#canon queer rep?? on my internet????

[non-un-topo]

Having another one of those holy shit oh my god guys Joe and Nicky are actually married days

[fllagellant]

After screenshotting my original 1:27 am rant just for safekeeping and returning to this line of thought, I think I would like to swing this bat at a hornets nest . And I shall call it ;

BG3 And Polyamory, AKA The Discourse From The Eyes Of The Polyamorous

Hi, I am now disclosing the polyamorous part of my queer identity to the internet. Yay! Remember, I am only one polyamorous person on this website and I am not the spokesperson. This is just my own opinion and my own feelings with how both the game and the fandom seem to be handling the inclusion of polyamorous relationships and characters.

And in my humble opinion: Yikes !

This should be no surprise, but the polyamorous rep in bg3 isn’t … really good . It’s there, sure, and maybe I’m the fool for expecting it to be good when it really is the first time I have ever really heard of a game having an actual polyamorous option. Like on purpose. But with how much bg3 was hyped up as being super inclusive and completely different from all other games in the genre, I had hoped that it would take a good approach to polyamorous people and relationships.

Suffice to say, it fell flat once I actually looked into it.

The companions listed as open for an open/poly relationship are Astarion, Shadowheart, Minthara, and Halsin . What’s wrong with that?

3/4 of these characters already feel like they lean into the conservative fear of polyamory . Three of them are the ‘ evil ‘ members of your party . While ( besides Halsin, but we’ll get to that ) the rest of the ‘ good ‘ character are all monogamous. Growing up in a conservative home, in a conservative province, discussions of the idea of polyamory always came back to the same argument. That only the strange and amoral would do it. Only people who can’t be trusted and don’t actually care about you want to be in a polygamous relationship. And sadly, that is what I see echoed in the choices of who is and isn’t polyamorous.

I romanced Wyll in my first playthru. I had always planned to romance Wyll, actually, since I first saw his design when I first learned of bg3 during its early access days. When I met Halsin next, and chose the options to flirt with him, I thought that a polyamorous relationship between my Tav, Wyll, and Halsin would be cute. I had hoped it would work. I had already seen plenty of Astarion and Halsin and Tav art and gifsets and every other piece of fan content floating around . I had hoped that maybe that bit I read about who is and isn’t open for polyamory was outdated, and I could have this relationship play out in my little playthru .

Of course, it came down to having to choose. And I shrugged it off, at first. Sure, Larian didn’t make Wyll polyamorous for whatever reason. It is the first game that has polyamorous options, and I can just continue the game but have that polyamorous relationship in my head as my canon for my character. That’s fine, that’s what I’ve done before. It can’t be different now, right?

But then, I looked online, opened Tumblr, wondering what other people would say. Not thinking that it would be a big debate about if it is or is not okay to pair certain characters in an ot3 or not.

Wyll can’t be polyamorous, because knightly tales of courting and the mere act of courting is strictly monogamous. Pairing him in an polyamorous relationship is fundamentally misunderstanding the character and you’ve missed the point of him if you do that. It’s wrong to want that, wrong to think about it. The game has polyamorous options, be happy with what you have.

And so, I felt guilty. Larian already set up this dichotomy between their good leaning characters having the normal and good monogamous relationship and the evil leaning characters having the strange and perverse polyamorous relationship. But then, to see that the mere act of pairing your own character with two characters because you think it’s cute, is now being looked down upon so heavily and being seen as a “ fundamental misunderstanding of the characters “. And to have those ideas an opinions suddenly become the most agreed and accepted stance on the topic? How was I supposed to feel anything other than shame. Like I had been enjoying the game wrong, in a backward way.

If Wyll was polyamorous, you do know his approach to love wouldn’t change, right? Same with Gale. Same with Karlach. Same with Lae’zel. None of them would suddenly have to have completely different approaches to love and how they want to show it and how they want to go about it. Wyll can still be replicating the courting, the dancing, the slow burn that he always heard about in bards tales and he could still be polyamorous. There’s this idea that polyamorous love is only able to be expressed in very specific, very narrow ways. That miss the point of what love is.

People don’t act like this with the polyamorous companions, I’ve noticed. You aren’t suddenly bad and misunderstanding the story of Astarion or Shadowheart or Minthara or Halsin for having a strict two person relationship with them, and not expanding into the idea of those characters taking on another partner at some point. If you have Astarion in a strict monogamous relationship, no one says anything. But saying that you have a Tav who’s dating both Karlach and Gale? People are going to talk about you. They’re going to make vague posts. They’re going to talk about how it is Impossible for those characters to Ever be comfortable in a polyamorous relationship and how it is Wrong to protray them as happy in one.

I didn’t think people forgot that the stereotype of monogamy = good and polyamory = bad is still alive and well, but it seems that when it comes to the funny dungeons and dragons video game, it’s okay to prop that stereotype up and get mad when that is possibly challenged.

Now, what about Halsin? He’s a strictly good companion. He cannot fall under the pervious argument, so is he an exception?

No. It’s worse.

Halsin being polyamorous stems in racism. Wood Elves are all described as being polyamorous, and that they do not understand jealousy. And that they do not ever settle with any of their partners. And that the relationships they have are seen as “ doomed to fail “ . This is a stereotype. Commonly associated with indigenous people. That we cannot hold a ‘ proper ‘ relationship and that we always sleep around . We didn’t fit the white model of what a (white) family and a (white) relationship should look like, so the stereotypes and misconceptions started. And, unsurprisingly, ended up as another bit of dnd racism and bioessentialism.

Halsin doesn’t uphold the pervious argument at all, but he shows another part of the discussion that I don’ t think anyone really thought of. The racism stereotypes didn’t vanish when Larian made BG3, they’re all still there. You still have good races and evil races. You still have all the dnd bioessentialism that everyone was so keen to say was gone or just pretended it wasn’t there anymore.

And Halsin is an example of those stereotypes that people are still feeding. So much content with him in it narrows him down to ‘ Big Elf that Fucks and is Horny ‘ or ‘ Big Elf that can be Sexualized no matter What he Does ‘ and it is because Larian didn’t remove the stereotypes in the first place , and fandom doesn’t care enough to take a step back for a second to realize they’re playing into them.

Am I saying you shouldn’t have an ingame polycule with the characters available? No. If it’s cute, and you like it , and it makes sense with the story you’re making for your character, and literally just because you can, go for it! But for the love of god, can we be a bit more careful with how we treat the concept of polyamorous relationships and how we talk about them? Polyamory isn’t just a fandom thing with your ot3s, it’s a real life thing. And we can see how you treat people just having fun with their characters. You understand that, once you get that torn up over the act of making three characters hold hands, it becomes a little bit hard to forget that that is the attitude you hold towards the concept of polyamory when it doesn’t fit the molds you’ve subscribed to.

[goodluckclove]

Some Loose Thoughts on Queer Rep (Specifically Aspec Rep)

(Just in advance I'm going to dunk on Alastor from Hazbin Hotel like a lil' bit, as a treat. Mainly the team that made him and what he represents, but still. If that's rage bait for you, I suggest maybe dipping out now)

I have a theory that queer media needs both queer characters and queer genre characters. The difference is very important.

I think a queer character would be a character in a story about their queerness. For some reason the only two characters I could think of are the guy from Love, Simon (What was his name again?) and the protagonist from Rubyfruit Jungle, which should express the weird and complicated relationship I have with this particular archetype.

Queer stories centered around queerness are definitely needed, but at the same time I feel like we're just starting to come to terms with the desperate need for the alternative, which are queer characters in genre media that contain overarching plots larger than their sexuality. Not separate, necessarily (Their queerness certainly influences things), but just beyond. This is more accessible for a variety of artists, which is also the reason why it can be a flop or a massive success.

We get more of this than ever for gay and sapphic characters, as well as some trans folks and occasionally non-binary. It's definitely way less seen in aspec characters, and even less respected. I started thinking this way because the internet is flooded with references to fucking Alastor from Hazbin Hotel as an aroace character and - like - god, I don't get it.

Like you can have your serial killer comfort character, that's fine. But latching onto him as representation for the entire aspec community when he was only confirmed to be aroace through a reference in a livestream and the weakest joke onscreen is pretty disheartening. It definitely reads like this part of his identity was added pretty late in his character development, and by a team of people that didn't seem to consider what the response and reaction would be and how they'd handle it.

I also wish the newest aspec icon in media wasn't created by a team so adamant on encouraging shipping culture above actually respecting the identity they've decided to provide representation for. Like I see it means a lot to people to have an aroace character doing something cool in a fun TV show that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with their identity. Then there's like four other people right behind that person who really wants that person to be romantic and fuck.

And like, yeah, aroace people can do that sometimes. It's a spectrum, I know. But can't we start with a baseline representation before providing proof of fluidity?

I just think we deserve better. Like a character who in the media is established to be aspec, and people are like "great" and move on to fight robots or do magic or whatever. And the person can be morally grey, or even a total dick, but like I'd personally prefer something with a little more depth than Hot Topic genericism.

Like don't get me wrong, I'll take some sort of eldritch horror as my representation, but...make him at all horrifying? Like everyone talks about how he has Eldritch powers, which I know to mean unfathomable and maddening. But I've seen everything he does in the canon of the show and it is both incredibly fathomable and makes me feel normal and sane. Yog-Sothoth this man is not.

But yeah, I don't think there's a solution here besides more aspec artists creating aspec characters in their work. That way people can still like Alastor if they want, but he's not like the only viable option in terms of representation in the media. Let me see lovingly-crafted cool guys and dipshits and chaos goblins and little babies and True Horrors, all of whom have varying degrees of distaste or indifference towards sex and romance.

Do it. We need it. Please.

[ultfreakme]

Just this week, I had to interact with extremely racist rhetoric about Asians with a de-ager that genuinely put me in a bad spot mentally, but i dud it becayse i thought that person coud be educated. Since 2021, I've had to watch as droves of people commented & replied & posted racist, xenophobic, biphobic arguments about JayJon simply because they didn't enjoy teen Jon. Arguments saying Jay, who in the story is an immigrant freedom fighter, is a terrorist. Arguments saying Jon right now is better off dead which mocked teen Jon fans for finding any aspect of Jon's bisexuality relatable.

I've been trying to be polite & mostly keeping my thoughts offline the wider Internet & public platforms for YEARS. I know of multiple POC (specifically Asian) Jon & Jay stans who have had to go inactive or delete accounts, because certain people have decided even EXPRESSING, merely saying you like Jon as he is now warrants a witch hunt & microaggressions which they assume is "harmless" because they're unwilling to examine any of their own biases. On top of that, rn many queer DC creatives are also constantly getting harassed and literal war criminals are being upheld as good writers, purely for fanon ship reasons.

Do you have any idea how fucking tiresome it is, to fight conservatives who want my meager rights gone online spewing homophobia because Superman came out, alongside comic fans who gladly take up similar arguments just to get their headcanons to be real? Do you have any idea the mental toll it takes, seeing a character who represents real life struggles of fighting against colonialism who LOOKS so much like thousands of queer POC kids, be called a terrorist & a villain because he is in love with a white character?? Not for any grand reason. SOLELY because he's paired with Jon.

Why should we be nice & polite when all it has gotten me in return is trying to explain to people that hey calling freedom fighters terrorists in a story about US hegemony and saying the bi rep is "not correct" is just fuelling bigotry?

But when teen Jon fans make stupid jokes & give slight pushback, we're the bad guys.

You are not the victim. There's literally thousands of you and like, 10 of us who consistently post. DC comics does not have a grand agenda against you, white boy character enjoyer.

The least we ask for is to leave us alone & just let us enjoy canon Jon in peace but we can't post a meta thread or fanart or fucking ANYTHING without people calling us fake fans & throwing in a little bigoted comment to top it all off. Block us. Again, there's like 10 accounts.

Go through the tumblr tag rn, 90% of it is kid Jon posts. We can't have that fucking 10% though can we? No,that'd be the....idfk the DC agenda of the totally scary homeless freedom fighter boy manipulating the pure, totally powerless white boy who can literally topple nations if he wanted and is a grown man. 👏👏👏👏 congrats, you've identified the Agenda & defeated The Evil by putting down POC characters, their struggles, & looking down upon bi repbecause it diesnt specifically fot your vision of bisexuality or your experience. Oh and also, a bunch of marginalized DC craeatives probably hate you. You know, with all the insults thrown their way for their efforts (because Conservative Propaganda man and War Criminal will get the queer experience far better than the trans activists & queer writers).

[ijustthinkhesneat]

I am about to be so real.

I fucking hate DC comics.

Like have they given us Dick Graysons butt? Yes. Jason Todd’s thunder thighs? Yes. Damian being teeny tiny? Yes. Tim being a bi gremlin? Yes.

But you know the fuck what. I simply cannot get over their aversion to men having problems and like dealing with it in a healthy way. Why is modern Bruce literally the worst person ever?

And I don’t mean in WFA or fanfic or cute little cartoons. Why in the Batman Comic series is Bruce one of the worst people ever? Bruce “I care about kids who were hurt like me and want to try and give them a better life” Wayne has fully morphed into Bruce “Teehee I beat my children and blame them when sociopaths that I enable hurt them” Wayne.

Like literally fuck off. It’s not even just that. The whole Red Robin arc when Dick is just “wow my brother is having a really hard time. I’m gonna call him crazy, take away the thing that’s been helping him to stabilize and give it to someone who tried to kill him multiple times and is consistently verbally abusive towards him. That will be really good for him.”

Literally what the fuck. Don’t even get me started about tarantula or Damian dying or any interaction between Bruce and Jason.

Like I’m just so fucking tired of this company peddling media about how it’s normal and right to forgive people who habitually abuse you. How it normalizes unsafe and unstable relationships between men.

And a huge part of this is because they just write this shit for shock value. Like what horrible thing can we run these characters through and never talk about ever again just so people will talk about it. Remember that like 3 comic long shit show of Dick getting brainwashed by the fucking Joker? Like it’s literally Dick beating the shit out of his brothers and being like I don’t know you and I don’t care and then it’s just like haha back to normal everything is great now.

I fucking hate it. It’s bad writing, it’s an irresponsible narrative about how trauma effects men and I’m just tired.

I really do like the fandom too. I think DC fans have created a lot of safe spaces for queer people, people of color and people with disabilities. But so much of what the fandom runs on is just so far from canon. I know tons of people irl who have never read a release post new 52. And I know some people who have never read a DC comic period cause they saw a glimpse of the toxic waste in there and noped out.

Like I know I’m just some guy on the internet but seriously if your canon comic material is so bad that a very large portion of you fanbase feel they can’t read it or would rather write there own story that just completely changed your characters you need to take a long look at what you are producing. Dick maybe being bi in Gotham Knights is cool. The rep for a character that has been coded as queer for a very long time is cool. But representation is in fact second to writing a good story and having good characters and DC is failing spectacularly at both right now.

[captainclickycat]

12 and 21, for the Good Omens asks

Thanks!

12. Has your interaction with the good omens fandom been overall good or bad?

Definitely both. As a franchise it’s definitely a lot of fun to talk about and engage in fun little scenarios and headcanons for. The source material is quirky and funny but also deep and thought-provoking, which is a really good combination when it comes to these things. I think my favourite part was always the “Crowley invented this” meme. Remember how there was that running joke where you’d point to some everyday annoyance or inconvenience and say “Crowley did that”? Loved that. Great fun. Genuinely quite therapeutic.

The bad part was, maybe not surprisingly, The Discourse. And listen, as far as the question of “should series 1 be considered Actual Queer Rep” goes, I think there are good arguments on both sides. It’s a complicated topic and obviously a lot of people are going to be bringing their personal feelings and experiences to the table. But like so many internet arguments, any kind of nuance got very quickly drowned in the sea of people obnoxiously trying to shut down anything contrary to what they thought and insisting that anyone who disagreed with them must be morally bad in some way. Like, the people who acted like it was the end of the world if anyone said anything even mildly critical of the way it handled things caused me a lot more anger and frustration than anything Good Omens itself ever did or didn’t do.

The other downside was, to be honest, I never really liked the level of involvement the author had with the fandom, or the way some fans acted (and still act) about him. I don’t like “word of god” at the best of times, I don’t think author comments should be considered “canon” or that anyone should have to take them into account in their interpretation of the material, and with GO that sort of thing was really difficult to avoid. Like it was just expected that everyone was going to listen to what Neil Gaiman said on twitter or whatever and factor it into their reading, and as a result sometimes you’d see people insisting that “such and such is canon” when hardly anyone who just watched the show and took it at face value would come away with that as an interpretation. Like, you shouldn’t have to do background research to have a full understanding of something! I don’t care what Neil Gaiman said on bloody twitter and I shouldn’t have to!

Anyway, those were my major bugbears, but apart from that it’s been a lot of fun, especially in the early days of series 1. I love reading fics that capture the story’s tone and the characters; they’re very fun and endearing characters to engage with and honestly just to play with like dolls in a sandpit. My best experiences with the fandom have primarily been laughing at posts going “lol Crowley glues pound coins to the pavement and then tries to pick them up the next day”. I’m not as active in the fandom these days but I’d still like more of that.

21. do you prefer crowley's hair from s1 or s2? why?

That’s tricky. The colour in S2 is closer to the sort of colour I’d prefer to have myself, and it wasn’t a bad look by any stretch, but the more flashy and obviously-dyed quality maybe wasn’t quite… fitting? Idk. Maybe the first series, just because I preferred the first series in general.

Good Omens ask game

[eclipsecrowned]

danae disc horse summary: SHE GETS IN THE WAY OF CHR*SKER WEEEEEEEEEHHHHH // anonymous

so. exc*lla. it'd be the same shit they deal on exc*lla. judge not the oc on the merits of her own moral ambiguity (in danae's case) or outright villainy (in the case of the canon), but on the merits of 'this woman is in the way of two conventionally attractive white men who hate each other fucking.'

(and don't get me wrong, i ship the ship. i ship it HARD. i actively hold myself back from lobbing my chris at any of his arch-nemeses who cross his path, i'm a good kadi, i only go in with shippy intent with my darling ax, i get it. and honestly tumblr fandom doesn't seem to be as bad as i jest. other sites though holy misogyny and biphobia masquerading as allyship batman--)

ALSO AN ASIDE NOT TECHNICALLY TIED TO THE MEME BUT LIKE... a lady (or even lady-passing) oc doesn't even need to be hypothetically canon for this discourse. i had some freak on my old hel blog that was personally offended and kept saying i 'devalued' a podcast's canon queer rep... by having my high femme oc (that all of maybe five people in fandom knew about) ship with a canonically bisexual protagonist as played by a totally consenting friend. because my totally derivative fanwritten au in the conext of a collaborative hobby somehow got in the way of canonical mlm rep. people are truly wild and mad on the internet, not even about canon ladies, but ocs that might breathe the same air as a male fav.

[yourstormthlaylirahh]

8 Shows to Get to Know Me

I was tagged by @izumikyoukas and @i-got-the-feels thank you for tagging me!

I'm going to struggle with not just picking my favourite shows, but since the prompt is 'get to know me' I'm trying to choose ones that had a significant impact on my life or feel very personal/revealing.

1. Bad Buddy

This got me into watching dramas which has been both a defining hobby and part of my personality for a year. It also really spoke to me with the message of choosing who gets to truly know you and the power of not letting everybody know everything about you if they don't deserve it

2. Avatar the Last Airbender

This show was one of my first internet fandom experiences (along with the Warrior Cats series lol) and still holds a very special place in my heart.

3. Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood

My first anime, which influenced my high school years drastically through friendships and hobbies. Also it's a damn good show

4. Love Live

In my early 20s I was part of a Love Live cosplay and dance group. I devoted a lot of my time and social energy to this hobby, and I really miss it, though unfortunately the group fell apart.

5. No 6

This is a fantastic story, I really love the class commentary and how all of the conflicts are character and circumstance driven. In high school so much of my desire for queer rep involved non canon shipping, so to have such an explicit mlm romance was very revolutionary for me.

6. To Sir With Love

This show just means so much to me. I adore Tian to bits. I really don't think I can put how important this show is for me into words. A period drama where the character isn't punished by the narrative for being queer (because yes he suffers but the framing is always on his side) and he gets a happy ending because it was the world who had to change not him? A revelation. A reset.

7. Everything's Gonna Be Okay

Nicholas's autism presents so similarly to mine (though I like to think I'm a bit less self centered), all through the first season I was thinking 'but you're autistic too' whenever Matilda's autism was discussed. For the creator, Josh Thomas, to discover his autism through the role of Nicholas and have that explored as Nicholas gets a diagnosis as an adult in the second season was really meaningful for me to watch.

8. Merlin

This show made up my whole personality in high school (along with Sherlock) and I've talked about this before, but Merthur was an essential part of me figuring out I'm queer.

I'll tag @25shadesoffebruary @laowen hopefully you haven't already been tagged and no pressure of course

[yyoati-cas]

me, when I watch a show after it’s been released in its entirety: It’s sad that I can’t experience the live reaction of the fandom to these episodes and that I already have some spoilers about what happens…. I should start watching shows while they air.

also me, literally every time I start a show while it airs, realising I have to wait for episodes and especially seasons, while the hiatuses make me forget parts of the show and make me get less invested in it:

[secretmellowblog]

So much internet analysis of media feels like……. if people were trying to criticize Chick-Fil-A, but refused to talk about anything other than the quality of the sandwiches. All that mattered was whether the product was good. So people just debated endlessly over whether the products were Good or not, and no one discussed how Chick-Fil-A donated to conservative homophobic hate groups.

“Is this Disney product Good and does it have good gay representation?” Does Disney still donate to homophobic republican politicans!!!??? Do they still actively censor any queer content during production, cancelling gay projects and actively forcing their writers to cut gay content, to the point where every sad scrap that makes it onscreen is a miracle? Can you meaningfully make any statements about “gay rep at Disney” without bringing in that larger context?

It’s not a perfect analogy— because art shouldn’t be a product, and a movie is theoretically trying to Say something in a way that a sandwich is not. But Idk I feel like the reason we fixate so much on media analysis is because it is Fun. It is fun to talk about lord of the rings and the owl house and Steven universe. It is not fun to talk about the horror and exploitation that is baked into the “entertainment industry;” it’s not fun to research and analyze the systems that created the horrifically expensive movies you love.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because amazon is releasing the most expensive tv series ever made, a spin-off series based on lord of the rings. I have no interest in watching it despite my lifelong love of lotr but the thing is—

I have no doubt the series will be good! It will be fine. Lots of money has been thrown into it, and I have enough friends in the entertainment industry to know that on every massive corporate product there are hundreds of writers and artists sincerely trying their best to create good meaningful art. The Amazon series will be Fine. It will be good.

But my question is: Does it being good actually matter? Does it matter if a chick-Fil-a sandwich is good? Does it matter if this vile evil horrible media monopoly run by a villainous CEO that works its employees to death creates a good product?

I feel like I’m going crazy when most of the criticism of Amazon’s lotr is conservatives and people who act like conservatives ranting on about how “I can’t believe they gave Blorbo GenericElf a personality! That’s so out of character—he didn’t have a personality in the book! Tolkien, our lord and savior who we must worship as an authority, would be infuriated (because we still are bound to submit to this dead guy’s opinion apparently!) Everything would be better if everything stayed exactly as it was in the past, in the Sacred Original Canon. Any attempt to transform Tolkien’s work is morally reprehensible and a sign of the fall of the civilization.”

Sometimes I just want to shake those people and say “PEOPLE ARE DYING! people are dying in Amazon warehouses, and you’re treating your petty fandom opinion about blorbo genericelf’s personality as if it has this laughably enormous moral weight.”

I know that’s unkind, and that people can care about more than one thing; but I don’t know. I used to have this really naive idea that adaptations were a conversation with the original work, and every reinterpretation was a beautiful addition of meaning. I still believe that on some level. I think every author should be free to reinterpret stories however they want, should be able to argue with the original author and set their work on fire if they need to. there’s a lot about Tolkien’s work specifically that deserves to be disrespected, like his vicious racism and sexism. I LOVE transformative work—especially transformative work that meaningfully argues with the original author.

But like….you really can’t talk about these big media franchises without talking about the systems that created them.

Yes, people can sometimes create great beautiful sincere emotional art within these exploitative systems! I love the original lotr films and books. The new Amazon series is so expensive that it will be perfectly Fine.

But creating good art doesn’t change the fact that these giant media monopolies do so much real, constant, tangible harm. Warner Brothers caused massive harm to New Zealand while making the lotr/hobbit films, essentially strong arming the country’s government into changing their film industry laws to benefit massive foreign corporations. And Amazon is a vicious violent exploitative mega monopoly that is literally overworking its underpaid employees until it kills them.

It’s hard because I believe that good art can be very meaningful to people, and that media analysis can be important and valuable.

Its just that— not to swing a bat at a hornet’s nest— sometimes I wish people would stop hyperbolizing about how [petty fandom opinion] will cause lasting harm to the world, while not engaging with the things about the media property that are causing immediate tangible physical objective harm.

[endlessdreamerxoxo]

"Stop this War"

I will try to be nice with this post, but I really dislike people telling Hellcheer shippers to stop this war with st*ddies in the name of peace and harmony. Although, I do like the sentiment. I really do. I just can't be quiet about the bold harassment and the unnecessary toxicity against something I like and people I admire for their creativity. And I really do question whether those people truly understand the fundamental problem that Hellcheer shippers have with toxic st*ddies and the scope of the situation in general.

I'm checking the A03 tags as I write this post up and currently

we (Hellcheer) have 956 works on the website.

Steddie have 7,013 works on the website.

And Harringrove (a ship that has been around since 2017) has 8,415 works on the website.

For a better comparison, that means that Steddie has exactly 1,402 fics to go to meet the cumulative effort of 5 years hard work in a less than 3 months since the official creation of the ship. That's utterly insane. And if we did that math again, Steddie has 6,057 more fics than Hellcheer. That's the fucking scope that we are dealing with.

Their ship is the Lusitania, while our ship is a rowboat.

Many of us have always say this over and over, we were minding our business for a good solid week or two (I came around June 9th into the tumblr fandom) before claims were being made about Chrissy's age. Personally I didn't even know that people were shipping Steve x Eddie (cause they have no chemistry in my eyes) because no one was talking about them in the 'edssy' tags and I don't have twitter. People were just making fanart and other things to celebrate our cute ship. So I literally discovered Steddie's existence as we got called out for  p*dophilia (which is not the correct term, but go off) and homophobia. From my viewpoint, we got dragged into a shipping war against our will as we kicked and screamed at the the top of our lungs that we didn't want a war. I know for my "Joe Quinn was Right" posts, I danced around my actual feelings to preserve peace and minimize hate. I know a lot of my mutuals did that and continue to do that with those who are stalking their accounts and sending them threats. We have been vocal about not caring whether someone ships St*ddie or Hellcheer. Nevertheless, we are also been very clear to point the obvious flaws in shipping Steddie and or their sketchy behavior, while acting as holy than thou than the rest of the fandom:

The misogynistic harassment of Grace (and Amybeth).

The biphobia and bi erasure.

The fetishization of attractive white gay men.

The constant whining for some or better wIw rep in Ronance, but than ignoring the canonical lesbian ship of Rockie in the show or failing to give Ronance the same amount of love as your mIm ship.

Only making Chrissy a lesbian because they want her away from Eddie under the guise of allyship.

The stealing of lines from other scenes or characters in order to make their ship more cute and fluffy.

The mass reporting of Hellcheer artwork.

The invalidation of people's queer identities/sexualities because they ship a heterosexual ship (or a straight passing if they see it that way).

The obsessive nature that people have formed a parasocial bond with Joe Quinn to the point where they are assuming his sexuality, stalking his family's social media for pics where he was a minor for some twisted reason, and harassing him on his family vacation.

Like we can't bring up those facts because we don't want a shipping war? We didn't even bring up those fact until recently because we have been poked for a entire two months straight. Grace literally thought her safety was in danger, going to an con because her friend was attending the same event. Are you really telling us not to say anything? Are you telling them to mind their own business and go to their corner of their internet with their 7,013 fics and their shit ton of fanart? Because the reality is this extremely tiny Hellcheer squad can't stop this war. Even if we decided not to call people out and did our own thing, people would still be harassed and made to feel like crap about themselves for liking this ship. Even if Joe came out tomorrow and say stop this war, toxic St*ddies would think that Grace is holding him hostage at knife point. St*ddies are the only one who can stop this war, but they wouldn't until they get Steve x Eddie as canon (which they will never have). We are truly just trying to defend ourselves and just want to be left alone.

[catcatb0y]

Voltron was the biggest influence in the shift from 'FANdom' to 'canon king'. I remember pre-Voltron age, it was WEIRD to even think about sending stuff to creators. Those were for hardcore weirdos, now? It seems like a creator is getting death threats every other day.

They used the voice actors as extra marketing in order to boost fan engagement- and it qas unheard of! Everybody was so exicted that their favorite actors loved the same media as them! It also led to a more pressed shift over canon being 'what the creators say' versus 'what actually explicitly happens in canon'.

Canon harassment and the anti movement both got popularized by Voltron, which, in turned led to the pathowozation of terms like 'pedophile' being used en mass if you shipped the tall one and the short one. It was one of the pillars in the modern internet culture that we have.

Hetalia and Homestuck targeted stupid kids, MCU is DEFINITELY up their with its crime against moviekind, and Supernatural is pretty colloquially bad, but none of them really branched out quite like Voltron's garbage ass fandom did the moment that dumpster fire crashed.

Those are the people sending death threats to creators and Manefestos to make their ship canon. Those are the people who take the voice actors words like gold and harass you if you didn't see the aftershow interview. Those are the people who are doxxing and bullying people for liking '~problematic ships~'. Those are the people who started popularizing "minor coded." Those are the people that would call you a pedophile for shipping two adult characters with a height difference or say it was incest when they were 'like brothers' (even if they weren't related).

That was the show that routinely watered down their characters to 'funny quips' and halfassed the writing so badly it was all over the place. They used wild, out of nowhere plot twists as an attempt to 'hook' readers. They used their voice actors as puppets to garner engagement. They built a foundation on queerbaiting and popularized 'market to the gays' (but don't actually give them what they want).

Those fans are the ones 'cancelling' every kids show with queer rep for being ~secretly problematic~. Those are the fans who then went out and said shit like 'Naruto is queerbaiting' because they kissed (twice). Those were the people demonizing anyone who didn't ship the most popular ships (the death if crackships my beloathed). Those are the people in your fandoms yelling about canon or watering down characters to fit them into gay ships. Those are the people that influenced it all.

(Not all Voltron fans were like that, but) I watched Voltron fans fight with themselves and then I watched them go into different fandoms.

[on-stardust-wings]

Regarding the good omens post I do believe it's weird useless discourse, but also I cant help but get mad when I see someone say shit like "headcanoning Crowley and Aziraphale as anything other than men is homophobic and transphobic" like yes I've only seen it once and it had a bunch of reblogs but FUCK it's so tone deaf and chronically online that it ruined my day.

Absolutely weird useless discourse, yeah. It helps nobody. It achieves nothing. It just makes people mad at each other over... fictional characters.

The beauty of Good Omens is that especially Aziraphale and Crowley, both as individuals and concerning their relationship, are so easy to read into whatever suits you best. It's one thing that really spoke to me about its fandom, too, when I first came here, the way fans were happy to interpret them as gay men, as genderqueer, as trans, as ace, as so many things, and there was art and fic with it and it all happily coexisted. Like, last year it was normal and celebrated that you'd read one fic, be it canon or AU, where they're gay married and then another where they ace and in a QPR and then one where one of them is intersex and all of them were right and wow look at all our cool rep and the community and the love and acceptance we have for each other here. I loved that. It was such a welcoming place.

And, thing is, I think it still is. The majority of those people are still here. Gatekeepers are a small, loud minority in any community, and looking at the notes on my rant post... yeah, a large number of fans want to have this open to interpretation, this accepting culture around the show and the ship (and are still in fact living it, enjoying a variety of different queer readings of the show and book).

I agree with you, it's very tone deaf.

Also, a thing people forget about Good Omens is that it isn't a queer rep show. It's the adaption of a book, it's a story about averting Armageddon, about finding out who your friends are and where you belong and who you are and learning to do what is right by you own moral compass. It does Good Omens a great disservice to reduce it to "oh, it's queer". It includes queer coded characters. It includes queer themes. But they're not meant to be the core message. They're one element of the story among many. Good Omens is a very rich and nuanced narrative, and some of those nuances include genderless characters and characters in relationships that aren't straight.

But a number of people don't see themselves represented exactly the way they want to, either by Good Omens on its own or by Good Omens when comparing it to other things like Our Flag Means Death, and now they're unhappy about it (because they're hurting), and lashing out at everyone who likes the thing they don't like, not seeing that all it does is hurt other queer people. (I'm starting to be a little bit Internet Old, and this is such a common, sad pattern in online spaces for minorities, especially spaces that tend towards minority activism. It's true for queer spaces, for disability rights, for the fight against racism... A lot of us have been hurt in our lives, and continue to be hurt, and the hurt makes us defensive, and we lash out at each other instead of standing together against the actual problems. Fighting amongst ourselves weakens and distracts us, and leaves us with less energy to deal with the actual problems. ... Sorry for ranting.)

[huxianposts]

Y'know, looking back at all the fanart of Joker with Kirby or Inkling when he was first announced in Smash it's pretty funny to me in insight since both the Kirby and Splatoon series unironically have something that Persona doesn't: actual good LGBT representation.

bruh, I didn't know Kirby and Splatoon had lgbt in it 👀 (though, now I guess I understand why my friend's sibling calls it yasstoon huh)

and about good lgbt rep hmm, like p2 has a canonical bisexual relationship, p3 with hamuko's route, p4 and all of that, like i guess... what makes representation good? is it making the rep explicit, named, known? is it a specific portrayal? is the representation about palatability?

this isn't a dig or whatever, it's something that I genuinely think about all the time, esp as someone who likes to create for fandom and for personal projects. representation does matter, of course. but sometimes i'm wondering if we're so caught up in the representation checklist aspect, that we are constrained in our own storytelling. what makes xyz better rep than abc of another thing? can we not just have it all, and choose for ourselves what we personally like and what we don't? obviously, there's a whole lot of nuance to this topic. like, of course i wish persona had more gentleness towards queerness, of course i want to play a protagonist with more freedom. but those are my personal feelings, and I'm not Atlus. what I CAN do is create fanworks to satisfy myself, or seek lgbt rep elsewhere that suits my desire (which, I want to say is so much more accessible now! go ham! the internet is your oyster :D)

i apologize for how wordy and serious this answer(?) is, esp when i'm sure your ask was phrased in a more humorous way kdlfjalsdj but I guess this reminded me feelings and thoughts about representation, and how that plays into my life

[isa-ghost]

I've seen more canon character representation for asexuals than I have for pansexuals and I can't tell if it amuses me as an asexual person given all the discourse there is about aces, or if it annoys me as a panromantic person because pan is seen as one of the ""core"" queer labels (probably because of rainbow capitalism. Spoiler Alert: there's no such thing as a core queer label).

Or if I just haven't seen enough media with pan rep, which could be the fault of media or myself. But it always feels to me like characters who like multiple genders are just written off as bisexual, be it by the fandom or by the creators who have god knows how little knowledge on queer labels so they just go with that one because bisexual is a widely known term by non-queer people.

This was gonna be a shitpost at first bc I'm legitimately amused as an ace person that of all the shows and such I've watched, I can name way more ace characters I have under my belt or know exist than I can pan characters. But now I'm genuinely pondering why that is, and if I'm just not exploring enough or if there's actually an "issue" with lack of pan rep (or at least a lack of clarity on if a character is bi, pan, or a dif label of multi-gendered attraction).

And now that this is a post-post instead of a shitpost, time for stupid disclaimers I shouldn't have to put here but the internet has the reading comprehension and critical thinking skills of a spoon and if this post somehow blows up, I'd rather shut clowns up in advance than have this post devolve past the point its making.

For the love of god, this is not bi vs pan discourse, do not turn it into that. I'll kill you on sight.

Queer is not a slur. Terf kool-aid drinkers do not interact with this post. Do not tag this post. Also block me and fuck you.

[thirstforsalt]

OK LET ME GUESS because I was there. OK?! I WAS THERE. Not literally but I was a teenager and adult when this show was airing and I was VERY ACTIVE in online fandom. One of the House writers had a LIVEJOURNAL (Doris Egan)-- the internet was VERY DIFFERENT than it is today.

My best guess, based on being hyperfixated on this show from about '06-'12 and extremely, extremely online, is that no one involved was very interested in making them canon gay BUT. And this is a big but. I do think Hugh Laurie knew what to do in order to not play it in a homophobic way. I do think he chose to play House as bisexual. And I also think that somewhere between s3-5 the writers understood that House/Wilson was the heart of the show and the absolute best thing that they could use to keep getting renewed. They danced on that razor's edge for ratings, and it worked. I also think the writing is good. It would never happen today, because it WAS queerbaiting. But I love this analysis, above, about how it "no homo'd" its way into queer rep, because that's exactly what it did.

I would love to know the truth behind what happened. I would pay money to talk to those writers.

I just can’t scream enough about post season 5 Hilson from the beloved early 2000s drama House MD and how it straight up no homo’d it’s way straight into queer representation????

Or like was it actually vice versa???

What did they WANT? Were they upset that people shipped them together in the first 5 seasons that they HAD to change something about the neighboring offices and frequent visits…so they MOVED THEM INTO THE SAME HOUSE???

Or was it what they’d wanted all along - the gayness that is because let me there you there is BARELY any context. House is in a psychiatric hospital and then he’s living with Wilson because that’s the only way he can emotionally heal????

But then there’s the constant no- homoing except it always just comes full circle back to their codependency so all the self aware no-homoing comes off as defensive blithering whereas they’re being gay as ever over Wilson’s dead girlfriend??? Why is Wilson talking to his dead girlfriend about his worries about House??

?????what is going on?????