#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

[bastard-sweet]

Image ID: Two light-mode screenshots of three Tweets by dear @/planet of deer. They read,

‘“fill harry pitter with trans rep”, “fill disney movies with gays”, “queer the mcu”, etc. all miss the fact that these corporations will never ever see you as anything other than a demographic to exploit. the queer art you want is being made by your peers.

the queer art you want is in 19th-century novels and pre-code silent films that you won’t read/watch because they’re old and “problematic”

queer art is all around you but one place it is not is in the multiplex of the newest four quadrant superhero film’ End ID

[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.

[thefortysecondolive]

Been thinking about allo- and amatonormativity lately and how many examples I can offer up first-hand even from the last couple of years and I’m just… I’m tired.

I’m tired of it only being a matter of time before showrunners turn that close m/f friendship into a romantic subplot. I’m just about as tired of “if they don’t kiss/hold hands/make out/have sex on screen then it’s not queer rep” as I am of “there’s no platonic explanation for this” and “friends don’t do that.” I’m tired of “I just don’t get why you’d headcanon them as aspec,” even about characters who have never expressed any preference at all. I’m tired of the implications that reading a character as aspec or a relationship as platonic is somehow homophobic. I’m tired of aspecs who are canon in the source material being erased in adaptations and fandom. I’m tired of “they can still have a relationship though!” as a justification for shipping without engaging with aspec identities.

And that’s just talking about internet spaces—the spaces I come to as a form of escapism. That’s not even starting on the bog-standard get-to-know-you questions about having a partner, which I can either tactfully deflect or answer honestly and out myself in a first conversation. The “well, but if you had to—?” The “when you’re a parent you’ll understand” and the insinuations that the types of relationships I do form aren’t meaningful. Being told I’d clean up on lesbian dating apps and having to explain to my therapist why that took me aback. The way people say “just friends” like friendship is something lesser. Every time I’ve been taken to be dating a close friend. The way a bartender once asked “what’s funny about that?” when my friend and I laughed at the implication we were in that bar as a couple. The friend from my very queer contra community who said he didn’t really get why people wanted to have words to express that they didn’t do something. The other friend who told me I needed to “reevaluate my prejudices about romance.” The frequency with which in-person queer spaces are sexualized or focused on finding a partner. The podcast I listened to that defined QPRs with barely any reference to the term’s origins in ace and aro communities. The tax benefits for married couples and the restriction of visiting privileges in medical settings. How difficult it is to afford rent on a single income.

It’s all just. so. tedious. And I’m so tired of it.

[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

[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

[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

[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.

[erismourn]

So obviously Eramis is really going through it, but there are two other canonically wlw characters (Ana (lesbian) and Mara (bisexual)) with speaking central roles this season as well who AREN'T going through it (any more than any other character in this world). As a wlw myself, it seems unfair to claim Bungie has some sort of vendetta against wlw when they've got so MANY of them experiencing such a variety of plotlines in the overarching story? And not just wlw but such a wide variety of other canonically queer characters with a variety of emotional arcs?

tbh I don't think you're Wrong per se but I do think things could be better for destiny's wlw characters in the sense that like. we've never seen camrin on screen. sjur is still dead-not-dead. eramis' wife is ?????? i think she's in stasis floating through space on a colony ship. there are other **potentially** wlw characters who have had all of their relationships w women erased in favour of screentime with male characters. dyou get what I'm saying?

in terms of quantity we are Feasting, but like. have we ever seen a wlw character and their partner interact on screen.

my issue w bungie's queer rep in general is that like. if you want to have queer characters you have to Show Me That They Are Queer. I want in-your-face representation because we are still in an era where that is very much shunned. like, saint and osiris kissing on screen was beyond my wildest fucking dreams - talkign about saint and osiris gargling each other's tonsils on screen was a JOKE I made with my friends. now do this for wlw characters, please

(also to be clear because I feel like people enjoy misinterpreting me on the internet - I know many of the writers and other people who work on d2 are queer and want to see these stories represented. the issue is imo higher ups going wahhhh our gamer money how are we going to get microtransactions if there's homosexuals in our game)

+ another thing I do agree with your statement I just think it could be better. sorry if this is really unclear there is weed in my system atm. i think bungie is breaking so much ground w their queer rep but it could also be better, and the reason I make these criticisms is becuase I know the developers are more likely to listen. (the post ur referencing was just complaining though. however I have made criticisms in this vein before, more eloquently and politely worded)

[garetthawke]

I posted 4,127 times in 2022

That's 399 more posts than 2021!

757 posts created (18%)

3,370 posts reblogged (82%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@sapphoseraphim

@luciferscathedral

@chelseawolfe

@cripplepunx

@fredersen

I tagged 865 of my posts in 2022

#anders - 23 posts

#literally - 11 posts

#yeah - 9 posts

#scorpio - 5 posts

#lmao - 5 posts

#steve harrington - 5 posts

#yes - 4 posts

#lol - 4 posts

#stranger things - 4 posts

#ref - 4 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#what do u mean u don't over analyze the same media over and over to supplement your own ideas so they're reinforced by canon and not fanon

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

internet-only lgbt+ people being obsessed with seeming “normal” is going to be what weakens us

1,305 notes - Posted June 26, 2022

#4

"all lesbian rep is always femme" it's not, actually. i literally never look on the screen and see femmes. we get hallmark channel blondes who look exactly like every other straight woman on tv. actual femmes are so beyond what's considered acceptable or normal for lesbians - in fact characters i would call femme are usually very pointedly straight and usually shamed/demonized, with their appearance a pointed commentary on why they're bad people, from slutshaming to the selfish material girl trope, unless it treads into the "weird" category for straight people, in which case they're always oddball lonely cat ladies nobody likes.

but even then, the distinct things that i recognize in femmes (queercoding, if you will,) are always absent, because they are deviations from the male gaze. femininity is expected to be a performance for the male gaze, femininity embraced by lesbians is literally the opposite. guess what we see on tv?

and i don't say this to be like "ooh femmephobia is real!" rather, my point is that media just hates lesbians. and i dislike when people say "all we see for lesbian rep is femmes," because we don't see femmes, we see feminine people playing a lesbian based on a straight interpretation of what femme and the female gaze is. they literally don't understand it. there is no gender nonconformity, no actual femme coding on any of these characters; what you mean by "femme" is they wear makeup and maybe high heels.

media hates lesbians. butch rep is utterly abysmal, and I'm begging y'all to reframe how you look at what rep we do have, because continuing to call what they give us "femme" is a disservice to lesbians. straight people do not understand that there are different ways to be a woman or perform femininity, so all we get for lesbian rep are straight women and straight interpretations of lesbians, not femmes. please don't disrespect lesbians by acting like any of what we get qualifies as rep for butches and femmes, because it doesn't, and it won't without direct queer involvement because straight people are incapable of understanding what we are or even look like.

1,403 notes - Posted June 4, 2022

#3

amab people can dress masc and be gnc and afab people can dress fem and be gnc and yall really need to get this thru ur skulls bc u seem to think "gender non conforming" refers to agab and not. you know. people's actual gender

7,367 notes - Posted June 15, 2022

#2

the tumblr discourse brainrot that had ppl reading the phrase "gender essentialism" and sped them past actual gender essentialism just to arrive at "no critique of men ever feminism is over unless you're a terf."

y'all really need to start getting education off this fucking website bc I'm sick and tired of y'all not grasping basic shit only to take nuanced terms out of context just bc they're trending.

8,519 notes - Posted June 18, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I'll never forgive tumblr for being so quick to shit on the concept of "queer platonic" relationships bc even outside of asexual/aromantic relationships, the bond I've shared with other queer women in a non romantic, non sexual way has been wildly different and more intimate than any friendships I've ever had with cishet people, even when we're not as close as my cishet friends. the fact that y'all were like "relationships are strictly within these categories there is only familial, platonic, sexual, and romantic" like yall pls 😭 queer connection and bonding is so much deeper and more complex than that. get offline and connect with some of your community i beg

28,085 notes - Posted June 21, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[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.