#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

[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.

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - No Thoughts Only Bed Friends

March 2023 Wk 3

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs. Organized by which ones (in each category) I’m enjoying most.

Ongoing Series - Thai

Bed Friend (Sat YT, GaGa & iQIYI uncut) ep 5 of 8 - Consent King is great. The nail clipping injury thing was absurd. I love King’s admission that he’s attracted to Uea’s cool aloof meanness. Also I like that office politics and nepotism have come in to play, this is an office romance after all. King’s “back the fuck off” expression is one of the best. And then there are bits of the friendship/work dynamics that are laugh out loud funny. This is a great show. 

A Boss and a Babe (Fri YouTube) ep 3 of 12 - I honestly can’t decide about the babe character. Do I like him or is he too much an idiot? There is a way to play innocence where it’s cheeky not frustrating, but this is edging on frustrating. Mr Boss is a hard core flirt. What is this I feel? Just… old fashioned trope exhaustion. I HATE the younger brother character but love the home family. All in all, this show still makes me smile, not sure why, but it keeps me watching.  

Tin Tam Jai (Tues Gaga & iQIYI) ep 3 of 12 - Continues to be slice of life sweet and somewhat silly. Second lead syndrome strikes... and then vanishes. 

Pastsenger (Thai Weds Gaga) 2 of 12 eps - I just don’t like any of the characters. They’re boring. Also we are back to that old pulp mistake of not matching foundation properly and not blending at the jaw line. Which I find endlessly distracting. I do like that the sunshine idiot time traveller is trying to take care of his dead bestie’s kid and said kid is hella gay for it. 

The Promise (Thai Weds YT) ep 3 of 10 - I’m bored. 

Chains of Heart (Sat iQIYI) ep 5 of 10 - A confession is not an excuse. Do we trust Leu or not? Now a random doctor character has shown up? It feels like we are watching the whole thing out of sequence, not just the flashbacks but as if the story hasn’t been edited together properly. what is going on? 

Our Winter (Thai & Korea YT & TikTok under ThaiMiniSeries) ep 12-13 of 14 - whatever. 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Our Dating Sim (Korea Thurs Viki) eps 3-4 of 8 - I can’t. It’s so good. They’re so good... and so bad at flirting. And SO into each other. The saddest part of my week is reading the phrase “the next episode will not be available for 7 days.”

All the Liquors (Korea Thurs Gaga & Viki) eps 5-6 of 8 - That’s it, that’s the reason? The chef is allergic to alcohol? I don’t understand, why such a big deal? What happened to that plot point? Why did he change his mind? OK, I guess that is the end of that conflict? Now we’re in it just for a cute romcom? Fine. Who needs story structure? Especially when they have a date that is all about tasting local food and baby boy has a cute striped sweater with extra long flappity-flappy sleeves. The credit extras sequence was GREAT! I found the two gay boys expressions over the hets flirting = one if the most relatable moments in BL cinematic history.  

Unintentional Love Story (Korea Fri iQIYI) 1-2 of 10- Ji Won Young is intent on winning over the heart of Yoon Tae Joon as he's the boss's favorite artist. Plot: evil corporation is evil, artist is DEEP and not evil. Opens with a wrongful termination, debt issues, bird poop, & broken plate = our poor sunshine cutie can’t catch a break. Gongchan (maknae of B1A4) is GREAT in this role. Like really good. The tsundere ceramicist better be in hiding for a DAMN good reason. I don’t wan’t to be in another Liquors sitch. Meanwhile: “just a little kabedon to see if you’re gay“ really? That’s your excuse? Love the cafe owner & combative foodie romance boys, side dish syndrome coming on strong already. (The guy playing the muscled waiter is the lead from You Make Me Dance). [FYI I had to search on Google to find it on iqiyi, for some reason they weren’t listing the first 2 eps internally: Ep 1, Ep 2]

A Shoulder to Cry On (Korea Tues Viki & Gaga) eps 1-2 of 7 - Adaptation of Dongmul's manwha, high school set, features a teasing confident gay, and a rich/poor pairing. Star idols Jaehan & Yechan BOTH from OMEGA X, a first for the industry. AND..... I don’t like it. Very bully romance, without the mature teasing of Semantic Error or the kinky hotness of My Beautiful Man. I HATE outing with false accusations (implication = to be gay is evil), aided and abetted by adults. (It’s as close to a trigger as I get.) It makes for an unforgivable bad-boy character. Lots of the “crash into me“ trope. (Who do they think they are? Taiwan?) I’ll keep watching but I’m not happy about it, and I don’t see how they can possibly redeem the bad boy - tragic past or no. Now that he switched to flirting the dynamic is better, but I will never trust him. 

Jack o’Frost (Japan Fri GaGa) ep 5 of 6 - Honestly? Perhaps their relationship should end. Why do I care? They seem ill suited. 

It’s Airing But ...

Love Syndrome (Thai Sat WeTV) stopped at ep 2 of 12 - I’m just not into any aspect of it (except Lee Long Shi and I can watch him in Tin Tem Jai) - saving to binge if the end is solid.

Blue Sky Complex (Japan ???) 5 eps for VR - Kei Ichikawa's manga is getting a JBL adaptation. Weird distribution though, it started Feb 27 sequentially on 360 Channel (SHOCHIKUch) a VR video distribution service. Will inter-fans ever get to see this, and if it’s filmed for VR will it adapt without being overly dark and fuzzy? I have questions. But as usual, you do you Japan and we will wait (im)patiently to see if you remember the rest of the world exists. This is my preferred kind of live action yaoi, so fingers crossed.

Boyband (Thai) ep 2 of 10 - Stopped airing on YouTube, and only available in Thailand & Japan. Not sure if they’re working a distribution deal or just fucking with us.

Cafe In Love (Thai ???) 10 eps on Ch3+ - Thai pulp, about trying to save a coffee shop. FairyGodBLer came through for me, but I’m collecting to binge just in case. It’s my new policy with the grey stuff.

Destiny Seeker (Tues WeTV Thailand) 10 eps - it’s not on any WeTV I can get ahold of. Bad Buddy the pulp rebirth meets Japanese handsome host club action. Same as above.

Heesu In Class 2 (Korea Thurs unknown, I check Viki Gaga iQIYI & WeTV nada) - A gay(er) version of Sex Education. I’m still not sure this one is actually happening.

In case you missed it

I’m putting this here because I missed it: Ready?

Laos produced their version of Boys Over Flowers called Oh My 4. It is... not very good BUT 2 of the F4 have a BL arc with each other!!! (The bad boy and the musician.) You know I’ve been wanting the all gay BoF for YEARS but this is as close as we’ve gotten. Don’t ask, I have no idea how to get it all. But some of it is on YT. 

Next Week Looks Like This:

Liquors & Jack both end. 

Tomorrow: Future (Thai Sun YouTube & Gaga) ep 1 of 5 - Based on a y-novel by Faddest (En of Love) about an engineering student and a dentist. We can expect this one to be soft, it’s from the 21 Day Theory people.

3/22: Make a Wish (Thai Weds YouTube) from WaGa Creative staring Fluke Natouch (OhmFluke UWMA etc...) & Judo (The Miracle Of Teddy Bear) in a medical-fantasy. It seems to be a light-hearted romance with a comedic flair. About a doctor who sees ghosts and a deity who resides in a Bodhi tree that earns merits whenever he fulfills a wish based on a y-novel by Sammon (Manner of Death, Triage). 

Full list of upcoming in March 2023 is here.

2023 forthcoming BL master post. (see comments, some are inaccurate, NOT KEPT UPDATED)

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENT

Definitely Top 10 MINE glares (Bed Friend). 

(last week)

Current Kpop earworm? Team B cover of Dang Dang Dang. Look the tiny corner of my heart not occupied by BL is entire taken over by Peak Time. 

[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.

[ladyluscinia]

I don't often block purely for bad takes found in the wild, but what the everloving fuck is this:

"Uses the toe thing against Ed". Is this person insane? Huh? Are you insane? If Izzy - who got his toe cut off in the middle of the night and fed to him by his boss, and then was immediately expected to jump to following orders - uses this against said boss, you're going to take this as validation he's abusive and in fact worsening his abuse.

Abuse against Edward? The boss who cut his toe off???

Izzy???? Who you yourself admit in your post that you can't find an example of making an unambiguous threat of harm (worse than "watch your step") or committing any sort of physical violence against Edward!

If he is, idk, upset about being maimed in his sleep in the next season (which may actually start with the wound getting worse?), then that's a fucking DARVO tactic now that baby's first psych 101 course has introduced you to the concept???

We are supposed to see this as DARVO abuse tactics in - and this is crucial to remember - in the Gay Pirate Romcom????

The Gay Pirate Romantic Comedy that a fairly mainstream (how is this take not from a batshit corner of internet?) section of the fandom believes (???) wrote a bigotry motivated domestic abuse arc between their love interest and the primary loser antagonist. You know. As a fun little side thing. Where it's a deep examination of how abuse isn't always so clear by having the character in the position of authority be the only one to commit physical violence and the undeniable abuse victim at the same time. This makes sense so stop questioning it, because if you do you are an abuse apologist and probably a racist.

What. The Fuck.

Like this is so far beyond character wank or just having piss poor media interpretation, and naturally they ended with snide remarks toward everyone who hasn't completely rewritten the show to believe this over the past year. You know, in case you thought it was just limited to character wank. This is... I don't even know what this is. Forging new roads of making up shit in "your blorbo sucks and my blorbo is perfect" discourse to actively harass people over.

(If anyone with zero context is stumbling across this I cannot emphasize enough that genuinely the dynamic in the show is two pirates being kinda shitty to each other with divorce vibes. Antagonist tries to get his boss's new boyfriend killed because he hates the boyfriend as a person (and to advance the plot), boss punches him in the face, <insert laughs>. Despite how gruesome the toe thing sounds, the humor is pretty violent so like the boss isn't an abuser either. He's super sympathetic (he was having a bit of a breakdown) and literally just needs to say sorry to mark his character growth. It's a romcom.)

[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

[livvyofthelake]

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.

[aurorawest]

Reading update

Based on the cover, I was originally pretty skeptical of this book, but then I read all of Roan Parrish's other books and now she's one of my favorite authors. This is one of her earlier books (maybe her first? not sure) but it's really good. It's got my favorite things—complicated relationship with father and brothers + traumatized young man who doesn't know how to love himself. Also gay sex. Genuinely though, I really loved Daniel's and Rex's love story.

Now this one surprised me. This was an Illumicrate book which I fully expected to not enjoy, because the summary didn't sound very interesting. But it was GREAT. Listen, my opinion that will get me canceled is that I typically don't read books with female protagonists anymore, because they're so often written horribly. This book has wonderfully written women. The world is really unique and cool, and it was just generally an interesting take on the When is a monster not a monster? Oh, when you love it trope.

I read Young Mungo (Douglas Stuart's second novel) last year and loved it, so I snatched this book up when I found it used in my local bookstore. It was pretty much exactly what I expected: sad but lovely. I enjoyed Young Mungo more, but that's because I enjoy romance more than mother-son relationships. It's not a knock on this book at all, which is a devastating portrayal of a child trying to parent his alcoholic mother. Anyway yeah, read it. And read Young Mungo, too.

This was such a fun read! It doesn't break any new ground and it's completely predictable, but that's fine, it's an adorable YA romcom, and the point is to see the end coming from a mile away. I laughed out loud quite a few times as I was reading, and I was definitely rooting for Micah and Elliot. I also am always a sucker for stories that have an evils-of-fame storyline.

So this is a series that I used to love. It's very All Creatures Great and Small, only it's with human doctors and it takes place in Northern Ireland in the 1960s. I don't know if it's that my tastes have changed or if the series just isn't as good anymore, but I really didn't enjoy this book. At all. Patrick Taylor is...not actually a very good writer? Like he's constantly clumsily info-dumping and it drove me crazy in this book. The others must have been the same way but I probably overlooked it because I enjoyed them more.

The sequel to In the Middle of Somewhere, which follows Daniel's older brother Colin. Which was a brave fucking move on Parrish's part, because in In the Middle of Somewhere, Colin is a horrible asshole to Daniel. He's cruelly picked on Daniel ever since Daniel was a young teen, and without going into a lot of details, it was all pretty homophobic (to the point of a physical altercation). He's just a dick, basically.

Anyway, I guess I can't really talk about this one without spoiling the first one, but as it turns out, Colin is gay, has known it for many years, knew it when Daniel came out to him, and was still a dick for all that time. He is very very closeted and wants to please his father EVEN MORE than Daniel does in the first book. I actually like this one even more than the first book, because Parrish takes this character who is nasty and awful and turns the whole thing around. It's really a master class in unreliable narration (CS Pacat might be the only other author I can think of who pulls it off this well). Colin's and Rafael's love story is really beautiful, too.

Ginn Hale! Gay demons! Fantasy noir! Blood! Hurt/comfort! What's there not to like!

This is actually two novellas in one book. The first novella is from Belimai's (the demon's) POV, and is a mystery. The second is a sequel from Harper's (the detective's) POV and deals with the fallout from the first novella. I absolutely loved both but that's not saying anything because I love everything Ginn Hale writes.

This book was weird as hell but really good. The basic plot is, two young men help a goddess escape captivity, but that just like...does not do it justice. The beauty of this book is in its prose and its weirdness. And its slow burn romance. Highly recommended, but it's not light reading. Also isn't that cover gorgeous? I spent a lot of time just staring at it.

Like the cover says, the prequel to They Both Die at the End. It's not as good. And there was some really forced plot stuff that made me roll my eyes. Still a decent read, especially if you liked the first one.

I'm currently reading this one! I'm already loving how it's building on the events of the second book, and appreciated the wonderfully gory opening, haha.