--completely independently of Lance. She lets her father’s memory go on her own in “Crystal Venom.” She faces Zarkon head-to-head by herself after rescuing Shiro. It’s Shiro who stops her from over-working herself to aid the coalition, not Lance. It’s Keith’s whose Galra blood forces her to re-examine and overcome some of her universal hatred for the Galra. It’s Lotor who helps her reach Oriande, and her own ingenuity that allows her to tame the White Lion and learn the secrets of Altean alchemy.

With the exception of the scene on Naxela where it was specifically Lance’s speech that motivated Allura to save the day, virtually all of her most charged emotions occurred elsewhere and with other characters, and there’s nothing in her personal goals--to be a strong leader, to revive her culture, to save the universe--that is intrinsically tied with Lance. He can encourage and aid her in those pursuits, but so can Shiro, Keith, Pidge, Hunk, and Coran. The role of fellow paladin and supporting ally isn’t unique to Lance. His interactions with her don’t fill a niche that drives her personal plot lines outside of the romance subplot.

And the same thing is true in reverse.

We get this nice scene of Allura encouraging Lance and helping him work on his insecurity... And then it is promptly never mentioned again. (Where did the sword go, guys? Where???) Lance gives up Blue to Allura and she’s almost immediately gifted at piloting the Blue Lion, while Lance is shown struggling with Red (once more in Keith’s shadow) and still hadn’t, as of the end of season 6, seemed to have mastered it to the same extent as Keith. It’s Keith, Laika (an alien dog--not Allura guys, an alien dog) and the SPACE MICE that Lance expresses his insecurities to, and it’s Coran who is there for Lance’s touching scene expressing his longing to return to Earth. Lance’s personal arc about growing into the paladin role and becoming a selfless person who puts the team before his own desire for glory once again occurs independently of Allura, with little to no interaction, and even fewer emotional high points between them, in the entire first half of the show.

For both of these characters, their “real emotional energy”--their tension both positive and negative--occurs with other characters. The “believability” and energy of this ship is diminished by the fact that it simply isn’t the most well-written of character pairs in the series. The romance subplot isn’t organically tied to either of their personal plot lines, and the depth of their one-on-one interactions pales in comparison to their, particularly Lance’s, interactions with other characters.

But huh... would you look at that... When a potential romantic interest came along whose interactions with Allura were both directly tied to her personal arc, her central character motivations, and her emotional high points...

Isn’t it amazing how well it was received by the fandom--despite the fact that no one was really sure whether Lotor was evil or not? Now of course, I’m not going to ignore the fact that Lotura was probably helped along by leaving Keith, Lance, and Shiro free to ship elsewhere, but I don’t think the actual chemistry in the series’ writing itself should be ignored.

There was significantly, significantly more tension and nuance to Allura and Lotor’s interactions that any of Allura’s interactions with any of the other main cast, and their interactions operated not just in a romantic capacity, but also as a vehicle for Allura’s personal character growth:

The push and pull of these two characters and their scenes together sparked change in both of them, which augmented and increased the quality of their romantic arc while also furthering both of their own individual goals as characters.

The story painted them as equals with mutual interests, a shared interest in Altean culture, both victims (at least initially) of their parents’ war, both distrusting but ultimately lonely people who were longing for connection to, in Allura’s case, what had been lost, and in Lotor’s case, what he theoretically had never been able to have (except the writers did him dirty so jk).

I just don’t think there are many people who would argue that Allurance--or Allura’s interactions with any other male character--have been written with near as much depth, engagement, and integration with her motivations as Lotor and Allura’s were. Their plot literally got more screen time one-on-one in a single seven episode season than Allura and Lance did in the 43+ other episodes...

And for the the short time that it lasted, this pairing was embraced by many fans. I might be biased because I immediately went out and followed every Lotura blog I could find, but to me it seems like it was well-liked and generally well-regarded among shippers until the colony reveal (and by many still after). I was very excited by the writing of this ship and definitely wanted something meaningful to come out of it. Part of the fandom’s immense outrage at Lotor’s reveal was, I think, linked to the fact that this ship had been so convincingly written into the series before it.

This, to me, is a perfect example of a situation in which the emotional exchange between two characters exceeds the strength and depth of their interactions with others, leading to immediate adoption and approval as a ship by the fandom. Where the real energy is, there are the shippers.

PHEW! Let me take a deep breath and come up for air. There’s a lot going on here, but boiling it down to the basic point I’m trying to make, and which I’ll address in a lot more depth in the third and final part of this: the way that a story is written profoundly affects what ships will or will not become popular with fans. Shipping isn’t an unpredictable beast that grows completely independently of its source material. The ways writers craft interactions between their characters--and the places where they invest the most and infuse the most life--are powerful tools that impact how fans view and come to love seeing characters both separately and in romantic relationships.

To that end, while there are numerous reasons slash ships are popular and continue to grow in popularity, one reason that should be considered seriously by all creative writers--fanfiction authors or aspiring original novelists--is the notion that shipping often aligns with the core of a story’s or character’s emotional energy, the pairs with the highest tension, the electric pulse of the story’s most meaningful moments. Non-canon ships of any sexuality swell to mega-popularity when fans perceive more depth and significance in the interactions of characters outside the canon pair, when the emotional work of the story is happening somewhere outside the intentional romantic plot line. Sometimes this is fine. But more often, this is a bad sign for creators--a sign that you’ve fumbled in the writing of your main romantic leads.

As writers, questions we rarely ask ourselves but often should are: “Where is the core of the tension in my story? Whose interactions are deepest and most central to the development of my main character?”

In other words: Where is the real emotional energy in my story?

In part 3 I’m going to provide one more excellent case-in-point, and then close out with a discussion of some take-aways for writers from all this that might help strengthen your romantic subplots, whatever your genre or whoever your characters.

Go on to Part 3 ->

[leilas-digital-scrapbook-blog]

Giving Love a Bad Name – Confessions of a Fanfiction Writer

I know we’re supposed to blog about our major projects this week and I promise I will get to that soon, but I’d like to go off book for a moment to address something that’s been bugging me since last Thursday’s class. As someone who’s always tried to engage with fandom in as creative a way as possible, I hoped a class on user generated content would offer a fresher perspective than the usual amount of prejudice and self-righteous superiority that sadly seem to accompany the subject of fanfiction even amongst people that make stories and their passion for it their bread and butter.

Guess I should have known better.

In the world of professional writers, fanfiction is still a filthy word. It sums up everything that’s wrong with the people you’re sharing your stories with: the obsessiveness, the entitlement, the disregard for boundaries, the penchant for making everything about sex. Worse, gay sex, as unspeakably dirty as it’s hilarious. Be warned, writers: if you make it big, your stories will inevitably become a free-for-all at the mercy of those people. A worse fate than even George R. R. Martin could wish on his own characters.

I’m used to seeing the world of fanfiction belittled and disparaged, of course, and I’m the first to admit that the community is often its own worst enemy. But for some reason it still hurt a little to sit in class and listen to people I’ve come to like and respect during these past few months buy into every bad stereotype associated with the form. Not because I felt called out (though yes, I do write fanfiction from time to time, and I happen to quite enjoy reading it too), but because of the underlying assumptions that 1. something that’s not 100% original cannot be art, it’s a violence in fact, especially if it twists someone else’s creation into something it was never meant to be (in this case, queer representation); and 2. there’s something wrong with creating exclusively out of love, without ever expecting to be paid for it. And I have Strong Opinions on that.

So let’s talk about fanfiction.

Actually, scratch that, let’s talk about my favorite subject – yours truly. As you may have gathered by now, I love fanfiction. A whole fangirly lot. My gateway drug into it was my obsession with Lost about 10 years ago and its pesky habit of offing every character I was foolish enough to get attached to. But lo! Someone was keeping them alive through their stories! I felt blessed. I got to spend more time in a world I loved, and I stopped flirting with the idea of giving up on the show every time another character I liked bit the dust. Everybody won.

Even more than as a fan, though, I appreciated the world of possibilities that fanfiction opened up to me as a non-native speaker. I come from a small town in the north of Italy; the access I had to foreign books in their original language was limited, and if I wanted to read something in English I’d have to spend quite a lot of money on one of the very few novels (usually chunky airport bookshop thrillers or housewife romances – not exactly my preferred genres) that shared a single shelf in the bookstore with German, French, Spanish titles. But fanfiction was free, accessible, and there was so much of it. If I didn���t like a story, all I needed to do was move on to the next. Suddenly there was an infinite library of engaging stories to help me make my English better. True, they didn’t all read like a published novel would – there’s a lot of unpolished, error-plagued, stream-of-consciousness-y material out there. But there are also so, so many beautifully written works, and believe me, even for a non-native speaker it’s very easy to spot the difference.

Fanfiction also gave me the chance and motivation to practice my English writing in a way school never could have done. I’ve been writing my own stories since I could hold a pen, but I didn’t dare write in English until I was a fanfiction-loving teenager. It was a marketing decision, really – my first foray into writing fanfiction was for a fandom so small that I wouldn’t be surprised to find out I’m the only Italian representative, so if I wanted any kind of feedback on my work I’d have to suck it up and try my hand at writing in a language that didn’t come natural to me. I would never argue that the feedback I got on my works made me a better writer – contrary to popular opinion, the fanfiction community is made up of the nicest, most supportive people, and alas, you’ll never get a comment on everything you did wrong with your structure or even just pointing out common grammar mistakes from them (though I was lucky enough to have someone explain to me how dialogue punctuation works differently in English than in Italian, so I guess something can be learned even from the Internet). It did motivate me to keep writing, though, and that made me a better writer. If you think I’m being too dramatic, dishing out this monster of a post nobody asked for just to declare my eternal devotion to fanfiction, it’s because it’s personal to me. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve been told that I write in English as well as native speakers, and fanfiction is a big part of why that’s true. I doubt I would even be in this course if it wasn’t for it.

And then, of course, there’s the gay thing. I’m not going to argue about how heteronormativity sucks and representation matters because I’m sure everyone’s as sick of talking about it as I am, but please try to understand how it felt for a gay person like me, used to be depicted in media as a plot device or token secondary-character representation if at all, to be able to step into a world where queerness was the default for once. Where queer protagonists had meaningful queer love stories and queer friends and got to save the world from the Apocalypse too. Or to fight the Empire or go to Hogwarts or everything else fictional straight people have had a right to do since the dawn of storytelling in addition to romancing the hottie of their choice. I’m not asking you to feel as passionately about it, of course, but (especially if you’re straight) you might try and empathize the next time you think a fanart of two boys kissing is something deserving of your amused contempt.

I hope I’m not coming across as the person that screams “homophobe” at everyone who disagrees with her because I guarantee that’s not what I’m trying to do here, but I think the general distaste for slash says a lot about the way our society sees heterosexual relationships as love and homosexual relationships as sex. Yes, there’s a lot of gay porn in the world of fanfiction. But you know what you’re most likely to find? Romance. Not in the saucy literary sense of the word, but in its simpler, most literal acceptation. Fanfiction is just one more way for humans to express themselves, after all, and love has always been front and center in our art. Love, not sex – even if it’s gay. In fact, explicit material doesn’t even make up the majority of what you’ll find on a fanfiction website. Don’t worry, I don’t want anyone to taint their souls by visiting one of those dens of iniquity so I pulled some stats myself. Here’s the number of works for each rating in three of the most popular fandoms on Archive Of Our Own, the current go-to website for the fanfiction community (sorry Fanfiction.net) – Harry Potter, Supernatural and the Marvel Cinematic Universe as of 9/3/2019:

Even counting both Mature and Explicit works as straight-up porn (which I don’t think is quite fair, but that’s a discussion for another day), they only make up less than 1/3 of the material. Kinda disappointing, for a medium that’s supposed to be all about filthy graphic gay sex. Imagine if only one in three musicals actually featured singing and dancing, or superheroes weren’t in the majority of superhero movies. They’re lucky fanfiction is shared for free, or I’d be screaming for my money back.

Maybe I’ve just been brainwashed by SJWs, though, and this has nothing to do with my being an immigrant or a lesbian. Maybe my inability to see what’s so bad about appropriating someone else’s intellectual property for your own amusement is a cultural thing. I apologize – as mentioned, I’m Italian, and we all know Ancient Roman culture was basically just a ripoff of everything those inventive Greeks came up with. It’s in our blood. Hell, our 2€ coin, the biggest, has the face of Dante Alighieri on it, a writer most famous for having written 14.000+ verses of self-insert real-person-fic in which the girl he fancied as a teenager, his favorite author, and God himself all fall over themselves to tell him how awesome he is and he gets to prophesy an eternity in Hell for his political enemies. Talk about wish-fulfilling entitlement. Not to mention all those creatively arid Renaissance “artists” celebrated for stealing characters from the Bible and Greek mythology (seriously, the fact that Greece hasn’t unleashed an army of lawyers on us yet is nothing short of a miracle) and putting them in their cheesy paintings. Other countries can rely on a much stronger moral backbone and endless imagination – I’m sure Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe, those creative geniuses at Disney and countless others never had to resort to something as cheap and despicable as borrowing other people’s characters to tell the stories they wanted to tell.

Either way, I can’t help it – I see the prospect of creating something that will resonate with people so strongly that they’ll make it a part of themselves, that it’ll compel them to make more art, to reach out and connect with other fans, as something incredibly beautiful rather than scary. Maybe this is my usual naiveté speaking, and I will come to eat my words. It’s certainly disturbing that a bunch of entitled fans bullied the Mass Effect developers into changing the series’ ending, and sending actors explicit fanart of themselves is straight-up harassment, but is fanfiction really the problem here? Or is it social network culture, with its power to destroy all barriers and foster hive mind? To give resentment a platform to spread and be heard? I promise that the average fanfiction writer wouldn’t campaign to get an ending changed. They’d just roll up their sleeves and write a better one themselves.

[novantinuum]

Some trans Jim HCs...

Some HCs for your consideration bc I’ve been,,, thinking bout Jim a lot lately and this is such an important HC for me:

Jim chose his name bc as a kid he majorly stanned Jim Hawkins from Treasure Planet. Jim Hawkins, who also had a deadbeat dad and grew up with his single mom, and ended up traveling into space on the adventure of a lifetime. It was his favorite movie growing up, and he watched it so much the VHS tape literally wore out. It was always a name that sounded right to him…

…but of course, there was the lingering hurt of his father’s departure to consider. His own deadbeat dad always went by James, not Jim, but still. Eventually however- after much reflection and discussion with his mom- he decided to chose this name regardless of his father. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them to let one name shadow their lives and sway their decisions forever. And anyways, perhaps he could leave his mom with good memories associated with the name.

Looking back on his childhood, Jim initially began to go “hmmmm” about gender stuff around 11 or so. He finally found the words to describe it when he was 12. 

His ‘a-hah moment’ came when some girl in his class was teasing him about how much he hung around Toby, and nagging him if he liked him or something, and Jim’s honest to god just… confused why that’s the first place people’s minds go to. Why should it matter, he’s about to respond, Toby’s just another guy- Another guy. When he realizes the implications of this completely casual thought, he sorta disconnects from reality for a moment, starring off into the distance, spinning the thought over and over in his head. Suddenly, every bit of dissonance he’s ever felt from the girls in his class makes sense. 

Barbara is 100% supportive and just wants her son to feel loved and comfortable with who he is. She helps him find a binder when he begins to need one, and personally writes up the prescription to get him on T.

Before, Jim pretty much exclusively went by nicknames- half of which were of Toby’s endlessly creative invention. Later, when he told Toby he was going by Jim now, Toby was simply like “Oh, okay! Sweet,” and they just went right back to playin’ their video game and honestly, Jim didn’t know why he ever worried about telling his best friend.

Some dickwad at school hears about his cooking hobby and drones on about how cooking is “for women” and Jim’s all “no, it’s not, have you even SEEN any Gordan Ramsey shows?” He leans into his hobby even more after this, out of sheer spite. If he’s going to cook, he’ll be the best damn cook there is. (Shush let’s just pretend Gordan Ramsey is a multiversal constant and exists here)

When Jim becomes the trollhunter, the thing he most appreciates is that trolls have literally no concept of human gender stereotypes, (also no concept of a binary), so everyone just nods and accepts it without question when he says he’s a guy. 

The number two thing he appreciates is that all the exercise he gets through his trollhunting duties actually helps him gain more muscle mass, which definitely helps lessen his dysphoria. 

(It genuinely rubs him wrong when initially the trolls don’t think he’s capable of being trollhunter… don’t think he’s strong enough to battle Draal or Bular and survive, but at the very least it’s only because he’s human, and not for other reasons.)

For as crappy Steve is to Jim in literally every other way, he never once intentionally misgenders Jim. He knows how it stings to be told you’re “not a real man" and for all of his rough edges and lashing out, he’d die before he told someone the same thing his own dad told him.

In fact, no villain or adversary ever strikes him with misgendering. It just doesn’t happen. Not in my queer, one horse town.

Jim’s two weeks in the Darklands suck times 2 because he barely got any time to take off his binder. He could never find enough time where he felt safe enough to dismiss his eclipse armor.

His eventual half-troll transformation- while chock full of its obvious other issues and adjustments- does come with the advantage of giving him a lower voice.

Bonus kinda AU thought:

In an ideal world, Barb wouldn’t press Jim to celebrate his birthday- the day his dad left them- and instead they’d celebrate the anniversary of when he fully embraced going by the name Jim. When he’s 14, Barb jokes that he’s finally reached those ‘terrible twos.’

[rigginsstreet]

BillyxSteve fanfic recs?

thank god for this message honestly. fair warning theres probably gonna be a lot of smut?? because uh….thats the kind of bitch i am ANYWAY

(under the cut cuz whoops this is a long list)

Billy Hargrove Sucks: Hopper puts Steve in charge of sobering up a wasted Billy Hargrove one afternoon and suddenly things start to make sense. Until they really don’t. (10/10 do recommend. its probably my fave fic, definitely in the top 2. also….breakfast club references.)

Plenty of Fish: “As I said, there’s plenty of fish in the sea, Harrington. Pretty boy like you shouldn’t have any problems finding another hookup.” “I don’t really want a hookup.” “Maybe you don’t want one. But you sure as hell need it.”—Steve is spying on Nancy and Jonathan outside the Snowflake Ball. Billy happens to pass by.

In the Darkness (We are Free): Steve wasn’t really sure how he ended up on his knees behind the bleachers with Billy Hargrove’s dick in his mouth.

dazed and confused: Led Zeplin plays softly in the background and Steve hums along absently, his eyes are closed and he looks relaxed and happy. It’s fucking annoying is what it is. Billy takes a long slow drag from his cigarette and glares at Steve not that the other could see. They’ve been doing this kinda shit lately, hanging out after and just listening to music because Steve’s parents are never home so there’s no rush. They don’t talk about anything or even really acknowledge each other, it’s nice.

Post-Game Stress Relief: Steve’s intent on fighting turns into a slightly different activity.

i’ve been (touching you): Steve’s never really been good at the whole domestic thing.

All this bad blood here: If you asked Billy Hargrove exactly how he came to be standing in front of Steve Harrington’s huge ass house in the middle of the night, he’d tell you that he had absolutely no idea. It was only partly true, he’d been walking, desperate to get out of that cage of a house, away from his dad, away from Susan, Max. Away from every reminder that he was a huge fucking disappointment to them all.

hard and heavy, dirty and mean: “Remember,” he whispers in Steve’s ear, his breath hot. “You wanted this.”

feeling lonely (in the dark): Steve’s in the middle of making breakfast when he just-Stops.

The Break and the Reason Why: They were bound to fall apart. Maybe not from the beginning, not even since Nancy’s guilt started to agonize her, but from the moment Steve and Nancy saw Billy for the first time. And it wasn’t what Nancy saw when she looked at Billy, but what she saw when she looked away and back to Steve. She wouldn’t have admitted it - probably wouldn’t now - but, deep down inside, she recognized what she saw in Steve’s eyes, and it started to break her heart.

you shook me so hard, baby: “You’re awfully fuckin’ chatty tonight.” Billy comments, what Steve thinks is supposed to be casually but coming from him it’s mostly just dark and sinister and that does things to Steve’s dick.“I was just-”“I know, you just need something a little more productive to do with that pretty mouth of yours.”

The Pervasiveness of Loss: Billy makes a list. Steve helps him finish it. (my other favorite fic. i cried. twice)

Right beyond the cigarette and the devilish smile: If you asked Steve Harrington what the weirdest experience he’d had in 1984 was, he wouldn’t say fighting a small army of Demo-dogs, nor would he say becoming a babysitter slash friend to a group of 13 year olds (and he was a mentor, excuse you. Not a babysitter.). Nope, Steve Harrington’s single strangest experience of 1984 was being kissed by Billy Hargrove after they’d had a knock down drag out fight in the middle of his kitchen floor.

Word to the Wise: Dustin tries to give Billy a serious warning about dating Steve.

i think of your pretty face when I let it unwind: He fights himself on this as long as he possibly can because only a queer would jerk off thinking about another guy and Billy’s not gay.

we love making (whispers): Steve loves breaking Billy apart; loves being torn apart, himself.

consider him rocked like a hurricane: billy getting his dick sucked in a locker room! not much else to say about it

Glorious Results of a Misspent Youth: A half-drugged Billy kisses Steve and then doesn’t remember, but still flirts with Steve constantly. Steve pines for his new friend.

for a good cause: “What am I supposed to do with Billy, anyway? What do we have in common?” “I don’t know. What guys do when you’re around each other, I guess.”Or the one in which Max asks Steve to distract Billy for a few hours.

Stray: Steve almost runs someone over. There shouldn’t be anyone this far from Hawkins at this time of the day. Especially not Billy Hargrove. And yet he’s there.

when he (dreams): Steve knew Jonathan had the tendency to go for voyeuristic photos, but he just-He never thought the teen would have any of him, and especially not any of Billy.(Or the two of them, together.)

Mark Me (I’m yours): One thing that Steve quickly learns about Billy and sex with Billy, is that he loves leaving marks. Not just in hidden places under clothes, but in very, very obvious places. He’ll bite and mouth and suck until the skin on whatever part of Steve’s body he has his wicked mouth on is purpled and throbbing.

New Normal: Max thinks Billy is a mouth-breather. Billy has the worst case of heart eyes. Steve’s just here for the free cookies.

Billy In Leather Pants: I mean. It’s what it is, man. (honestly…another iconic fic)

Affection: "There were many reasons why Steve kept his distance from Billy Hargrove and he could list a few of them such as a) the guy was an asshole b) the guy was definitely crazy c) he was a shitty brother to Max, to say the least d) he had been shitty to Lucas as well, in fact, to all of his kids - sorry, not his, but his friends, his 13-years-old friends (God! He needed to get out some more) - and e) he had beat the shit out of Steve not so long ago.“

Nothin’ But a Good Time: What had he been thinking? Letting Billy lead him off into the night? Letting the other boy touch him, mark him?

shaking up all our doubting bones: There are a lot of things Steve is self-conscious about, and there are a lot of things he isn’t. The former is what he feels this time, his lack of mental dexterity a sore spot he doesn’t want provoked.

rest and (relax): Steve tends to Billy’s wounds after a bad run-in with his dad.

Restaurants and Reservations: They’d gone on sort-of-not-really dates before; late night drives to all night diners, full on make out sessions at the 3 o’clock show that no one ever went to at the Hawk, walks in the woods at night when the moon shone bright and ominous in the sky and Billy held his hand even though Steve insisted he wasn’t scared.But they’d never been on a real date, a planned date, a fancy date.

Halloween Smash: Steve sticks around and gets drunk after Nancy says he’s "bullshit.” Drunk Steve makes friends with Billy Hargrove. Briefly. After the drunk sex and the shouting, they’re probably not friends anymore.

Mr. Owl: How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?

We Could Write a Bad Romance: AU- Steve is Dustin’s adoptive dad/big brother. They’re trying to live their lives as peacefully as possible when Dustin’s basketball coach, Billy, turns out to be kind of an ass. Steve will find himself oddly attracted to the weirdo. A weird friendship is born, and more.

Pour Some Sugar On Me: Surprisingly, Steve had kept to the promise he made to himself. Despite the heated looks and snarky comments, he had not found himself shaking against Billy’s heat in several days. Unfortunately, he had also been unsuccessful in getting the other boy to have a serious conversation with him.

Convenience: Steve has detention. Unfortunately, also in detention are: his ex-girlfriend, his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend, and the asshole who beat him unconscious just days ago. So. A little weird.

you know when you’re gone i struggle at night: Steve can barely stay awake at school. Probably because he was up all night thinking about Billy.

babysitters club: Steve hadn’t expected his high school life would come to this, not just that he’d end up with a bat filled with nails to fend off terrifying demo-dogs, that he would end up as a cab driver/babysitter for a bunch of kids. Dustin was one thing but in helping out one, he’d suddenly become the go to for favours from Hawkins own fantastic four.

Knight Rider and Greyskull: What would have happened if Billy showed up at the Byers house and was instead accidentally inducted into the Gang of Kicking Demogorgon Ass? Well, a lot. Too damn much, if Steve has anything to say about it. (how season 2 shouldve ended tbh)

also theres this fic and a sequel in which billy and steve swap styles that i fucking adore

[onceuponaprincessworld]

CaptainSwan FF One-shots Recs p.5

Hello Beautiful Fandom, look I made another rec list! Thanks to CS AU Week we have some lovely new one shots featuring our favorite couple, but this list also includes some old one-shots that I believe you should check out, If you haven’t already. Hope you enjoy.

You can find here my other lists as well. 

Side note, I try to tag the authors by their tumblr name, but I couldn’t find some, if you know it, let me know. 

But Consider This...Aliens, @welllpthisishappening

Killian Jones is going to lose his mind. He's never going to sleep again. Because there is an alien living in the apartment above his. And maybe he's ok with it. Yeah, definitely losing his mind.

Prompt, @its-imperator-furiosa

Emma and Killian has been dating for a while but they haven't tell their friends yet, because they don't know how Emma's brother David will react, since he ones told Killian to not go near his sister, but he walks on them kissing or something and he yells Finally.

Past the Clouds, We’ll Find the Stars, @blowmiakisscolin

CS + Adoption and more: A dash of angst, a sprinkling of humor & a whole lotta fluff.

Prompt, @initiala

You buy your man a mug without looking inside... 

it’s a party in the usa, @jmosfreckles

A Fourth of July AU written for CS AU week day 1: Holiday AU. America vs. Great Britain antics ensue.

Old Habits Die Hard, Ok?, @jmosfreckles

I kissed you goodbye on accident - old habits die hard, ok?!

worth the risk, worth the guarantee, @piratesails

The rule is simple enough: don't fall for your best friend. No matter how loudly her laugh echoes in your head in the middle of the night, or how beautifully endearing the freckles that climb up her arms look under the afternoon sun. Every single movie and book and story he's come across has warned him of this in one way or another.

And yet, Killian finds it hard to run out of reasons why Emma Swan is the most perfect person he has and will ever meet.

Unhand the Carnations, @blowmiakisscolin

CS Flower Thief AU: I saw a prompt on Tumblr (see notes) and I did a thing. Emma catches Killian stealing flowers from her garden and assumes he's being a cheap date. She insists on coming with him to find out whether the girl is pretty enough to warrant flower theft...and he doesn't know how to break it to her that he's taking the flowers to the graveyard.

Never Drinking Again, @its-like-a-story-of-love

Emma Swan wakes up on her 21st birthday with no recollection of what happened the night before. All she has to piece everything together are her Snapchat story and a handsome stranger. (Drunken Snapchat story AU) 

You Make Me Better, @ilovemesomekillianjones

CS Neighbors AU where Emma is a nurse and Killian is her definitely-faking-it hypochondriac neighbor who uses illnesses and injuries as an excuse to talk to her.

You Look Happier, @cutieodonoghue

Radio DJ David Nolan’s sister Emma moves to town to be close to him as he prepares for his upcoming wedding to Mary Margaret. Maybe he’s just a little bit crazy from wedding stress, but he kinda wants to set her up with his co-host and best friend Killian. 

i’m missing you like crazy, @cutieodonoghue

“Established long distance relationship, one of them surprises the other by showing up right before midnight [on New Years Eve].” with a side helping of vloggers au! (a mixture of angst and fluff beyond this point)  

already in love,   @icapturedkindness

For CS AU week beloved tropes - friends to lovers.

a dare and a truth..., @startswithhope

Bed sharing prompt: “Would you please get comfortable and go the fuck to sleep already?”

Body Say, @seriouslyhooked

AU where Emma and Killian are neighbors in Boston. Emma gets home from a girls night only to stumble upon Killian who she has been crushing on since he moved in. Sparks fly and it is basically just a mini smut fest if I’m honest, but we then get a flash forward to see what happens with Emma and Killian in the future. I’m sure I have done a oneshot or two like this before, but hey, we can always use more fluff right?

Frigging in the Rigging, @passing-fanciful

Friends do things for other friends' birthdays. No big deal, right?

Camped Out,  @always-a-slut-for-pirates

A reluctant Emma goes camping with David, Mary Margaret and Killian.

the love boat, @captainnagata

“How good is your mother with dealing with the unexpected?”

“Why?”

“Because ship captains have the power to officiate weddings and the idea of her own daughter entering a marriage in a matter of days, on a cruise, could sober her up enough to leave you alone for good.”

a (sort of) cinderella story, @jennifer-morrison

sure she sits with him for a while after he’s put henry to bed following a late stakeout and sure she invites him over to make dinner more often than she doesn’t but that’s their usual. it isn’t because she likes him, likes him. (no one tell henry he agreed to this silly masquerade because he likes, likes her, okay?)

something so magic about you, @mycaptainswanjones

Emma Swan just found the perfect gift for Mary Margaret's birthday. The only problem? A blue-eyed stranger with a ridiculously attractive face and accent just stole it from right under her nose. Modern AU. Captain Swan.

The Kinship Harvest, @thesschesthair

We’re going to pretend the portal at the end of S3 never opened and Zelena was defeated without any interruptions. We’re also going to pretend Emma couldn’t go through with leaving for New York much to everyone’s relief. We’re also going to pretend that I can make up a believable holiday for the Enchanted forest lol.

Untitled, @distant-rose

Emma Swan is a crusty twice divorced bailsbond person who is a lone wolf by nature, excluding the company of her seven-year old son, of course. Her occasional companion of choice is a Seattle detective who is also a divorcee and an ex-military guy who got his hand blown off on some super secret Black Op mission in Afghanistan. Killian Jones is nearly as crusty as Emma and a closet sci-fi nerd who never fails to help Emma with a difficult skip or babysit her son last minute. There’s always been an unspoken attraction between them that’s held back by their memory of their failed marriages.

The Worst/Best Christmas Ever,  @captainhookcaptainfreedom

When their flight home is cancelled, Emma is convinced that she and Henry are going to have the worst Christmas ever. However, their next store neighbor, Killian Jones, has different ideas. 

stranger to the ground, @evil–isnt–born

Test pilot Killian Jones and engineer Emma Swan spend their days making history as part of the Avro Arrow program. When the program is suddenly cancelled and the jets ordered destroyed, the choice becomes whether to let it become a thing of the past or save a piece of their shared history.

STRAIGHT AS AN ARROW (TO YOU),  @nightships 

The Avro Arrow program was a shining beacon for Canada - when it was cancelled, questions went unanswered, and reporter Emma Swan has no intentions of leaving them that way. Major Killian Jones couldn't agree less, especially given his own history with the program, but Emma wouldn't be Emma if she let that stop her.

Too Hot (Hot Damn), @this-too-too-sullied-flesh

Emma just doesn’t know what’s hotter--the weather and the fact that the air conditioning is out in her building, or her neighbor.

stop talking in codes,  cocoa-and-rum

Killian Jones has been in love with Emma Swan for as long as he can remember. He often told himself it wouldn't be wise to fall for his best friend, but his heart has a queer way of never listening to his brain, especially when a breathtakingly alluring woman with pretty green eyes and lovely blonde waves is involved.

1-2 Crush on You, @allrightfine

"We'll skip all this, go right to a place where you're more comfortable. We'll want to aim for that sweet spot between knowing all those little idiosyncrasies and them becoming annoying, I'd imagine." (vaguely Halloween-flavored AU smutty fluff!).

A Lifetime of Kissing, @justanotherwannabeclassic

There were many things that were becoming of a princess. The ability to carry on polite conversation, fluency in many languages, and an appreciation of both the arts and sciences were such things. What wasn’t becoming of a princess was drunkenly marrying a Naval lieutenant while on a diplomatic visit to a nearby kingdom. (Lieutenant Duckling).