#but the fact that it keeps happening to queer shows specifically. just over and over again. it just feels fucking hopeless sometimes

[two-calicos-in-a-trenchcoat]

KAOS SEASON 2 GOT CANCELED?????

STOP CANCELING QUEER SHOWS FOR FUCKS SAKE

[sparrowssally]

Okay I lied that last rant wasn’t over

YET ANOTHER THING: I’ve seen a LOT of the blogs on here who ship David and Michael romantically talk about how David is “secretly” queer and how they’re going to be “safe spaces” for him when he’s ready to come out publicly.

Y’all. There is so, so much wrong with this for so many reasons. First of all, aside from a few rumors to the contrary that I’ve never seen any basis for, David has always been straight-presenting. He’s only dated women and is currently married to a woman, with whom he has several children. Yes, one of his kids is non-binary and he is an ardent supporter of them and an ally for the LGBTQ+ community as whole. This is GREAT. It shows he’s an engaged parent and a wonderful ally to the community. However, there is nothing pointing to the fact that that David is queer himself. Him wearing pride pins and wearing the “queer is here” sweatshirt is zero indication of his own sexuality. For all we know, he’s just supporting his kid. Also, all the “better halves” and “work wives” jokes made between the Tennant and Sheen families are clearly that: jokes. They’re all clearly in on the gag and think it’s funny, so they keep using it. There’s been no real life basis for them actually all being in love with each other and in some kind of swingers situation.

Second, labeling David as “queer” when he hasn’t specifically said he is himself is just plain wrong. There’s nothing “safe space” about that. Y’all just want to label him that because you want to fit him into your special little mold, so that your ship of Michael/David can set sail IRL, or so you can feel better represented. If it’s the latter, I encourage you to look at how David is an outspoken ally for the LBGTQ+ community. He’s made his voice known for years about how passionate he is about that community’s rights, and is a great high-profile ally to have. He doesn’t NEED to be queer himself if that’s not truly who he is.

Point is: Don’t label someone with a sexuality they’ve never publicly used themselves just because you want to see them that way.

If for some reason David wants to come out in the future, that’s great and I’ll support him wholeheartedly if it ever happens. But…there is NOTHING WRONG with letting him be in a happy, straight-presenting marriage with his wife. Both of them seem very happy, and both of them continue to be strong advocates for the LBGTQ+ community. Let them live their lives.

[tocomplainfriend]

SEE!? THEY DON'T CARE!

TW: Rape, SA, Homophobia, Misogyny, Misandry

The specific censored word with "-", it's for my own reasons and comfort. It's not censored up and in tags due to filtering! Sorry if I made mistakes like forgetting of filtering or similar, I haven't used tumblr much before!

THIS IS A R-PE JOKE! THAT'S WHAT I HAVE BEEN FUCKING SAYING! ONE OF MY BIGGEST PROBLEMS WITH EPISODE 4 IS THE FACT OF "we want to write an empowering story about men getting sexually assaulted. Men victim don't get that attentio-" BITCH, YOU MADE MANY R-PE AND SA JOKES ALL THE FUCKING WAY THROUGH HELLUVA AND KNOW HAZBIN! You are the one making fun of scenarios where your male characters get assaulted or r-ped.

HOW TF DO YOU PRETEND TO BE SOOO ABOVE PEOPLE (INCLUDING VICTIMS OF SA AND R-PE) THAT'S EXPRESSED HOW THEY FELT ON THE EXECUTIONS AND WHO WORKED IN EPISODE 4. WHEN YOU YOURSELF MAKE JOKES ABOUT IT????? For some context, Sir Pent is trying to get with Cherri, but always deflects first in case she rejects him. He offers her a drink, but immediately says it's because he'll buy a drink for everyone on the club. Then he asks Cherri if they can have sex- and deflects back (a repetition joke) "Because I'll have sex with everyone here". Then he gets dragged into a room by other people, yelling wait and no! And the door closes as you heard him scream.

Out of context in the screenshot, you might even think it might be a serious scene where something happens to Pentious. BUT NO! IT'S BRUSHED OVER REAL FAST AND PLAYED AS "HAHA SOMETHING BAD HAPPEN TO SIR PENTIOUS AGAIN LMAOO"- it's the punchline.

Then at the end of the episode he gets out asking "Where is Cherri" (who btw is having sex with a random guy).

And please don't say "Well, he asked for it"- you know how you sound. The whole point of the joke is that he is trying to get with Cherri and failing astronomically. The point here is that he really doesn't want to have sex with a bunch of random people, but he has to do it because he is getting dragged into a room. (Again, Pentious is like Moxxie Their joke it's getting trashed and bullied by the world or people around them).

You made a whole episode about dealing with a male character's sexual assault, abuse or r-pe. Saying how much you respect victims, and your episode, it's just perfect about the topic. BlaBlaBla- no, you don't. You made all this jokes since HB season 1. This new joke was episode 6 of HH. You never acknowledge power dynamics, or coercion. You never acknowledge anything bad in your show.

Remember, as much as this shows go for LGBTQ+ representation and Queer media. As a ""Female lead show"". This jokes link back (not only to making fun of SA and R-pe itself, but to) homophobia and Misogyny. A scenario of where a man gets SA'ed or r-ped by another man or woman- leads to a scenario where the character is made fun of for not being "masculine enough" for being a victim or for not being able to defend themselves. In a scenario where this happens by a man to man, "It's funny because the victim is viewed as gay. As less masculine = gay and that's bad cause gay = weak and feminine and the idea of feminine = weak".

(There are a few jokes here and there, like Blitzo touching Moxxie's dick after making fun of him for having a baby penis.)

If you didn't notice, Moxxie gets attacked by multiple succubus, and that's apparently funny. KEEP IN MIND is not basic physical violence-no he comes out with lipstick kisses marks, the sounds effects are (ugh)... and Blitz tells him "Don't let them access any of your holes". In other concepts, I want to point out that the times when Moxxie is viewed as a bottom or feminine- he is made fun of. When Millie pegs him, he is made fun of because he is the man of the relationship, being implied as the bottom. When he wears the outfit of unhappy campers, he is extra objectified or made fun of even more than in any other episodes. He is also forcefully put on a dress in his wedding.

He is made fun of for being SA'ed for being uncomfortable scenarios:

These aren't jokes made by characters that "are bad because they are from hell". These are scripted jokes written by a person searching for the audience to laugh.

AND the reason why many audiences accept this jokes or even find them funny is because of some of these views (internalized or not) above. You'll also notice how all these jokes are directed at men (if you find an R-pe or SA joke directed at a woman in this two show, say something about it! POINT IT OUT!). People accept and write these jokes more because they care less about the idea of a man being a victim of such situation. More often than not- in the present, a woman getting assaulted or anything similar in any media gets noticed and called out. THESE JOKES OR THE NORMALIZATION OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT, ASSAULT, COERCION, OR SIMILAR TOWARDS WOMAN STILL HAPPENS!!!! There is an idea that men just tend to just want sex all times at any time. -And that a man getting SA'ed or r-ped by a woman it's just sex, cause "Why wouldn't you like free pussy". When it's a gay perpetrator is viewed as funny cause "that makes you gay or a woman" and that's apparently hilarious. Men can be r-ped no matter what. Men can be targets of all of these acts.

Remember that all the scenes of sexual abuse, harassment and r-pe in Poison are directed by the R2. Who, once again, is into r-pe porn- and they themselves said they are not an SA victim either. So remember, not even a victim trying to cope with their own R-pe or SA. This person draws and ships "R-pe ships", and tags it as "naughty men uwu" bullshit. Also, a person so obsessed with the character of Angel that they changed their name to Tony (Angel's real human name), make themselves look like him, and become a sex worker like Angel. They themselves looked at a comic of Val threatening r-pe and abuse on Angel as "thank good you have balls to draw something mean with these too, I was so bored" ???? (this stuff is in:) and cosplay and take photos of your Val x Angel ship

Congrats if you as a victim yourself thought that the scene with Angel was good. If it helped you be and feel seen. But remember the rest of the show, the hypocritical writers, don't care enough to view it as a serious topic to not joke about. Both HB and HH written by the same people (as in Vivziepop), take their sweet time to turn these topics into jokes.

What pisses off more, it's the trying to make yourself be viewed as a sensitive person about such topic. Make it seem like you are a savior for writing about it in such "serious, powerful and not sugar coded" way. But then you drop that on the fucking ground to make a joke about it when you are tired of pretending you are so good. If you were so informed of SA and r-pe, you wouldn't be making these jokes. If you knew how much SA male victims struggle to get viewed as serious or their stories taken into account-you wouldn't be this shitty.

God, you are so proud of the joke too.

My poor snake guy... one of the few characters that I like-

[lavendermoonlitskies]

I wanna talk about why I think Dead Boy Detectives means so much to so many people after only 1 season

So, we’re all angry and sad and confused right now and I think Netflix needs to understand why canceling this specific show was so upsetting to so many people, myself included.

First of all, they’ve made this a habit. The list of shows that they cancel after only one or two seasons is growing longer and longer, and there doesn’t seem to be any conceivable reason as to why. They hardly advertise their own show, they ignore its impact on the audience showcasing itself right in front of their eyes all over the internet via trending hashtags and campaigns to binge the show so Netflix doesn’t cancel it, and then they cancel it anyway.

The main question is why. Why do they keep canceling these shows that are so well received and manage to grow a passionate audience so soon in its run? The shows aren’t all necessarily similar to each other in the writing, casting, mood and what-have-you, but they do seem to have one thing in common: the audience is full of queer people. Regardless of how society has progressed in the way of LGBTQ+ acceptance, big corporations still have no interest in adding to that if it will hinder their financial gain in any way.

Whoever’s in charge over at Netflix HQ is not interested in taking risks. They seem to have forgotten that a show is rarely going to have record breaking numbers after one season, and if the show doesn’t specifically cater to a cishet audience, that’s all the more reason to pull the plug. That’s why shows like Riverdale go on for so long, that’s why Stranger Things hasn’t been cancelled yet (yes I know there is one single openly gay character in that show, but they’re not actually going to do anything with that and you know it), and that’s why there are countless shows with interesting and entirely unique plots and characters and settings who only get 8-12 episodes in total. Shows that cater to a cishet audience are safe, and despite the fact that Netflix is a multi-billion dollar corporation that can absolutely afford to risk having faith in something that diverts from the norm and attracts the weirdos of this world who just want to watch something that makes them feel seen, they just won’t do it.

I can’t really speak for a lot of these other shows, but Dead Boy Detectives was one of the most unapologetically queer shows I’ve ever seen. In just one season, it left us with some profound commentary on the horrors of hate crime against minorities and how when it occurs, it is all-too-often swiped under the rug and justice never comes. Edwin and Charles were victimized for being different and it is a very real-world issue to see kids like them simply ignored until it’s too late. Do you know how many queer kids saw themselves in Charles as we learned about his abusive father and all around terrible home life? Or how many saw themselves in Edwin when we learned what happened to him? That’s basically a tale as old as time but Netflix must’ve decided that it’s too uncomfortable to bring up to a cishet audience, once again deciding that going with what’s safe for them is better than giving an audience who needs it something to make them feel seen and heard.

It’s even more insane when you realize that the very first Netflix original series was Orange Is The New Black, because now it’s as if they’re going backwards.

[archiveofliterature]

i see a lot of criticism about the friendships between the babel characters and how we were told a lot of things about their positive dynamic, yet shown barely any of it (but are instead mostly presented with the negative aspects). i don’t know if other people clocked this but i feel like it was intentional

rf kuang was commenting on friendships made through trauma-bonding: they were doomed from the start

tldr; the characterisation is (one of) the subtly(ies) people were looking for in the colonial theme. they criticise the latter but i love the fact colonialism is more of an upfront theme because lord knows i am tired of it being subtle so people can ignore it

robin says from the very beginning after they formed their little friend group:

“why had they been so quick, so carelessly eager to trust one another? why had they refused to see the myriad of ways they could hurt each other? why had they not paused to interrogate their differences in birth, in raising, that meant they were not and could never be on the same side?”

the next small paragraph goes into a raft metaphor about how they saw themselves in each other and that’s why they stuck together. they shared one thing they could not ignore – their otherness. their friendship was purely built on the fact they were discriminated against and that they had to spent the next 4 years with each other. their first pleasant conversation is them discussing how they were treated at oxford. of course, the characters didn’t see this because they had never really befriended people their age before. this feeling of belonging felt like love to them (considering their upbringings, ramy’s i will discuss in a bit)

it makes perfect sense why robin would repeatedly imply that they loved and cared about each other. in his eyes, they did. what was it they had if not love? robin, who has ignored so many problems in the past before babel as he knew it would cause him issues, wouldn’t address their friendship dynamic or how strong the arguments and animosity were. he, an abused child, would rather have this than nothing at all

in actuality (demonstrated, i think, through the photograph they took at the end of chapter 9), they were together because of academia’s and discrimination’s forced proximity. robin feels specific emotions about them that feel strong to him because he’s never experienced it before, but that doesn’t mean they are strong enough to keep them together, which is why when they see the photo, they feel weird about it because why isn’t it portraying their dynamic ‘correctly’?

it’s true that perhaps to get robin’s perspective across, it would’ve been good to see the positive aspects more but i think that would’ve made it harder for us to see how weak their friendship was. people wanted more positive to show that they loved each other, which isn’t the point rf kuang is trying to make

rf kuang chooses to show the negative aspects more because they show where their friendship will end up. when letty did what she did, i didn’t see it as a plot twist, i saw it as an inevitability. this was going to happen. honestly, i feel this with most of the ‘plot twists’ of babel except the end of book iii (i really didn’t see that coming). it was easy for letty to do what she does in book iv because their friendship had such unstable foundations. when they no longer benefitted her, she turned her back on them

the only dynamic i feel was actually strong was robin and ramy. i’m not just saying this because i think they’re queer lol. they were close not just because they were both men of colour and had similar upbringings – they actually liked each other. they admired each other and adored each other’s personalities, they bounced off each other and knew what the other meant when they spoke. when they argued, it was over something that actually considered each other’s beliefs and goals and desires, not over their differences.

(unlike letty and ramy, letty and victoire and maybe even robin and victoire, though i think they lean more to ramy/robin than they do to letty/anyone lol. ramy and victoire have a dynamic that i personally feel like robin didn’t really see because ramy understood victoire in a way robin couldn’t. you kind of see it when robin is the one who letty complains about ramy/victoire to, but that’s it i think?)

speaking of ramy, linking it back to their perspectives of love, it makes a lot of sense why he caused the most disruption in the friend group. he’s the only one with an actual family that he stays in touch with. he knows what love feels like. so of course he’s the one that is strongly anti-empire, compared to robin and victoire who have been emotionally manipulated in their childhood by said empire, the one who argues with letty the most. he still feels what robin and victoire feel, of course, but to a lesser extent

honestly i don’t know how to end this analysis, i just think rf kuang is a genius lmao but i may add more onto this as i continue to reread the book we shall see

[dubiousculturalartifact]

Obviously I’ve been queerbaited before, like, a genuinely incalculable number of times, and maybe thinking Buddie might actually go canon is a ‘fool me sixteen times, shame on me’ scenario, but I think one big thing that’s keeping my hope alive is this thought: If you genuinely believe that Buddie isn’t going to go canon, 100% zero possibility and absolutely no intention of trying... Then you also have to believe the people who create the show we’re all fans of are purposefully cruel dicks. 

Because we have SEEN what it looks like when the showrunner of 911 knows there is no possibility of it happening, has no plans of it, and is generally trying to avoid accusations of queerbaiting.

It looks like S5 & S6. Little bits here and there, the odd important scene to throw breadcrumbs… but a lot of keeping the two characters apart, being circumspect in interviews, PR shut downs on the actors, etc. The show has proven they are capable and willing to exactly that!

So indulge me, and imagine for a second. They had the conversation with the new network, and the execs told them they wanted to continue with the status quo, to write as if Buddie is never going to go canon, BUT were willing to bend so far as to make one of them queer, to keep the fans happy.

What would that look like?

I don't know, call me foolish.... But I think it would look like keeping the same dynamic from The Drought Seasons. Having them be friends and important to each other but still fairly disconnected, not having as much screen-time, etc, It would look like having Buck’s coming out arc be a SEPARATE, individual narrative. If they just wanted to write Tommy and Buck, and that's it, they could have done things differently.

There are just so many conceivable ways they could have written Buck’s coming out arc, to almost completely separate it from Eddie and have it be made clear, in no uncertain terms, that Buck is bi but that doesn’t mean he cares about Eddie like that, that Eddie is a hetero McHetero.

Buck’s coming out arc could have included him being jealous because he’s suddenly faced with Tommy in the flesh and is insecure about how he was technically ‘Tommy’s replacement’ at the 911, with Eddie not relevant to it at all, or have Maddie and Chimney be the ones to interrupt The Date, or literally any other scenario that didn’t make it all about Eddie. 

They could have had one short scene where Eddie and Buck talk about it, and then the rest would be like, Buck talking to Hen about being queer, Buck interacting just with Tommy and getting to know him, Buck doing a research binge about bisexuality and info-dumping at an inappropriate time during a call, etc etc etc.

That’s how you tell that story and only be writing it for the proverbial ‘general audience’.

But they didn't. They purposefully reversed direction. They chose for Buck’s coming out arc to... highlight his nigh-feral jealousy over Eddie forming a homosocial bond with another guy, having said guy repeat with genuine surprise and shock that it was him and not Eddie that Buck was interested in, have Eddie interrupt their date, have Buck be more worried about lying to Eddie than the fact that he’s queer at all, have Maddie say what she did to Buck about telling Eddie in specifically ambiguous terms…

In a season that also included the Fire Extinguisher Incident, and Buck saying he ‘wishes he could help’ with Eddie’s sexual frustration, and a big increase in social media engagement, and having Buck being Eddie’s rock in the last few episodes while he had a bizarrely platonic affair with his dead wife's doppleganger…

If they did that while KNOWING the plan was actually for Buck/Tommy endgame and Eddie riding off in the sunset with a hot female firefighter who has a cool motorcycle or whatever the fuck, or them both dying in a freak car-washing accident, or….

If they GENUINELY planned that? If the entire Buck jealousy plotline was intended to be nothing more than a deliberate queerbait-and-switch? Then they’re fucking assholes, sorry. They would have to know full well exactly what they were doing, how many people’s hopes and emotional investment they were toying with... If they were actually planning to keep dragging it along for seasons more of baiting and dangling things in front of us, while knowing categorically that they had no plans to deliver? That would be genuinely GOD TIER levels of specific, intentional queerbaiting.

Which could be the case! I won't deny that. Shows have done it before, plenty of times. Tim et al could be callous bastards deliberately instructing the actors to wink it up in interviews and share suggestive Tiktoks, and writing Buck’s coming out arc as being entirely focused around Eddie and throwing out hints... All while laughing behind Buddie fans' backs about our gullibility, how we’re keeping the show trending on the force of our delusions, etc. Maybe that's it! Maybe they just genuinely enjoying fucking with people. Or maybe they were just shitty enough writers that they didn't know what they were doing, and it was all a total accident, somehow, the proverbial monkeys pounding at keyboards and accidentally spelling out B U D D I...

But you know what? Call it naive, but I prefer to think they’re not huge assholes, or hugely incompetent.

That there might actually be a point to all this, somewhere down the line.

I guess we'll find out.

[the-silence-in-between]

When I sift through my heartbreak about the Agatha All Along finale, the thing I keep coming back to is what a terrible choice it was to make The Road a con.

Now, I've seen folks theorizing (with evidence) that Billy subconsciously created The Road for weeks now, so I'm not going to say that the twist came out of nowhere. The hints were there.

But thematically, episodes 1-7, were about womanhood, sisterhood, and community. We saw Agatha deeply long to be part of a coven, even though she didn't trust anyone and felt so obviously, deeply uncomfortable sitting around that campfire in episode 4.

Episode 8 seemed like it would be continuing that same theme, but once we get to The Twist, episode 9 necessarily has to be all about Explaining The Twist. And so, even though the flashback scenes in episode 9 are truly beautiful, they feel like they belong to another show.

Agatha's Character Development

Think back to everything that episode 1 set up. We've been teased with Agatha and Rio's relationship since the very beginning, but we get nothing about how they met and virtually no backstory for Rio. I had zero illusions that we were going to get some sort of happily ever after for them as a couple, or that the show would be all about them. But this was a seminal relationship in Agatha's life, and given how much the actors were talking things up, I really expected more.

Episode 1 also seemed to set up so much more with regards to Agatha's backstory. There was so much about the Darkhold (and it came back up again in episodes 2 and 3, too), but we never found out how or when Agatha attained it. At one point in episode 1, Agnes tells Rio that every case is always about the specific small town and the secrets buried beneath it, but we don't find out anything new about Agatha's life in Salem or why she was nearly executed, nor do we learn why Evanora thought Agatha was born evil.

In fact, when we look at all nine episodes, Agatha really doesn't have a character arc. Once she breaks out of Wanda's hex, she doesn't grow or change. She doesn't make peace with Rio, or with what happened to Nicky -- she literally chooses to become a ghost because she's too afraid to face him in the afterlife. She clearly longs for sisterhood, but Sharon, Alice, and Lilia are dead, and despite Agatha and Jennifer being incredibly similar as characters, they never make peace with each other. Episode 8 presents Agatha choosing to sacrifice herself for Billy at the last minute as "growth," but she literally drank poison for him way back in episode 3. This was already something we expected her to do.

So we end episode 9 with Agatha in the same position she was in in episode 1, only translucent and filmed through a thick layer of Vaseline. Yes, I know she forms a "coven two" with Billy, but after all the earlier focus on sisterhood, the fact that it's just Billy feels really insufficient. And yes, I know that Agatha will likely return in other MCU titles, but this was her show, damn it, and it felt like a miracle that we even got a show starring a queer character played by a woman over 40. And if Agatha can't even get a character arc in her own show, how am I to believe that she'll get one as a side character?

(On a personal note, I think I have always loved seeing a villain do a heel-face turn because I find something so hopeful about seeing a character overcome and grow beyond behaviors and characteristics that only harm them. I've identified really strongly with Agatha's desire for sisterhood and difficulty opening up and trusting others, and for this show to essentially end with "the only change Agatha is capable of making is dying" is just ... honestly devastating on a truly embarrassing level.)

Breaking the Spell Cast by The Ballad

But beyond the way the need to explain The Twist short-changed Agatha's development, it also retroactively cheapens the ~magic~ of The Road and The Ballad. The Road was presented as a journey that sisters in the craft would embark upon together -- the comics have a really moving storyline where Wanda actually meets her biological mother on The Road -- and in singing along with the ballad, it felt like we the audience were part of that sisterhood, that journey. But now knowing that The Road never existed, and only exists now because of a teenage boy who can't control his magic, it feels like the spell Jac Schaeffer spoke about casting on the audience with The Ballad has been broken. It's no longer something I can sing to make me feel like I'm a powerful witch -- it's something darker and less than what we were promised.

Two Halves That Don't Fit

Because of the shift that had to happen once The Road was revealed to be Billy's creation, so much foreshadowing and character development that were begun in the first seven episodes really seemed to just seemed to have no resolution by episode 9.

Maybe this is the story that the writers set out to tell, with The Twist firmly in place from the beginning. But it just feels like at the 11th hour, someone was like "OMG what if The Road is another hex?" and they shoved it in, sprinkling some breadcrumbs backwards so eagle-eyed fans could spot the clues, but not stopping to make sure that the themes they laid out in the early episodes came to a resolution by the end.

And hey, maybe they originally did that, and Marvel/Disney execs came in and removed stuff at the end to fit better with other MCU properties. (Though if that is what happened, I have very little hope for anyone trying to tell an interesting story within this universe.)

This was obscenely long, and I've begun to ramble. There were parts that I liked about both episodes 8 and 9, but over all I just felt so let down after six weeks of falling in love with this show and the story they told us they were telling. They came so close to perfection and really just dropped the ball at the end.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 7/16/2024

how your backyard hurricane go, the houston area? pretty good it doesn't seem

to be clear other than losing everything in my fridge and developing some mold around the windowframes IM personally fine and so are the girls and so is the lair. we lost power sunday afternoon and got it back friday morning (upside down smiley emoji x16)

listening

THREE CANONICALLY BISEXUAL CLUB BANGERS!!! also, trying out a new thing with spotify and youtube videos for songs bc my readership is about 70/30 and i want to streamline the process of actually listening to new music for ppl. it must be really annoying this week but that's bc there's three songs. sorry. it will rarely be this long

anyway.

ANXIETY by Lilyisthatyou is new to me, off the spotify autogenerated dance playlist. a chiller groove in the spelling-things-out genre of dance music. VERY flashy-lights music vid fyi

Why do I feel so alone? Does it show That I'm dancing to fill the void with pretty girls and pretty boys?

i know about kesha's joyride bc i happen to be an alive queer woman. im SO happy kesha is also alive and making music more regularly. this one is canonically bisexual bc kesha is bisexual. also a really flashy-lights lyric video. the most classically recession-pop/early KESHA sound of all three tuesdaysongs this week. im always fascinated when an accordion shows up.

Rev my engine ’til you make it purr Keep it kinky, but I come first Beep-beep, bitch, I'm outside Get in, loser, for the joyride

thank u new releases spotify playlist. also canonically bisexual bc the singer is, also an early KESHA feel but she is a metal artist first and foremost. very fun to headbang to at a stop light. i don't totally Love how it's an emasculating song but given how dudes in the metal scene generally are? i think she should make it more emasculating actually

Take you down a peg (And peg and peg and peg) If you're a macho man then beg (And beg and beg and beg) Bend you over the bed (The bed the bed the bed) It's time to take you down a peg (And peg and peg and peg)

-

reading

fun fact i still haven't seen this movie. i got this from the library the day before the hurricane proper and it gave me a really lovely two hours of not thinking about the active hurricane the day after. enormous format photographs! full-length shots of every look! ithe little personal notes from each designer were so fun to read, and i think this genuinely healed my heart a little. everyone was so excited to go into detail about what choices they made and what inspired them, and even though i would have loved more specific construction details, specific fiber types, and full-length shots of the Back of every look, i recognize i am a freak.

-

watching

watched a truly bonkers assortment of films at my bestie's house this week. her husband is big into godzilla and i sat down not really paying attention or planning to pay attention to Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024, dir. Wingard) but found myself actually paying attention. i unfortunately was a character i hate, Person Who Stops The Movie Halfway Through To Demand A Recap. loved these guys, whatever the fuck they were

the most fun thing about this movie is that it is not a silent film but it acts like one. there are long, long stretches of movie without dialogue bc all the political action is happening between a bunch of giant monkeys. this is going to sound like im damning it with faint praise but they really thought carefully about directorial and artistic choices here! there was a vision and they executed it! it's fun to look at and not just because there's a big monkey in most of the shots!

-

playing

got a look at characters for the new fire-themed land coming up this fall. ppl are understandably big mad that the land is based on Ring of Fire cultures and everyone is paper-white. i think it is correct to be mad and ask them to do better, and they have tweaked designs before release before, however, i don't think this will bring about a sea change in gacha games.

i am rolling along clearing out map markers and achievement hunting and my GOD are there a lot of time-gated achievements in inazuma (electricity-themed legally-not-japan). so so so many of them i originally got halfway through or did 1/5 and then wandered off bc i didn't realize there was a quest or achievement locked behind doing something for three or five days in a row. i now have a post-it on the corner of my monitor with nine different things i have to keep checking in on this week. please someone give me a REAL JOB!!!!!!

-

making

cross stitch progress. this was the only thing i did last week aside from shake like a chihuahua and sleep. very slow going! may have to ship the package off to my brother with an IOU bc it is already stressfully late.

made the bean influencer soup (creamy miso coconut butter beans). i made a batch before the hurricane last week so most of my notes are from then. the grocery did not have canned butter beans so i made the same thing (big lima beans) from dry. i have not made beans from dry since i was very small. these beans were so large, so pale, so aggressive.

changes: i was able to find a little carton of straight coconut cream at the grocery but they were out of miso paste. i did have miso soup mix and plopped that in. i also used frozen spinch bc it’s cheaper and i felt better about it than the somewhat questionable fresh spinch on offer. also used two onions instead of one and a hearty dollop of minced jarred garlic bc who do u think i even fucking am. i would have loved to use fresh dill, bc i did plant some and it was growing very well, but the caterpillars were very intense and ate almost everything on my balcony.

going in the rotation! im making it AGAIN as im typing up this post! pretty cheap, very tasty, i don't regularly keep butter beans or coconut cream in my pantry but that can change!

[ladyloveandjustice]

Fall 2023 Anime Overview: I'm in Love with the Villainess

Premise: Rae is reincarnated as the heroine of her favorite dating sim. But she has no interest in romancing any of the boys- she's head over heels for Claire Francois, the villainess of the game. Claire is horrified to find the major target of her bullying suddenly enjoys it, often pleading "step on me harder". But Rae isn't just here to flirt with Claire- she has a plan to save her beloved from a horrible fate.

I'm allowed to have a problematic gay fave. In fact, I would call it my right as a lesbian. And I enjoy I'm in Love with a Villainess a lot, despite some bumps in the road. It's tropey as all get out and a story that shows signs of having an inexperienced author, but it has real heart to it, it's full of joy, and connects with me in surprising way.

I'll try not to ramble too much, since I'm planning on writing a longer article on this series-- so keep your eyes peeled.

I'm in Love with the Villainess might not always be polished or expertly crafted, but it is very fun and entertaining. Rae ignoring all the male love interests to stan for her mean girl fave is ultra relatable to me, and her gremlin energy is off the charts. Claire is also a super fun character-- if you love ridiculous ojou-sama characters, she is max ojou sama. But she's also hiding a lot of insecurity and of course, a secret soft side-- her character arc over the course of the series is really satisfying.

However, Rae's pushiness might be a sticking point for some. Her worst moments are mostly contained to episode 2 where she does inexcusable things like ogling Claire while she's changing (against Claire's wishes) after having wriggled her way into a position as her maid (against Claire's wishes, though Rae does have secret noble reasons for that one). This is her worst moment and she calms down a bit from there as the story starts to find itself. Her pushiness remains, but gets a bit less uncomfortable as it becomes clear Claire likes her too.

This pushiness clashes a bit with a really interesting thing ILTV does--which is engage bluntly and honestly with homophobia and stereotypes. There's a great moment in episode three where the series. Rae is asked point blank if she's gay, she responds yes. When Claire moves away from her in response, it's pointed out to her that's a form of homophobia, and it's pointed out how screwed up it is to believe anyone who's gay is automatically going to creep on every girl they see. Rae also gently corrects someone who gives her the common "she just happened to be a woman, you're just falling in love with the person right? Your love just transcends gender?" line, (which is a common line that's used to avoid talking about queerness directly in manga and anime) with "no, I'm a lesbian, I only fall in love with women."

And yes, homophobes got big mad at this scene. How dare a yuri anime be gay! I'm in Love with the Villainess does not let homophobic yuri fans feel safe.

It's really refreshing to see a silly isekai series directly engage with stereotypes and lesbian issues like this, and it was a very pleasant surprise when I read the novels.

However, this message is a little muddled by the fact Rae did harass Claire, so Claire has every right to feel uncomfortable around her. The show does acknowledge this. The story makes it clear it knows Claire has a right to distrust Rae and it's her responding badly specifically to Rae saying she's gay is the problem. But it's still very weird to simultaneously have a "gay people aren't automatically predators!!!" coupled with "well also our gay main character does commit a little sexual harassment sometimes".

(Some of this weirdness could have been rectified if the story had character besides Claire act badly to Rae saying she was gay, and have them get the lecture, since the point was supposed to be that gay people don't hit on every member of the same gender they meet...but again, that point falls flat if the lecture recipient is Claire, since Rae has already been hitting on her).

I don't really begrudge the author this- Inori was obviously just engaging in the unfortunately typical anime tropes, but also decided to also use her story to passionately educate about and defend gay people and couldn't quite reconcile the dissonance. However, it is very "have your cake and eat it too".

But ILTV does do a very interesting thing with the common anime trope of the overly demonstrative lesbian character who does wacky hijinks and declares her love in a "funny" way. Rae reveals she's so used to being treated badly and rejected by friends and crushes for being gay that she treats her feelings as big joke as a defense mechanism. Because she’s so used to being rejected for her sexuality, she’s given up on earnestly pursuing Claire from the beginning. She doesn’t think she has a shot and she doesn’t want to risk being rejected. However, if she’s loud and obnoxious about her love for Claire, the inevitable rejection doesn’t hurt so much.

She makes it so Claire’s rejecting her for being a weirdo, not because she’s gay. If it's a joke, then when everyone laughs at it and dismisses it, it doesn’t hurt…and she can still be honest about and open about being gay. She can fool even herself and stay around Claire without any of that heartbreak and awkwardness that destroyed relationships the other times she confessed her love.

Rae's arc throughout the show is overcoming her assumption that Claire would be happier with a man and there's no point in earnestly courting her. She's so used to being degraded, she thinks it's impossible she could give Claire a good life and impossible that her real feelings will be accepted.

It doesn't excuse Rae's actions, but it does make her a very interesting character, and one that's meaningful to me as a lesbian. It adds surprising depth to a usually tired trope.

There's also some other interesting aspects of the anime, like how Rae simps for Claire but doesn't simp for her classism. She often gently challenges her on it, and the "commoner uprising" plot, while pretty weirdly paced and (temporarily) resolved, does treat the commoners sympathetically. Considering how other kinds of isekai regularly excuse shit like buying slaves, it's nice to see one that very much sympathizes with marginalized.

Though the commoner uprising plot does lead us to the other huge caveat with the anime- incest. Yeesh. There's a plot twist where it's revealed that side characters are in an incestuous relationship, and they're treated as tragic and sympathetic, they have a love that cannot be accepted, etc. The anime makes this worse by having Rae say "homosexuality isn't the only kind of forbidden love", which (unintentionally?) equates queerness and incest, which is something homophobes often do too. (The novels aren't innocent either, Rae laments "Why can't people be free to love who they want" at one point in a way that less explicitly equates the two things). However I was able to stand this because it's mainly executed as a plot twist. We don't get any details about the character's relationships, we barely see them even stand next to each other, and they're out of the plot fairly quickly. I can absolutely see this being a deal breaker for someone less numb to anime bullshit through.

And finally, a character comes in who acts fairly manipulative and skeezy towards Rae herself, though the drama she does stoke is great stuff.

So yes, I mean it when I say it has problems! But I find the fun shenanigans, blatant lesbian wish fulfillment, honest advocation for queer people, and the joy and earnestness of the series worth it enough I can grit my teeth through it all. It should also be noted that Inori, the author, is a trans lesbian, and that's another big reason why this is so special to many people-- it's a lot easier to forgive a new author for some uneven writing when she has a stake in telling queer stories.

The anime is obviously one that doesn't have a lot of resources (and I missed some of Rae's interior monologue, which gets more into what a nerd girl she is) but it does a decent job with what it had (though I would have liked it to condense or cut some of the magic duels and Rae doing harassment to focus more on the stories strengths, but alas). I have my fingers crossed for a second season, but the yuri don't tend to get those, so I'm not holding my breath.

Is ILTV's pacing sometimes weird? Yes, the commoner uprising doesn't get as much attention as it should. Is it sometimes clumsy? Oh yes. Do I still get a joy like no other when Rae kicks aside the screen prompting her to choose a male interest to yell for Claire instead, or when she fantasizes about herself and Claire being warriors together? Hell yes.

ILTV is often silly, often flawed, but you know what, queer people get to have our silly, flawed, but still occasionally touching stories as well. Straight people have has a monopoly on it too long. It's not a series for everyone, but it's a series that spoke to some struggling queer people regardless, and it's a series that makes me smile, and that's all that matters at the end of the day.

[you-can-be-what-you-want-to-be]

People aren't mad because John/Arthur aren't canon, people are mad because the creator made fun of the fans that ship them in the Christmas special

I see… the post has been deleted

I’m just very used to being in bad fandoms where something as small as “I don’t ship them personally” is taken as a homophobic statement, and people have been saying forever if it’s not canon it’ll be queer bait, so I assumed which I maybe shouldn’t have done but with it coinciding with the “John is a child episode” it just made sense

now, I do have to say though, that while I don’t know a whole lot because I’m not on the Patreon, I was for awhile. Again take this with a HEAPING load of salt for that reason since I clearly don’t know the specific situation. Everything I’m going to say I will try to say from an objective viewpoint since I don’t know the situation and will only focus on the facts I do know.

But how is this new? For the karaoke creep special they keep calling it weird to call each other romantic terms. And when Arthur died by not sacrificing the little guy last season Harlan was ROUGH. He said anyone who voted to not sacrifice were children smashing dolls together, that they forgot the story they were in and hopefully this punishment would remind them that actions have consequences. He basically said this is your fault for being stupid. He ended up having to post a semi apology saying it’s eldritch horror story, it’s supposed to be about harshness and not knowing the consequences before hand, and that he teases his audience and that if they don’t like that this isn’t the right show for them. His phobia play through he did a bit as Arthur and John where he was like “and we are NOT doing anything in the shower no matter what the fan fictions say” “let them dream John”

I also would like to mention that word of god should be ignored in these stories and that Harlan does NOT have a PR team. Again I don’t know the situation. I don’t know if he was ad libing live, in which case he should be given more Lee way as self editing in the moment is hard, I don’t know how if he said the most vile stuff alive, or if he said something a little mean but harmless like the “no we are not doing this” “let them dream” or what. Maybe it is bad and he deserves to be roasted, idk.But making jokes about a non canon thing can be a normal thing, especially if it’s a thing people keep bugging you about.

I do know that fandom as a whole has a problem attacking people over though, being someone who frequently got called homophobic for headcanoning single characters as aro, this one specifically has already harassed him about this ship which I’m sure gets annoying, and that he has explicitly said he will poke fun on the Patreon, and that he has said Jarthur won’t happen, and that he is one guy without the means to sort through hate mail removed from situations and doesn’t have a PR team to tell him “hey this off the cuff joke is a bad idea”

all that being said, again I do not know what he said specifically. I think either way a lot of people need to reassess if this is the fandom for them. I’ve seen a lot of people only get into the show for shipping and then get mad when there’s eldritch horror and the attitudes of eldritch horror in the eldritch horror podcast. If he said something that bad then maybe consider getting out since he writes about delicate subjects and it will only get worse. If what he said wasn’t that bad and people are getting mad about being lightly teased but it wasn’t confrontational or homophobic, they might want to leave because that’s just what Harlan does, tease people, and it’s not new and will continue, especially about non canon stuff in his own work. And if you got into and are only staying for the shipping…. Yeah. If that’s the only thing you want maybe it’s time to move on.

and if you decide to stay, know that. Know and be warned ahead of time that you will be teased so it isn’t a surprise next time

edit: so I did get the full context quote and it’s literally just “we want to hang out together alone for Christmas” “platonically, as in canon” “oh of course of course.” This. This isn’t bullying. It’s a little tongue in cheek sure but the whole thing is just saying it isn’t canon. I’ve heard complaints on comments on this post about other stuff he’s done, which I don’t know much about but is also applicable. I did my best to say “either way, this is stuff related.” As someone who writes and has written things before where every single chapter people kept pushing for something I wasn’t going to write I get it. I’m not saying anything he might have done is right but I think it’s understandable at the very least, for a writer to be upset about his stuff being constantly misinterpreted and having fans try to push it where he doesn’t want it.

him reminding people it won’t happen is fine, especially when people keep accusing him of queer baiting. I still think what I said earlier stands even hearing other opinions, because although I can’t say either way, it seems like everyone who is upset says this is a repeated behavior, and if you stay you can’t be surprised by it every time. If it’s going to bug you you have to either be prepared for it to keep happening or leave.

That isn’t to say no one can be upset about anything else but this specific thing I don’t think is worthy of that. All he did was jokingly repeat canon in character (which is much better than like. Someone who keeps hinting at something and never giving it) in a teasing manner. He didn’t say anything negative about shippers, or anything homophobic, just said “hey remember kids, we aren’t into each other like that.” Which is. Fine. It’s annoying but it isn’t malicious.

If the issue is mods or his interactions with people say that. Don’t make it about him light heartedly going “don’t accuse me of queerbaiting.” it makes it so when actual issues like what people are talking about in the comments (if they’re legit, again I try to stay only in the actual content part and abstain from knowing about creators) come up no one takes them seriously because so many molehills were mountained.

If you’re pissed about how he talks to his fans say that, don’t make it about a lack of queer rep when he said day one there wouldn’t be any. Make it about the issue itself. You don’t mention that someone’s a domestic abuser for example after you say “and they have NO CHEESE in their house thats MONSTROUS who does that.” If you want to be taken seriously about a problem you focus on the thing that matters which is. Hurting people.

I guess at the end of the day I’m no one’s boss, but I am tired of not knowing what to believe or not when someone saying something like “no comment” on if characters they wrote are together is homophobia, or a character who’s been Described as a dick acting like one and then the creator gets accused of being shitty (random examples not to do with this specific fandom). If everything is a big deal that makes someone the worst when the subject is not actually hurting anyone… it’s exhausting. Idk anything about Harlan. At the end of the day I’m here for my little horror stories. But I will say definitively that I don’t think it’s bullying to say a ship is not canon and that to act like it is makes it impossible for people who actually care about morals and what someone is doing to keep the energy to stay that way without becoming part of a mob just taking people at their word.

If it upset you I’m sorry, it’s always disappointing when our take on media is dismissed, especially by the creator. And it’s fine to be disappointed. I get that. But don’t blow it out of proportion, and don’t make it about something it isn’t. If you’re upset about the quote say that it’s disappointing without saying it’s punching down. The author is dead and it’s one of the biggest podcast ships out there. If you’re upset about anything else make a post about that issue without tying it to this fun bonus non canon episode. You are allowed to be upset just and if it is about shipping: stop making someone disagreeing with you about a ship a big controversy. You can ship whatever you want regardless of canon and no one is trying to stop jarthur shippers, and if it isn’t about that stop making things about shipping if that’s not what it’s actually about.

[hawkinsschoolcounselor]

Regarding queerbaiting: Sherlock is one of the more famous examples, and the tumblr drama surrounding it is an... interesting story that I think is worth knowing if you want to understand the queerbait allegations.

The show, made and set in the 2010s, liked to poke fun at John Watson for being a straight man shacking up with another single dude. The show's creators -- one of whom is a gay man himself -- were born in 60s, so I see these jokes as two guys who were adults during the height of AIDS and Thatcherism taking delight in the fact they're now living in a world where queerness is largely accepted and somewhat normalized. A straight guy being forced to constantly defend himself from nonchalant assumptions that the man he's living with is his gay lover is funny when he's not in any danger of being hate-crimed over it, right?

(I'm not a fan of the joke personally, but I get it.)

They really liked this stupid joke though, so they used it again and again and again, to the point that young fans started to become convinced it was hinting at something. I can't blame them: there was even a lesbian character who fell for Sherlock and explicitly compared herself to John as someone who wasn't into men and yet was just so spellbound by this one special detective boi.

It was pretty lesbophobic imo, which should have been a massive red flag as to how the showrunners really felt about queer characters...

...But where the show went from annoying to actively hostile was the mystery of how Sherlock survived his apparent death at the end of season 2. The showrunners swore up and down it was solvable... and then when the next season aired, the "solution" was "lol who cares how he did it, this is a ~*character driven story*~ and only stupid obsessed idiots would want to solve the mystery. 🤣🤣🤣"

Make no mistake, they singled out the mlm shippers specifically for mockery -- there's a group of Sherlock Holmes conspiracy theorists in the show who argue over a theory that Holmes and Moriarty staged the death together and then kissed about it. (The viewer is clearly meant to laugh at this.)

Some of the Johnlockers on tumblr refused to believe this was happening to them and doubled down and convinced themselves there was going to be an amazing Johnlock plot twist at the end of season 4. My understanding (which might be wrong, I wasn't in the fandom) is that this contingent was largely composed of naive queer teenagers who blindly trusted a handful of influential adults who insisted that the show was deep and clever and didn't hate its fans.

So I can definitely sympathize with the folks who fear Byler is just queerbait. This too is a mlm fandom made up of naive teenagers trusting the adults who swear that the secret gay plot twist is totally gonna happen this time, trust me bro it's not called Surface Things.

And, look. I think it's very sensible to be skeptical of random strangers on the internet who insist they have the answers, no matter how authoritative they might sound. Keep on doing that, folks. 👍

But I think that principle applies just as much to the "this is just like Sherlock" doomers as it does to the "anyone who thinks Byler won't happen has no media literacy" lot. Yes, it's always possible that the Duffers were queerbaiting us all along... but the way Sherlock and Stranger Things approach queerness truly is like night and day.

Huh, well, if what you say is accurate, then it sounds like the Holmes writers were just jerks overall. I can see the joke, as you explain it. I may not think it appropriate to make it a running gag, but it's good for a chuckle or two. If it was truly presented as a joke, then it would be on the fans for misinterpreting it, but I don't know enough about how it was presented to know how easy it would be for fans to make that conclusion.

To me, it only makes it more apparent that things on Stranger Things are "night and day," as you put it. Will's feelings, and Robin's, for that matter, are not treated as jokes. They're treated as dramatic, emotional parts of their individual arcs. In Will's case, his happiness is linked to his relationship with Mike, which is complicated by the fact that he doesn't think he'll get to have a romantic relationship with him, or at all really.

I prefer to think the Duffers are better than whoever was responsible for what you described. While it all remains to be seen, they deserve the benefit of the doubt, for now.

[alientater]

I have so much to say about s3 of bridgerton so I’m dumping it all into one post. Take my dumbass opinions as a writer for what you will ��

- first foremost thank you my QUEEN Nicola for your confidence and courage (I am no better than a man 👀). I feel like this whole season was a reminder for me, through both Pen and Colin that bodies that look like my own (Pens) deserve love. I can’t even begin to tell yall how much watching people swoon over her body specifically has made me 🥹 blush because my own looks so much like hers.

- I absolutely adored how devoted Colin was to Pen. Watching him realize his love for her in all her forms, with all her flaws was absolutely adorable and wonderful and beautiful, and it, in its own way, comforted me that the more masculine side of my self can be the romantic, the devoted, the loving person that I am as well. Both his little speech in the carriage and his love confession at the end are now living rent free in my brain.

- I know many people think they should have cut some of Benedict’s scenes but I’m against that opinion. I ADORED his character development this season, and I think it served well as a break in the tension of the plot. you will NEVER catch me unhappy to see a bisexual king living his best and horniest life.

- I’m so glad Pen got to keep her Column. The books end with Colin revealing her identity and I’m so glad they changed that. So much from the book was changed to give her more agency and I’m so so so happy about that.

- Genuinely, I’m so excited to see what happens in Scotland with Francesca and Eloise and Michaela and John!! I have a suspicion they’re going to make it another spinoff show like Queen Charlotte, and then we’ll get Benedict’s season (which 👀💕 I have no clue what they’ll do with it but WHATEVER it is I will be parked in front of that TV the SECOND it drops). Whatever it is they have planned I have a sneaking suspicion we’re finally going to get some sapphic romance 👀 so.

- I absolutely cannot stand the hate this season is getting online. I really think it was well done, and I enjoyed every second of it.

- I do wish they’d shown a *few* more spicy Polin scenes (or maybe made the end one a bit longer bc HOOOO boy 👀 I needed about another full 5-10 minutes of her riding him lord GOD almighty I need a glass of WATER). BUT they really didn’t get any more spice than Kate and Anthony did last season (in fact they had quite a bit more I’d say), and I know we’ll see more of it next season hehe 😈 so 😏.

- John dying is literally actually physically going to break my heart when we get to Francesca’s storyline. ALSO I think I really…. I want her to fall in love with him wholly and completely too. I think she has in some ways. I hope in her story, they explore the very real love between them, mostly because I adore his beautiful lil autistic ass.

- I really wish they’d brought back Daphne and the duke a bit more to help violet and Fran a bit. I think Daphne specifically would have really helped soothe that relationship.

- can we get an Eloise Benedict swing scene every season?? Plz? For me? I adore their queer sibling bond so so so much.

- I’m so glad Pen and Eloise are on good terms again. Their friendship breaking just really…

- also, on Eloise, I adore the character growth I saw her go through this season. I think she’s really learning how to see and love the people around her for who they are and it’s so beautiful. I think people were right about her self absorption to a certain degree but… every character has flaws. No one is really infallible. And I think I went through a similar growth, learning how to check and weild my priveledge, and it’s comforting to know I’m not alone in some of the mistakes I made

- I have so many feelings about Cressida Cowper. I know she’s a bully, and I disliked her originally, but something about this season made me…. Sort of like her. First of all, she’s so cunty and I absolutely LOVE that for her. Her outfits are 😮‍💨 every single time. The SLEEVES on those dresses. Like. I really hope she has character growth of her own. Also. You can’t convince me that woman isn’t a femme lesbian. I want to see her set up a nice little estate and live happily ever after with a woman she loves, honestly. I feel like it was really realistic and fascinating to see her schism with her family. I hope she doesn’t take her mother’s advice to heart. That she breaks the generational curse and learns to be both kind AND cunty 😂. I hope Eloise and her make up somewhat too. I just. I don’t want her to be the villain. The pressures of society are their own villain.

- Bring back Edwina Sharma and her Prince can we start a FUCKING petition bro.

- two people in on that show that no matter what they are being paid, are not being paid enough 1) the COSTUME designer and 2) the intimacy coordinator. Every five seconds I found myself saying “god that dress” or “oh man, I need that waistcoat”

- I love that the writers chose to make the featherington sisters more than just… jokes? Philippa especially. She really had some of the best breakout lines of the season “insert himself where” GIRL “Farley, now! the bugs!!” SHES SO CUTE and Mr Finch baby boy so are you and your love for her 🥹 it’s just so wholesome. I love that Shonda really has showed through this show that even with our eccentricities, we all deserve to be loved, appreciated, cherished.

- we stand by Portia featherington. She really made the best of some SHITTY as situations, and we love her for that. It’s so important to me that she’s not the villain either. That she and pen worked things through, learned how to support each other, and that Portia apologized. I think she’s definitely…. Let’s say morally gray but how morally grey really is robbing the aristocracy? 🤫. I honestly? Kind of hope she finds a love match, or finds happiness in her singleness without having to rely on a man. That she learns to live in her power.

- Did I mention how devoted Colin is to Pen? Can we return to that? My FAVORITE moments of this season were the ones where he is so absolutely down bad for her that he can barely speak bc ME TOO baby boy. ME TOO. and that it’s pen. This season was for the girlies who never get noticed, who never had boys crush on them. Who have to make do living vicariously through others, who have to learn to love themselves, because the world does not seem to.

- can we bring back lord debbling? Lowkey…. I kinda liked him. I need him to be Cressida’s beard for real 🤫

- the mirror scene THE MIRROR SCENE 🫠😮‍💨😰🤤 I…. I have so many feelings. I keep hearing people being like “it was so cringe” but? I think I loved it because it felt so…. Realistic? I found myself loving it because it was so… slow and sweet and intentional and it was in every way an extension of Colin’s feelings for pen. He loves her enough that he treats her with only the most kind, most slow and soft touches. He considers her pleasure before his own (which, god is that dreamy I wanna be this man SO BAD). He talks her through. he appreciates in every way she SHOULD be appreciated. I’m just. I’m never going to be over how fantastically luke played him. How fantastic Luke and Nicola’s chemistry was. Can we appreciate the shots angles looking down on Penelope too bc oh man. Oh boy. Jesus Christ she would be walking ME like a dog to if she looked at me like that Holy Fuck. Also the THIGHS the TITTIES (👀 respectfully 👀 RESPECTFULLY). The little sneaky views of Colin’s butt hehe, the way Pen GULPS when she sees Colin (girl SAME). It reminded me so vividly of my own first time. it made me miss being that young and… idk. I feel like sex scenes often feel fake or unrealistic and the ones in this just felt SO real.

- on that topic can we all just appreciate how much Kate sharma is getting her cookie ate bc 😂 lord only knows she deserves it. ALSO. Petition for next season: I ABSOLUTELY need to see Colin on his knees doing the same for Pen 🤤👀 bc you KNow that man is a service top, and she deserves it.

- genuinely genuinely. I’m so afraid of the show now getting canceled because it has openly queer characters 🥺. I’ve fallen in love with it and it’s like there’s this dread, in the pit of my stomach, that it’s all going to end prematurely because people are already acting so shitty.

- I need violet to have her own spinoff with Marcus 👀 and CONTROVERSIAL OPINION (not controversial) I need their sex scenes bc 😳 LORD . I am not. ahem. I am sinning looking at lady bridgerton like this 😂

- I loved lady Danbury and pens exchange at the end of the season and they’re great friends in the books! I hope it develops more!

- how does Jonathan Bailey so convincingly play a man utterly in love/ lust with his wife as a gay man 😂. Also. Anthony’s little “LILACS”? Still thinking about that lol.

- I’m so glad Eloise didn’t tell Colin about pen being whistledown.

- really wish we’d had a wedding night sex scene 😅

- pen wearing a full set of acrylics and riding that man’s dick is….. god. I have been given a gift.

- Need Need NEED more of the Mondriches, just being happy and finding their place. Their ball this season was fucking fantastic.

- the end camera shot of Colin and pen kissing in front of the window she always watched him from 🫠🥹💕 I’m actually sick it’s SO PERFECT

- I knew Penelope was going to have the only boy 👀😏 called it hehe

- I think one of the things I love most about the show is just… seeing women support and uplift each other and work through things. Talk about the hard things. That’s how we grow as people.

In conclusion, I know many people disliked a lot of things about s3 but I, personally, adored it. And I also know why the writers cut what they did, and did what they did. I honestly think if they’d just added a few small things it would have been perfect. There was so much happening this season it felt overwhelming almost, and I think if I were to say if there’s anything to learn from this, it’s that they need to slow down. Focus on and give each plot its share. I wish I could give Bridgerton an infinite budget for infinite episodes to do whatever they wanted bc I know it would be good. ALSO if I have to endure a month wait like that again I’m actually fucking rioting. I liked the anticipation but it felt too long and just…. Idk. I think an episode a week would be a better way to stretch it if they wanted to keep that ploy. Anyways. If anyone’s actually read this far, I’m so sorry 😂. And to all the people griping… get a grip. It’s a beautiful show and the writing was honestly fantastic. just enjoy the media for what it is im actually begging you. If this show gets canceled because of something as trivial as not enough Polin sex scenes and having actual queer representation in fucking coming for ALL OF YOU.

Peace and light

Annika

[eddiediazismyhusband]

breathe friend you know tommy is bones in s8, he's not bucks endgame the reliable leaker has literally been clear about that. don't believe anything that psychopath on twitter says, she's literally insane.

oh trust me i don’t believe anything she says lmao

and i know the leaker said that about tommy but tbh that dont mean shit about whether or not they are actually going to fix any of the fuckery they pulled in s7

just because they are allegedly giving tommy the boot doesn’t mean they’re going to actually get their shit together and stop ship baiting us; so like i said until they actually start to give us any indication that they’re going to stop mistreating poc characters for cheap drama and that storylines are actually going to be thought out beforehand rather than thrown together because “ehh, this is good enough” i’m not going to be wasting my time. these shows are meant for entertainment. if i am not being entertained by what’s being done, why am i going to waste my energy on it?

i dont say this to sound snippy or rude, anon, and it is NOT directed at you specifically (and i really hope it doesn’t come across that way i am just bad at emoting through screens 😭😭), i promise, but sometimes it feels like people who try to “talk me off the ledge” in these anonymous asks don’t really look at what i’m actually saying and they jump to the conclusion that i’m just making shit up to panic about, but the fact of the matter is that everything i talked about in that post is something that could feasibly happen… all of buck’s love interests up to this point have not been narratively satisfying; developed or not. so even if tommy does end up going like the leaker said (again not getting my hopes up because things change at the drop of a hat in this business) that doesn’t mean they will actually follow through with queer eddie or that any other potential love interest for buck will be in any way narratively satisfying. i’m not saying i’m closing on buddie, because i will love them and ship them together when my body is six feet under, but after the burning dumpster that was s7 post the cruise ship arc, i don’t have the faith in tim that i had before.

at the end of the day, yes abc is a more accepting and inclusive studio, but it is still that: a studio. a corporation. a money maker. they don’t actually give a fuck about the fans. i have seen time and time again that these shows do this cat and mouse shit with a queer ship and then never follow through, even if one of the characters involved does end up being confirmed queer. maybe it was a little harsh to say that tim is only interested in money, but after how little thought and care he put into last season it’s hard not to feel like he actually cares about the fans who have stuck with this show since the beginning.

i’ve mentioned before that i have stuck with this show for seven years. i have shipped buddie since s2. i witnessed the s4 buildup and subsequent letdown in s5 and 6. I know that was not tim’s fault specifically, that KR and Fox both fucked the show over

but that does not mean that tim won’t also change his mind— we saw evidence of that last minute with all the rewrites that were happening post mid season hiatus with s7. he found out he’s getting another season so he changed the plot of 7b, and if they get a season 9, all the more reason to keep dragging the buddie bait hype along with now true intentions to follow through?

i reslly really reallly wanted to trust tim again especially after the potential he had with the shooting arc in s4, but sometimes it feels like he himself has closed on buddie since then unless it’s done as a last-ditch effort to save the show… again, i’m not saying i think bt is going to be endgame, but just because they aren’t endgame doesn’t mean buddie is and that is what pisses me off. that we will have been waiting for nearly a decade for this ship to go canon, we will have gone through so much hate and vitriol from the bt stans, we have been teased and built up time and time again (even in s7), we have been bait and switched with no satisfactory outcome, and we have been laughed at the entire time, and there is a possibility that none of it will actually pay off, all because some white man gets to call the shots and he’s shown that all he cares about is melodrama and trolling people online to stir up shit.

anyway, i didn’t mean to hijack this post, anon, but i wnated to further expound upon what exactly my point was in my original post, which was not that i believed Bree’s delusions or that the helicopter pilot is buck’s endgame, but that i won’t trust tim to actually go through with anything promising until i start to see actual concrete irrefutable evidence of it.

[graendoll]

I finally watched the finale of 911 season 7 and my thoughts are below the break.

I have a lot of feelings about what they did and some of them are pretty "oof". Anyway, I realize I swept into Buddie fandom like two months ago and fell deeply in love with Buck and Eddie but after everything that is happening in fandom and in the show, I may slip back out as quickly as I came in because I'm not sure I can deal with the ship wars between now and season 8.

So yeah, if you want to hear what I think about where everything ended up, keep reading. Also...still a Buddie shipper in case it needs to be said 😅

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT PROCEED W/CAUTION

First, Eddie's story has me absolutely heartbroken even if I suspected a lot of it. Chris calling his grandparents, him leaving even if temporary. I knew it was coming and it still hit me really hard. I know Gavin was considering pulling back so I get it. And Chris will obviously still be a part of Eddie's narrative but ouch that hurt.

Next, the scene between Buck and Tommy was just icky to me. Daddy kink is one of those things I filter out of fic because it's a major fucking squick so the fact that Tim Minear put that on my screen against my will nearly had me throwing hands. Any positive I was trying to find in their date interaction was quickly vomited out all over my coffee table.

I'm not optimistic about Tommy leaving quickly in season 8 for any reason. The date was very much a get to know you situation and while I thought Tommy was being a bit harsh about Bobby, I can guarantee the BT's are probably drooling over the implications of that scene.

(This is one of the things seriously impacting my desire not to watch this show anymore.)

On to Hen and Mara - I am very glad we have a mostly resolved situation with Mara going in to season 8. Honestly this whole story line felt unnecessary and written for the sake of drama. The show is feeling very soapy and while I was giving it the benefit of the doubt because of how much the writers were trying to do in 10 episodes, they better knock that shit off. It's a far cry from the writing of episodes like Buck Begins. (The second reason I may not watch anymore.)

Also, every once in a while Athena does something that makes me absolutely despise her character and this episode was one of those situations. Her jumping to conclusions and threatening Amil was just, rushed, overly dramatic and felt unnecessary

If you needed to get her to Amils house for the cartel arrival, maybe have her go without homicidal tendencies?

Honestly the only storyline that got any room to breath in this episode was Eddie's.

Which brings me to my final thoughts, specific to Buddie and the future of that ship in canon.

First, that will is never going to come up again. It belongs to us now. The writers have elected to ignore it for three seasons and it's never going to come up again, unless Eddie actually dies.

Second, the continuation of BT and the loss of Christopher is like a fucking death knell for Buddie in canon imo. I hate it, but without Chris, they are no longer a little family. Whatever magic was happening with Buddie up to the shooting scene has not been recaptured, and I'm not sure it's ever going to be at this rate, especially I'd the writers don't fix their soapy garbage.

Am I old and cynical? Yes. Does that make me wrong? Maybe...but right now what we have is Buck happily engaged in a weird Daddy kink relationship, Chris, one of the main points of connection between Eddie and Buck, out of the picture, and Eddie probably finding God and repenting for his sins.

Okay I made that last part up but it's a real fear!

In either case, I feel like we were horribly ship bated all season, and it was done only to create buzz for the show on a new network with a new queer character.

I miss when fandom didn't have access to creators and didn't feel like a place you could win because the BTs are going to be A NIGHTMARE for the rest of the hiatus and frankly I don't want to deal with toxic ship wars while we all wait for season 8.

So yeah, happy season 7 finale? 🤣

[swiftiefirefighters]

You know Eddie overcorrected when he found out Buck and Tommy were together. He wants to be so supportive, and since they always talk about this kind of stuff anyways he ends up going down a google rabbit hole so he can be ready and knowledgeable if Buck ever talks to him about his sex life. Except Eddie gets very deep into the research and when Buck does bring it up, Eddie keeps throwing in random questions and tidbits about things he’s learned and Buck has to stare at him and go, “What??? What is that??? I’ve never heard of that—wait, how do you know these things anyways???”

And Eddie realizes that ‘hmm, while researching queer sex I may have actually just been finding unconventional kinks and running with it and Buck has no idea what half of the things I’ve just said means. How do I explain this without sounding like I’m suddenly very very into queer kink scenes?’

(Does this lead Buck to then enter the same research rabbit hole? Do they text each other all the fascinating kinks and videos they find in the guise of it being a ‘fun fact’ or ‘research’ but in reality they are just 2 dudes sending increasingly specific, downright strange, and often very kinky porn to one another? Does Tommy look over Bucks shoulder absolutely bewildered and ask “uhhhh, why did Eddie send you a video of some guy fucking an anthill?” Does Buck shrug and go, “We’re looking at different sex things and I didn’t believe him when he told me about the video.” Does Tommy open his mouth, close it, and then decide, “Yeah, okay, I guess that’s just something that’s happening now.” The world may never know.)

Sorry anon but I am CRACKING up because those idiots *would*. And Tommy's just. He isn't mad or jealous because he literally knows they're just. That's how they are, and he doesn't want to spook either one of them by saying like 'you know, I don't text my best friend videos of extremely specific kinks.' because Buck would probably be like 'yeah i mean well, me and eddie are just me and eddie you know.' and he'd have to be like Oh Yeah. I Know.

This very clearly and obviously leads to, at some point, Tommy being like okay I can't take this anymore.

They're all hanging out one night and after a very nice meal they're watching tv and Buck and Eddie are just whispering and showing each other things on their phones and Tommy Can't Take It Anymore because what the hell. He's just like okay if you wanna fuck each other lets go.

They're like. What. What????? Buck's just looking owlishly from Tommy to Eddie and Eddie is looking down at his hands and not making eye contact with anyone and Tommy is like abort abort and then finally Buck is like. Quietly and a little cautiously. "Wait is that an option."

And Eddie looks over at him with the Pikachu shock face and Tommy just shrugs like well come on Eddie's hot and this is not Normal Best Friend Behavior so I'm down if you are. He's looking at Eddie because Buck is *obviously* down. So really it's just a matter of whether or not this is a thing he'd be into or if this is a BuckAndEddie thing which honestly, Tommy would probably be okay with as long as he could watch.

[trans-bread-of-life]

Yesterday morning, I had a dream where I was on an elevator with a few people from a “discipleship school” (borderline cult) that I went to back in my Evangelical days. One of the ministry leaders got onto the elevator, said hi by name to every person but me, and only when I said hi to her again did she say hi, still refusing to use my name.

The dream was probably a realistic picture of what would happen if I ran into this particular woman someday, but I’m also wondering if it doesn’t have something to say more broadly about the experience of being a trans man.

As a cis-passing trans guy, I don’t really have a lot of places to belong in the queer community. I’m not a gay man, and gay male spaces are generally a minefield of dysphoria & avoiding chasers anyway. I relate to the sapphics, but as a man, I never really fit in their spaces (even when they try to be more inclusive). Trans-femmes have their own right-knot communities, but I really just have a few isolated trans-masc friends I go to for advice. I could probably fit in with cishet people, but I would have to hide the fact that I’m trans.

And when it comes to dating (mostly women & feminine people, as I’m kind of 90-10 bi favoring women), I keep shooting my shot and being turned down over and over again.

I don’t think I’m the only person experiencing this. In fact, I think it’s a systemic challenge that trans men face. As we are transitioning and reaching the times when we most need strong community support, we’re suddenly forced into the isolation of North American manhood. The message that we hear (usually implied, but occasionally out loud) is, “you wanted to be a man, so welcome to the worst part.”

But of course trans men are even more isolated than cis men, because all of these wild things are happening to our bodies with no one there to teach us to shave or show us how to navigate these new gender roles or help us figure out what the fuck to do with all of this ass hair.

I’m lucky to be involved in very queer church circles, where there is a critical mass to form a robust queer friend group, but not a big enough group to break off into specific identities. But that’s the only place where I’ve found myself belonging to a group and forming deep friendships.

I want there to be parties and queer community events/spaces where my presence is actively wanted & encouraged. I want to have memories that counter the many experiences I have (and the many more that I will have) of romantic rejection. I want to feel like I’m enough, and I want to feel like I belong.

I don’t know what the solution is (besides more spaces open to all LGBTQ+ people and maybe me figuring out to be hotter or something?) but I have to keep hoping it will get better.

In the meantime, hug a trans guy (with his consent) the next time you see one.