#but representation is important for everyone

[laviefantasie]

Video 4

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The sun is setting over the jujutsu high compound, casting warm hues across the courtyard. Inside one of the quieter rooms, Y/N is setting up a small easel, your canvas ready for the first stroke. Brushes, tubes of paint, and a small ceramic bowl of water are neatly arranged beside you. Suguru is already there, sleeves rolled up, looking as if he’s about to become the next world renowned artist. His hair is a little more disheveled than usual, but the slight smirk on his face tells you he is comfortable.

“Alright, the camera is on and focused and I’m setting up my canvas for real this time. You sure you want to join me, Suguru? You’re not really the type to sit still for long”

Suguru chuckles softly, picking up a brush and dipping it into a warm shade of blue.

“It’s called expanding my horizons, Y/N. Plus, I thought you could use a little company”

You nod, smiling as you adjust your canvas, although a teasing twink appears in your bright E/C eyes.

“If we’re doing this, though, don’t turn it into a competition” you remind him, “No ‘who can paint better’ nonsense”

Suguru gives you a lazy, amused grim, clearly enjoying the thought of teasing you while painting.

“No promises” he smirks “But I’ll try my best to make something that doesn’t end in chaos”

Both of you dip your brushes into your chosen colors and start painting. But just as the two of you start getting into the flow of it—Suguru’s brush strokes deliberate and calm, yours more spontaneous and bright—a loud crash interrupts the settled peace.

The door flies open and Gojo Satoru enters with an exaggerated flourish, sunglasses on, and a pout plastered on his face.

“Hey, hey! What is this? You two started a painting party without me!” He whines, “I thought we were friends, Y/N!”

Suguru raises an eyebrow as Satoru dramatically collapses on the floor, looking up to the ceiling with a hand over his heart.

“Did you just… fall in through the door for dramatic effect?” Suguru asks.

Satoru grins widely, “I’m just adding some flair, Suguru. How else do you think I should enter? Also, where’s my invite? I thought we were the three musketeers”

You stifled a laugh, trying to focus on your work, but the camera didn’t forget to capture the small smile tugging at your lips.

“Sorry not sorry, Satoru” you say, “Didn’t think you were the type to sit still and paint. I figured you’d be too busy doing something… important, like annoying people or emptying another dessert shop”

Satoru sats up immediately, and dramatically, throwing his arms out as if wounded.

“Ouch! Is that how you see me? That hurts. I’m offended! I’m a man of taste and class, I’d totally be amazing at painting”

Suguru shakes his head with an amused smile, muttering knowingly to himself as he mixes some paint.

“You wouldn’t last five minutes without making a mess”

Satoru ignores him, “You know, I’m actually artistic. I’m like… a modern-day Picasso. Or Van Gogh—except I have my ears intact”

You turn to glance a him, skepticism on your face.

“Sure. And you’ve definitely read all kinds of art history books, right?”

Satoru winks at her playfully, “Well, I don’t read, but I’m sure I could paint circles around both of you”

Suguru rolls his eyes but, apparently done with Satoru’s antics, offers him a brush.

“Fine. If you’re so confident, you can join us” he relents, “But I’m warning you, we’re professionals here”

The three of them get to work, and immediately, Satoru begins to disrupt everything. You are trying to focus on a landscape with some subtle blending, while Suguru’s painting a more intricate figure. Meanwhile, Satoru is working on his own ‘masterpiece’, which mostly involves scribbling random, chaotic shapes with his brush, his colors clashing wildly with everyone else’s.

Satoru holds up his canvas proudly, “Look, I’m totally channeling my inner abstract genius! It’s a representation of freedom, of rebellion! What do you think?”

You stares at the chaotic mess in front of you, the blue and red clashing violently. You snort, holding back a laugh.

“You’re an actual disaster. It looks like a toddler dipped a paintbrush in a jar of chaos and went wild”

“It’s art” he states, grinning widely.

Suguru chuckles, setting his brush down for a second as he glances over.

“It’s definitely something. Not sure if it’s art, though”

Satoru sticks his tongue out at him before turning back to you, his expression suddenly shifting to something more playful. He walks over to your easel, leaning casually over your shoulder, his face close enough that you can feel the heat of his body.

“But, you know, you’re missing one thing in your painting, Y/N”

You raise an eyebrow, not sure whether you should be annoyed or entertained.

“Oh? And what’s that?”

Satoru leans in just a little closer, his voice lowering to a teasing tone.

“A little bit of me. A masterpiece can’t be complete without a dash of perfection”

You roll your eyes, but your cheeks turn a light pink against your better judgement. You can never tell if he’s being serious or just trying to get under your skin.

You grab a paintbrush, quickly flicking a spot of green paint onto Satoru’s shirt.

“There. Now it’s perfect” you smirk.

Satoru stares at the green stain, his mouth falling open in mock horror.

“You’ve ruined me. Ruined my shirt. My image. I’m a tragic artist now”

Suguru laughs from his corner of the room, shaking his head at the two of you.

“You both are insufferable. Seriously, how do you guys even manage to get anything done together?” Suguru asks.

You let out a laugh, “It’s called balance, Suguru. I paint, and Satoru provides chaos”

Satoru dramatically flops onto the floor again, spreading his arms out as if he’s defeated.

“You know, this could’ve been a perfect group activity if it weren’t for you two conspiring against my genius”

Suguru raises a brow, amused, “You are a genius—just not in the way you think you are”

After a few more hours of chaotic painting, in which a lot of paint ended up in both Satoru’s and your clothes, the three of you step back and admire each of your works.

Satoru’s piece now has a mix of random scribbles and strange shapes, while Suguru’s work is meticulously detailed, with deep serene colored forming a landscape. Yours is a bright piece, a playful interpretation of the sky, with clouds hues of purple and pink—vibrant and dreamy.

You stare at the painting for a few minutes before turning to look at yourself… covered in paint. You frown.

“Well… this was a disaster” a smile tugs at your lips, “Although, I kinda fun one”

Satoru grins, throwing a playful wink your way.

“What can I say? I bring the fun wherever I go” he brags.

Suguru shakes his head but smiles quiestly, glancing at both of them with something akin to fondness in his eyes.

“Somehow we made it out. It was fun, though I kinda wished Shoko had been here” he sighs, “Would’ve helped me deal with you two”

You send him an offended look while Satoru simply grins widely. Suddenly, Satoru pulls out his phone, snapping a picture of the three pieces.

“Perfect!” He smiles, “This is going straight into my ‘masterpieces’ collection”

“It’s not masterpieces if it’s just an album of your selfies” you remind him, amused.

“Masterpieces, Y/N, masterpieces”

Holding back a laugh, you move to grab the videocamera recording the whole process, closing it so the screen goes black.

The recording ending.

taglist: @gumiiiiezzzz @reagan707

FOR SOME REASON TUMBLR ISNT ALLOWING ME TO LINK SOME OF MY PARTS. I’M SORRY

[part-time-zombie]

Y'know, I may have an idea of why Janus hates Roman so much.

(besides the whole name reveal incident of course)

It always seemed that Janus kinda looked down on Roman even from the very start, but didn't make it clear until flattering him didn't give him what he wanted.

So he doesn't like Roman, and likely never really did, but why? They have a lot in common: dramatic flair, love of theater, fashionable and a fan of gossip, i think they'd at least have a friendly rivalry like pre-aa prinxiety did, so why not?

I think it's because their one key difference is too much to ignore (and no, I'm not talking about their hero/villain aesthetics, if anything they'd appreciate the banter they'd get from it).

Roman has an image to maintain. Janus does too, but his is much more based on personality, not perception. People want him to be the bad guy, and since it gets things done he'll play along.

Roman's the ego, his image is much more important to him.

Roman needs to be seen as the good guy, the hero. The only reason he's split from Remus is because Patton wants him to be a representation of everything good and pure about creativity. He's built his entire role around being a prince, knight, and hero, all of which are expected to prioritize honor, integrity, and altruism. He can't allow himself to be selfish, or it'll risk destroying the persona he has built for himself. Patton taught him that the right thing to do is put others before yourself, and he's already learned by now that his arrogance is a flaw that people disapprove of, so of course he'd think that committing to total selflessness would remedy his past mistakes (i.e. focusing on himself).

Janus, however, knows that Roman is holding himself back by doing this, and that if he were to stop caring so much about his image he'd be way better off. He also knows, though, that Roman won't realize that. He's too worried about maintaining his princely role to let himself be selfish, and Janus has no time for that.

What this leads to is Janus wanting Roman to stop caring what everyone else thinks and start caring about himself, and Roman going "you know what? I'm going to start caring about my image even more" and Janus just calling him an idiot for it.

This of course doesn't help, because when Janus is seen as the bad guy/villain to Roman's good guy/hero, it only makes him even more resistant to align himself with those ideals. What kind of hero agrees with a villain, anyway?

TLDR: Janus hates that Roman cares so much about his pride without realizing that he is Pride, and that not caring about it would be like not caring about himself.

[ebenelephant]

I would also like to note that the way fandom treats Lupin's class is often... not great.

I'll caveat this by saying that iirc it's very subtly implied in the books that he may only have become impoverished in adulthood (which isn't important for this discussion) and also that JKR's handling of class with the Weasley's in canon is also pretty bad (which is). She gets many class dynamics/relations down pretty well in terms of snobbishness and classism, but the Weasley family are just not well written as an example of a family on the breadline, which is what they ostensibly are.

This – not all the time, but definitely some of the time – translates to Marauders fic as well. And maybe that's just my view as someone with a better understanding of the British class system as a UK-resident than many individuals might have, but still it bears pointing out that often representation of poor/impoverished/working class characters in fanfiction (and fiction as a whole tbh) can often be classist. Especially when adding in the angle of a character being abused or orphaned, which is on the rise with Remus.

Often, it feels like Remus's class situation is for purely aesthetic purposes. Authors will talk about how insecure his old clothes make him, and Sirius will buy him a jumper. They'll make him just so starving hungry in the summers, but give only the most surface-level introspection of food insecurity, if any. He will be toughened and hardened by his time in care/on the streets/living in poverty/whatever in a way that really only leans into the stereotype that working class people are rude and unpleasant because they are working class, even though he is implied to be impoverished and possibly homeless in the books and is none of that. It's set dressing.

Snape is often rewritten as coming from a better station. Maybe they ignore that he grew up mostly muggle, or maybe they lean into the 'Prince' aspect and write him inheriting from a rich uncle or something. If not, his poverty is sort of just not addressed in a lot of Marauders fic. Again, this is anecdotal: I've seen some really interesting depictions of him before even in fics that otherwise bash on him, but the fact is that in the fics where the author clearly dislikes the character, this is rarely the case.

Snape's childhood is ugly. Coming from what is implied to be a dying Northern industrial town, he would've come into his majority over the Winter of Discontent, spent his early adulthood far away from the home that may well have been suffering under Thatcher's Britain. Maybe his dad was a union man. Maybe there was strike action and violence in his home town. Maybe it all simply faded away to nothingness and left everyone on the dole while politicians harped on about the unemployed draining government funds. Maybe his dad hit him. It's implied that the Snape household was tumultuous and loud, and didn't feel safe. It's implied that Eileen was cold and distant. And Tobias, as a man in a dying industrial town who shouted at his wife and scared his kid, this conjures and image in the mind of many Brits. Maybe that's lost somewhat to an international audience, I don't know.

The thing is, that when Snape's poverty is overlooked almost entirely and Remus's is both exaggerated and somehow made completely toothless by fandom, both instances are classist.

Alright, let’s dive into the dumpster fire that the Marauders fandom has become last years and threw any sense of canon or character integrity out the window. Because let’s be real, the way this fandom has twisted the characters of the Marauders and the Death Eaters, all while turning Severus Snape into some one-note “creepy stalker,” is embarrassing. The fandom seems obsessed with scrubbing characters clean, romanticizing abusers, inventing tragic backstories for literal sociopaths, and piling up headcanons that turn a few lines in canon into fully fleshed-out, fanon-only OCs. And somehow, the only character who gets relentlessly dragged and demonized is Severus Snape—a character who has actual complexity and trauma. It’s hypocritical, classist, and downright gross.

Let’s start with Severus. Canon Snape is a guy who came from nothing: poor background, abusive father, dead-end town. He didn’t fit into the wizarding world, was relentlessly bullied by privileged Marauders, and still somehow managed to survive and make something of himself. But instead of acknowledging any of that, the fandom loves to reduce him to this “creepy obsessive” stereotype. People act like he spent every waking moment pining for Lily and never did anything else, as if that’s all his character is. Never mind the fact that he was actively trying to get out of a miserable life, or that he was, you know, bullied on a daily basis by James and Sirius, who had wealth, status, and freedom to do whatever they wanted. Nope, to the Marauders fandom, Snape is just the “weird stalker”—because acknowledging his struggles would mean admitting that their golden boys were actually kind of awful.

Meanwhile, the same people are out here bending over backward to make people like Barty Crouch Jr., Evan Rosier, and Regulus Black look like misunderstood anti-heroes. Let’s be clear: in canon, Barty Crouch Jr. was a straight-up torturer, Evan Rosier died laughing as he fought Aurors, and Regulus was a kid raised with a silver spoon who only started doubting Voldemort when he realized he’d been signed up as snake chow. But no, fanon has turned these guys into “tragic, complex Slytherins” who were “just trying to survive.” It’s like they’re desperate for some tortured prince narrative, so they invent personalities out of thin air to give us this dreamy aesthetic of sad, beautiful Death Eaters who “didn’t really want to be evil.” Apparently, actually following the text is too much to ask when you’ve got fanon fantasies to uphold.

Regulus Black, in particular, has become this absurd fanon martyr. In canon, Regulus was a kid indoctrinated into pureblood ideology, who joined the Death Eaters without much hesitation. Maybe he had a change of heart eventually, but it wasn’t out of some grand moral revelation; he just realized Voldemort’s loyalty was to himself alone. Yet, according to the current fandom, Regulus is some misunderstood hero who was only “pretending” to go along with Voldemort and was “forced” into his choices. They’ve built this tragic romance around a character who, in the actual books, doesn’t have even half this depth. This Regulus in fanon is practically an OC at this point, and people cling to this made-up version of him so hard that they’ll defend it like it’s canon. It’s hilarious, and it’s also just plain wrong.

And let’s talk about the Marauders themselves. In canon, James and Sirius were rich, spoiled brats who spent their school years bullying anyone who didn’t fit into their world. They were kids with every privilege, and they used it to torment people like Snape, who had nothing. But the Marauders’ fandom has turned them into these fluffy, “good-hearted” rebels who just made “a few mistakes.” I’m sorry, but nearly killing someone as a “prank” is a bit more than a mistake. Yet people will ignore that or wave it away as “boys will be boys” just to keep up the illusion that James and Sirius were lovable scamps. It’s maddening—and it’s also classist as hell. They erase all the ugly realities of the Marauders’ behavior and then turn around and judge Snape for being “obsessive” and “weird” when he was just trying to survive in a world stacked against him.

The classism in this fandom is so blatant it’s laughable. Snape is written off as creepy and unworthy of sympathy because he didn’t have a cushy upbringing or the social standing to make him likable. Meanwhile, characters like Barty and Regulus, who came from wealthy pureblood families, get excused and romanticized to no end. It’s like the fandom is saying, “Well, Snape deserved it because he was poor and awkward, but the rich kids? They’re just misunderstood.” It’s the kind of privilege blindness that makes you wonder if people actually read the books or if they’re just projecting their own biases onto the characters.

And let’s not forget the army of new OCs the Marauders fandom has invented just to justify this headcanon universe (Mary, Marlene, Dorcas, that that Pandora no one knows why suddenly appears here lol) You’ve got random “best friends” for Sirius, unnamed Slytherins who magically have no ties to pureblood supremacy, and love interests for Regulus who supposedly saw the “real” him. All these characters are based on nothing more than a few throwaway lines, yet people have fleshed them out to a level that they’re practically new characters in the universe. It’s like they need this entourage of made-up people to back up their version of the Marauders and Death Eaters because, without them, their headcanons would fall apart. And all of this, while they keep painting Snape as this creepy loner with no real friends or worth. The hypocrisy is unreal.

At the end of the day, the Marauders fandom has taken a bunch of characters with clear flaws and complexities and rewritten them into these sanitized, tortured souls while dumping all their scorn onto Snape. They’ll go out of their way to redeem a literal torturer like Barty Crouch Jr. or turn Regulus into some tragic hero, but they can’t bring themselves to even consider Snape’s trauma or the systematic abuse he endured. It’s all about maintaining this fantasy where their favorite characters are perfect and untouchable, even if it means twisting canon and ignoring the ugly truths about class, privilege, and abuse that is reflected into the story. And that, honestly, just makes the fandom look shallow, hypocritical, and completely disconnected from the reality.

[raisedbythetv89]

“bUfFy sHoUlD hAvE eNdEd aT sEaSoN 5” I will crawl through my phone and come out yours “the ring” style

You hate spuffy? Your business. You hate Tara’s death and everything Willow did to Tara? VALID. You wish seeing red didn’t exist? Literally so do all of us. Hating certain plot points is one thing but YOU WANT BUFFY DEAD????? You want the suicidal girl who has been sacrificing everything for EVERYONE else since she was 15 years old when she was offered up to angel as a reward for trying to do some good in his pathetic life and called to fight evil ALONE to kill herself at 20? Literally welcoming her death with open arms she is so ready to be done with life and this fight (yes I know it was to save Dawn and the world but neither of those negate the fact that they established she has a death wish and that one day she just wouldn’t want to fight anymore bc her life is just that hard - that is the textbook definition of being suicidal)

THAT IS HOW YOU WANT IT TO END?????

Seriously take 80 steps back from me expeditiously. That ending reaffirms the idea that women should just give and give and give until it kills them. That the only good victims are dead ones. Oh season 6 is sad and uncomfortable and you miss the vibes of the previous seasons? Guess what every single person who has been traumatized wishes to be the person they were before that they can never get back to. Buffy season 6 and 7 is one of the most important representations of what healing looks like after severe trauma and chronic abuse. It’s an obscenely important story to exist. It tells victims of trauma and people who suffer from depression there is a way THROUGH you CAN recover you won’t be the same but you’ll be even better if you learn to love yourself. Because of seasons 6&7 Buffy gets to reach actual adulthood empowered and supported in a way she never has been before and escaping the town that had become her personal hell

This is not some sort of evolved, media literate take that so many like to present it as. Buffy ending at s5 would just reaffirm so many problematic and harmful narratives around mental health, healing, and what is possible for women and people with childhood trauma.

S7 & the comic s12 ending tell us that it DOES get better and that death is not the way out and fighting for your future even if you can’t picture is will be worth it 🖤

[whim-prone-pirate]

interviews with oliver stark that i really really really think you should all read

https://tvline.com/lists/911-buck-tommy-gay-kiss-explained-season-7-episode-4-recap/tommy-casting-explained/

https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/911-buck-tommy-kiss-queer-episode-100-oliver-stark-interview-1235956913/

https://ew.com/911-buck-tommy-kiss-bisexual-oliver-stark-interview-8624837

none of them are extremely long and altogether its only a few thousand words. if you are as elated and envigorated and affirmed as i am, oliver's words are only going to help.

[altschmerzes]

one day my wife and i are gonna compile our enormous 'this is why this is garbage and everyone who wants to kiss this author's ass should so some serious personal reflection and also read another book im fucking begging you' review of all for the g/ame and then it will be over for all of us

[audioroleplayconfessions]

I usually avoid posting my own opinions, but I've seen a few posts like the one in the screenshot below creep across my feed lately and they're bugging me too much to keep my mouth shut. I censored the identity of this particular example because I don't want to start a Tumblr war or make them feel like I'm singling them out or attacking them.

I don't feel good about celebrating black history month through a character who was both written and performed by a white man. I know this is all just low-stakes fandom headcanon stuff and I'm not trying to control what other people do, but something feels not-quite-right about taking a character played by a white VA and deciding (on his behalf might I add) that he's black and using him as your example of black representation in the audio rp fandom.

There are black VAs out there, they can represent themselves. I really think it's disingenuous to sort through a cast of characters all played by the same white guy and assign POC races to them in order to give a singular white guy's one-man show racial diversity, then celebrate said "diversity".

Sorry, I'm not trying to be a Tumblr drama queen. If you're the person from the screenshot (or have posted something similar), I don't think you meant any harm. Your post probably wasn't meant to be that deep and not the worst thing in the world, but I don't know why you would pick a random character written and performed by a white guy and cheer "Rahhh, let's celebrate black history month with this!". If it really matters to you, you can celebrate a black VA, or a canonically black character, or even just a listener character that you/others HC as black. You can celebrate fan artists and writers who are black.

Why use characters played by Redacted for this? I promise I'm not trying to start a fight, or accuse people who've made posts like this of being racist or cancel anyone. I don't think they mean badly. But I see this a lot even outside of the context of BHM. It's almost always with characters written/performed by Redacted and it's always made me a little uneasy, especially with the amount of enthusiasm people throw onto the race they decided to HC for this one white man's characters.

If you disagree with me, I'm open to hearing you out. I don't want to try and dictate what people can/can't do in a fandom space or send a mob after anyone, but something feels off to me about using Redacted characters to celebrate BHM.

-Ringmaster

[v7n5]

Sorry can’t talk rn, I’m conjuring up an au that involves fashion designer Jesse and his muse/ famous model boyfriend Nacho.

Ok fine. So a while ago, Jesse’s enthusiasm towards character design and sketching gave me the idea of him having a knack for it ever since he was little and following that passion as he grew up. His story about the wooden box is so dear to me not only because of the hopefulness it brings but also because it reveals that he pays great attention to detail and his craft, meaning he’d be a good tailor (creativity AND meticulousness? he’s a whole package). Despite his parents’ disapproval, he’d go on to receive a scholarship from a prestigious design school in New York - where he would move to to receive a higher education and really flourish.

Nacho, who still lives with his father in ABQ and has a hard time making ends meet, would be really close to going down that drug dealer path. Manuel would talk him out of it like “you’re destined for something great and legal mijo” and he’d actually listen. But he’d insist on moving somewhere else to get away from all the affiliations he had in ABQ and to find a better career opportunity/ himself.

Time skip. They’d meet in NYC in somewhat the same way all the supermodels got discovered. And that’s as far as I could get tbh.

(True story, my socials were bombarded with images and videos from the DSQUARED2 SS 2024 collection at the time, and my immediate thought I was “Yep, Jesse Pinkman would endorse this. And who (else besides Tyler Durden) would have enough cuntential to rock this unapologetically? Nacho Varga obviously.)

[impossible-rat-babies]

being nb/trans in bg3 is kinda funny to me in that there are really nasty evil people, but at least they will call you the correct pronouns while trying to murder you

[seraphic-sibyl]

An Portrait of the Artist Singing Will Wood During Karaoke Night (and Appearing As If They Were Giving A Rather Existential PowerPoint). Digital ink on canvas, 2024.

[eerna]

remember when I got called a bigot for saying Fourth Wing is bad... good times

[statisticalcats2]

My principles and way of life are just gonna keep being based on "caring about others" while a bunch of people on all sides rant and rave about that being the most infuriating and inexcusable thing they've ever heard of.

[frogs-and-books]

I have to admit that it's so frustrating to me that people are doing this "He's canon ace but not canon aro" thing. It feels like people wanting to have it both ways at the cost aro people. If you're going to say only what's explicit in the text matters, then be honest with proper embrace of Death of the Author and disregard what Brennan said outside the context of the text. If you want to invest meaning in authorial intent, than be honest about the authorial intent with Riz. It's hard enough being aro in fandom as it is without people playing both sides of the fence on this

I'm sorry that there is a lack of aromantic representation, but you can't decide what the authorial intent was for the author. He could be aro! There's a lot of subtext and ways to read the story like that, but it's just as easy to read it as him being demiromantic or gray romantic or even just a late bloomer. Because of this, I can't confirm the authors intent unless he states it. I don't personally have an opinion on it, I just like Riz, and I'll like his character no matter what his sexuality is. I'm not going to disregard a statement from a cast member, especially when I doubt Brennan would have said without Murph's permission. That, to me at least, is confirmation of authorial intent.

I can understand why you're frustrated, but there aren't (or at least shouldn't be) sides. I'm simply saying that Riz is not canonically Aromantic, which is true. However, this does not mean that Aromantic people are somehow wrong in saying that they believe he is! Just like many other things, it is up for the viewer to decide currently.

If Murph comes out and says Riz is Aromantic, that's it. He's Aromantic. But until then, it's up for interpretation. You aren't wrong for saying he's Aromantic, but neither is someone saying he's not Aromantic.

I am so glad that Riz resonates with you, but others don't have your same experience and might relate to him in different ways, and their experience and interpretations aren't less valid than yours.

The world isn't black and white. There are so many nuisances that can be beautiful if you allow yourself to see them.

I'm not on the fence. I know exactly where I stand. Riz is canonically asexual and he has no confirmed romantic interests, although he has been shown to be less interested than his peers. This could mean many, many different things, but saying that thinking Riz is asexual but not aromantic is being on the fence is discounting real people who are asexual and not aromantic.

It's not all or nothing. I'm not out to get you or hurt anyone. It just frustrates me when people state their interpretations of media as facts and get upset when other people have different interpretations. Your interpretation isn't more valid just because it's more diverse. That would be like me reading a book where someone was never stated to have a race, but I decided that their character would make more sense if they were black, so now they're canonically black, even though I don't know what the author imagined them like. Just because it's adding diversity doesn't make it more morally correct. It doesn't make it more incorrect either. It just makes it your interpretation.

I know you're probably sick of hearing this, but it's up for interpretation, and you can't fault people for having a different interpretation of a character.

[walker-lister]

I just have to remind myself sometimes that no matter what anyone else says, the way a piece of media makes me feel and the positive impact it has had on my queer identity is valid, and that tearing myself apart thinking I have to defend it or questioning my own place within queer communities is not at all important when compared to the almost tangible sense of 'rightness' that piece of media helped me to feel about myself.

[chaossmagic]

I wish there was more representation for AFAB nonbinary people like me who don't hate our birth genders, don't want testosterone or top surgery, and are quite happy with having 'feminine' bodies and aren't that bothered about or feel the need to transition beyond a name change or new pronouns, maybe wear a binder or something similar from time to time.

So much AFAB nonbinary rep focuses on more transmasc people who want to transition to a more masculine body type or hate their boobs or whatever and I just...feel left out because that's not my experience.

[laesas]

Honestly the only people mad about Only Friends being fucked up and messy and sexually charged are either teenagers or adult shut-ins that have never actually interacted with a group of gay people in their early 20's. I promise, hand on heart. It is exactly as chaotic as that. Maybe more.