#but no. it's the gay fucking romcom that has the character end up in the hospital from a gun incident

[airenyah]

happy to announce that ohm pawat made it through yet another show without being grazed by a bullet despite the fact that he had a gun shoved into his face on multiple occasions

and with that the gay romcom continues to be the only series in which ohm pawat ever ends up with a gunshot wound

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - Mame is fielding one of my favorite shows, what is the world coming to?

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

(This was gonna be ready yesterday and then I realized I'd missed 2. Sigh. I'm doing well.)

Feb 2025 Week 2

Ongoing Series - Thai

ThamePo (Fri YT) ep 10 of 12 - SHUT UP. I love them more than anything. I love how nervous and hesitant Thame was the next morning. Def the younger boy who bagged the experienced older dude. This show makes me go “aww” a lot. I do hate this part of the plot though. Because I loathe parasocial fandoms with every fiber of my being and this is why.

The Boy Next World (Sun IQIYI) ep 6 of 10 - The plot has gone wildly off the rails, like into Days of Our Lives waffle iron territory. It is utterly absurd. But I'm still watching it.

The Heart Killers (Weds Gaga) ep 12 end - I love Style so much. The perfect Brat but he is playing Petruchio not the shrew! Ironic and very kinky twist on the original. I also love how most BLs are like “we’re gonna separate them for 2-5 years in the final ep” and Kant & Style were all “fuck that noise.” 

Summary

Jojo directs this action romcom about assassin brothers (Khao & Joong) meets tattoo artist ex-booster (First) and very flirty mechanic (Dunk) conmen. I dithered over how to rate this. It felt like an 8 show wearing a 9’s britches. There were dropped threads, forgotten characters, and unfinished plot lines even with a particularly long run time. And, for me, it doesn’t have significant rewatch potential. But it was fun (when one applies no expectations or logic) and I enjoyed the wildly unhinged relationships and, weirdly, music. I mean nobody claimed that we needed Taming of the Shrew only with gay Thai hitman, but we really needed it. And no one asked for Petruchio as the gayest brat ever to strut his perfect skin and copped-top across our screen, and yet we loved him for it. Sure it didn’t make sense, was utterly absurd, but it was terribly earnest and sexy about it. IN the end this goes hand-in-hand with all these other absurd crime pieces we’ve been getting since KP, and frankly I like this one the best from Thailand so far. 9/10 but I’m slightly uncomfortable with that decision.

Perfect 10 Liners (Sun YT) ep 16 of 24 - It’s cute. They were cute. I enjoyed it. But I am still mostly just looking forward to the next couple.

Sangmin Dinneaw (Sun iQIYI) ep 7-8 end - I forgot to watch this one for over a week, goes to show how engaged I am. Anygay, ep 7 amnesia trope is ago. A lot the ep was fuss in hospitals so I went ahead and watched the finale as well. It was fine.

Conclusion

Given its charmingly simple premise and a solid lead pair, this could’ve been quite an tidy little BL, but it went all weird and slapstick and overtly sexual (and I enjoy high heat). It was a little bit like YYY meets modern Thai BL but mixed with early Japanese pinks. All very strange. I ended up being half bored half annoyed half confused half embarrassed. And if that’s too many halves for you, now you know how I felt. 5/10 

Flirt Milk (Sat YT) ep 4 or 10 - Umm plot? Where are you?

Ossan‘s Love Thailand (Mon YouTube) ep 6 of 12 - Workplace harassment, form of... Thai BL. 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

When it Rains it Pours (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 6 of 10 - Is the live-in boyfriend meant to be perceived as a psychopath or just a controlling monster? I love how blunt Sei was with him. Such and honest little bean. Ah, controlling monster.  Well, I really hope they can resolve this in the final episode. Despite all of the pain I’m enjoying it, it's being true to itself.

This is JBL doing its thing and toeing the Tokyo in April party line. I don't know why anyone would expect anything different. Go watch Eternal Yesterday and drink me later. This is what Japan DOES with BL at least half the time. The more JBL we get, the more of this kind of show we get with it. It's a numbers game - just add bruises.

Heart Stain (Korea Weds IQIYI) eps 3-4 of 8 - I have to admit that the only reason I even tolerate love triangles as a trope is because of K-dramas. But I still don’t like it. That said, I do like all of the honesty and conflict that's built into this story and frankly dealt with because of the trope. And I love how massive Woohyeon is so baby girl. The lap sitting was extremely cute. The teacher finding them lap sitting was also cute. And the handhold drag afterwards was cutest. The whole scene was adorable. 

FC Soldout (Korea Thurs iQIYI) eps 5-6 of 8 - Tiny idiots. Every. Single. One. (@heretherebedork you must be loving these boys.) Give me a sec to talk to a character: Captain. Sweetcheeks. You know there are better ways to exhaust your adorable boy-toy late at night than forcing him to do physical labor, right? Or, at least, not that kind of physical labor.

Eternal Butler (Taiwan Fri Gaga) eps 9 of 12 - Oooo. emotional Ever 4. Poor baby. I did want to see him kick ass. Hopefully that’s the beginning of next week’s episode. 

Impression of Youth (Taiwan Weds Viki) eps 6 of 9 - Very little happened in this episode. Lots of flashbacks. And stuff we’ve already seen.

Fight for Love (Vietnam YT) ep 2 - Ooo 2 timing? Coils within coils, tongues within tongues, my goodness these boys are getting around. It’s all very messy gay drama llama ding dong but... comedy. It’s a new one on me. But sooner that than Thailand’s Only Friends version.

Exclusive Love (Taiwan Fri Gaga) eps 1-2 of 12 - Shy aspiring singer inherits funeral business. Nice to have something more from Taiwan to watch. But this is extremely odd, and somewhat extreme behavior, given the premise. That is a lot of personnel and sunglasses just for one guitar-playing influencer. Even if I agree that he shouldn’t be allowed to play. Surreal that it’s a mafia funeral business, although I suppose it makes sense. It’s not creepy, but the creep-factor is high with this show. It's also v thirsty already. I kind of like the sides, but they seem to be in a different BL. So far, mostly whiplash but I'm not mad about it.

Checkered Shirt (Korea YT) ep 2 of 8 - It remains awkward and cute, but a little boring for a short. 

Teenager Judge (Vietnam Sat YT) ep 19 of 20 - Today in: how to tell your suicidal stepbro you wanna d**k him out. 

It's airing but......

Gelboys (Thai Weds iQIYI) ep 1 of 7 - I’m immediately terrified by the fact that he’s carrying a guitar around. It’s slow with that dirty gritty high school authenticity thing from OG Love Sick. Which is not my favorite style of any show, let alone BL. I always get Kids PTSD. I think I’m gonna give this show a pass. It’s just too far out of my wheelhouse. I don’t have patience for this right now.

The Last Time (Thai WeTV) trailer - from 2024, not sure about this one, looks dark. Since it's also difficult for me to get hold of I am giving it a pass until I know about the ending.

Speaking of which...

In Case You Missed it

I Will Turn Back Time (China Gaga) 6 eps - Spies report it does not end well. Stepbrothers trope = yeah! but all other messaging = boo. I'm not gonna bother.

End of year wraps are here!

2024 Trend Report

MY BEST & WORST BLs of 2024

Best Kisses (and sex scenes) of 2024

BL's 2024 Quirky Awards

2024 Awards - Quick Picks

Next Week Looks Like This:

2/21 Bali Hai (Thailand ????) no MDL listing, only rumors, unsure on deets.

2/27 Secret Relationships (Korea iQIYI) - Stars Wei's Kim Jun Seo. Adapted by Cradle Studio (Kakao). About clever and resourceful Daon who has worked hard to overcome being poor. His cheap ways annoy his coworker, Sunghyeon but after “an incident” with his parents, Daon grows closer to him. But Daon also has feelings for his former tutor. This has the signs of a classic Kdrama all over it: Office setting, love triangle, lead suffering for his self-actualization. I’m optimistic about a longer treatment.

2025 Line Up

BL Announced for 2025 - PART 1

BL Announced for 2025 - PART 2

20 BLs Announced for 2025 That I'm Really Excited About

GMMTV 2025 Line Up - My Totally Biased and Wildly Flawed Feels

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENT

Got nothing. Frankly you're lucky this came in a somewhat timely manner, with any screen caps at all. It's chaos 'round these parts.

(last week)

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @sunflower-positiiivity @rocketturtle4 @blglplus @anythinggoesintheshire @everlightly @renafire @mestizashinrin @bl-bam-beyond @small-dark-and-delicious @saezurumurmurs

[moonlightsapphic]

thoughts on xo, kitty:

i had the time of my life getting straightbaited in s1, loved it and very much believed it was set up beautifully for a kittyuri ending

i once again had the time of my life getting straightbaited by the s2 trailer (which had initially dissapointed me), and then once again squealing at kittyuri moments in the actual season lol

god yuri is so hot

god minho is so hot

this show is bisexual propaganda if there ever was any

i have said it before and i will say it again: this is the queer/sapphic teen asian american romcom we want and need! it’s just like the dumb straight shows! WE DESERVE TO GIGGLE AND CRINGE TOO

i was surprised (but not displeased!) to see a setup for another season rather than an ending with this one. manifesting an easy renewal. (thank u, straight taltbilb fandom, for helping feed the netflix marketing beast for our chaotic bisexual show.) that being said, they could totally have ended it here and idk what the fuck they’re even going to have as a plot for s3.

i have a love/hate relationship with new characters being introduced and the silly plotlines and also the somewhat disjointed dialogues sometimes but it’s also all very endearing lol.

i love the family drama in the show! the execution is lighthearted yes but fellow asian viewers know what i mean. <333

i genuinely don’t know who kitty is going to end up with! but that’s jenny han to you. tsitp would feel the same if the source material didn’t already tell us the ending, too.

i was a kittyuri truther after s1 but now i’m leaning mooncovey just because of how the development/excecution went … and i’m not mad either way lol. all i can tell you is that something viscerally bisexual was happening to me everytime i saw kittyuri on screen in s1 and mooncovey on screen in s2 (with some overlap. screams)

i did feel a little dissapointed to see yuri always chasing what she can’t have this season but really it made a lot of sense and i’m excited to see her development next season.

while yuri has commited many crimes which is what makes her iconic, minho is so babygirl and has never done anything wrong in his life. the shoujo manga/kdrama mooncovey moments were just *chef’s kiss* YES MA’AM GIVE THE VIEWERS WHAT THEY WANT

my girlfriend ships mindae and i think she’s crazy but also i see it, dae is the only one other than kitty that minho could satisfactorily end up with. god i was so mad when i thought they were making an ohio rando his endgame lmaoooo and i was GENUINELY concerned that the kittyuri hate train from mooncovey shippers would descend like bloodthirsty sharks if that happened. praying to god they don’t just push minho or yuri with any ole new character at the end of s3 just to have them not be single. that would be lame. mindae is more than fair game though. 😝 they get into so many fights, it has to mean something … brb getting lost in the gay dae theories …

yuri & dae’s friendship will never grow old to me. i love i love i LOVE

also love it when the characters speak korean amongst themselves, which really drives home how multicultural the show really is. (also it’s hilarious how madison, a literal white girl, speaks better korean than kitty lmao.)

a part of the mooncovey fanbase is very biphobic and lesbophobic and we really need to shame them for it because it’s super annoying. like yeah i know you’re coming from tatbilb which taught you queers exist only in the form of the gay guy best friend for the straight girl protagonist but! jenny han has grown! have you not seen tsitp?! have you also not noticed kitty was never like lara jean?! she wore a mf suit to their dad’s wedding for god’s sake sigh. disrespectfully, if your ship can’t exist without lame excuses on why an alternate ship isn’t as “valid”, then your ship probably isn’t that great in the first place. which is sad, because mooncovey is an awesome ship.

overall a slay. jenny han i know we have a fraught relationship but they could never make me hate you. truly one of the few people in mainstream cishet romcom media that said “actually queer people should be included af because they’re FUN and an underappreciated goldmine!” she also never lets the fandom tell her what to do. you keep doing you, queen!!! i mean it! 💖

[potahun]

For the ship ask! I’m very, very curious how you feel about AKAM.

thank you for the ask!! <33 (this is for this ask game)

Ship: AKAM

thank you for asking about akam, i have lots of thoughts uwu <3 the verdict is, i ship!! less as an "endgame" (and i'll explain why in unpopular opinions) than i did before, but i find it undeniable that furuya, as a character, is completely obsessed with this man... completely. it's like an infatuation, even if he denies.

1. What made you ship it?

i am not sure if it was M20 or going through the scarlet showdown again while liking furuya's character. it's a bit weird now that furuya is a top blorbo for me, but i genuinely loathed furuya when he first appeared, and i simply wasn't invested in akai either at the time, so i had a "why do we even care about bourbon? he's not even after conan" attitude on first read.

but once i did start to enjoy furuya, a lot, it was impossible not to notice that oh boy, he's completely unhinged about akai, and his motivations are just...incredibly gay the more you think about it?? incredible.

2. What are your favorite things about the ship?

they have a lot of strong points:

the "you want to fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid" aspect. akai just de-activates furuya's ability for thought and i love it! the ferris wheel fight was an example, but i also rly liked furuya's "i'm gonna prove to you akai is alive in ONE day" to vermouth and then charging into a stranger's house with a whole PSB team and zero evidence. amazing work

the fact that they both know how it feels to have been in the BO, they even share (at least some) grief over hiro, so once the misplaced resentment is cleared, there is room for much silent, mutual understanding between them.

it's one of those ships where they could really make each other worse. i don't think akai helps furuya's neuroticism in any way with his ever placid ways and constant cool. it only aggravates it, burns furuya up, and that makes for an extremely fun, chaotic ship in that sense (for me).

akai "-kun"'s him. he's furuya rei-kun or amuro-kun, sometimes. there's a small dog (furuya) yapping at big dog (akai) dynamic going on between them, for sure.

3. Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

i used to think akam was the perfect endgame ship for me and was convinced that akai didn't want to tell furuya the truth so as to not hurt him (😭) and then, i was given the alternative that "maybe he uh, can't bother" and was like "huh." I think it was sparked by friends, but i started to look deeply again at how akai reacts to furuya instead of the other way round, and thought that ah, furuya is surely a great endgame for akai (akai men like to be pushed around, so i think furuya's bossiness is not a problem), but will furuya's need for attention be satistified by akai, given both their personalities?

so nowadays, i see akam as the hottest love affair, and what furuya needs to chill out and heal a bit from the hiro grief, but less as an endgame ship for me. i see akai as the man furuya wants but could "never have wholly", simply because, akai now has many people he cares about deeply and he is now living his best life like that. (and even then, he won't show his care very openly, even if he cares) and that view of akam is probably unpopular.

i do have happy endgame scenarios for akam even now, but they tend to involve a 3rd one in a romcom fashion, usually kazami, and with kazami as the "center piece", not furuya (can you imagine). a scenario where, akai "i honeypot once and fall in love" shuuichi honeypots kazami and kazami is like "he's a nice bloke unlike what i've been told" and then akai is like "oh no. i might be having a Feeling" (jodie: gdi shuu, you cant catch feelings each time), and furuya is just outraged because now akai is even going after his right-hand-man, and "this is why i can't have nice things. akai shuuichi ruins everything" and [huge amount of development i wont get into] but the 3 of them end up together. So yes, a romcom scenario, not too serious, very silly, but i love it dearly.

[trans-queen-administrator]

Worm Fanfic Recs

No rankings at play here, just my favorite fics that I think other are really good. There are fics I like that aren't listed because I have a bad memory, but everything here is something I really really enjoyed. I have biases obviously, this isn't objective.

The Fics

Our Private Crises - A nailbiting murder mystery with unique and well done POVs from a different character each chapter. The mystery and reveal at the end were stellar, and it got me attached to characters I never thought I'd care for. 29k words. Complete.

It's Cold Out There Every Day - Missy is trapped in a time loop on her birthday. Genuinely stellar characterization, it has the best Missy and Aisha I've ever read and its such a creative and well executed premise. 41k words. Complete.

Tilt - Unpowered homeless girl Taylor fakes a thinker power to get in the Wards and secure housing. She's even more self destructive and self deprecating than in canon. 10/10 characterization for a slew of POV characters including Taylor, every ward but especially Sophia, Rachel, Lisa, and a ton of other characters. Despite not going through all of what canon Taylor went through, this fic nails her character better than pretty much any others. 220k words at time of posting. Updating consistently.

Tear Apart, Stitch Together - Taylor triggers with Shatterbird's power and kills thousands. Short and sweet, everything that's there is great and it wraps up well I think. 13k words. Complete

Memories of a Simurgh Victim - The Simurgh attacks Brockton Bay. Has two storylines, one following Taylor and one following Amy and Vicky. Among the most fucked up things this fandom has to offer, a terrifying showcase of the Simurgh and her power. 62k words. Taylor's story is incomplete but the Amy and Victoria story is done.

Desperate Times Call For Desperate Pleasures - Cherish altpower Taylor tries to consensually fix Amy's incest fetish. A trainwreck I can't look away from, the worlds first psychological horror romcom. It's so fucked up and so amazingly funny, and has good well written characters. I don't like Pillbug and I'm not a big fan of altpowers, but this fic is still one of my favorites because it's so damn compelling so definitely check it out if you actually like either of those things. 211k words at time of posting. Updating consistently.

Roots - The Slaughterhouse Nine attack a small town with a roster of OC capes, but something is very off about the place. POV shifts every chapter, and the OCs are interesting and unique. The S9 are also wonderfully characterized here, I've never had a fic make me sad for Crawler of all people. 67k words at time of posting. Ongoing. Criminally underrated.

Roma Fade - Ciara and Fortuna both try to grow past who they were as capes and find themselves as people in a small town post Gold Morning, having found common ground posing as moms to a recovering Taylor. I'm sure fake dating would never end in real attraction, that would be absurd. Incredibly gay, incredible characterization for everyone, the best post-GM fic around in my opinion. 87k words at time of posting. Ongoing but currently on hiatus.

Case - Lisa and the Simurgh start a detective agency. It's just great humor and a lovely story and wonderful despite being short and deceased. 14k words. Dead.

Silence is not Consent - Taylor intervenes and saves Victoria from Amy and gives her a place to stay, Victoria massively struggles dealing with what happened. Amazing characterization, Victoria's POV is unique and incredibly well done, and her seeing Taylor from an outside perspective is interesting. Be warned that this is a very heavy fic emotionally, but it's really fucking good. 212k words at time of posting. Updating consistently.

A Word - Altpower Taylor is obsessed with writing a story. I don''t know how to describe this fic honestly it's hard to do justice, but it has perhaps the best conclusion to Gold Morning I've seen in a fanfic. 11k words. Complete.

Scarab - A fantasy AU where powers are thought to be magic, and the Faerie Queen takes an interest in Taylor. Filled to the brim with creativity and passion, this fic is teeming with fresh ideas and interesting depictions of canon characters. The worldbuilding is great as well, no other fic on this list has a map, so this is clearly a cut above the rest. 139k words at time of posting. Updating consistently.

Swallowtail - Ok I lied this one has a map too. Taylor with an incredibly interesting stranger power joins Faultline's crew. There is a truly astounding amount of AU elements and alternate powers for canon characters, it feels like a new world while still being recognizable and distinctly Worm. Has a large amount of alternate POVs and the first arc can be rough, but it's creative and amazing. 360k words. Ongoing but currently on haitus.

Soliloquy - Ex-Slaughterhouse 9 Taylor is in prison, bitter at the world and herself and especially her clone who saved the multiverse. A heavy fic about someone slowly recovering and becoming a better person when they're convinced it can't be done. Made me cry. 71k words. Complete.

TWNY - Post-GM Taylor finds herself in the world of RWBY with a pair of moth antennae. Multiple POVs, all very interesting despite me knowing nothing of RWBY. Probably the best characterization of Taylor in any post-GM crossover fic, she's heartbreaking in the recent arc, and it feels like the fic has barely scratched the surface of what it'll eventually cover. Also it's very gay. 136k words. Ongoing.

The Great Escape - Eidolon is struggling after his reputation is destroyed and Cauldron is revealed, and then the Birdcage opens. Amazing use of seldom seen characters, great POV with Eidolon, well done and interesting fights, has String Theory. 107k words. Ongoing but currently on haitus.

Happiness Is Inevitable - NSFW. The only damn erotic mind control Simurgh smut in the fandom somehow. Besides the porn (which is a lot of the fic, who woulda thunk it) the story itself is actually pretty interesting and has a lot of creative parts, and it has better characterization than most fics. 29k words. Ongoing?

Oneshots

Break me so that I can be whole - This accursed fandom is tragically bereft of QA / Taylor fics, but this one shot is great, love an eldritch take on shards. Probably fucked up but I'm not actually a good judge of that so be warned. 1.8k words.

Book Worm - Dragon helps teach Taylor how to read and speak and understand language post-GM. Bittersweet and lovely. 2.5k words.

Defiant Didn't Dox Saint For Nothing! - Taylor goes back in time and the first thing she does is kill Saint because he sucks. Cracky but I like it, fun little oneshot. 1.6k words.

Ruling Ash - Glory Girl flees Brockton Bay during the Slaughterhouse Nine and ends up living with Damsel of Distress. Cute, and Starsong before Ward is very interesting. 2.8k words.

My Sunshine - Leviathan goes worse and Brockton Bay is destroyed. Taylor and Victoria survive. Very somber, but well executed. 3.4k words.

Cherry on Top - A character study of Cherie Vasil, showing how she went from running away from Heartbreaker to joining the Nine. Extremely well written, absolutely incredible depiction of her character. It depicts abuse and actions typical of Heartbreaker and Cherie, so be careful reading. It's a lot emotionally. 12.7k words.

Devil in a New Dress - NSFW. Shatterbird / Reader, I'm not explaining myself on this one. Neat Shatterbird characterization, hot, pretty fucked up so be warned. 1.7k words.

[canonizzyhours]

Idk what the fuck 305 is talking about when they say that the canyon is the only place where people write Ed and Stede as fucking up because every time I venture into canyon lit Stede's always either getting cinnamon rolled as hard as he is outside of the canyon just with a cinnamon roll derogatory rather then affectionate or he's a predatory gay man stock character and Ed is always the Angry Violent Brown Man Who Needs Izzy To Look After Him. Meanwhile me and my mutuals have been writing Ed and Stede having realistic relationship problems for the characters it's just that they always end up fixing the problems because thats how romcoms usually go. It's how the show itself ended up going, in fact. You start them out as falling in love you create drama in the middle by having their personalities (the real ones not the ones described above) and you have them work out the drama so they can open their inn together

Anyway this Canyonite idea that everyone but them is writing fluff where nothing ever goes wrong is a way to obfuscate the fact that we're not subscribing to the add the racism and homophobia back in when Jenkins and team left it out on purpose lense that the canyon clings to because it's the only way to make Izzy not look really fucking bad

All that being said the one thing I do think that both the canyon and the rest of the fandom fails at so fucking miserably is actually addressing Ed's daddy issues. That is ripe for writing grimdark fic about and nobody will do it mostly because the main fandom as a whole has utterly failed to recon with the fact that Ed will find the nearest overbearing angry white man be he Izzy Hornigold or Poppop, and immediately start trying to get his approval. I think part of it is because a lot of people canyon or otherwise had been conceiving of Ed and Izzy as sexual in a way that doesn't pair well with the fact that Ed 100% is subconsciously registering Izzy as his father. (And in their defense, they were thinking of it sexually because IZZY subconsciously thinks of it sexually)

#317.

related posts: #305

[mermaidsirennikita]

Hi!! I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of wlw romance books? Do you know of similar blogs like yours who post about them or of any authors? You reviewed the one with the pilot and the nurse, and I was really excited to see that and have been itching for more ladies lol

Yes!! We really need more sapphic books in romance; wlw is probably the least-represented type of pairing (besides... any involving trans/nb charactes in general). That's why I try to request any that I think will potentially appeal to me (I have a FFM triad fantasy romance ARC to read and review this month that apparently puts a heavy emphasis on the women, and a f/f selkie ARC for next year!).

For more reviews, you can check out the Lesbrary, though that's not ONLY romance. But yeah, that's all ladies all the time!

I would also recommend checking out romance.io. It's a great romance-exclusive reading resource, and you can filter by trope and gender pairings.

For more sapphic books, I'd recommend checking out:

The Fae Queen's Captive by Sierra Simone. This archeologist girl gets kidnapped by faeries, and she basically has to become the mysterious and cool fae queen's temporary consort. It's VERY hot, and a great one to read around Halloween. Good bit of gore, as a heads up.

The Thornchapel series by Sierra Simone. Gothic erotic romance dark academia type book about six friends who accidentally wake a dark supernatural force when they start doing these ancient sex rituals together. WHO WOULDA THUNK IT. There are orgies where everyone fucks everyone and everyone is bi, but the two main relationships are an MMF triad and a FF romance. Everyone gets POVs, and the f/f relationship is sooooo beautiful. It is BDSM, one of them is a domme and the other is her sub; it's very grumpy/sunshine, stern/sweet. Great plus size rep from one of the women. Honestly just a gorgeous love story that's super complex and compelling. TW for past sexual assault (this involves one of the women in the f/f relationship; it's not super graphic, but it is something that she needs to seek therapy for, her arc does involve recovery, and she does suffer from PTSD) and possible incest (not the f/f relationship) and general kinda dark vibes. But everyone gets an HEA in the end, especially the Rebecca and Delphine (the ladies).

An Island Princess Starts a Scandal by Adriana Herrera. Sapphic historical, Manuela ends up in Paris (the lesbian hub of the 1800s) and she wants to live her life as a gay woman before settling into a marriage with a man. So she asks Cora, this icy seductive rich widow/businesswoman, to give her an intro to gay Paris, in exchange for Manuela giving her this business thing she wants. What Cora doesn't realize initially is that Manuela is actually super committed to getting deflowered by Cora as well. It's very uptight meets wild, very swoony, very sexy.

A Long Time Dead by Samara Breger. A gothic vampire romance, it's about a sex worker who wakes up having been turned into a vampire in 1800s England, with this very worried vampire lady hovering over her. Because oops, the lady's ex turned her into a vampire as a revenge thing? So it's like, decades of these two falling in love, and tension, and a coven of queer vampires, and the ex attempting to murder people. Very romantic and hot and great.

Mortal Follies by Alexis Hall. This one is like, a Midsummer Night's Dream meets Jane Austen. It takes place in a fantastical Regency era, and one of the heroines leaves this ball because a hex has been put on her and her dress is disintegrating? Only for her to be intercepted by this dark and dangerous woman who's rumored to have killed her father? Magical, whimsical, somehow still very poignant at points?

The Fiancee Farce by Alexandria Bellefleur. A contemporary romcom wherein this bookshop owner(? employee?) pretends a romance cover model is her girlfriend to get her family off her back... Only for the model to turn out to be the heiress to a publishing empire, and in order to gain her full inheritance, OF COURSE she must marry!!! Funny, sparkly, a good time.

Generally, for authors:

Olivia Waite writes tons of f/f historical romance, Katee Robert writes some f/f erotic romance and some FFM, Sierra Simone tends to dabble in f/f and FFM more than most, Alexandria Bellefleur often writes f/f, Meryl Wilsner writes f/f contemporary, (I liked their recent Cleat Cute) Adriana Herrera writes f/f and m/f and m/m (I think) and has an erotic f/f holiday novella with a lady Santa out (Her Night with Santa). Check out the Pride not Prejudice anthology for tons of queer novellas, including an f/f alien romance by Ruby Dixon and a f/f historical by Amalie Howard!

[mandy4ever69420]

i would like to see the og version :D

man if yr sure. anyway i do love fanfiction i think it's fun but i am the weirdest person to be talking about fanfiction.

i find fanfiction to be a really fascinating medium TBH it can tell you a lot about people what they look for and write about. and one thing i learned watching shameless is that the general vibe of shameless is pretty much what i want out of a fanfic. like, watching it i remember specifically thinking "this is what i'd been literally looking for reading xyz" which is a little weird for shameless fanfiction, no? fanfic as a medium has its own genre conventions so most (not all) (i <3 conceptual fic) fanfictions intentionally or not make their stories slightly more like fanfiction than like the source material. normal. Funny enough, the fanfic that's most closely ever actually matched the tone of shameless to me was written for homestuck

the MAIN THING i want to say about. the way i read fanfiction. and the fact that i am a lunatic. is that like. i kind of became an expert for some reason in sniffing out people's political and social biases really fast. and i can sometimes spend more time psychoanalyzing an author than i do worrying about the story. this comes up a lot when the law ever gets involved but also just.. you can tell exactly where someone is on their "how to be gay" journey by how they write it. i think what people write as escapism can in general tell you more about what they consider normal/safe/acceptable than if they just tried to explain to you their beliefs (see: are there royals/rich people as protagonists? what is the time period being discussed?)

BUT wrt fanfiction's genre conventions id make note that most fanfiction is very much in the romcom niche. which is a super disrespected genre in film/published lit in the same way and for the same reasons fanfic gets dismissed a lot. erotica is also a very frequently dismissed and disrespected genre. not only are romances seen as frivolous, but sex as shameful or cheap. <-also relevant to the way that sex work is dismissed when ex. working in an amazon warehouse takes as much or more of a toll on someone's body.

1 thing i love to see is weird niche interests and jobs. lots of opportunities in a fully freeform zero interest groups/showrunners/advertisers genre to get someone explaining the intricacies of being a mail carrier or quality controlling machinery. it's always frustrating to me to see rock stars and secret agents when we have all the time in the world to get sunshine cleaning (2008) with it.

it's also a good format for more or less endless speculation development and character moments. which is what fanfiction was built for. in published work there has to be a ticking clock to keep the audience's (and network exec's) attention, but you can assume if someone looked something up, you already have their attention. that's not to say not going for a plot-heavy conflictful story, just that there's no need to build in a requirement end/goal. you have all the time in the world because you're not batting to get a new season. no shark jumping required. <- this is somewhere that shows like mr. robot and the bear really fuck up i think. if your end goal would finish your story, you can't make meaningful moves towards it without losing your renewal & your plot is sort of barred from going anywhere or doing anything, while also demanding that you try every time

unfortunately for a lot of fanfiction FOR ME though is that sometimes the "make things sweeter" impulse that comes with the genre (part of the genre) (not necessarily a writing flaw) tends to put me off a bit. it's a big part of what i love in shameless: when someone is in the hospital it's a bit more "waiting room filling out forms and trying not to look at other people crying" and less "patiently waiting by your bedside with roses". something about detailing the shitty terrible sides of situations that pop up a lot in romances really scratches a specific itch in my brain. this contradicts the romcom genre in some ways (though there are romcoms that do this sort of thing)

i also happen to love AUs. im literally like an AU guy. though for me one of the most important things to keep in mind is matching tone, i really dont like when things get changed in terms of what they FEEL like. into like, something that isn't weird and pathetic and fucked up. SAD!

i'm also unreasonably resentful of retcons/AUs to avoid a sad thing happening. i think stories are better when all the horrible shit absolutely happened and the ending is good anyway. it's a kinder way to look at trauma to me. the person who lived through the worst thing you can imagine can live in a happy story! i also just love to feel a little bit like i'm eating glass with fiction.

(also, specifically for shameless, i've noticed this intense impulse some people have to definitively characterize mickey as not a rape or hate crime survivor. it's an attempt to make a story "happier" that also happens to ignore how horrifying to me mickey sleeping with women in other contexts is. what happened with svetlana is in some ways a literalization of the kinds of social pressure that mickey was always under. best description i can think of is "how far away is the gun?" -- a lot of the "reasoning" for AUs as to why mickey wouldn't have been hate crimed comes across weirdly like victim blaming - i know that's not what people mean, but it's what you're saying when you say "if it weren't for ian, mickey never would've let his guard down like that" - his guard wasn't down, he made all the right choices wherever he could, and ian canonically blaming himself doesn't mean he was right about it. i also think the idea that mickey would otherwise be too smart or too tough to make the "mistake" of getting caught shows some messed up ideas about what people think of real world people who do survive hate crimes and abuse.)

fanfiction is very much the sort of thing that is for having a mental breakdown of the eating ice cream on the couch variety. obviously talking about fanfiction having romanticized tropes is like watching a mob movie and being like "whys there so many italians here" so i'm aware that's just genre.

ANYWAY TO MY OWN PERSONAL INSANE NICHE: DIALECT!

this is about fanfiction, AND gif and television captioning. people mix up mickey's working class white dialect with AAVE a LOT. working class and Black american dialects certainly interact a lot and have similarities, but they're not the same. also AAVE has a lot of complexities and nuances that speakers of other dialects definitely borrow from where something like standard american is lacking. i'm not an L1 speaker of AAVE but i do notice myself borrowing where a structure is just much, much clearer than anything else. al7ayaa hek

there are ways in which an lot of these mixups make sense. especially with gifmakers/captioners/authors who happen to be british. mickey DOES use double negatives (btw, this is a feature of many languages, including closely related german) occasionally (i think), and famously "you ain't window shopping" but i can't think of any occasion where he uses a construction like habitual "be" or a "you been a pain in the ass the whole time i known you" (made up example) he also doesn't exempt "have" from "where the hell have you been", he just reduces it to a single schwa sound.

when mickey says "doesn't mean i'm gonna wear a dress" it's absolutely true that he's not articulating the "s" and taken purely literally "don't" is closer to what you heard. culturally, however, "don't" has a different pronunciation than "doesn't" in a way unrelated to the "s". the biggest difference is in the vowel. so mickey's "doesn't" is "glottal stop-schwa-syllabic N-glottal stop" where as "don't" written in that same spot gramatically will read as "d-oʊ-glottal stop"

shameless netflix captioners do something similar with lip. he gets captioned as "aight" a lot when he doesn't articulate "lr" - technically, literally, closer to his actual utterance. but the connotations bring up a different pronunciation entirely. lip isn't white boy carl.

i think unfortunately in addition to being mistakes made by people with little understanding of or exposure to the details of AAVE these can often be based on people's assumptions about what a poor or "criminal" or "uneducated" accent sounds like, moreso than on actual observation of speech patterns. which is just like. a slightly subtler form of racism

anyway. since i'm on this topic i just want to mention that i'm fairly sure ian's speech changes in s10/11 to be more similar to mickey's. i haven't been taking very careful note of his speech patterns but i think it's cute.

[blurglesmurfklaine]

20 Questions For Fic Writers

gonna unofficially thank @forabeatofadrum for this tag bc she said whoever wanted to do it and I wanted to so here it be!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

49??? What when how did that happen??

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

706,964 woah so not quite a million but uh I have shit to say apparently

3. What fandoms do you write for?

46 of the 49 fics are glee lmaooo, two are Newsies and one is Roswell, New Mexico! I anticipate more Newsies (Javid) fics to come because I’m obsessed

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

There From The Start

Cornelia Street

Here We Go Again

An Honest Man

If Music Be

All for Glee: Klaine!

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to respond to as many as I can, but I usually forget lol. If someone leaves an insightful comment though it will usually spur a long conversation in the comments and I LOVE IT

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

If The World Was Ending bc they uh :) die, technically speaking

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Uhhhh probably every other one??? I really don’t like sad endings so most have a happy ending, but i actually really like the ending to Stick Season because despite it being so terribly emotional and angsty, I feel like the ending is a turnaround and really hopeful!

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not really? A few annoying comments telling me characters wouldn’t act this way, and one asking me “where my creativity was” which rubbed me the wrong way but I try to focus on the positive ones! Those definitely linger in my mind longer 💞

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Don’t look at me. Yes. Sometimes. Idk man sometimes those dudes just need to fuck it out???? But I usually only write it if the story feels like it’s naturally going there. It’s never really porn for porn’s sake (for clarification there’s nothing wrong with that we all love a little pwp), it’s usually the sappy emotional kind that’s mostly feelings and vague descriptions. it’s definitely not my forte and something I still get a little embarrassed and self conchas about lmao

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Not recently but I did have a Supernatural/Glee crossover a few years ago (shut up I was 16) and honestly it was loads of fun! Blaine was the child of that Gay Angel and Repressed Bisexual Man. Absolutely a slay

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don’t think so? But a few old ones from my fanfiction dot net page ended up on one of those search engine thingies??? Idk how to explain it or how to take it down but honestly… I have bigger problems lol

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No but if anyone ever wants to let me know!!! It would make me so happy!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yeah! Quite a few actually. I usually do the franken-fic every year and I did the roulette challenge and that m aforementioned crossover was actually a collab! Some of my favorite memories was writing the final chapter of A Night At The Ryerson House with @esperantoauthor 💞

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

OOF. Okay so. With 46 fics on AO3 you could say Klaine has a special place in my heart, buuuuuuut…….. my best friend introduced me to newsies in April and I seriously think it did something to my brain chemistry because Jack and Davey own my entire ass

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Ugh. I’m so fearful that I’ll never finish Amidst The Chaos, which I LOVE but takes so much out of me. There’s also one I’ve never posted called “Strangers Again” that involves like timeline jumping but in a romcom way that I’m not sure how to go about??? Also the community college one. I have so many.

For Javey I tried writing that Spider-Man AU but like. I need to re do the entire first chapter. I absolutely hate it actually and I think it’s because I don’t have a clear vision of what exactly I want, but I know what I DO NOT want????

16. What are your writing strengths?

Uhhhhhhhhhhh I’m actually not sure entirely? I’m gonna go with dialogue bc that’s usually how scenes come to me first.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Scenery/setting/sensory, world building, plot points, physical movement holy fuck do not get me started when That Guy has to move Across The Room AHHHHHH I wanna tear my face off

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Love it! In my brain Jack Kelly is Mexican because I love to project, and I’ve got a wip where Blaine is involved in a Hispanic community (no he’s mot Hispanic he’s just got a Mexican friend who is an old lady and also Catholicism is involved it’s a lot to explain okay go with it) so I like to use it, but only in a way that feels natural to ME based on MY experiences. Different people have different approaches!

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Glee!

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Oof. This one is hard but I think it’s an even tie between Here We Go Again and If Music Be!

Tagging: @somefeministtheatrepls @somanywords @justgleekout @kurtsascot and anyone else who wants to try!

[anthroparis]

What's your take about bonsars relationship

if you're looking for me to slander bonsar or go "it's romantic or platonic no in between!" you are in the wrong place, compadre. I'm aromantic. I don't believe that a relationship has to be romantic at all to be considered a relationship. I'm romance-repulsed and still date people, and it's rarely ever a problem. I'm someone's (more than just one someone, technically) girlfriend and I'm still avoidant of explicitly romantic scenes.

so the question for me is more like, would bonnie and caesar, as characters, want to label each other as partners?

like, when I look at bonnie, I see someone who may not be wholly comfortable just jumping into labels like that. as they said in the romcom ep, they just got used to having friends, and rushing into relationships seems like something that would ultimately be bad for them.

caesar seems a little conflicted on what he wants, but he understands his personal feelings a little more- he's said it himself, he and bonnie are soulmates. they're a team. but he's hung up on what that means of them, and how they should proceed.

we had a similar argument back in the day about the rr ice dancers. there were people arguing for them romantically, people arguing for them platonically, people stating that they wouldn't be attracted to each other because x is gay and x is pan and x is so-and-so, and my stance has always been Who Give a Fuck.

sometimes people are just in love with each other in a way that's not platonic, nor romantic, nor sexual, but a secret fourth thing that either combines some or all of these elements or exists completely outside of them. I would consider my relationship with gideon to be something on its own entirely, and I think a lot of aro4aro couples (whether they include aroace or alloaro people) would share a similar sentiment.

if I had to explain bonsar in terms of my own relationship, it's this:

they're not quite in love in the traditional sense, but they are absolutely not friends. they love each other more than anything. they understand each other like no one else can. if everything goes to shit and they end up furious and alone, they'll still love each other, even if they could never admit that. they have a playful, friendly dynamic that's observed between friends, and a deep love of each other that most would associate with lovers. they hold hands in public like it's the most natural thing in the world. caesar is the only person bonnie feels comfortable expressing physical affection to. bonnie is the only person caesar feels comfortable talking to about his thoughts. bonnie started carrying bandaids on them after they met because caesar trips a lot and never remembers them. caesar was the only person to remember bonnie's birthday one year. they don't necessarily understand each other's taste in music, but that's okay, they know they don't have to be the exact same to enjoy each other's company. sometimes bonnie will start talking and then realize they've been going on for ten minutes straight because caesar doesn't stop them. when caesar rambles, he always gets surprised that bonnie will add on and listen actively because he's so used to people ignoring the mundane details about his life. sometimes bonnie gets quiet and doesn't want to talk about what's going on in their head and caesar holds them until they feel good again. sometimes it's the other way around. they cut each other's hair. they have sleepovers. they kiss, and it isn't a big deal. they talk about bad movies and good albums. they send each other pictures of the sky when they're apart. they share clothes. they argue about whether spring or autumn is better. they go over to each other's houses and bake cakes at midnight because they couldn't sleep. they go to the library together. they sit on swing sets and share earbuds. they can talk for a week straight or not talk for a month and their relationship remains unchanged. what they have is undoubtedly, irrefutably, love. not romantic love. not platonic love. just love.

is that so hard for people to understand?

[jovenshires]

🦚 for the queer ask game!

🦚 - Are there any queer books/shows/etc. that you would suggest?

oh my god YEAH absolutely. i used to be a queer media connoisseur (im no longer a romance girlie when i consume media bc i write so much of it but i still have love for the genre). i'll do one rec for each category up here but ill put some more under the cut!!

book: aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe. it's my favorite book i've gotta put it out there. literally changed my life when i was like 16 i love it so much

show: there's so many popular ones that i feel like if you're gay you've already seen them by now, so im gonna throw a curveball and go with crazy ex-girlfriend. they talk a LOT about lgbtq+ identities and explore dynamics with different couples, and if you love musicals, you absolutely must go watch it rn i fear

movie: moonlight. oh my god if you haven't seen moonlight go watch moonlight it's so so incredible 10/10. a drama that follows a black gay man from childhood to adulthood, explores the themes of masculinity, family, and friendship as well as romantic love. it's just an incredible movie it deserves all the hype tbh

music: once again there's so many popular queer musicians nowadays that i Do Not HAVE to rec (you know the ones they go hard), so im gonna rec chrissy chlapecka!! she just makes such incredible, sugary-sweet pop music about such amazing fucked up shit i love her

send me some gay asks!

okie doke as promised here's some more recs from yours truly bc i really, really love media and have a collection to rec atp NDNKFNKND ill try to order them by genre from least to most obscure LMAO

BE WARNED: i do read some graphic stuff - im an adult and my media taste reflects that. before you read anything i rec, look it up for trigger warnings!! i don't want anybody to be hurt by something i recommend. <3

books:

of course like. simon vs the homosapien agenda by becky albertalli is out there. this is one of those classics i was talking about KDNKFNFK it's very ya-gay-romance-romcom you can eat up ya know. the movie's also not too bad (people think it's 'cringey' nowadays but that was HUGE for me when i was like 19 and had my first girlfriend). anyway it's feel-good fluff if you like that kind of thing!!

red white and royal blue is obviously another classic and one i can't rec enough. i love the way its written, i love the characters, i love the plot. like it's everything, if you're into the romcom vibe this is a great one to check out. (and as a bonus this one also has a movie and it Slaps)

it's not like it's a secret by misa sigura is a pretty solid wlw coming-of-age novel that i highly rec if you're into the rom-com type book. it's also got some EXCELLENT poc representation!!

bloom by kevin panetta is a graphic novel and i love it. so so so much. truly i think i read this in a day and i am NOT a huge graphic novel reader. feel-good romcom, poc rep, body diversity, AND pretty pictures. what is there not to love. everyone should read bloom tbh

lies we tell ourselves by robin talley is Probably my favorite wlw book ever. it's historical fiction and it is Everything to me. and im actually a known historical fiction hater so take it from me - its Good.

carry on by rainbow rowell is i think a classic at this point and i love it. so so so much. you ever identify with a character a little too hard. yeah thats me and this book. i gave my best friend a copy for her graduation. it is an Excellent take on 'remember all the heroes you wanted to be gay when you were a kid. imagine if they were.' it's my beloved

a hero at the end of the world by erin claiborne is another great one in the same vein, with a punchy, dry humor twist. basically if you were a harry potter kid but you hate jkr. you'll love this one and carry on KSNDKDNFK

nimona by nd stevenson is another graphic novel!! it's another fantasy, so if that's your cup of tea, i highly recommend it. it's got an amazing queer love story, a genderfluid protag, and most importantly, found family. literally everything. (it also has a movie but i haven't seen it yet

the raven cycle by maggie stiefvater is HUGEEEE i love that series it reshaped me. it's. mystery/supernatural i would say? it has multiple of my fave queer characters of all time and honestly. everyone there is a little gay. one of my absolute faves <3

we are the ants by shaun david hutchinson is a sci-fi horror adventure story and this one. it stuck with me. the main character hit me so hard and his internal struggle is so SO interesting. if you're into this kind of shit. give it a shot!

every day by david levithan is not one of MY all-time faves, but i can still say it's super interesting and has great rep!! it has a genderfluid/agender main character (depending on how you look at it). i will say i think there are multiple books in the series (?) but i stopped at one bc. it made me too sad anyway. <3

the perks of being a wallflower by stephen chbosky is not queer bc it's explicitly about a queer character or a queer love story, BUT. it still has one of my favorite lgbt characters of all time. patrick you will always be famous to me. as a bisexual girl in a catholic high school, saw a Lot of myself in patrick. (i do also have a special place in my heart for the movie bc it was my depression movie as a teen but patrick is played by ezra miller so be warned)

one of us is lying by karen mcmanus is another one that's not just. About a Gay Couple BUT it is one of my fave books (a murder mystery retelling of the breakfast club) and it has a gay main character!! his struggle with his sexuality is something he really struggles with and he has a boyfriend and i adore him.

shows:

i mean obviously like. heartstopper is incredible. like i said im not super into the romcom/young adult genre anymore but that show is just so beautiful and amazing and really healed my inner gay teen. it has a really diverse cast and representation for all kinds. i really recommend it!!!

everything sucks was gone before its time, but it is SUCH an amazing show. it has one of my fave on-screen wlw couples of all time. it's a feel-good, coming of age classic and i miss it deeply. (what did you just say??? 'katie rewatch it' oh my god you're onto something)

now if yall know me. glee is absolutely gonna be on this list. is it good? technically no. is it one of the greatest pieces of satire ever created? up until season three yes. i realized i was gay via santana lopez. THE gay character of all time. and all the love in my heart for all the other lgbt characters (kurt hummel you will always be famous to me......) some of it's a little dated (don't get me STARTED on unique) but it does genuinely have some great lgbt rep and if you watch it with a grain of salt it's a great comedy

julie and the phantoms made by kenny ortega (of THE high school musical and descendants fame) and it has a gay character i love!! (actually technically it has a few <3)

i'm a huge consumer of kids' media (i think phineas and ferb is a literal masterpiece and im not even kidding) so if you're like me and enjoy the disney/kid show beat i cannot rec andi mack enough. it's dramatic it's campy it's fun it's silly it's got a FANTASTIC gay character and a gay couple i deeply adore and not to mention!! so much representation!! it's like junior fosters tbh

we're gonna get into a little pocket here of like. normal romance but slightly niche - animes! sasaki to miyano is like my top lgbt anime rec. it is so, SO good. just absolute feel-good romcom goodness pls give it a shot

depending on interpretation, ouran high school host club arguably has a nonbinary character, some bi/gay characters, and a trans character! now. it IS hella dated do not get me wrong. BUT for the time? incredibly progressive and a wonderful watch. just brace yourself for some out of pocket shit

stars align has one of my favorite lgbt characters EVER, a nonbinary icon <3 and it's like. a PLOT. truly so rare to see something like that done on tv, let alone in anime. this is a sports anime - soft tennis my beloved - but it has So Much More To It than that.

another gay sports anime is run with the wind, a recent fave of mine. and i don't mean gay in the way that most sports animes are kinda gay. i mean he literally says 'im in love with this guy.' it's an amazing watch if you like that kinda thing!!

if you want an aroace genderfluid protag. the disastrous life of saiki k is up there as one of my fave animes ever AND saiki (the main character) is my fave protag of all time. this silly lil show is supernatural (ish?) and comedy all wrapped into one fantastic show i highly recommend!!

segueing back into live action shows, buffy the vampire slayer is an AMAZING, iconic, female-led supernatural dramedy with some early and, for its time, incredible lesbian rep.

yellowjackets because i LOVE unhinged lesbians. i didn't even know there was gay people in this - i started watching because i love horror and girls' soccer DLNKFNFLN and it's amazing!! if you like tragic gay women i HIGHLY endorse yellowjackets.

in the flesh. look. here's my pitch for itf. do you love being sad. do you love catharsis. do you love zombies. you will LOVE in the flesh. please. i miss it so bad i've seen this show 4 times (and you're right i should also watch this one again!!!) and i never tire of it.

sense8 is a sci-fi show and IT IS EVERYTHING TO ME. truly the diversity is unparalleled. so many lgbt characters of so many different identities. polyamory, trans people, a neuro-link that's destroying peoples' lives. it literally has everything.

the get down is not just an lgbt show, BUT it has an incredible lgbt character/storyline that i adore. a musical show, a historical fiction piece (which means a lot coming from me), and almost every character is a poc. pls give it a shot it's everything

bodies is another one that isn't just about lgbt+ rep BUT. it's incredibly diverse, examining people facing discrimination throughout history (you've got a gay mc, a jewish mc, a muslim mc, AND a disabled mc) and it just has such amazing plot lines and representation. it's a murder mystery/sci-fi double whammy, so give it a shot if you're interested!!

movies:

alex strangelove is a good, underrated, coming of age classic. it follows a guy who struggles with his sexuality. very teen rom-com-dramedy core!!

i adored boy meets girl when i watched it. a very romcom-y movie about a trans woman from a small town dreaming of getting out....... friends to lovers.......... i adore it

happiest season is a christmas movie and it's very sweet. its been panned (there are some just criticisms on the plot tbf) BUT i do think it's really cute

to wong fu thanks for everything julie newmar is just. so so good. it's an underrated classic imo. three drag queens go on road trip, end up in a small town, and change it for the better. it's literally so amazing it's just feel good found family PLEASE give this one a shot

the birdcage is another classic i so genuinely enjoy. who doesn't want robin williams and nathan lane as their gay dads. at the end of the day it's all about found family, love, and old gay men.

handsome devil is a foreign film - irish to be exact! - and i love it so much. once again as a catholic school kid.......... yeah. YEAH. anyway go watch the og gay nicholas galitzine movie LKNDKFNKNLFNKLF

pride is a historical piece and an excellent movie. it's got its ups and downs but god it's just an overall good movie. another irish film, coincidentally!

the way he looks is also a foreign film, this time in spanish, BUTTTTT it's one of my faves i love it so much. it's very feel-good, sweet, romcom so if you feel like you could be into that - give it a shot!!

rent, if you're into musicals, has some of my fave musical characters ever. angel dumott schunard you will ALWAYS be the love of my life. it is deeply sad but. other than that. i live in denial.

the prom is a much more light-hearted and silly lgbt musical. people shat on that movie but i think it's SWEET and cute and has some bangers!!

i mean like. we can joke ab how hyped it is all we want but brokeback mountain is basically required gay watching. it is EXACTLY as amazing as everyone says it is. the chemistry..... oh my god we could never make that movie again it was like catching lightning in a bottle.

bodies, bodies, bodies is a fun and campy lgbt horror if you're into that kind of thing!! the ending was a bit not my fave but otherwise it's an incredible cast and got some great silly scares

on the topic of gay horror, jennifer's body is gay and again, exactly as good as everyone hypes it up to be. you want gay women who are terrible to each other? oh boy do i have the movie for you

and i promise ill wrap on gay horror with it chapters 1 & 2. reddie will unfortunately always be famous.

everything, everywhere, all at once is not Just a gay movie BUT. it has an incredible gay character and it factors so interestingly into the mother/daughter relationship. i love that movie i will always talk about it

music (these are all just people i personally listen to but there are SO many more. im not gonna expand on these ones too much just go check em out you'll get it):

lil nas x

troye sivan

kim petras

kesha

tegan and sara

brandi carlile

hayley kiyoko

rina sawayama

peach prc

renee rapp

adam lambert

scene queen

willow

halsey

clairo

cavetown

janelle monae

[liebgirl]

the thing of it is that nicholas galitzine is not necessarily Good at playing gay, because well at the end of it all you can tell he does it for attention. which i think is a feminist win but that’s neither here nor there. i mean that he has the like, vibe of a man who believes so deeply within his soul that he’s heterosexual so he thinks playing gay is fun because it’s Acting in a way that playing straight is not. bear with me, you’re about to get a glimpse of 2021 beth. and by that i mean i’m about to bring up pete davidson. actually maybe most of you should stop reading his post right now or possibly two sentences ago. anyway. what i mean to say is that he’s like if pete davidson was like. talented. if pete davidson could act and sing he’d be doing everything nicholas galitzine is doing, but he can’t so he’s doing mid comedy and like so much weed. god bless america. basically pete davidson is so deep in method acting as a straight man he doesn’t even know he’s performing. i don’t mean to suggest that he’s secretly gay i’m just saying if you analyze his behavior you can like. see within him where the staten island ideal of heteronormative masculinity took root inside his soul. you know. basically you can tell that his whole life is a performance and he thinks he’s winning but he’s not because he will never be happy until he can deconstruct the roles gender and sexuality have played in his endless quest to find acceptance. he needs a lesbian friend so bad and GOD i wish that were me. i had a point. hold on. so like. i don’t know shit about nicholas galitzine as a person but i’ve been looking at the man on various screens for months and there is something about the way he moves and the way he says certain things, especially while he’s playing gay, that gives pete davidson to me. so i’ve taken that similarity and extrapolated from it that he almost definitely has similar issues. i don’t think a lesbian friend would fix him though i think whatever his deal is is unfixable and we should probably put him down in a few years before he does anything crazy like date a kardashian or star in a biopic or something idk. my point was basically going to be that i think. actually i forgot my point. oh yeah i think he loves playing gay for attention but he’s not super good at it because he still has the last sliver of internalized homophobia you can’t knock out of a man until he tries gay sex or talks to a lesbian once or has a daughter who’s in middle school. it’s complicated. don’t argue with me about his ability to play gay i think i know more about the subject than you ok i watched the craft legacy i was there. ok i was half there i don’t truly remember that movie. but i remember the vibe ok i was there. basically. WHAT was i talking about. i love stream of consciousness posting i’ve been writing this post for like 20 minutes probably. basically it’s crazytown that this movie is being sold as a gay romcom but they don’t even make out sloppy it’s like what’s the point if we aren’t getting a little nasty. a little freaky. casey wouldn’t approve of this. ok well. casey did approve of this i’m pretty sure they’re a producer but they didn’t write the movie and i believe in my soul that if they had been more involved in this process there would have been freak shit happening. i’m reading this book ok i know henry is slipping alex so much tongue and it was NOT translated onscreen!! and i’ve chosen to blame that british man and also matthew because he has ras syndrome. which is when you’re gay and in charge of a movie or show and you’re fucking obsessed with the hot straight man who’s playing your gay little character that you like so bad. ras is not the first to do it but he is by far one of the worst offenders i’ve ever seen like goddamn can we free kj apa from his clutches. i forgot the point again. basically. i think if nicholas took a break from playing gay in movies and tried gay sex he would become better at playing gay in movies. or he would stop entirely. idk

[krinklecutreads]

Title: Stripped (Four Bears Construction, #6)

Author: K.M. Neuhold

Rating: 4.5/5

Date Finished: February 14, 2025

Review: Happy Valentine's Day nerds!

Book 6 out of 8 in this series complete! Though oddly, it refers to book 7 as the final book a lot? Maybe the 8th is just an add-on in the universe, idk.

So far I think this is my favorite book out of the series. It feels like the author has really gotten into their rhythm with this series at this point and I love it.

I loved this book. Fuck yeah trans main character! We've got Miller, one of the men who works at Four Bears Construction. I think he's 40ish. And then we've got Demetri, an adorable ACTUAL BEAR of a professor. I don't mean like, the animal. I mean like, gay culture bear. Big burly guy with lots of body hair. I always found it super amusing that the construction company was called Four Bears when none of the original four were typical bears. Muscle bears, sure, but not your typical bear. And only one of the other guys in the series has ended up with a bear, basically.

Either way this story is ADORABLE (also steamy, but that's just how this series rolls and I love it). They meet in this book in the bathroom of all places, when Miller's dick kinda just... escapes his pants and rolls into the next stall. Where Demetri is just doing his business.

Turns out our two main characters actually knew each other as kids and went to summer camp together when they were around 11. And Miller had a huuuuge crush on Demetri even back then.

This book does focus a lot on body image for BOTH main characters, so that's a warning to anyone reading it. Demetri has had some shitty exes that made him feel awful about being a fat man (calling it what it is, even if the author just used chubby for the most part, but I'm fat as fuck, so I embrace the word fat). And Miller with just the concerns of a gay man being okay with his anatomy as it is, he hasn't had bottom surgery and doesn't plan on it.

Luckily they both almost focus so much on making the other person know that they LIKE their partners bodies that they just... don't focus on the body anxiety for themselves, which I appreciated.

The author set up the next book, which is Apollo and Ridge, which should be interesting. Seems like they will be a second chance romance of sorts? We'll see. They author ALSO set up the next series, Big Bull Mechanics, which I will 100% be reading next. I was gonna go and read their tattoo based series, but because this Mechanics one got set up during the Construction series, I'm ready for it.

I really enjoy the romcom of all of the books in this series. I really do. Life has been A Lot lately, and these kinds of books are exactly what I need for some escapism.

[ghost4ghosts]

okay whatever here are my s2 bingo cards

[ID: a bingo card titled "ofmd s2 NORMAL version" with the following squares highlighted in blue: spanish jackie (gets more hubbies); sexy stede with a sword; ed covered in blood 💖; ep 1 ed goes batshit; more british nonsense; FREE; revenge crew boat re-acquisition montage; lucius lives; jim becomes lucius (fanon relationship advisor); izzy hands smackdown; more. buttons; "i love you"; jim + frenchie leather fits; izzy catharsis (NOT DYING) and underneath in bold the word well. a square with "ends in a cliffhanger" has a transparent question mark as the background. end description.]

[ID: a bingo card titled "ofmd s2 bingo not a chance in hell version" with the following squares highlighted in blue: c j comeback in ANY way; pirate drag; MORE ASIAN PIRATES (FILIPINO??); Izzy saying I love you (IN ANY WAY); FREE; idk onscreen torture; stede kills someone on purpose; word of mouth homosexual izzy confirmation. a square saying izzy dies with a crying emoticon has the transparent background of a meme of mr. incredibles shaded in black and white and looking messed up and scary. end description.]

more chatting under the cut:

thoughts:

the only two squares i thought were guaranteed going to happen were 1) BB breakup crew leather outfits and 2) another cliffhanger ending. idk it just felt inevitable. otherwise this entire season was a wild ride

i wrote "jim becomes lucius" in the sense of turning into the New Relationship Advisor-- i imagined them talking to ed about stede or whatever, NOT them telling izzy he's in an unhealthy relationship 0_o

i feel fucking terrible for putting "izzy hands smackdown" now 😭😭 because i was expecting a fair fight that he loses, NOT, like, the entire fucking season.

also i filled in "izzy catharsis" after ep4 when he got his leg with no clue how the season would end. i'm still counting it anyway.

stede's shitty pirate disguise was inspired by the fic #gentlebeard is trending! by regional_catastrophe because that fic was funny as hell

even though i knew about zheng yi sao before geting into ofmd, i just didn't think we would get a major asian character (lucius voice: the bar is on the floor). except i'm kinda iffy on her relation to the plot so idk. diversity win? the asian character is less of a character than a plot device? :/

^ my real dream come true would've been a filipino character played by a filipino actor but that almost never happens

izzy telling ed he loves him was nice.

re: word of mouth gay izzy confirmation. i thought it would be funny if he looked into the camera and straight up said "i'm gay" because half of this fandom wouldn't be able to recognize him as an older gay man without him doing so LOL. confessing to his captain is close enough

DRAG!! that was super fun at least. wee john and izzy were so gorgeous.

the torture scene?!?! that was my throwaway square, the whump fodder square, the absolutely 0% chance of it happening square. it should've been longer but that's because i'm sexualizing it. i'm not sorry.

i don't have much to say on izzy's death that wasn't already said in the 24 hours after ep8 aired. this was the one thing that i seriously, genuinely didn't think they would do. i put that square in for a laugh (the same way ed cuts off people's toes, i guess). "con said the show is kind," i thought, "there's no way they would do major character death in the pirate romcom." oh how i was wrong.

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

The thing I think a lot of people with these takes are failing to get is that we do see Ed as morally grey and they're the ones who see Ed as all or nothing. Like morally grey doesn't mean evil abusive piece of shit who happens to be a protagonist. I don't consider Walter White, for instance, to be terribly morally grey. Morally grey refers to characters who are difficult to sort into good and bad. they're characters who do both right and wrong. You'll notice that this encompasses a lot of shit, but a lot of times villain protagonists end up being almost all bad and classic heroes end up being almost all good. Morally grey characters are a bit more human than that, they can be mostly morally upright characters that fall into bad habits or do things which they know are fucked up/go against their morals due to extenuating circumstances(I think Ed falls into this catagory); they can be completely amoral characters who do good due to interpersonal attachments; they can have kind of a fucked up moral system that leads them to do both good and bad things; they can be characters who commit themselves to a goal which is good but not really care who they hurt in their quest (superhero comics really like this type of guy). The point being that morally grey is an incredibly broad catagory, but "character who you think has done so much bad that they are unworthy of a happy ending and will definitely fuck one up by their very nature" is not a character which the umbrella of morally grey covers. If you're looking for readings of Ed that accept him as morally grey you would be better served by reading meta of people who like Ed than meta by people who think he's an abusive piece of shit who's definitely going to start hitting Stede because those of us who actually watched the show see good in him, unlike the people who are making the above argument who just clutched their pearls when Izzy experienced consequences and were on their phones whenever Ed and Stede had a scene together.

All of that being said, I don't think that "Morally Grey" is the best way to analyze OFMD characters simply because the shows morality is a little bit fucked up and weird and it asks you to leave your irl morals at the door so we can watch the pirates kiss for a few hours. Ed is the most classically morally grey character in OFMD simply because he feels the most bad about the killing. Everyone else is just mostly fine with it, as is the show itself. It's one of the shows best features. I love gays who murder people in romcoms.

“so much of the fandom doesn’t want to analyze ed’s actions” we DO actually love analyzing ed’s actions however our conclusions after doing so are not “that was so fucked up and evil of him i can’t believe the show lets him be happy despite how evil and fucked up he is” which means apparently our takes are not “nuanced” enough and don’t grapple with how ed is such a morally gray character or whatever

[earlyspringtranscendence]

you know what would be super epic and is absolutely not ever going to happen ? if kaladin and adolin got together. or honestly, if anyone other than kaladin and shallan got together