#but does not have the self awareness to know she is gay for women

[wastrelwoods]

its funny that both laios and a corner of the fandom have the same problem with reception of marcille as a character where they're so fixated on remembering that time she did the coolest fucking thing theyve ever seen that it overwhelms and overwrites all other knowledge of her as a person including the specific ways she is a loser and thereby end up imaging her in situations where she would just not fucking say that

[quidfree]

hello! i've followed you to indulge in your TSH content, having just finished the book and your fanfic Sober II (Melodrama) back to back! (i'm destroyed!!)

i'm wondering if you've given any thought to whether Richard (Tartt's Richard, or yours) is gay or maybe bisexual? he ofc probably would not make that distinction himself - given the time period, or his aversion to that kind of self reflection, or the apparent finality of his relationship with Francis, or maybe all of the above - but it's fun to think about now, especially myself being someone who now IDs as a lesbian after 10 years of IDing as bi.

thank you for your service 🫡

hello! love your username btw. and thank you, glad to have you in the quidfree extended tartt community.

i like the 'tartt's richard or yours' distinction- i would say i do make an effort so that (to me at least) my richard is a plausible iteration of hers, i.e. i do not like to write so that the characters are 'my' versions unless i think the source material is bad (or at least bad in that specific way). but some of my less serious tsh material veers further into the 'my' side of the scale, for sure. anyway all that to say i don't have separate sets of thoughts on 'both' richards, it's more that there's some stuff i'm 100% on being in canon and some stuff i know i extrapolated into the extended materials my tsh fic constitute.

all that aside, i actually do not have strong feelings on whether richard is gay or bisexual. i think both have strong canon grounding and present similar but slightly different psychologies of the character. the obvious thing is that richard is repressing his attraction to men, but whether he's also comphet in his attraction to women is debatable. he's consistently attracted to them and sleeps with/dates them across all of canon, but on the other hand the key female love interests for him are 1) judy, whose interest he doesn't reciprocate 2) mona, who he sleeps with post murder in a fugue state 3) camilla, who he deifies as a feminine ideal and also always lauds the androgynous beauty/looks she shares with her brother of and 4) sophie, who does lend the most credence to him actually being into girls but also is someone he latches onto when his whole group has deserted him and then fails to emotionally connect with despite several years of dating. of course that could be the trauma, the repression, or both! but my point is there's evidence both ways, no pun intended. richard has very distinct ways of thinking about men and women but it's not as simple as one thing- there's his own self-perception/masculinity, his sexism, his homophobia, and his sexuality all playing a part.

you're right that he wouldn't make the distinction himself, though- either way, his canon thought process is very much 'well i'm not one of those' and that's a catch-all. if and when he gains self-awareness it would have to be through a prolonged relationship of some kind, e.g. with francis in sober ii-verse, because one-offs he can excuse and repress. which is why i think once that sort of long-term realisation happened he would think that he had been lying to himself/everyone the whole time beforehand and secretly consider himself a homosexual (regardless of whether this would be accurate).

i think modern day richard would be more likely to call himself bisexual regardless of which option you go with as more likely. you know that quote from obama's biography about reading marx to get with bisexual college girls... that's somehow richard-coded but in the sense that he thinks calling himself 'flexible' or whatever lets him sound liberated but plausibly heteronormative. in any setting francis delights in the corner he paints himself into.

[anonymousdanganronpaconfessions]

A lot of the fandom takes Komaru at face value about being "normal" and it's really disappointing because like, the entire point there is that she's a thousand miles outside of normal. That is extremely important, because her not being remotely normal is a major reason she's the prospective Successor.

Firstly, Genocide Jack is a psychosexual serial killer. This is a real life classification of serial killer that she easily and obviously fits criteria of. Her reason for murdering men is because the two of them are attracted to those men and take out their anger about their inability to be with those men on those men via murdering them. This is most commonly a type of serial killer man that targets women, although there have been the occasional woman and gay man of this type. The most famous gay man examples are Jeffery Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy. Komaru brushes this off extremely easily and fairly quickly becomes friends with her.

The canon does not allow you to chock this up to anime logic, because we have already seen how a normal person reacts to this. Her own brother, Makoto. He never gets over this. None of the other survivors get over this. Komaru's ability to be friends and possibly more with her is explicitly abnormal. There are one set of FTEs that are explicitly declared non-canon. At the end of Toko's FTEs in DR1, she declares Makoto her first friend and begins writing a new book. In UDG, she has not been writing and declares Komaru her first friend. Thus, Toko's FTEs are explicitly non-canon. Makoto did not do them.

Then of course there's the most obvious example that everyone knows. How she reacts to the Haiji reveal. People tend to overlook that Toko also is like "what the fuck" about both the reveal and Komaru's reaction. Toko acknowledges that that is not remotely normal, and shows what a normal reaction to it is. Komaru finds his openness about it attractive, and this is explicitly treated as abnormal.

Then there's the motivation bad ending. Once again, the game provides us with a contrasting example that proves that the game is aware her reaction is not normal. Orgasming in such a situation is actually extremely common. It's a physiological reaction to stimuli, not an emotional reaction. Orgasming from such an experience does not change your outlook on it like Komaru has, millions of survivors can tell you that.

Kotoko is right there to show us what a normal reaction to such experiences looks like. Komaru's reaction in the bad ending is extremely, unarguably abnormal and the mere existence of Kotoko shows that the writing is aware of this. For Komaru to have to actively choose to resist, and for choosing not to resist to create that result, she has to actively be suppressing what we see in the bad ending there. The orgasming just leads to her no longer wearing the mask, it doesn't change her mind. Even in the canon outcome, she brushes it off easily and quickly, and again, the plot shows us that that's abnormal since Kotoko is right there.

These three situations create an obvious and strong Rule of Three. Three times throughout the plot, we are seeing Komaru have extremely atypical, abnormal reactions to a specific pattern of crimes. Three sexually-motivated crimes, Komaru finds the first easy to brush off after a quick bit of processing, the second attractive, and right under the mask of normality, she is into being the victim of the third.

But there's one further aspect: The Bomb Inside Her. Komaru's favorite manga is about a girl with a bomb inside her that will explode if she ever falls in love. She will be destroyed, her life will be over, if she ever gives into her true feelings. That's the plot of Komaru's favorite work of media. When you consider that in combination with everything else, it reflects a lot on what her internal self is.

Thus why Komaru is the one chosen to be the Successor. If Komaru's presented self-concept were true, she would be a terrible choice for the Successor. However, her true self is not the one she claims to be. Komaru is wearing a mask of normality, but underneath, she's pretty fucked up herself. Despair!Komaru would be a shameless depraved pervert with absolutely no limits. And with "an ending with neither hope nor despair", she neither rejects nor fully embraces this. Her, Toko, and Jack stay together. She's fully embraced not giving a crap about the psychosexual serial killer's crimes due to her personal feelings. She's able to easily forgive Kotoko because it wasn't really that much of an issue for her, her resistance was a choice she made to stay loyal to Toko and Jack and their goals, not proper horror and disgust at the situation like Kotoko experienced.

I feel like Komaru has become rather appreciated in the fandom (she used to not be nearly as much), but kinda like Fandom!Mukuro, it's very disconnected from what canon actually presents. Part of that is just that the age of most fans doesn't really fit the actual target demographic, and there's a lot more depth and subtext and things left up to the player to figure out than people give it credit for. People take a "the curtains are just blue" approach to everything, when the curtains are blue for important reasons.

.

[superspecial-awesome]

s0 queerosexual hcs. for pride month

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yami Yugi: gay gay homosexual gay

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

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

[satellites-halo]

Hi, can I ask you a few questions about intersex? I'm trying to inform myself more about this topic. it's okay if you don't want to answer, but could you recommend another blog to answer my questions? my two questions are why intersex belongs to the lgbt community and what is afab transfem and amab transmasc /genq

Hi I can totally answer this <3 thanks for asking so respectfully!

Discussion of IGM, intersexism, and transphobia below. It got a bit long so putting it under the cut lol

1. Why does intersex belong in the LGBTQ+ community?

Intersex people are often oppressed alongside other LGBTQ+ people. We are a minority in the world, directly challenging the idea of a binary sex and, therefore, seem to 'inherently' challenge a binary gender in a way that makes conservatives and gender critical people uncomfortable. (It's important to note that intersex people can be cisgender, though, and identify with a binary gender themselves.) Recently, Peru classified being transgender, nonbinary, or intersex as having a mental illness (warning for transphobia, homophobia, and intersexism in the comments of that article). We are seen as inherently disordered, inherently breaking the 'rules' of being cisgender and being heterosexual no matter how we identify, because our bodies are not 'normal'.

Intersex babies or children with 'abnormal' genitals are often operated on, having their genitals mutilated to conform to a perisex ideal. This was done to 'avoid gender identity confusion' and is still done today, though through advocacy and speaking up in larger communities (like the LGBTQ+ community), people are now more likely to be aware of the fact that this is not something these intersex children tend to appreciate once they are adults.

There's a lot to intersex history to look at and see how our rights are inherently tied to gay and transgender rights as well, so I'll just bring up one final example for this. In 1979 in Australia, a cisgender man who had been born intersex at birth and raised as a man had his marriage annulled on "the basis that an intersex man could not be legally married because marriage can only be between someone who is seen to be wholly male and someone who is seen to be wholly female."

2. What is an AFAB transfem and an AMAB transmasc?

Answering this requires me to go over some terminology. Definitions have been muddied a lot recently, and this is something I want to approach properly. I'd also like to say that I am transfem myself, and I'm looking at this purely from the perspective of what the intersex communities definitions of these are. I will not be going into other definitions of these identities or doing discourse over what is and isn't valid.

(c)AFAB = (coercively) assigned female at birth. Not necessarily someone who is female

(c)AMAB = (coercively) assigned male at birth. Not necessarily someone who is male

AXAB = assigned (x/intersex/neutral) at birth. This is almost never used in real medical settings, and is instead a form of self identification for intersex people or people who do not want anyone to know their AGAB for any reason.

I'm going to be focusing on AFAB transfems for this, since that's what I feel confident talking about as a transfem, but this also applies for AMAB transmascs.

An AFAB transfem is an intersex person who was coercively assigned female at birth, but either went through IGM, had a masculinizing puberty, or otherwise doesn't have experiences that line up with typical Female-ness. Due to this, this person may develop complicated feelings about gender and go on hormones, dress a certain way, go through surgeries, or present themselves a certain way to transition to female. Sometimes they go through name changes and get stricter with what pronouns they prefer (ex: going from being ok with having they/them used to wishing that people only use she/her). Some of these people see themselves as cisgender women, while others may see themselves as a transgender woman or transfem due to the shared experiences between them and MTF trans women. It's important to remember with this that these people are not claiming to be MTF, and should not go into communities specifically for MTF transgender people, but are still transfeminine in a uniquely intersex way.

Here's some language I think it'd be helpful for u to learn:

xtf- intersex to female

itf- intersex to female

xtm- intersex to male

itm- intersex to male

xtx- intersex to (nonbinary/genderqueer/agender/xenogender/etc)

itx- intersex to (nonbinary/genderqueer/agender/xenogender/etc)

intersexism- prejudice against intersex people

perisex/endosex/dyadic- not intersex

salmacian/altersex- transitioning to have mixed/unconventional genitals. this is not the same as being intersex, but is important to know since they are used to avoid people saying "I am transitioning to be intersex"

I think that's itt... If any other intersex people want to add on feel free to but pls don't bring discourse under this post 🫶 also sorry if this is kinda messy haha I'm rlly disorganized xP

[radicallyperverted]

Do you get jealous when girls post about fakeboys... I do :((

I don’t see what there is to be jealous of.

If I truly wanted to get attention from people into “fakeboys” then I could literally change nothing about myself. Simply say “I’m soooo dysphoric and that makes me wet!!!” in my bio and then keep the rest of my blog the same, besides shutting up about my radical feminist opinions. There are some “fakeboys” who have physically transitioned, but many I’ve seen haven’t.

Even some full-fledged “trans men” on this website have gone on no hormones, half even still participate in gender roles associated with women (keep in mind that shaving or not shaving, wearing makeup, etc, does not make you any less or more female. However if you are truly dysphoric over how people perceive you then why would you amplify “feminine” qualities?) the “trans” label means nothing, so “fakeboy” means nothing. It’s just a misogynistic term TIFs cling to when they are in the mood to view gender as a fetish rather than an immutable trait.

As for the ones who have transitioned and now are detransing for their fetish uh….at least their longterm symptoms won’t be as bad? Vaginal atrophy is awful, and people refraining from getting unnecessary breast removal is a good thing, even if the reasoning behind it is stupid.

Also the vasttttt majority of people in the fakeboy community were obviously previous victims of online grooming now dependent on sexual attention to function. Many are both incredibly narcissistic and absolutely miserable. If you speak to these people consistently you’ll see what I mean, they are addicted to self victimizing and then fetishizing it. I’m aware I also fall into that category at times, but I’ve actively taken steps to be better and am under no delusion about my circumstances.

Also if you are referring to TIMs when you say “girls” then honestly….good for them? I am very supportive of mutually horny t4t. If trans women are going to be creepy rapists then I prefer they direct their attention to enthusiastic participants rather than women who hate them. And if a TIF wants to pretend she’s not engaging in heterosexual sex when sucking dick then it’s ultimately fine. Still harmful to the homosexual community that straight people call themselves gay for liking the opposite sex with a hormone imbalance but whatever, niche fetish blogs aren’t the end of the world. I think other forms of trans activism is far more harmful.

ALSO I don’t really give a shit about TIMs liking me or posting about me. If I did then I wouldn’t be so blunt about my opinions here. Admittedly there’s a few posters who I do really enjoy when horny (you know who you are) but I find the majority of transfems insufferable to talk to. If I craved male attention I would be posting my ass, not making horny posts about a fetish I think less than 1000 people have.

Plus I also find a lot of “fakeboys” hot lol. I understand the hype! There’s a few who have sent me very nice pictures which I appreciate. I find FTMs in general very appealing. Pussy is attractive regardless of the persons “gender identity”.

Don’t be jealous, you and “fakeboys” are the same thing. Female.

[thricedead]

@uraynuke I am glad to see you bring this book up, because it's the very book I read excerpts from two days ago, and since I wanted to reply to you, I picked up where I left and finished it.

I really did approach it with the best of intentions - I was especially glad to see prof. Brake bring up gender and race right at the beginning of her study, for I truly held hope that the many amatonormativity preachers on tumblr may have simply misread the point of the concept which Brake may have envisioned the same way I did - as an intersection of preexisting axes of power. However, I found myself severely disappointed the moment I ran into this segment

I can see that Brake is, at the very least through reading, aware of patriarchal, racial amd colonial dynamics as well as statistics on LGBT discrimination. However, she insists on presenting the discrimination of non-partnering (and non-monogamous people, which is a separate can of worms but I began to find the amount of times she brings polyamory and urban tribes up tedious) individuals as an entity separate from misogyny, racism and classism and so on. The like race class and sex is incredibly jarring that she fails to see her precious "amatonormativity" where it rightfully stands within the causality of oppression. I found myself yawning as she went on for dozens of paragraphs explaining that marriage is a faulty, falsely celebrated and highly mystified institution that holds no inherent value - we know this! It becomes incredibly apparent here that Brake is a self-identified political liberal. Any leftist, no matter how mild, is clearly aware that marriage is as it is, and was essentially established in order to be so; a way to control women, a way to curry favor and wealth, a tool of control. It retains today many of the insidious characteristics it held at its conception. Brake does mention that there existed and still do exist non-white societies that viewed partnering vastly differently from the western lens, but in the typical way of a liberal philosopher she does not pause to consider that this is tied to how different societies perceived women, and the amount of colonial power they held. She does not pause to confess that the form of marriage prevalent in the world today is a white christian's marriage - naturally dyed in ugly patriarchal, racist, capitalist colors. She continues to write as though society's insistence on exclusive romantic coupling exists in a near-vacuum, even though she admits it does not. I essentially agree that marriage ought to be demoralized, deconstructed and potentially reconstructed. However, I don't particularly intend to fight for its reconstruction for the sake of throuples, urban tribes, asexuals and aromantics. I wish for its reconstruction to be centered primarily on the autonomy of women (because they continue to disproportionately suffer marital abuse), gay, bisexual and transgender people, people of color and especially Black people, mentally and physically disabled people (who still largely cannot afford to marry). When this is established, I assure you that one half of aromantics' and polyamorous people's issues will have already been alleviated, and should those people contribute to the fight of our society's most oppressed, they will surely have a voice in building a new model of partnering.

TLDR, a well-intentioned but very frivolous book. I find Brake to be a very moderate liberal who does not particularly look farther than her own discomfort...

I will reply to you in the same vein you did to me: though I didn't glean much, this was a fun read! Thank you.

[amethystina]

I wonder how Gaon and Yohan are going to explain the change in their interactions to Elijah, since it's going to be obvious to her that something has happened between them. Since Elijah knows that there's nothing between Gaon and Soo hyun, I wonder if she will play a role in clearing Yohan's misconception? Thanks for the update! I can't stop thinking how many ways this story can play out😅 Btw i really appreciate the time and effort you put into responding to our questions with such detail.

That definitely depends on who's doing the explaining xD Yo Han would just brush it off and pretend that nothing is happening — which would just piss her off — while Ga On would make a stilted effort to explain without making it too obvious what it's actually about. Which would also annoy her.

That poor girl, seriously. She doesn't deserve to get caught between these two idiots.

I'm not sure I agree that Elijah "knows" that there was nothing between Ga On and Soo Hyun, though. I think she very much thinks there was something between them. I mean, sure, they denied it when she asked if they were dating, but THE WAY they did so was pretty telling (especially in Soo Hyun's case). Even more so since Elijah is a bit... well, innocent? I think most of her experience with love comes from media, books etc. and how Ga On and Soo Hyun behaved is, well, straight from a drama xD

And Elijah also had that talk with Soo Hyun when they were eating ice cream on Ga On's terrace, where it became pretty obvious that Soo Hyun is in love with Ga On and has already confessed to him several times.

So I think Elijah very much believes they were in love. Which means she won't really play a role in convincing Yo Han otherwise — if asked, she'd probably only make it worse, even. Because her understanding of love is a bit superficial and probably pretty geared towards straightness. That's not to say that she's not aware of gay people (I think she might actually know more about that than Ga On does xD) but from the evidence she's seen both Ga On and Yo Han seem straight to her (because I can't imagine that Yo Han has flaunted his dalliances with other men in front of her).

I know I'm very, very firm about this but Elijah doesn't know that Yo Han and Ga On have the hots for each other. And not because she's stupid, but because she's grown up in a country where straightness is the norm and Yo Han has done everything he can to hide the depth of his and Ga On's relationship from her. Also, she's a self-centred teenager x'D

Like, take me for an example. I was around 23-24 and very comfortable in my own pansexuality but was still IN NO WAY PREPARED when my mum basically went: "I may only have had sex with two women in my life but, let me tell you — 10/10, would recommend." Because I had only ever seen her date and talk about men before and therefore assumed she had no interest in anything else. That's how easy it is to miss that someone close to you isn't entirely straight — especially if it's a parent/guardian.

So I really don't think that Elijah would notice until it gets a lot more obvious than this xD

Which wasn't technically what your ask was about (sorry for the tangent xD), but still important to know because Elijah really won't be all that helpful when it comes to Yo Han and Ga On figuring out their feelings for each other. In fact, she might just end up making things harder for them without meaning to. But more about that in later chapters ;)

ANYWAY. Thank you so much for the lovely ask! I'm so happy to hear that people are this excited and involved in my story! And, tbh, I can't help replying because I'm very excited, too, and love talking about my writing, my thoughts, and my takes on these characters. How could I resist? More often than not, I have to cut my answers short because I keep writing longer and longer ones.

Like, you guys have no idea how long the first drafts of my author's notes usually are. One time I had to cut half of it because it was reaching truly spectacular lengths. And sure, I know that some of you probably wouldn't complain if I had posted that first draft, but I'm trying to contain myself, okay? And also not reveal too much since it might end up spoiling future plot points. It's a constant struggle.

So yeah. I'm actually consciously holding back a lot of the time because I'm trying to not come off as completely unhinged x'D

[cxrveaux]

Because my dumb bitch ass binge watched CBS ghosts and ended up getting so into it, I made an ENTIRE SELF INSERT OC. (help me.) but now that I’m here on tumblr I might as well rant about said character to anyone interested 💔

His name is Elijah Anderson and he’s some 14 year old from 1999 who had been living in the Bronx before being abandoned on the property by his parents and dying of hypothermia 15 hours later. He’s elusive and has trust issues due to being abandoned by his parents and spent 25 years in the forest around the mansion hence why nobody is really aware of his presence except for Flower who has seen him a couple of times? But she’s kind of ditsy and not entirely there so she doesn’t really bring up/remember to mention him. The way the others probably find out about his presence is due to the fact that Flower was rambling and randomly mentioned “the kid in the woods.”

At first the other ghosts + Sam thought he was a human kid due to his lack of response to Flower’s presence (which wasn’t true, Flower would typically approach Elijah but he’d end up talking her out of being near him because of her short term memory)

But when it became apparent that Jay couldn’t perceive him, the others decided that this definitely was some ghost kid who had been on the property without the others knowing. So, the other ghosts would probably try some wild ass confrontation tactics on him which would probably just drive him away further from them (since he’s already very untrusting)

Eventually they were like “Pete getcho ass out there, you actually worked with children at some point” and even though Elijah was initially weary of him, Pete managed to get some sort of explanation (ex. Him hiding in the forest for so long) and long story short just came back to the mansion. (Got a bit lazy on this part, but it’s 2 am and I’m a sleep deprived 13 year old who doesn’t know how to write, bite me)

BUT…I did end up writing every single one of his relationships with the other characters so we’re gonna put that on here too 💔

Alberta: She’s surprisingly protective and almost motherly towards Elijah. She’s entertained by him poking fun at people (bonus points if directed at Isaac), and takes pride in his enjoyment of jazz music.

Pete: He’s probably the nicest to Elijah out of everyone. He’s very understanding of his trauma and helped him get more comfortable interacting with the others.

Trevor: They have a fairly strong bond with each other. Elijah is a bit disinterested in his whole “omg women” shtick, but they definitely pull pranks on the others together.

Hetty: She thinks Elijah is a bit abrasive and tries to avoid him mostly, which gave him the idea that she flat out doesn’t like him. This also makes her fall victim to a lot of his and Trevor’s antics.

Isaac: He’s an easy target to Elijah, and probably nothing more (because he’s gay and smelly 💔). However, I did think of an idea of Elijah being a closeted bisexual and turning to Isaac for advice.

Flower: Flower is pretty oblivious to his presence for the most part, even though she was the one who found him while she was frolicking outside. However, I don’t feel like Elijah would pick on her as much? Mainly since he thinks she’s really nice and doesn’t want to deal with Thor.

Thor: He’s definitely the most annoyed by this bitch ass child and would not think TWICE about throwing Elijah out the window. No silver lining, he’s just annoyed by this kid. He consistently also does this thing where he puts him on top of the fridge so he can’t get down unless he jumps off. The only thing I can see those two getting along about is watching bugs.

Sasappis: They probably just tolerate eachother. Sas occasionally will also partake in Trevor and Elijah’s pranks? But Elijah has too much damn respect for him to throw daggers at Sas (also because he knows that Sas knows how to insult people back and doesn’t want to risk that because he’s emotionally unstable)

Nigel: They’re cool with eachother? Like they both enjoy watching bugs (and they both like Spice Girls) but he also probably looks to Nigel for advice.

Nancy: Elijah is TERRIFIED of Nancy along with the other cholera ghosts. If homeboy had the choice between reliving freezing to death and going down into the boiler room, he’d choose death.

and to conclude here’s some extra headcanons about him because I have NOTHING but time.

-He’s constantly trembling uncontrollably as a side effect of being out in the cold for so long.

-His breath fogs up everywhere he goes

-Regardless of whether someone’s a ghost or not, just him being present is like “ayo did it get colder in here?”

-Any living that passes through him becomes inexplicably cold for a short period of time.

-He tends to communicate through ASL because he’s semiverbal anyways and his voice is permanently nasally.

-He is autistic and dyspraxic.

-He REALLY likes Garfield. Like he has encyclopedic knowledge on that damn cat.

[missingexaltation]

Alternative 'Steve coming to terms with being Bi' idea:

(The queer community isn't perfect, there's a lot of infighting that's not obvious on the surface level. A lot of bi/pan/ace people get sneered at by gay/lesbian people even now, and in the 80s it was worse.)

After Vecna, Eddie tells Steve he had and still has a crush on him, but as he's aware that Steve's straight, he's going to stop flirting with him because he doesn't want to make Steve uncomfortable. Eddie will get over it eventually, but he wants 'to be friends so please don't hate me, Stevie, I'm trying to stop'. For some reason that hurts Steve and he can't stop thinking about it. For a few weeks, while Eddie's being his usual boisterous self, Steve just watches and thinks.

Eventually, he tells Robin how he feels, that he thinks he likes Eddie and wants to try being with him because they get on great, and he's nice, and kind of good looking, and why not? He's not used to being subtle about asking people out, so figures he might as well see if Eddie wants to actually date him.

Robin is shocked but then SO happy that he's gay too. But when Steve says that he's not, that he still likes women, she gets annoyed. Being gay is a big deal to her, and she feels like Steve would rather date someone he's not attracted to, just so that he's not single/lonely. 'Maybe I just like Eddie, he has long hair, I dunno?' 'That's not a thing, Steve!'

Steve has no idea, and after his shift, when he's alone, he melts down about it and genuinely wonders if he's deluding himself. Maybe he is 'fully gay', maybe he's desperate for love from anyone. He thinks he likes Eddie, so was he lying to himself before? Did he love Nancy, or did he just want to love her? It doesn't quite fit, and it takes him a long time to get to grips with who he is, and he spirals a bit because he realises that actually he has no real sense of identity in general. He doesn't know what he wants in the future in ANY capacity.

During a movie night with the older teens, it's Argyle (bizarrely) that vaguely states that he finds both the make/female lead actors hot, and it's the catalyst for Steve actually figuring himself out. He doesn't talk to anyone at all about it. He thinks and thinks and thinks, and just comes to terms with it. He did love Nancy, he does find girls attractive, but he also wants to make out with Eddie. (He also thinks that guy in that labyrinth film is kinda hot.)

So he bites the bullet and does what he wanted to do originally. He asks Eddie out, and Eddie's immediately like 'uh HELL yes', feeling like he's won the jackpot. And after a few weeks of vaguely secretive dating (ie making out at Eddie's new house), Steve settles into 'liking both', and tells Robin. He's much more confident this time, now that he's tried and knows he likes both.

Turns out Robin's been thinking about it too, and when Steve tells her about him and Eddie, she's apologetic for trying to tell him who he is. She points out that she'd have hated it, if it was the other way around. She's been looking into it, and come to the same conclusion. Steve was right, he can 'like both'. They have another soft little moment before she brutally mocks him for his taste in men.

(Eddie, meanwhile, has no idea how much soul searching Steve and Robin have been through. He's walking on air, just ecstatic that The Steve Harrington is his boyfriend.)

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

Well. I guess today is the day I post this.

Putting this all below a cut to spare your dashes.

This statement will seem dramatic. I apologize. I don't know any other way to put this.

For a long time, I've felt unsafe in this fandom as a bisexual person.

At some point we got a new wave of people in this fandom (I can't pinpoint when since I never know anything that goes on in this godforsaken cesspit), and we started to get a growing wave of people talking about Eddie as a gay man, rather than bisexual or queer or ambiguous/unlabeled in his sexuality.

It was something I could easily ignore at first. I didn't agree with it, but I rolled my eyes and kept on keepin' on. It didn't really affect me. I had my own little corner and that was that.

But as time has gone on, it's become so popular and pervasive that every time I turn around, I'm running into it. It seems to be (but might not be, I could be wrong) the more popular interpretation of Eddie.

For example, I got an ask at the beginning of February, asking me what was wrong with gay Eddie, since it seems to be the "general consensus." Additionally, there was a podcast episode an anthropology student made where the host said that they have also seen people have generally decided Eddie is gay, not bi or queer. I'm not the only one who's noticed this and decided this is the general/most popular opinion of the fandom.

And I'm here to say that it's unbelievably hurtful.

It's not a new thing for people to dismiss Shannon. And let me tell you, it brings me no joy to defend her. I deeply, deeply dislike her and always have. But I must, because whether I like her or not doesn't matter as much as her importance to Eddie and her role in his life. Not just as Christopher's mother, but as his first love and as his wife.

However, over the past year or so there's been a serious shift within the fandom to ignore or gloss over Shannon, and to paint Eddie as a gay man who has always been gay, and never been attracted to women, and never wanted to sleep with one. Even though, canonically, he and Shannon jumped right back into bed together and wouldn't stop fucking every time they met up, despite that choice being detrimental to their relationship and preventing them from discussing important things.

Eddie was so busy fucking his wife like a rabbit in springtime that he couldn't settle down and talk with her. He fucked her repeatedly even though he didn't fully trust her with their son anymore. If that's not thinking with your dick I don't know what is.

Eddie's grief over Shannon's loss and his complicated feelings about her (his love for her vs his anger at her choices vs his own poor self-esteem) haunted him throughout season three. It's why he joined the fight club. It haunts him in season four, when he chooses to date Ana to give Chris a substitute mother even though he is not yet ready to date/move on from Shannon.

Even if I put on my Buddie shipper goggles and say, "what about Buck?" I do not think it makes any sense whatsoever for Eddie to be aware of his feelings for Buck pre-shooting. I think that is the moment he realizes what his heart wants and where he's chosen to love again. Not before.

Bobby moving on with Athena does in no way erase his love for his previous wife, and he went through a process similar to Eddie - in fact that similarity is part of why Bobby sees so much of himself in Eddie and why he tries to give Eddie advice on the subject. But I have to wonder, if Bobby had dated Michael instead of Athena, if the fandom would react the same way they do with Eddie - if they would claim Bobby was gay the whole time, and never truly felt sexual attraction for his wife.

I know Shannon is a disliked character by and large (I'm one of the people who dislikes her) and that her relationship with Eddie was complicated. Eddie wasn't always happy in his relationship with her. But neither was Athena, and yet the fact she was once attracted to and in love with Michael is never questioned.

Eddie is simply not allowed nuance in his relationship with Shannon. He is not allowed (as Bobby and Athena are) to have a complicated relationship with his spouse or to move on with another character while not denying his previous attraction to her. Eddie's relationship with Shannon is reduced to something he did because he had to, without any genuine sexual attraction, and without any sexual enjoyment. He is allowed to love her, but to never have been in love with her.

Eddie's biggest arc and piece of character development for two whole seasons (seasons two and three, arguably parts of season four) are erased.

The underlying message, whether intended or not, is that they are erased because they do not matter. And they do not matter because if they did, Eddie would be bi, or queer, or anything except 100% homosexual. And that means that the underlying message is that being gay is more important, more valid, and better than bisexuality.

I'm not saying this message is intentional. Frankly I don't think it is. I'm saying it is there.

And of course, when others have pointed out that this is hurtful and erases a big part of Eddie's history, and that therefore makes them feel ignored and erased as a bisexual person, there's been hostility. Some of it's been openly hostile and frankly feels like fighting for the sake of fighting, the kind of self-righteous love of blood in the water that has kept me a lurker in fandoms for so long.

The more insidious hurt, for me, is the people who refuse to publicly support people who call out the biphobia. They say nothing when people talk about how they're attacked for pointing out the issues with gay!Eddie, or they support both gay!Eddie and bi!Eddie sides, depending on the time of day and who's saying it. It makes me distrusting of a lot of people who try to tell me they support me. How can I believe you when you turn around and agree with the people saying Eddie's gay? Reblogging posts and championing it?

At best it feels like being accidentally hurtful while supporting/being open to multiple headcanons. At worst it feels like lying to placate me.

I don't appreciate being placated.

Fandom can give a skewed perspective on things such as representation in media. I understand that many people who identify as 6 on the Kinsey Scale have struggled deeply with repression, self-loathing, ignorance, and compulsive heterosexuality. I understand wanting that representation, especially in an older character when it feels like a lot of our media is still about queer teenagers rather than queer adults (especially queer adults over the age of thirty). And so with many slash ships having to deal with the existence of opposite-sex love interests in the characters comprising that ship, bisexuality can feel like the norm when in reality, characters who are gay (whether they always knew it or discover it later) are still much more prevalent than bisexual characters in media.

For example, in Our Flag Means Death we have Stede. In IT, Richie is inferred to be gay rather than bi (god forbid they confirm Eddie K's gayness but that's another matter...) In fact, in 9-1-1 alone, we have Michael. There's also the matter of who gets to be gay and who gets to be bi. In Glee, for example, Santana is the one who gets the nuanced coming-out story with drama and depth. Brittany, her bisexual girlfriend, doesn't get nearly as much attention or thought, and off-screen cheats on Santana in a staggering moment of biphobia (a decision the likes of which Ryan Murphy is not-so-affectionately known for).

Yet from people who headcanon Eddie as gay I repeatedly see the rallying cry of "letting us have this," as if 'this' is something they never get, or get less than bisexual people. Again, I understand the way fandom might skew things. But we cannot allow the broken goggles of fandom to, in turn, blinker our reality of the media landscape. Bisexuality is still less represented, and the wounds of "oh being with X man is nothing like all those women I was with, this is special and real" are still fresh (looking at you, Destiel shippers circa 2009-2012).

In fact as I out myself here as uh one of those veterans, I implore people to understand how this was the norm for so, so many years. Fandom has a short memory, I get it. It's hard to keep track of everything. But this embrace of bisexuality is rather recent. You look around and you see, for example, people happily joking about Dean Winchester's bisexuality. That was not always the case. For a long time, it was about perpetuating biphobia and casual misogyny as shippers wrote meta and fic about how no woman could ever make him feel like Cas does.

*pause for war flashbacks*

This was not the only instance or fandom. But I don't have time to name all the examples. My point is that there is a false collective narrative. My point is that when you are hurt, and have struggled, it can be hard to see that others have also been hurt and have also struggled. My point is that there is a continued instinct to put a certain type of character in one box and another type of character in a different box, and to try and expand the boxes, or move one character to another, is treated as a personal attack rather than an expansion of our understanding and a dismantling of our stereotypes.

Why is it always the character who has a lot of sex and/or is super comfortable on the subject of sex, or is very casual about sex, who gets to be bi/pan/fluid in sexuality? Why are bi people never allowed to be reserved, or have only one or two partners in their life?

Why is the character who is casual (or seems like they will be casual) and relaxed about sexuality the one who is labeled bisexual? Why are bisexuals never allowed to have angst around their sexuality or come out later in life? Why is our pain, our internal struggle, never allowed to be discussed?

I'm not saying Buck should be viewed as gay. I think it's correct to talk about him as bi/pan/queer. But I do think it's fair to examine why Buck's relationship with Abby is viewed in its proper important context while Eddie's relationship with Shannon is diminished and ignored.

Buck gets to talk about Abby. He gets to have genuinely been in love with her. He gets to retain that piece of his character. Eddie does not. Eddie's relationship with Shannon ended up hurting him just as much as Buck's relationship with Abby, in fact even more so, and yet people handwave that away as compulsive heterosexuality (which is not restricted to gay people, by the way, bi people experience that as well) and act like he didn't actually fall in love with her and have repeated enthusiastic sex with her.

People love to tout Ana as proof that Eddie is gay, but it doesn't matter what your sexuality is - if you aren't attracted to someone and you don't want them touching you, then you don't want them touching you. If you don't want to have sex with someone, you don't want to have sex with someone. Your sexuality doesn't matter. Just because a man is straight doesn't mean he wants to have sex with all women. Just because a man is gay doesn't mean he wants to have sex with all men. Just because a person is bi doesn't mean they want to have sex with everyone on the planet. And just because someone is asexual doesn't mean they have no libido or would never have sex at all for another reason (intimacy, fun, etc.). Sexual desire and drive are a very personal things, and both romantic and sexual attraction can play various roles or no role at all depending on the individual.

Eddie’s refusal to sleep with Ana or touch her is not a sign of him being gay as opposed to bi or queer or any other sexuality. It’s not a sign of any sexuality at all. It’s a sign that he was forcing himself into that relationship. He didn't want to be with Ana. He didn't love Ana. He didn't want to have sex with Ana.

Now, do I think how he broke up with her - his words about "the idea of us" - is insanely queer? Yes. Yes I do. And yes, for the record, I think that was deliberate on the part of the writers. But that simply says to me that he's queer. Not gay, not bi, not pan, not demi, not anything other than not straight.

To take that speech and those words and to say they could only possibly apply to a fully 100% gay man as opposed to anyone under the queer umbrella is hurtful. People's experiences as gay people are valid, and often, sadly, painful and just like Eddie's. But so are people's experiences as bi people, as pan people, as unlabeled people, as 'queer as in fuck you' people.

To wit: People ignore canonical evidence about Shannon, and claim canonical evidence about Ana as their own and no one else's, in order to support their interpretation of Eddie's sexuality.

That erases the rest of us.

I know that's hard to hear. I know that sounds like it comes with judgment. You are trying to speak your own truth, and you are identifying strongly with a character that you love, and it's hard to then hear that in doing those things, you are hurting or erasing others. I've had to hear that in my time, and I'm sure I'll have to hear it again, and it's never easy. But we must sit with this discomfort as our friend, not our foe, and use it to grow.

However, since fandom is our safe space, we often view anything and everything as a personal attack, and we often make judgments and interpretations based too strongly on our own experiences. Sometimes this is a good thing - I think the number of people who say Buck reminds them of their own ADHD are correct and that it adds great depth to his character. I'm glad Oliver has embraced it. I think the people who say Eddie speaks to their own demisexuality have a great point and I think it adds nuance to his character and behavior.

(In fact I also love trans!Buck headcanons! I think they're neat and I've read some fics I enjoyed that featured that.)

On the other hand, however, it often leads to people adding interpretations onto things that do not reflect canon or the actual character. They then view others pointing out the lack of support for this in canon, or the contradiction with canon, as a personal attack (looking at you, "Chim is abusive" people, go jump in a lake). It's hard to take that breath and recognize that not everything a character is or does or experiences is the same as what you are, or do, or have experienced. Especially when it touches on something as personal and important as our sexuality.

Because of this, I debated a long time on whether I should say something. I tried to identify the difference between what hurt me because it didn't line up with my thoughts and what hurt me because of actual stereotyping. I worked to make sure that this was more than simply taking an innocuous difference of opinion and twisting it into a personal attack.

Which brings me to why I say the word 'unsafe'. That seems like an extreme word. But I've seen people say that they "got a brain" and realized Eddie was gay, not bi. I've seen people take gifsets that mention Eddie being bi and tag them 'okay but I believe in gay!Eddie' or 'I'm a gay!Eddie truther'. I've seen people go out of their way in fics to mention Eddie disliking/being grossed out by female genitalia. I've seen fanartists put Eddie in gay colors/flags as opposed to bi/demi/etc colors/flags, on art that really didn't need it to convey the story - as if one cannot make a piece of art with Eddie on it without declaring one's opinion on his sexuality.

(Yes, I think there's a strong possibility that Eddie is demisexual. I wish people would embrace that idea more. Personally, I think he wouldn't label himself at all and simply say he was queer if asked. But given the discussion we're having right now on this post about gay/bi headcanons, I think it's clear a lot of people actually aren't as ready to embrace or consider minority sexualities as they might like to think.)

I repeat: this is not just happening on a person's own art or post or fanfic. People are reblogging posts, gifsets, and so on that mention bisexual Eddie and saying, okay but I see him as gay. They are not content to live and let live. They are actively saying they disagree. If you disagree, then why reblog the thing that talks about/mentions Eddie as bi? Why not simply leave it be?

I cannot overstate how hurtful this is; how much it feels like erasure, dismissal, and condescension.

You cannot tell me if that was something you saw about your gender, or sexuality, or so on, that you wouldn't begin to feel unsafe. That you wouldn't begin to question if you would be unheard, or dismissed, or viewed as less-than. Tell me you wouldn't start to wonder, if you were a character on a TV show, if people wouldn't erase your sexual and romantic history and ignore a big piece of yourself because certain sexualities just weren't good enough for them.

You cannot tell me that in seeing these things you wouldn't walk away with the idea that bisexuality (or other sexualities in general but bisexuality is the one brought up and to which being gay is compared in regards to Eddie) is viewed as lesser to these people, and to the community at large. You cannot tell me that some people are not internalizing this narrative, no matter what their own sexuality might be.

And, yes, reading that earlier paragraph you might say, "Mads, are you vagueing?" That is not my intention. I want to head off at the pass the rebuttal that this isn't happening. I want to cut off the demand for examples. However, I'm also not going to name names, because I don't wish to cause harm to people who I think, by and large, are well-meaning.

That's what I'm hoping is true, in writing this. That most of the people reading this, and pushing the Eddie-is-gay narrative, are well-meaning. "I'm bi myself!" many of you will say.

Yes, well. I'm a woman and I was perfectly capable of a lot of misogynistic thinking growing up, and I often fell into sexist stereotypes in my headcanons and writing and so on.

But I hope, since most of you are well-meaning, this post will instead cause you to think, and examine, and ponder.

I'm sure many people reading this are rolling their eyes and thinking, "what about the first rule of fandom? Ship and let ship? Kink tomato? Etc? Let people have different headcanons." I've certainly seen such flippant remarks from people before on this very subject in this fandom.

And the thing is, I have really tried to do that. I have tried to take it that way. But I think that it's also entirely fair for me to be hurt when a person's headcanon/interpretation ignores canon and erases a big part of a character's life and history.

I know, I know, we could get into a big philosophical discussion about how slash and femslash shipping by nature does something along those lines. But I feel that in the now-common interpretation of Eddie as gay, there is a pushing of stereotypes about both gay and bisexual people. There is a splitting of hairs on queerness. There is a subtext, whether acknowledged or not by those who push this interpretation, that being gay as opposed to a more fluid sexuality is more painful, more fraught, more challenging. That bisexuality, pansexuality, queerness as an umbrella term - those are less fraught and inherently easier. It's one of the pillars upon which exclusion in the queer community is based.

It also, generally, ignores the idea that one's sexuality can change over time. Maybe I'm wrong and maybe most people with the interpretation of Eddie as gay actually view him as being gay now and that's how he identifies now without erasing his canonical (and important) sexual and romantic attraction to Shannon. But that doesn't seem to be the case, and I certainly don't want to risk myself emotionally by trying to find out.

Not to mention that hey, when people are saying something is hurtful to them, seeing people make posts hand-waving and saying "get over yourselves, relax, take a chill pill" feels beyond condescending and dismissive.

I'd like to make it clear, I'm not asking for people to never write Eddie as gay, and that we should never see Eddie as gay again in this fandom, or that anyone who writes Eddie as gay should be dogpiled. I'm not the boss of anyone, I'm not the fandom police, I don't make the rules. But I think, when a certain behavior brings people pain - and more people than just myself, as I have learned in many private conversations - there comes a time when the least one can do is speak up about it.

Sometimes someone needs to be the one to stand up and say, "this hurts me. I am in pain, and this is why."

Again, especially when people are going out of their way to say "but I disagree, he's gay" on posts, gifsets, and so on mentioning Eddie having a different sexuality. You might feel this post is unnecessary. You might feel it's preachy. You might feel I should shut up and get off my high horse.

But the fact of the matter is when you come into someone's house tracking mud and they tell you to clean it up, you don't get to yell at them and claim they are trying to stop you from playing outside.

I kept my silence on this for a long time and part of that was I didn't want to police anyone. Now, however, we are at a point where people who think Eddie is gay are invading other people's spaces. It's not just that this headcanon is everywhere. It's not just that people are using such dismissive language when the possibility of Eddie liking women comes up. It is also that people are going out of their way to dismiss Eddie's bisexuality and argue that their interpretation is better on posts about Eddie being bi.

So frankly, I don't think anyone gets to walk away from this scoffing "don't like don't read" at me when nobody else around here is offering me that courtesy. If I could avoid reading it, I would. You came into my house, and the house of everyone else who makes a post, a fic, a gif, about Eddie being anything except a Kinsey 6.

Yes, reblogs are turned off for this. Anon is also turned off. You might say that's cutting off discussion, and you would be right. The blunt truth is I don't trust people online to respond with thoughtfulness, good faith, and care. I don't trust people to take their time and think before shooting off an emotional, defensive response. And I don't care to spend my time and energy educating people.

Maybe if I was a better person - a more social, more patient, and less private person - I would be the kind of person who would have the long hard discussions to educate and share my thoughts, to help you see my side. But that's not who I am, and I certainly don't owe it to anyone, not a single person here, to scrounge up my nonexistent trust and goodwill to have that discussion with you.

I've said my piece on this. I'm sure my tone seems harsh. The tone with which this is actually written is weariness, exhaustion, and, yes, nausea. It makes one sick and wears one down, to feel so on edge in a space and yet to try and ignore that to find joy anyway. Because I get a lot of joy in sharing my fics, and reblogging gifsets and meta, and I don't want to lose that joy.

But I suppose it needs to be said. I know others have said it, but I hope that I have said all this with enough calm and articulation that it will truly be understood, and it will not start drama or discourse, because that's not what I want. Truly. I spent enough of 2020 being dragged into one piece of bullshit drama after another. I'm not interested in wading back into that. I've kept pretty extreme radio silence for a reason.

My hope is simply for people to step back and take a long hard look at why they've decided one half of our ship is gay, and one half is bi, and what that might say about their subconscious stereotypes about gay and bi people.

If I've gotten you to do that, then this post is worth it.

I'm sorry I don't have any answers. I'm sure this would be a lot easier for people to read if I ended it with "and here's what to do moving forward." I think the desire to provide answers - for themselves and for others - is what drives people to make posts that condemn, or get aggressive, or seem to simply be out there to shut people up. People want to have a solution. They want the problem to go away.

I don't have a solution. I don't have answers for anyone. I truly wish I did. Part of why I've waited so long in posting this is trying to come up with a way to end this that would give people actionable steps. But at the end of the day, all I can really say is that I hope the people reading this will do some internal searching, and thoughtful discussion, and understand better the subconscious choices we make, the biases we hold, and how we can hurt people without meaning to.

I don't want apologies. I say that with love - I'm not looking for people to self-flagellate before me or make some kind of mea culpa post. I don't think that would help anything, and I don't think anyone owes that to me. Frankly I'm not interested in public discussion, and if there are posts others make about this, I don't want to see them.

You can make posts on your blog ranting about me (just please don't tag me, again, I don't want to see it). You can discuss this in your discord groups. You can vagueblog about me and chat about me in DMs. I don't care. I'd just like people to hear me say, "I am hurt, and you are hurting me, and I know it's not intentional, but this is why." Anything else is up to you. Any changes, in thought or behavior, are up to you. Probably nothing will change. But at least I've said something, and I've tried.

Thank you for reading this far, and I hope you have a great day. Stay safe and take care of yourself.

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

It's time for my master post for fucked up Dublinn yuri headcanons: none of these women are remotely normal nor remotely normal about each other. Many of these women are bad people. It's okay, we'll get through it together.

Mandragora: Deeply obsessed with Eblana and eternally frustrated that Eblana won't have sex with her. Bitter that Harmonie gloats to her face about the sex she has with Eblana on occasion. Probably a femcel. Definitely isn't aware that Eblana doesn't give a shit about her anymore. Complicated relationship with Horn (hates her, but still finds her hot and had to control herself from taking out her frustrations on Horn while Horn was imprisoned)

Eblana: Sexually promiscuous with other women, but only to a point. Doesn't love anyone but her sister, who she hopes through Arts she will be able to have intercourse with. She doesn't see the problem with this, being both nobility and so self-conceited she sees Reed as just a part of her. Creeps everyone else out when she talks about it in bed.

Reed: Does not want to have sex with anyone in Dublinn. She's so tired of them all. Hopeful that she can kiss Bagpipe one day.

Harmonie: Not even gay. This girl is not a lesbian, honestly she's even a bit homophobc. She only has sex with Eblana to stay in her good graces and because the joy she gets from seeing how much it pisses off Mandragora outweighs the uncomfortableness of the act. Figures that Eblana probably knows, but doesn't care about her sexuality.

The Brigadier: wait what do you mean Dublinn has men in it this can't be ri-

[delistravaganza]

I swear I relate to everything you have written about the enemies to lovers trope and lesbians.

it’s not even about lesbian representation, at least in fandom, of course that’s important but it’s not the point here, it’s about having wlw stories that are as...complex? Messed up? Intricated? as straight or even (in more recent years) mlm romantic storylines are allowed to be. I feel like I am constantly hungry of complicate stories with lesbian or bisexuals female characters involved in messy relationship. But almost every popolar ship that I meet on fandom or tv shows either is watered down, made all soft and sweet and not threatening and so not complicate enough to be appealing. (or in the fews that are not like that in the original media they get made in this way by the fandom- it’s so unnerving). it seems to me that’s it is either “tragic dead lesbian” or “soft sapphic story all is sweet uwu”. As someone who love stories with romance only when the romance is very complicated and not necessarily healthy and full of ambivalent feelings (don’t judge me as you said it’s just a matter of preference ashahaha) I sometimes read slash (mlm) fanfiction on ao3 that feature very complicate and not necessarily healthy dynamics and I go damn I wish that there was a fanfiction exactly like this but with two women instead of two men.

I get this 1000%. To be fair, I don't think it's just the wlw couples being UwUified in recent films and shows, this happens to all queer representation because of the pressure to create "good rep". To some extent, it's even happening with straight pairings because people are more aware now of sexism and what it really means to consent, though everyone still seems to be willing to let this knowledge fly off if teh guy iz HOT.

But there seems to be a particular issue with writing f/f interactions that are manipulative, dark or somehow more adult, not necessarily meaning sex but rather a more nuanced portrayal of the relationship. Whereas all the straight toxic romances went to specific (and thriving) genres such as "dark romance" (which at least seems to be more self-conscious as the Reylo fic I mentioned before), and we get glorious epics of m/m fanfiction stories (and books that feel like fanfiction), it sometimes seems like the women characters are treated as little girls.

Even in a dark, creepy, cannibalistic, adult-oriented show such as Yellowjackets, I found myself more interested in the hypothetical Jackie/Shauna pairing because oh boy that was complex! than in the actual lesbian pairings involving Tai, who is a great and somewhat nuanced character except when it comes to her (sanitized) relationships. Is it really just me favoring problematic and unhealthy dynamics or is there some truth to this? (It may be me.) Is Tai a bit tamed down because she's gay AND black?

Also, to be completely fair, I think that I have more expectations when it comes to wlw plots, maybe because I subconsciously think of them as more "me" than the others. I've read a lot about how women use slash to slip away from the narrative and write more freely, and the fact is - I've read a lot of trash when it comes to m/m. And I definitely don't remember it with the resentment I save for f/f media like First Kill ("you fucking set out to be everything I wanted and turned out to be a pile of dog shit!").

I have also read extremely interesting books featuring f/f dynamics on the latest years, which I could post here instead of whining à la Louis de Pointe du Lac, but the fact is that these books already set out to be a work of literary merit and weren't written to dwell on the romance or possible romance itself. I'm not even counting MBF here as I read it a while back for the first time, but it could be an example - I don't know, but it definitely wasn't written with UwUification in mind. I'm still thrilled at how much the marketing DID and DOES UwUify our girls and their relationship. Sometimes the marketing is like: Wouldn't you just love to have such a special friendship like these two? Uhhh what? No, thank you, I had my share of that shit?!?

Oh, and also - I'm not even sure it comes down to self-identification either. I said I identify with Catradora, but the fact is I don't necessarily identify with either Catra or Adora. I just identified with their feelings, and I felt empathy for them, and I worried and I suffered and I felt frustrated and I so, so, so hungered and feared for their fights and God, you should really check this one out because it's really on the edge between UwU and dark, and I think it's this mixture what made it work in today's world. It seemed to appeal to both parts of me - the one who lowkey wants the positive, young-and-healthy-oriented rep she didn't have as a teen, and the more prevalent one who prefers angst and twisted things. And yes, it's a cartoon. A cartoon did what many real, adult-oriented shows and books couldn't do with me.

But Catradora probably also worked because we, the audience, were purposefully kept in the dark about them, so we got to experience their story as it developed and without any clear expectation as what the end would be (compared to: here's your wlw romance of the day! Ship them! Hope they don't die!), something I'm sure you wouldn't be able to achieve now that all the info is out there.

Anyway, I'm rambling now and already taking too much time off work. But I find this topic fascinating. If anyone else wants to join in the conversation or point me somewhere that isn't Buffy/Faith or Catradora or Villanelle or Nicky/Lorna (YES I STILL SHIP THEM AND WILL ALWAYS DO) or our Neapolitan toxic friends, please do. And as always, nice talking to you. <3

---

P.D.: Here's a long video analysis that I really liked that tackles why "good" LGBT representation is boring (not wlw representation exclusively).

[thestobingirlie]

Chrissy erasure anon: I think I’ve put my foot in my mouth. Obviously headcanoning Eddie as gay isn’t automatically biphobic or wrong.

But like sometimes it’s so so biphobic? Like as you’ve said, sometimes authors put Eddie on this huge pedestal, make him a gay guru, a protector who was just kindly taking care of Chrissy, forgiving her transgressions against him that she did by dating Jason, and like… grandly explaining to Steve what it’s like to be queer for a lot of time of the fic, make him into someone who initiates Steve into bdsm.

And like.. it just ignores so much of the canon that it feels deliberate even if it likely isn’t. Like Eddie was clearly enamored with Chrissy, Eddie is awkward as hell, Steve is friends with a lesbian and they don’t have secrets between each other so he very likely knows exactly the same amount of information as Robin does. Just because they talk and share.

And it erases all of that so neatly, that even though I KNOW that it’s very likely not biphobia but an exploration of fantasy, it sometimes feels like it is def biphobia? Idk how to explain it, but some fics are so hellbent on making Steve into this passive, slow person, who is so dull that he wouldn’t recognize an extremely famous Shakespeare quote thrown at him, who is not self aware at all, who just needs to know what is bisexuality and then say “I’m still attracted to women though” and then get ✨educated✨ and etc. I don’t know what to think about it. But I do feel that canon Eddie and Steve are SO not like that they get completely ignored. Which is fine it’s fanfic, but the smugness, the education through fic, the idk even what. Sorry for bitching.

oh yeah, honestly i don’t think it’s a huge leap. like some of the people hc’ing eddie as gay are doing it for biphobic reasons. and some are doing it to reduce chrissy’s importance in eddie’s arc (though, i am obviously a big believer in important platonic relationships).

and there is so much biphobia in the steddie fandom that it can feel like that’s the push behind every slightly off headcanon.

eddie and robin are the ones that know everything about queer culture; they know every sexuality known to man, every subculture, all the queer tactics, and dress senses. and what are they? robin’s a lesbian, and eddie’s a ‘gay man’. but of course steve, who’s now bisexual, knows zilch. he’s presented as not “queer enough”. he doesn’t fit in, he literally knows nothing! he doesn’t even know his own mind, or actions, or sexuality. his own attraction has to be explained to him by the ‘better queers’.

it’s absolutely biphobia. and just plain fucking stupid.

though i personally haven’t looked at the chrissy aspect as biphobic before, when thinking about the steddie fandom as a whole, it really isn’t surprising that that’s where your mind landed. as i said in my initial answer, i think of it more as sexism, and chrissy being a side character, but biphobia and misogyny, especially when it comes to mlm couples, are inextricably linked.

and i think because this fandom especially seems to struggle with the idea of platonic relationships being important, let alone more important than romantic, when people make hellcheer platonic, what they’re really doing is placing it below steddie.

though chrissy doesn’t mean that much to me, she did have an effect on eddie, and i think if you’re writing any kind of fic that’s set in or post s4, she has to haunt eddie in some fashion. regardless of any attraction he may have held for her.

[hannibalzero]

Red dead redemption omegaverse

Update ❤️

So when I first made my omegaverse headcanons I was only half way through the game. But now, a lot of my options and ideas have changed.

Growth you know? So please humor me while I tell ya about our favorite band of outlaws

John Marston: he’s a alpha, very cocky about it. Will puff out his chest to make you think he runs the show…at least when Abigail isn’t around. Bi

Abigail is a female omega, but in gender only. Everyone knows who’s the real leader of the Marston pack. Abigail doesn’t really care about her genders just wants to be the best mom she can be for Jack. Bi as well

Jack is a beta, he wants to be a alpha so badly like his father. It takes a long time for Jack to feel comfortable about himself. When he became a writer. Jack had done a lot of research, finally understanding the gang as a adult. Gay

Uncle? Uncle is Uncle but at one time he was a alpha, or so he says. No one really wants to know. An ace king

Javier is a beta, he doesn’t care about it. All he knows is that he’s bi. He misses his family and homeland but the Van der Linde pack is his family now.

Sean is a omega and will fight you if you point it out. Sean is straight and loves himself some boobies. Or so he says, he has been caught ogling a few good looking men with their shirts open. Straight/maybe polyamorous..he hasn’t become aware of that part of himself yet

Karen is a alpha female, Sean is her sweet little omega. She plays like she’s an omega when she’s robbing, pays better. She is considering making Sean an honest omega. Polyamorous. 

Tilly, a omega bit a spitfire of one. She’s like Abigail and just tries to do her best. Her old gang tried to make her a pack breeder, it’s why she killed a man and ran to the Van der Linde gang. Lesbian

Mary-Beth, she’s a beta. She romanticizes the whole secondary gender one true mate thing. She’s still young, she’ll grow out of it. Maybe not… makes great romance novels ❤️ straight

Kieran: omega boi, loves his horses. Is very protective of himself when it comes to anything sexual. Keeps away from people so he isn’t touched. He’s demisexual but really likes Mary-Beth.

Pearson: beta and ace, just keeps to himself. Likes sending naughty letters with some feller a few states away.

Grimshaw is a omega women who was bonded to Dutch at one point. Bond broken but loyal. She takes care of the camp like it was her own pups. Straight

Molly, a high end omega women. Dutch’s newest Mate. She loves the man but knows deep down that she could not have pups with him. As much as Dutch wants a pup so bad he can taste it. Bi

Hosea: omega, he was Dutch’s first mate. They broke that bond when John joined the family. Hosea loved Dutch but loved Bonnie more. Bonnie was his one true love and privately considered John and Arthur his pups with her. Not Dutch. Stays in the pack to be with his family now. Bi

Dutch: alpha, wants to be the most alpha alpha that ever alpha’d. Wants to lead a huge pack that he is king of, gets board easily. Changes Mates when the mood strikes him, but privately knows his one true mate was Hosea that he threw away. He likes Molly, mostly because of what she does for him. Bi

Strauss: ace beta and not really interested in anything but money.

Swanson: Polly, he’s an all or nothing type of omega.

Josiah trelawany; a alpha that loves other alphas. Yeah he has a family in Saint Denis, but that’s just a marriage of convenience. He has men in every city after all!

Bill: gay as hell, alpha and self loathing.

Micha bell, straight and a Alpha. Looks down on anyone and anything. Thinks beta and omegas are only good for keeping his knot warm. Micha is sterile. Pissing him off more.

Charles Smith, demi alpha. Women are wonderful, Men are wonderful. Why chose. Is big on serious relationships. Charles knows what he wants and goes after it.

Sadie, alpha female. After the loss of her husband, she realized she enjoyed women more. There would never be another man like her husband after all.

Arthur Morgan, omega and bi. Arthur hides the fact he is an omega. It makes him uncomfortable when people know because suddenly people treat him differently. As the gangs enforcer, that’s not useful. Force celibate because Dutch gave him a order to keep his damn legs closed. So he had, feels like sex gets him in trouble, even with women. He hates dressing like an omega but has a love of soft fabrics and underwear. A lot of self loathing but maybe Charles will help him with that. 🦌🦬🦌🦬

Well that’s the updated version of the omegaverse headcanons. Any questions just ask!

[lansplaining]

I saw in the tags on the reading post you were finishing up Imperial Uncle and that you liked it. I was just considering reading it and wondered if you might elaborate on your thoughts!

absolutely!

it's only one volume, which is a nice change of pace, literally-- plot events actually, like. happen. i finished it in two days of not-frantic reading! also, despite being an imperial drama, it means there's actually a relatively contained cast of characters.

it's first person narration, which I don't generally like much, but I do think it works in this case because the plot is essentially "area man misunderstands his relationships to everyone he knows," so it helps to only have the protagonist's POV.

the writing style doesn't really have the liveliness of MXTX or Meatbun, and the romance is extremely staid. he kisses the red herring love interest more than he does the actual one, and they spend most of their time talking around each other while the protagonist doesn't realize they're flirting. it reminds me of fourteenth year of chenghua in that respect, and some of the style reminds me a bit of priest as well (but less annoying, to me).

protagonist Prince Huai/Jing Weiyi/Chengjun is a bisexual dumbass in his 30s who insists he accidentally turned himself gay because he was only pretending to be a cutsleeve to reassure his mistrustful royal relatives that he was harmless and had no imperial ambitions but then slept with men too much and now he actually likes them :( that's the only reason ok :( self awareness score of 0. beneath an incredibly thin veneer of cynicism is a romantic who just wants to do right by his nephew the emperor, have someone to spend his life with, and to have a sense of purpose. he also sleeps with a LOT of other people, including sex workers, which i know is something that some people dislike.

the two potential love interests are a morally upright courtier who he thinks would naturally never dare associate with someone with his bad reputation, and a dandyish son of one of the older courtiers who has tried to recruit Chengjun into his schemes to topple the emperor, and who is one of his best friends.

there are also a passel of very charming nephews/brothers to the emperor. there are... no women to speak of lol (except his wife at the very beginning, but. yeah. she goes away.)

the sample on peach flower house's website gives a pretty good sense of the writing style, but I will say that while I didn't like the writing style at first or really ever, it definitely grew on me and I got pretty invested in the characters and in wanting to know how the plot would turn out. it's definitely one you want to approach with your shen qingqiu "this narrator is a moron and nothing he says about himself or other people is very accurate" goggles on.

the only content warning that comes to mind besides some violence is fairly extensive depictions of sex work, several of which which clearly acknowledge that the sex workers are slaves and do not want to be doing this.