#debate i am going with gay for the purposes of writing this but like. bi ryo enjoyers i see you i salute you

[skrunksthatwunk]

just read shin devilman and i'm about to be so annoying what the FUCK WAS THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (both /pos and /neg but frankly /baffled. what the fuck. anyway thoughts below)

ok so i knew sd (i'm just gonna call it sd) was gonna be weird right. it has TOS style gratuitous funny time travel plots and TOS style homoeroticism it's like. it's mostly there to see ryo and akira hang out in a variety of Historical Events/Settings/Clothes and that's fine. in theory.

chapter one fucking. i. okay i had this foreboding sense right like oh... they're in vienna in 1913 and my first thought was "do i google when hitler was born + is this a "do we kill baby hitler" time travel theoretical??" and i was like no no he would've been older. anyway it's gotta be a coincidence right hitler's not going to be in this. and then we meet this painter. his name is adolf. oh god. he hates jewish people. oh no. but everybody was antisemetic back then it like,, it might be a hitler symptom but this could still be another unaffiliated adolf. oh but his hair's greasy. but he doesn't have the mustache so maybe it cancels out? and as it goes on im like seeing okay his jewish.. art dealer(?) is selling this portrait of his unrequited love to another jewish man and i'm like oh god Please don't do what i think you're going to do with this but also debating whether or not i want this to be hitler because on one hand it would be an awful narrative choice. like politics aside (we'll get there) it's just so goddamn tacky. but on the other hand my fear and increasing belief that go nagai is about to reveal this guy to be THE adolf hitler is building up pressure for a fit of hysterical laughter that i Know is likely coming. god it would be so baffling and so so funny and

i howled. is my point.

like i cannot express to you how fucking mind melting this was to me. for the next couple hours of reading i would just stop and (unprompted) whisper adolf..! adolf hitler...!! to myself like. god what a fucking. just look at it god i don't have to explain LOOK AT THIS SHIT. LOOK AT IT. he animorphs into evil older hitler. it's in Such poor taste and it has Such fucking. dumb implications. we'll get there.

what else. oh i love how nagai doesn't even bother with explaining them adjusting to places most of the time. next chapter BOOM they're in armor on a boat ready for battle. did they just pop out of the dimensional rift like that? in historically appropriate roles/clothing? that doesn't always happen though bc ryo has to get them clothes for versailles next chapter. but we meet them with the cheyenne and it looks like they've been there a while so. idk it's goofy to me. he really said i am not putting all that effort into a drabble.

pivot but i like how dumb yaoi-coded a lot of sd is. i read it for The Scene (the "akira im not into women i um. i. uh" scene) but it still kind of surprised me sometimes. i would be chastising myself for looking at akira diving overboard to save ryo (in full armor) bc it's not Really gay to save his best friend's life right and then that's Immediately followed by this

im fucking losing my mind. kyaa don't take off my armor (baka). what am i doing. what was HE doing writing this. etc.

^^i didn't even gather everything gay i saw because eventually it started feeling about as enlightening as pointing out the gay bits in a ryokira doujin. but those are some highlights i guess. you think they encountered homosexuality in the ancient grecian military? surely not...... unless..............? (also they're bound by fate..... look i know they're almost The most literal iteration of that dynamic but. i know what you are)

i love this bit. zero stakes. "yeah greece kinda ate shit" "lol exactly like--" "SHUT THE FUCK UP AND WALK!!!!!!!!!"

what else what else. oh this panel was funny. only her left arm is being severed here so that right shoulder is supposed to connect to her back. somehow. spot the difference!

THEY GOT FLAT STANLEYED

another panel i liked. the h in dhevilman stands for head empty

this one too. the scan was actual shit so i kept not seeing the guns so this was Extra jarring to me

also look at these little blurbs at the end. iirc they only did those for the joan of arc and little bighorn stories and LOOK HOW DIFFERENT THEY ARE TONALLY

like the joan chapter is largely sweet? i guess? it's supposed to be a happy ending and it's like aww (though. i don't think joan would be like "an angel in the form of a demon... :)" but whatever) and then it's like Yeah Well She WAS Tried For Being A Witch. By Humans. And Was Burned Alive. it's super jarring and then the little bighorn one is like "sometimes they put this in movies!" as if we didn't just see people get massacred???

actually that brings me back to the hitler thing. i'm kinda new to devilman so take this with a grain of salt but part of what i appreciated about How devilman's apocalypse happens is that like.. demons weren't Really in control of humanity's governments or anything. they inspired paranoia that exacerbated preexisting prejudice and selfishness and led people to view the marginalized as the most dangerous For their past oppression, and humanity tore itself apart. and when there was a little compilation of the groups targeted in this, jewish people (specifically in the context of the holocaust) and native americans were both brought up, and i respected that as well. devilman takes place in our world, so discussing these atrocities and ongoing bigotries is like,, relevant and important for what it's trying to do, i feel. it wasn't focused on much, but it stuck out to me, and i think it shows a degree of care about those genocides on the part of nagai.

but i think mentioning them in passing and from a contemporary perspective was a bit safer. you have to be a lot more careful doing historical fiction/time travel misadventures about Very Real atrocities for your Very Unreal Fantasy Romp. and i think that because nagai feels moved by these atrocities and because they're kind of important to devilman and what it's saying about humanity, he felt it would fit to have them in a devilman story that includes time travel (or perhaps he was just inclined due to artistic preferences. either way). i think it also makes sense to explore, in theory. yet any time you insert your fantasy bullshit as a cause for/major factor in An Actual Irl Genocide/Etc you kind of trivialize it. not quite the same, but the closest other example i could think of was how motherfucker supreme jk row.ling took the witch burnings and was like haha that was witches playing pranks on stupid idiot muggles. they were laughing btw. real actual irl people were murdered!! i'm not saying you can never joke about it or mess with it but when you're treating them as serious events And Also going "well actually it was my Dumb Fantasy Thing that caused that" you like.. make it about your dumb fantasy thing instead. the dead are reduced to props.

ch 1's depiction of hitler was of one who already hated jewish people before watching his beloved be burned alive by a jewish(?) demon (a demon masquerading as a jewish person? yeah), but who decided to dedicate his life to jewish extermination Because of that event. and i think the decisions to have him hate jewish people before this AND to not make him a demon are good. this could've been worse. but it still kind of makes the holocaust about demons, y'know? hitler was a person, one influenced by the world in which he lived. countless surrounding factors led to his hatred of jewish people, his attraction to fascism, and his genocidal project. the same is true for everyone involved in perpetuating or tolerating the holocaust. there is no inciting incident, really, for that hatred existing. not for most people. devilman is fundamentally concerned with the nature of group hatred, fear, bigotry, and violence. i would argue they're within its central bundle of inextricable themes (no matter how many adaptations try to, y'know. extricate it). exploring historical instances of that makes sense. but disregarding all of that nuance in favor of "demons tricked him" is in bafflingly poor taste. it's one thing to place demons in a contemporary/future-set story manipulating governments and encouraging violence, but it's another to make the murders of millions of Actual Real Not-Props-For-Your-Spinoff people retroactively caused by demonic influences. because it kind of decreases the agency of the Actual Real murderers. in sd they were tormented, deceived, manipulated by higher forces. in reality they were manipulated, maybe, but by humans. the same is true for the little bighorn chapter. admittedly, i'm less familiar with this event, but it seems... vaguely accurate? to my memory? regardless, taking a massacre that was part of a genocidal effort spanning centuries and going "custer had demons in his heart >:(" is like. revolting to me! and i don't think it's even a like,, metaphorical demon in the hearts of him and his men because we see a very literal demon in marie antoinette's heart the chapter prior. i think it's supposed to be the same thing. symbolic, maybe, but in-story there is in fact a literal demonic possession causing this. as opposed to the propaganda, violence, willful ignorance, greed, callousness, etc which actually caused it. it's like.. anti-relevance. anti-poignance. even if the demons are symbolic of like. humanity's base instincts or whatever i still don't like it. it's stupid and it sucks. and you've got like. tiana getting raped. and because of the context she's a sort of stand-in for everyone who experienced sexual violence as part of this genocide. and it's got the go nagai depictions of sexual violence funk on it (i need to finish devilman lady but Oh Boy) so it's like yucky and that makes the depiction of the genocide broadly yucky because it's again a snapshot of an actual THING that HAPPENED to REAL PEOPLE and it still has the horny funk and. god am i making sense?? whatever it's like. bad to me. i'm not saying you can't like shin devilman or whatever but this part was gross and as hard as the hitler twist made me laugh it was simply not worth it. the toybox approach to historical fiction is Not Good when you start putting in real atrocities and real people, imo. you can't blame hitler's antisemitism on demons bc that primes people to dismiss others as Just Evil it encourages an ignorance that perpetuates genocide and also it's just kind of bad for your story's like.. social commentary. devilman feels like an indictment of humanity but sd almost feels like it's excusing humanity for the same actions bc of the retroactive thing. it's like devilman's demons weren't manipulating humans who independently had a pattern of mass violence for xyz reasons but instead were the secret cause of every cycle of mass violence humans did. it blows!! genuinely open to differing views on the fucking political commentary in shin devilman but idk i just uh. don't think it was good. as someone who's fresh off a first read.

idk. um. i thought shy ryo was interesting.

tbh it doesn't seem like,, in line with my image of ryo from the original series? but i kind of like it when characters are unexpectedly shy, so it's cute to me. i have to wonder when in the process of writing devilman nagai decided ryo was 1) in love with akira and 2) intersex (something ryo if not nagai himself explicitly ties into his interest in men), because the whole thing feels... different than devilman irt that dynamic. i mean, i've been talking about how gay sd is, but i genuinely think a lot of that comes from a desire to depict their relationship with those things in mind, both for the audience and (again, potentially) the author. making ryo more shy in like.. a kind of effeminate way? (idk man idk) feels like the sort of not-quite-retcon that'd stem from that.

actually i kind of liked his relationship with tiana, brief as it was, and what it highlighted about ryo. he blushes when he realizes she's into him, and while he sort of rebuffs her flirting, it's clear that he still cares about her. he's flustered by the situation because it puts him in an awkward spot, not being able to say why he's not interested (and who he's actually interested in). it's a less-discussed and honestly very relatable part of being gay and closeted that was like,, pleasantly surprising to see. hell yeah. and that bit about ryo being unable to kill animals where she says he has a gentle heart is so cute to me

they're friends!! :> and that rules. i think there's a tendency to depict queer characters who don't (and are unable to) reciprocate the feelings of a straight character as being cold to them. and i think it would be really easy to take this gay sort-of-villain in ryo and make him disregard tiana (or women broadly)'s feelings (the gay misogynist trope). but ryo is tiana's friend. her crush isn't going to change that, because the friendship is genuine and comes first, and i like that. and i think in the context of sd we're supposed to read ryo's feelings for akira as ultimately unrequited. he loves akira, and akira loves miki. but that's not why they're not friends in the end. i see ryo/tiana and ryo/akira as parallel relationships. that in a world where ryo confesses and akira doesn't reciprocate, they would still be friends (something especially powerful with a gay character, who're treated as if they perverted a perfectly normal friendship). it's kind of sweet and hopeful, even if you know their relationship's going to end for other reasons soon enough. and he cries when he sees her dead!! i know that feels like a no-brainer to have characters cry when they see people massacred (people who took care of them for weeks) but it's not a given!! and again it shows that he cared for her rather than being like pshuh. women. which again a lot of people inject into their gay guy characters. like i'm glad that one of the adjustments made to ryo's character Was Not That (phew) but instead something that kind of made him more similar to tiana, made him relate to her even though her crush made him feel a bit awkward. like. there's room for exploration there, with him projecting his own awkwardness onto akira and stuff. anyway. yeah i wish she was a more developed character bc she is very much a brown girl there to fall in love with a foreign stranger, highlight elements of his character, and then die horribly but that doesn't mean i don't like what was there, i guess, so much as what wasn't.

[kitkatopinions]

Of course you would erase Blake’s canon bisexuality. Blake has been confirmed as bisexual way before ten years and it’s even brought up multiple times by the writers like when talking about her new hair where they referred to it as the “bi bob” and Yang is still a sapphic no matter the case. They literally sold only one jacket with bumblebee in the store versus the many other things they advertise and sell that the jacket sold in comparison is barely anything that they make in total

Blake and Sun never dated or confessed to liking each other and Blake never once spoke about finding Sun attractive or said anything out loud about how much she liked Sun and Pyrrha and Jaune never went on a date either or confessed to liking each other or said anything about being attracted to the other before Pyrrha passed, so it just seems like you have a double standard and don’t recognize your own hypocrisy. The only ship that did was Renora and they never went on a date either, they only confessed to each other and that wasn’t until way after volume 3 and they’re not even together now.

The thing is you as a viewer knew Pyrrha liked and was attracted to Jaune without her outright saying so because she showed that she is through her actions and body language. This is no different than Blake and Yang showing that they are attracted to the same sex through their actions towards each other like blushing at one another, sharing loving looks and embracing and holding each other throughout the volumes. So Blake and Yang are not just queer coded they are queer and in love and the writers purposely show that through their actions and they don’t need to say their sexuality every five minutes for you to understand that because even you said that you knew that they were in love, so clearly the writing has made that obvious. And again Blake is confirmed bi and Yang is still sapphic

But I’m sure you won’t understand what I’m trying to say and twist my words and that’s fine. Some people will never see reason or their own bias in their take. You clearly can’t see Blake and Yang without rt’s scandal even though crwby are the ones writing the show and not the people who were actually homophobic and racist. It’s no different than Disney having shows with queer characters in them. Just because the company is rotten doesn’t mean the people who write the show have the same are the same

Okay, since you actually took the time to at least attempt to make an argument here, I'll indulge. This is a long post but I do expect you to read all of it if you're going to play like you're actually trying to have a civil debate after slinging angry hate anons at me for days.

Point One:

Of course you would erase Blake’s canon bisexuality. Blake has been confirmed as bisexual way before ten years and it’s even brought up multiple times by the writers like when talking about her new hair where they referred to it as the “bi bob” and Yang is still a sapphic no matter the case

Blake is no more a 'canon confirmed bisexual' than Dumbledore was canon confirmed as gay years ago just because JKR made a tweet. Content creators don't get to treat their 'queer rep' like behind the scenes easter eggs that TrueFansTM will get if they follow them on twitter. When I say that neither Blake or Yang is canon confirmed as queer, I am saying that it isn't confirmed in the show, not that the writers have never claimed it in extra side content. That's called trying to get points without doing the work, and it's weak. Also, here's Arryn Zech the voice actress describing Blake as straight in official RWBY side material as late as 2019

And for good measure, here's Yang in RWBY Arrowfell which came out in 2022 describing Blake as being like her sister

So yeah, I'm looking for actual in show canon confirmation, not weak-ass tweets or some shit while they put this in some of their other side content.

Point Two

They literally sold only one jacket with bumblebee in the store versus the many other things they advertise and sell that the jacket sold in comparison is barely anything that they make in total

Actually, no, they also sold pride shirts at one point specifically for Pride with Pride rainbow flags that all four main girls were standing in front of. I'm going to assume based of your posts so far that you're actually either a teenaged child or someone who has never critically engaged with the portrayal of queer people in media, and assume you've never thought about why it might be problematic for people to sell merchandise branded with gay pride flags all while their show has no single confirmed queer main character, but it is in fact at the very least suspicious. It's really weird for you to be like 'well compared to the other stuff they sell, this isn't a super big deal' especially considering RT's horrific bigoted history. It's like if you went into a store that you knew horribly mistreated its queer workers and knew they wouldn't let their employees wear LGBTQ+ pins and saw a 'Pride Month' section and then was like "Well, this isn't a problem at all because they clearly sell lots of other stuff." That's what you sound like.

Point Three:

Blake and Sun never dated or confessed to liking each other and Blake never once spoke about finding Sun attractive or said anything out loud about how much she liked Sun and Pyrrha and Jaune never went on a date either or confessed to liking each other or said anything about being attracted to the other before Pyrrha passed, so it just seems like you have a double standard and don’t recognize your own hypocrisy. The only ship that did was Renora and they never went on a date either, they only confessed to each other and that wasn’t until way after volume 3 and they’re not even together now.

This is an official date. It is literally a date. Sun asked her out and she came and confirmed they were going TOGETHER.

This was Jaune asking Weiss out in song form, and then he later proceeds to have an open conversation with Ren where he says he's "completely head over heels for her."

Here's where Weiss asks out Neptune.

Here's where Pyrrha and Jaune literally kiss before she dies. All of this happened in volume two and volume three. Note that these people all got confirmed as interested in the opposite gender through means of either a date (Blake and Sun,) an asking out (Jaune and Weiss,) or a kiss (Pyrrha) but this does not mean they HAD to get together, likewise Blake and/or Yang could've been confirmed as interested in girls without it leading to the two of them getting together (to preserve the 'slowburn.') But my point is that Nora and Ren are the exception, not the rule, they're some of only a few main characters who didn't get their interest confirmed in some way (either through a date, kiss, open conversation of feelings, or other things like that.) You're literally tricking yourself into thinking the early seasons weren't packed full of heteronormativity in order to pretend that RWBY just doesn't do casual or non-endgame-slowburn stuff when the show in the early seasons was filled with non-endgame not-slowburns. You literally forgot Arkos??? Kissed??? In volume three??? Also, your statement that Ren and Nora didn't kiss until volume seven and now they're not even together makes me think that you're not getting the concept that Blake and Yang being confirmed as queer never relied on them getting together, they could've been confirmed eight ways to sunday without getting in a relationship with each other right away.

Point Four:

The thing is you as a viewer knew Pyrrha liked and was attracted to Jaune without her outright saying so because she showed that she is through her actions and body language. This is no different than Blake and Yang showing that they are attracted to the same sex through their actions towards each other like blushing at one another, sharing loving looks and embracing and holding each other throughout the volumes. So Blake and Yang are not just queer coded they are queer and in love and the writers purposely show that through their actions and they don’t need to say their sexuality every five minutes for you to understand that because even you said that you knew that they were in love, so clearly the writing has made that obvious.

Again, I'm assuming you're either a teenage child or have never analyzed media before, so let me help you out.

When writers want their viewers to pick up on the feelings or motivations of their characters without stating or admitting it, they do this thing called coding, where viewers see through tone and looks and little moments that characters feel or think certain ways despite the fact that they are not CONFIRMED to think or feel or want the things we're meant to pick up on. Then later on they might confirm that thing by having it stated indisputably. In relation to queer representation, a lot of media acted under censorship where they were not allowed to actually have their characters openly be queer and so they coded them as queer through things like lingering looks and touches, blushing, hand-holding, standing too-close together, things like that.

In today's modern media, sometimes queercoding is used as a way to try to get LGBTQ+ audiences invested without actually confirming (or last minute confirming in the famous example of Super/natural,) and without risking driving out the homophobic members of their fanbase. This is called queerbaiting.

Queercoding and queerbaiting allows queer people like me (and I'm assuming you) and allies to the queer community to see the intended romantic subtext and pick up on all their little (or sometimes big) clues and understand the intended romantic reading, while allowing plausible deniability for both the writers and/or company (to fly under censoring or assure a bigoted fanbase that it's 'just a fan theory') and the homophobic people who ALSO watch the content. Queercoding and queerbaiting is all things that can be written off as 'unintended' (like Qrow and Clover) or 'like brothers' and 'like sisters' (again, the RWBY Arrowfell dismissal of Yang referring to Blake as being like her sister.)

Queercoding looks like this:

ON THE OTHER HAND Canonical queer confirmation is writers making their characters openly and unapologetically queer, it's kissing, it's dating, it's having open conversations about their feelings, it's active confessions of love, it's being open about their sexual orientation or their labels or their identity, it's sometimes living together, or sleeping together. This obviously doesn't mean characters have to be proclaiming their sexuality every five minutes as you randomly accused me of wanting, but confirmation is undeniable.

Because a homophobe can watch RWBY up till now and go "well Blake and Yang are clearly sisterly" and you and me both might be shaking our heads that they're an idiot and a bigot for not picking up the clear signs, but there's nothing we can actually point to that would definitively prove him wrong as of yet. But meanwhile that same homophobe would probably turn off the Owl House the minute that Lumity gets canonized.

Canonly queer confirmation looks like this:

Do you get the difference, here? Do you understand? BLAKE AND YANG ARE CODED, NOT CONFIRMED.

People like you and me are meant to read Blake and Yang as in love and as queer wlw, and we're meant to see them as romantic, but THEY ARE NOT CANON CONFIRMED, because they have NOT BEEN WRITTEN TO BE ANYTHING BUT CODED. If you want to get mad at someone for that, get mad at the RWBY writers, they're the ones who haven't actually given them one single moment that indisputably proves that they're queer at all.

(I want it on record that no shipper is to blame for liking, believing in, wanting, or feeling seen and represented by coded queer content. That's fine and natural and kind of what the writers are trying to do. But it just isn't canon.)

Fifth Point:

But I’m sure you won’t understand what I’m trying to say and twist my words and that’s fine. Some people will never see reason or their own bias in their take.

This is actually angering to me when you came into my inbox hurling insults and saying that I secretly hate queer people and women and you've been ignoring like ninety percent of what I said with every new ask you sent. YOU are the one who has been determined to misunderstand and twist my words. YOU are the one who got furious because I said that Blake and Yang were not yet canon confirmed to the point where you were just angrily attacking me in my comment section. You don't get to play the victim now, you're the instigator here, you're the one who has been wildly irrational, you're the one who wants so badly for RWBY to be perfect representation that you've spent the last two days attacking a queer woman.

Sixth Point:

You clearly can’t see Blake and Yang without rt’s scandal even though crwby are the ones writing the show and not the people who were actually homophobic and racist. It’s no different than Disney having shows with queer characters in them. Just because the company is rotten doesn’t mean the people who write the show have the same are the same

"CRWBY" includes Miles Luna, and sleazy VAs who turned out to be dangerous bigots, and all kinds of things. CRWBY is not a couple of good apples you can pick up and show me, it's a big barrel full of apples and many of them are contaminated by RT. See this link here where my sister laid out some receipts. Miles Luna (with his history of misogyny and specific biphobia) was not only one of the creators and main writers of RWBY for years and years and years, but he's also been the head of animation at RT. I think pretending that there's zero overlap between CRWBY and RT is naive at best and actively harmful at the worst.

Anyway, thanks for trying.

[alotsgonnachange]

Fan apprentice Bios

for the alotsgonnachange/the arcana cinematic universe that eye personally believe to be better than the original game...

Name: Isabella Ciccino

Meaning: Promise of God

Gender: Female

Pronouns: She/Her

Height: 5′10

Birthday: October 28th

Star sign: Scorpio

MBTI: ISFJ-T

Patron Arcana: Justice

Sexuality: Lesbian

Favorite Food: Lemon chicken orzo

Drink: White wine (Vinho Verde)

Magical abilities: Plant care/recognition (green witch), Foraging

Ethnicity: A small rocky/mediterranean esque island off the coast of Venterre that would strongly resemble sicily and malta.

Family: Mother, Angela Ciccino (deceased). Younger sister, Annamaria Ciccino (deceased)

Backstory: WIP

Occupation: Seamstress/tailor

Hobbies: Ballet, reading, drinking wine, dancing, tending to plants

Familiar: None (for now i guess??)

Love Interest: Nadia

Description: Isabella is a mysterious and alluring magician. To most people she is kind and charming, but private. She is incredibly helpful and caring to those she is friends with and cares about and will drop what she’s doing to assist. Likes to do quiet introspective work like reading, sewing, knitting and caring for plants. She’s a bit of a homebody in that sense. She comes across as level-headed and assertive in formal settings and does not allow others to talk down to her. With friends, she is a bit more sassy and teasing. She hates answering personal questions and has strict boundaries, which can lead to her being standoffish and stubborn at times.

As a Love Interest: Very loyal and committed, generally very gentle towards whoever she is seeing. You are going to have to get her to open the fuck up though she’s not good at being vulnerable AT ALL. The type of gf who may or may not qualify as a therapist/mother which…yikes. needs to work through her fear of intimacy before she can have a healthy relationship awwww 5/10

___

Name: Danielle Dupont

Meaning: God is my judge

Gender: Female

Pronouns: She/Her

Height: 5′6

Birthday: September 7th

Star sign: Virgo

MBTI: ENFP-A

Patron Arcana: The Sun

Sexuality: Bi

Favorite food: Pain au Chocolat (Chocolatine for my canadians…)

Favorite drink: Espresso or a good wheaty ale

Magical Abilities: Sexual magic, chemistry/potionmaking, candle magic, topical balms/solutions

Ethnicity: Whatever the Arcana equivalent is of like. Western Europe germanic? A country including but not limited to Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland. Who cares really she is white and an Orphan

Family: Orphan!

Backstory: WIP

Occupation: Shop owner who sells potions, balms, candles and various other uhhh items usually of the purpose of sex (literally think a modern day sex shop with dildos and shit but also candles and skincare too)

Hobbies: Socializing, singing, making/testing potions, foraging, baking

Familiar: None, is in fact frightened of several animals due to trauma :(

Love interest: Lucio (Her taste is questionable and that’s okay!), also portia

Description: Danielle is a cunning and animated witch. She’s outgoing, bright and carries herself with confidence. In the past this has made her friends and enemies alike. She’s charming but can be a bit of a trickster. Her demeanor is generally calm and she does not often experience strong anger. She’s very smart and dedicated to her craft, and she is a perfectionist. As a worker, she gives excellent customer service and is a good saleswoman. To her friends, she’s teasing and wild, but loving and encouraging. On her worst days, she has the potential to be a bit more inconsiderate and is not the best at handling huge displays of emotions from others.

As a Love Interest: Girlllll…. first of all she needs to stop being emotionally stunted! My good sis cannot handle open displays of emotion at all and tends to shut down! The physical aspects are all there and excellent and she is going to be sweet, caring and loving but she needs to take things more seriously and be able to talk about feelings!!! 3/10

____

Name: Jia Song

Meaning: In korean it’s “clear” or “good”

Gender: Female

Pronouns: She/her

Height: 5’5”

Birthday: August 5th

Star sign: Leo

MBTI: ENFJ-A

Sexuality: Bi

Favorite Food: Pulled pork or a good seasoned steak

Drink: limeade

Magical Abilities: Potions/herbs and healing

Ethnicity: Her father is from the same country as Ki (in a modern AU, this would be like. Korea.) and her mother is from somewhere uhhhh near nopal or something. Warm tropical nice (in a modern au this would be Brazil), but she grew up in her mother's country.

Family: I don't currently have names but basically, her father, mother, aunt (deceased) and two younger brothers.

Backstory: will be linked coming soon

Occupation: Healer, researcher, linguist

Hobbies: Dancing, reading, adventuring

Familiar: None

Love Interest: Julian

Description: Jia is a bright and curious magician. She’s a bit nerdy and loves reading/learning new disciplines. She is an energetic and altruistic person who is liked by many. She comes off as kind and forthcoming. She is very helpful and if she can’t help directly she will find someone who can with her connections. To her friends, she is loyal and sweet and affectionate, but also has the potential to be grumpy and even a bit negative. She’s very determined in hard situations and won’t back down until things are made right. Despite this, she can potentially overthink and overestimate situations and is incredibly stubborn when she wants to be.

As a romantic partner: loving, but definitely also able to keep independence. Not necessarily a stage 5 clinger but somewhere in the middle. She will love just spending lots of time with a partner and just picking their brain and learning everything she can from them. The type to brag about them to her friends. A wonderful listener but give her a chance to speak too she likes talking a lot as well! 10/10 would recommend

____

Name: Ki (Kiyoung) Kim

Meaning: Debatable but Ki alone means arisen and i’m getting “Vigor and eternal” But i think names differ based on the characters u use i am not korean so take this with a grain of salt

Gender: Nonbinary i think...

Pronouns: He/him or they/them doesn't have a preference

Height: 5′8″ Short king

Birthday: February 27th

Star sign: Pisces

MBTI: INFP-T

Sexuality: Gay

Favorite food: Budae Jjigae or Yongeun jorim

Favorite drink: any alcoholic beverage where you can’t taste the alcohol and strawberry milk

Magical Ability: Divination and mediumship (idk what the proper term is) so he can communicate with spirits/the dead

Ethnicity: Think of a small nation veeeery far away from Vesuvia that's cold for a lot of the year (for reference, think Korea).

Family: a twin sister named Jiyoung, 3 older sisters (Jiwoo, Jeongyeon, Joonhwa), mother and father and paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother who are living.

Backstory: will be linked coming soon

Occupation: Musician - mostly guitar and piano. Enjoys instrument care, arranging and performing in large ensembles, not a soloist by any means. He’s a great singer but he’s shy and singing gives him anxiety

Hobbies: Playing guitar, composing/arranging, reading, writing, shopping

Familiar: a tiny white dragon named Egg. Idc if dragons exist in this world but i feel like they HAVE to..

Love Interest: Asra

Description: Ki is a perceptive and witty magician. To most he comes off as a bit anxious and shy, which he is. Once you get past that, he’s eager, forthcoming and empathetic. He is very kind and likes to believe people have good intentions. He is very helpful and always tries to make sure others are comfortable and happy. He enjoys music and learning musical instruments. He prefers to work more in the background so as to not draw attention to himself. With his friends, he’s actually very talkative, silly and goofy. He’s prone to anxiety and may tense up or feel attacked when put into frightening situations. Unfortunately he has self destructive tendencies and low self esteem and has a hard time due to that.

As a Love Interest: perfect little s/o shut the FUCK UP…. that is if u can deal with low self esteem and anxiety! He really really tries though! He’s also shy with physical affection but will warm up to it eventually with familiarity and trust. Very doting and randomly shows up with delicious food and takes care of u when ur sick. 8/10

____

Name: Mathilde “Tilly” LaRue

Meaning: Mighty In Battle? Lol

Gender: Female

Pronouns: She/her

Height: 5’11

Birthday: January 16

Star Sign: Capricorn

MBTI: INTP-A

Sexuality: Bi

Favorite Food: Lentil soup

Drink: Black coffee

Magical Abilities: Divination, telekinesis, herbs, defensive magic

Ethnicity: From a large urban area with a large population somewhere in an area a bit cooler and rainier than Vesuvia. (think like. England)(in a modern AU think Afro-caribbean)

Family: Mother and Mother and an older sister named Topaz

Backstory: will be linked coming soon

Occupation: Court Magician (but like simply a well rounded witch who goes wherever the money is)

Hobbies: Exploring, foraging, reading

Familiar: A white ferret named Elle

Love Interest: Muriel

Description: Mathilde is a gentle and thoughtful magician. She is soft-spoken and hates raising her voice, and is often making bizarre and thought provoking side comments in most situations. She is curious and intuitive when it comes to magic and often able to use several methods to predict the future for others. She carries herself in a dreamlike/contemplative manner and does not really care what others think - She’s off in her own world. With friends, she has a good source of humor and gives good advice and is a very good listener. She has an affinity for animals and nature, and would generally prefer to be outside. She can tend to be unrealistic and naive and loses hold on her emotions in tough situations (angry crier…) and feels misunderstood by those around her.

As a love interest: Downright adorable. Sweet, will bring you cool items she found and very endearing. She’s also encouraging and surprisingly cheesy. Not outwardly clingy but if you let her she will. but good fucking luck starting to date her! She is extremely pretty and gets asked out almost every day, turning down 99.999999% of applicants because other people do not particularly interest her and her taste is insanely picky! 10/10 but FAT CHANCE

[theclaravoyant]

musings on the evolution of bisexuality in sitcoms and being treated “like a joke”

Not to open up old cans of worms, but for my video project I was thinking about the subject of Eleanor Shellstrop (The Good Place) and various opinions about her bisexuality, the status of it canon-wise, and in particular the feelings amongst some of the fandom (and non-fandom) that it is treated “like a joke.” I have heard similar things about Rosa Diaz (Brooklyn 99) as well regarding the latter point and so that worked its way in, and soon enough this ended up sort of turning into a short ish essay. I’m not really trying to argue a particular point, but merely reflect on some things, and I hope you don’t mind I thought I’d share my musings. It boils down to being laughed at vs being laughed with, which I get to below the cut after a brief exposition (I have some Thoughts)

Note: I am not looking to get into an argument with anyone, and I’m not saying this is the be all and end all answer to rep, but if you wanted to share some thoughts, add on, etc, you’re welcome to do so.

Note II: Just for clarity’s sake, non-LGBT+ people are welcome to interact if you would like to do so.

I must admit, moving back to the topic of Eleanor for a minute, I resonate with some of those feelings I outlined above. For example, I don’t particularly care for the fact that we have never seen her engage in an abiding romantic or even sexual relationship with a woman, whereas her romance with Chidi has been rebooted over and over and is consistently the outcome. It grates on me a bit that in a universe which has been rebooted upward of 4 different times that we have seen (and approx 300 other times shoved into a few minutes) this is the outcome every time. Why not explore another option for a season? I love Cheleanor, don’t get me wrong, and the constant rebooting annoys me from that perspective as well not just the f/f perspective, but in terms of sapphic rep and also considering how often bisexuality is exploited and misrepresented by heteronormative storytellers (eg the tropes “Bi the Way” and “Not Too Bi”), it really sucks.

Edit: I deleted a paragraph here that had some examples I had misremembered and was rushing through. Shockingly writing up a train of thought on a bus leads to some inaccuracies and skipping over of valuable debates. Instead, I will say that I don’t mean by the above, that m/f bi attraction is not real and valuable. It certainly is. What is a pain in the ass in my opinion - and in the opinion of a lot of the bi people I know before anyone comes at me with that again - is when bisexuality is only used to make a character interesting, sexy or rebellious, while still only representing the m/f side of things because that is easier/more comfortable/etc for heteronormative writers and viewers to portray and invest in.

THAT SAID, back to my actual point. I think we (particularly we who are LGBT+ ourselves) are also very accustomed to seeing LGBT+ characters in dramas, where bad things happen and there’s angst and death and gnashing of teeth. I think this being the norm leads us to freak out a bit and not necessarily know how to actually handle positive, happy rep in which we ourselves, our identities, are taken seriously. We are so used to either being a tragedy or being laughed at (rather than with) that it is extremely unsettling to experience what I would call a dawning new era of being respected in sitcoms - including The Good Place, Brooklyn 99, One Day at a Time, and I’m sure there are others as well.

It’s not surprising, with this skittishness trained into us, that some people interpret the treatment of Eleanor’s bisexuality as being a joke. I’m also not saying this knee-jerk reaction is the only reason; again, I’m not saying my thoughts & feelings on this are the be all and end all of rep. I am just saying that it was a major reason why I was uncomfortable at first: it is extremely hard to trust people to joke around about us, and our identities, and especially with the added element of the unique hypersexualisation of bisexual f/f attraction. But recently I’ve been rewatching some older and less progressive, less inclusive sitcoms and in comparison, it becomes very clear, the difference between being the butt of the joke (laughed at) or being part of a joke (laughed with). It might help - not just with Eleanor, but with others too - to give some examples:

In Friends, Monica, Rachel and Phoebe, only use the idea of f/f attraction when they want to get the boys’ attention, distract them, win bets, or the like. They are successful in this explicitly because the men find this idea so ridiculously, mind-bogglingly sexy that they can’t think. Yet NONE of these main characters are ever revealed to have an actual, serious attraction to girls; none of them express it outside of the direct goal of getting male attention. Similarly, in How I Met Your Mother, Lily’s repeated expression of a desire to kiss a girl is put down to her artistic nature and rebelliousness, and is repeatedly called “so stupid”, and again, is only used to get male attention (to wake up Barney). When she finally kisses Robin, it goes away (bi experiment trope), and it is implied that ~lol~ after all that Robin might actually want more, but that is then left hanging and never revisited again. There are heaps more, I could go on, but these are all examples of being laughed at. 

Compared to these sorts of jokes, let us reflect on Eleanor again. Jokes around her sexuality include: being so attracted to her female nemesis that Eleanor can’t insult her profusely without starting to compliment her, and being so attracted to her boyfriend’s girlfriend that in a simulation where she plays him, she goes to kiss the girlfriend instead of her assigned goal, which was to break up. If this sounds more like #relatable sapphic content than a dismissive joke, that’s because it is. These jokes could not happen without Eleanor’s attraction to women, that is true, but the attraction itself is not the joke. The joke lies in Eleanor’s reactions to the attraction as a messy, funny, sexually driven human. In this way, her bisexuality forms part of the joke, but it is paired up with her other personality traits as a comedy character to be laughed with. Similarly, with Rosa Diaz, her stunned moment upon seeing Alicia is funny because it is an example of what we in the biz of gay ass blogging sometimes refer to as “useless lesbian brain” (or in this case “useless bi brain”). It’s cute because the love interest is a girl and because Terry is hyper-enthusiastic that it’s a girl. It wouldn’t work as well as a joke if it was not a girl, and heteronormativity is almost definitely the reason for that, but the point still stands that the bisexuality itself is not the joke, it’s the way she responds to it: it’s the fact that Rosa Diaz, usually so suave and in control, loses the ability to Can. Terry’s overly enthusiastic allyship is also funny, but mostly to people who have experienced overly enthusiastic allyship ie the LGBT+ audience.

(To add one final example: I am not aware of ANY male bi rep in older sitcoms, which kinda speaks for itself, but in the more modern ones we have characters such as Darryl Whitefeather (Crazy Ex Girlfriend). One of the biggest jokes around his sexuality is his coming out as “both-sexual!!” Once again, the joke is not the bi attraction itself, but rather, in the fact that lol this pour bi soul didn’t know the word for it! Another example imo of being laughed with).

I know I’m not saying all that much new here. Probably nothing new, to some people. I also know I’m not addressing every joke or facet of bi or LGBT+ rep even in the shows I’ve just listed. I’m not trying to, I mean none of us have all century. I just think it’s important to highlight what I feel is usually quite a strong difference between being laughed at and being laughed with, and that was the main idea of this post. It’s definitely not always as simple as the examples I’ve outlined above (eg. some of the Eleanor jokes are similar to jokes made in Pitch Perfect, in which I would say it’s about being laughed at), but I am just trying to put some words to some of my thought process on this sort of thing, particularly as I rewatch Friends and think about how far we’ve come with it!

One final time, because people in my inbox don’t seem to get it, I am not claiming to be ‘correct’. This is just an aspect of my feelings and opinions. I am also not trying to ‘speak over’ people who actually ID as bi; in fact, it was bi people saying ‘why can’t you let us have funny things’ that actually opened my eyes to a more comfortable bi-friendly interpretation of the treatment of Eleanor’s sexuality in the first place. I’m not trying to say “this is good rep, actually,” or “this is bad rep, actually.” As I said above, I think it’s both, and I think it’s more complicated than that, and most importantly, I am not actually trying to change anyone’s mind. If you resonate with this? Cool. If not, that’s fine. It’s my thoughts, my opinion. It’s not fact and I don’t want to tell anyone how to feel especially about their own rep.

With that in mind, if anyone is interested in chatting with me more about this sort of thing (by which I do not mean harassing me about it) or asking me what I mean by certain things, or for writing advice, or whatever, you’re welcome to do so - this is just the tip of the iceberg! I just wanted to put this out there in the world for whatever purposes it might come to. Thanks for reading!

[thealphabetmurders]

Scrambled Thoughts

Pairings: Romantic Logince, Sibling Analogical

Word Count: 2013 (for Chapter 3), 8163 in total

(Previous) (First)

Summary: Roman was not a rebel by any means. Roman was not a fan of breaking rules. Sure, he bent some from time to time, but never done anything blatantly wrong, that was not in service to his passions. Yet, despite the protests his best friend and his consciousness, he picks up two dozen eggs and goes to vandalize. Now, Roman has to avoid suspension, make amends with Virgil, alleviate the concern of Patton, and not fall in love with his enemy Logan.

Triggers: Bullying, Violence, Vandalism, Adopted Sibling Relationship, Mentions of Racism, Classism

Authors Note:This fic originally was going to be just 3 chapters long, but the people on my discord server implored me to write some more angst. Please enjoy.  (Again, I was inspired by a dream @misplaced-my-notes had, thank you).

Taglist (for everyone who seemed interested): @misplaced-my-notes, @jaszczurkaaa, @an-atypical, @jughead-is-canonically-aroace (let me know if you wanted to be added/taken off)

(Read on AO3) 

One Week Later

Tensions had been running high between Logan and Roman over the week. Logan would smirk at something he had read, faux-gasp at something on his phone, or just give Roman a smug grin, and Roman would return the favor in a civilized fashion of obscene hand gestures.

It felt as though this was going to go on indefinitely. That was, until, a randomly assigned pairs project was put before them. And as fate would have it, there was no question as to who Roman was paired up with.

“So,” Mrs. Volts continued, “As this is a public forum debate, you and your partner will work together to debate another pair. Your resolution topics have been posted on the board. After reading, you and your partner should get together and get started,”

Roman nearly cried as him and Logan looked at one another, both filled with the same amount of despair. They looked at their topic stand together, but looking very much separated, “Americans are entitled to free and public healthcare,”

The two made their way back to a desk in the corner and pulled out their computers wordlessly and shared a document with one another.

“So, I will take the affirmative since I am sure you would love to argue the negative for this one-”

Logan cut him off, “No, I believe we should work together on each one, that way we know an equal amount about the affirmative and negative,” Roman just nodded, “Listen, Roman I would like to apologize,”

Roman frowned, “For what?”

Logan fiddled with the sleeves of his leather jacket and continued talking, not meeting Roman’s eyes, “About my offhand comment on the quality of state schooling. It has been bothering me for days now and I wanted to apologize. I am speaking from a place of privilege, privilege I know I have. I intended to hurt you with that, but I wanted to apologize now, because I immediately regretted as I said it. I made a mistake, and I was wrong,”

Roman was shocked at Logan’s admission. He believe it would go in a completely different direction leading up to a punchline about Roman’s intelligence, “That was very big of you, Logan, thank you. Consider your apology, accepted,” Roman said with a wave of his hand.

“Great,” Logan deadpanned, unzipping and shrugging of his jacket. Today he wore a eggshell vertical striped shirt with a short black tie. Roman looked down at his own attire, a bright purple and red show shirt advertising Noises Off as well as his red bomber. He laughed silently to himself, wondering how they could be dressed more different.

“Are you also going to apologize for bruising my foot by smashing it with your pumps?” Roman asked.

“No, absolutely not,” Logan looked up from his typing, “I will only apologize for things I feel remorse towards and I do not regret that. I can, would, and will do it again when the opportunity presents itself.”

“Whatever you say, Specs,”

Logan shook his head, “We are not at nickname level yet,”

Roman smirked, “What are you gonna do about it- and I see you raising your foot, it that really your only move?”

Another Week Later

Roman didn’t know how it happened. Slowly, Logan and Roman’s, as the former would call it, ‘childish competitive rivalry’ slowly morphed into a ‘childish competitive friendship’. It must have all started when Roman invited Logan over to work on their debate, fully knowing they were ahead with work, and Logan accepted.

Maybe Roman did scream the entire time he rode on the back of Logan’s bike, gripping onto his waist, crying for deal life. It was possible that they spent 10 minutes working on their presentation but then forwent their original motive to play Mario Party. It’s extremely likely that Logan painted Roman’s nails black and Roman taught Logan how to make a meal out of 5 things in the pantry.

“What was that about, Ro?” Patton asked as Logan passed Roman in the hall, bumping him in the shoulder, winking, then smiling.

“Oh, that? We’re friends now, can you believe that?” Roman said, smiling. They sat down for lunch and Patton was smiling meekly.

“So, you both are friends now?” Patton asked. Roman nodded, taking out his salad, “Just… friends?”

Roman’s heart stopped and he swallowed, “Yea, Pat, just friends. W-why?”

Patton giggled, “I don’t know, that did not seem like just friendly behavior to me. I am pretty sure Logan was more expressive in those 5 seconds than I have seen him in the 3 years I have known him,”

Roman stabbed his salad, the fork slightly cracking the bottom of the cheap plastic, “Logan and I are just friends, nothing more. Either way, he is straight,”

“Did he tell you that?”

“Well, no, but he is a nerd and exudes that straight energy. No gay guys ride motorcycles,”

Patton considers this for a moment, “I guess. Bi?”

Roman’s eyes widen, “Huh. I didn’t even think of that. Motorcycles are big bisexual energy,”

“Do you like Logan?” Patton asked outright.

“No. Not really. He is still a self-righteous know it all,”

“So, you will not be upset if I am brutally honest with you, Ro,” Patton started out, hesitantly.

“I suppose… What is going on?”

Patton pushed his lunch aside and folded his hands onto the table, “Don’t you think it is a bit weird that a week ago you and Logan were at each other’s throats, and now he is kind of flirting with you in the halls?”

Roman frowned, chewing on his fork, “What are you saying, Patton?”

“I think that he may be feeding off of your flirtatious nature and using you,”

Roman dropped his fork in his salad and scoffed, “Using me? For what?”

Patton tongued the inside of his cheek, “You seriously do not remember, kiddo? How you vandalized his house and he is trying to get you suspended. Doesn’t he have to come up with something in about a week?”

“Yea…”

“Maybe this is a tactic. Get close to you for information and then use that against you,” Patton put his rounded glasses on top of his head and rubbed his eyes, “I never want to be a negative Nancy, Roman, but I have your best interest in mind, yea? You need a scholarship and fraternizing with the enemy is a damn good way to not get one,”

Roman scoffed, “The enemy?”

“You know what I mean,” Patton looked at his watch and sighed, “I promised Mr. Eldredge I would help him set up for Senior Facs, I just going to head there now,” He quite harshly threw everything in his lunch box and swung his school bag over his shoulder, “Just please listen to me Roman, for once, just listen to me. If you had listened to me in the first place, maybe you and Logan could have been friends without any ulterior motives,”

Patton walked off with purpose leaving Roman by himself to compartmentalize what Patton had revealed to him.

Logan is incredibly smart. That is just a universal truth. With every class, Logan excels and has developed quite the income from selling the faculty WiFi password to students, which allows them to access restricted content on their computers. Yet, there are always two sides to the same coin. Logan uses a lot of that intelligence purely for self preservation. He never gives out test answers or lets anyone copy homework. He is quite selfish with his school supplies as well, but more than anything, Logan is incredibly reserved. Most people high school aged have broken off into cliques or groups they share common interests with. Never Logan. Sure, Logan has acquaintances and people whom he can talk to in class, but never hang out with outside of the fact or even text for leisure. In fact, Roman is pretty sure he is the only contact in Logan phone outside of family.

There is no reason why Logan would randomly, out of the blue, want to become friends with Roman. In fact, it was weird how he didn’t see it for himself, first. Logan was just a parasite, using him off for his own personal gain and wishes then depositing him into a river whenever he has sucked all the blood and life out of him.

Roman gripped at his hair (the curliness of it makes it good to latch on to) and gritted his teeth, willing himself not to spill the hot tears that were taunting the edge of his eyelids. He gritted his teeth and sucked in a cold breath, the air feeling harsh against his enamel, but not as harsh as find out one of the few friends you did make was just using you off.

In a fit of passion and anger, Roman hit his salad off of the table, hitting the wall next to him. Lettuce and dressing stained the wall and the plastic fell on the floor, even more cracked than before. A couple students around him looked at the action, but quickly  turned their attention away; nothing interesting enough was happening to stare at the student who looked on the verge of tears. Roman hastily grabbed his bag and ran out of the cafeteria. Normally, he could clean up his mess, but he was too emotional to care.

He walked and walked and walked until he reached his destination in mind. Roman raised a fist and rapped three quick knocks on the door.

“Roman?”

“Mr. B, what are you doing here… I was here to see-” Mr. Remy Brown stepped to the side to reveal Dr. Emile Picani. There were glasses set out and plates scattered across the coffee table at Dr. Picani’s office.

“Roman, is everything alright,” The school psychiatrist leapt up from his couch and rushed over to the door.

The student sniffled in response, but waved his hand away, “No, no I am fine, I just- You guys are having lunch I can come back-”

“No way, Ro,” Mr. B shook his head, “You look terrible,” He opened the door and gestured for the other to come inside.

He tentatively took a few steps inside and sat in the big leather chair across from the couch, settling into it nicely. Roman crossed his legs on the chair and picked up a stuffed dog and began fiddling with it’s long fur.

“I better go, Em,” Mr. B said, awkwardly. Roman always found it to be weird when teacher said other’s first names, but he quickly dismissed that point.

“Actually, I want you here, Mr. B, if that is alright,” Roman said awkwardly, “I was going to go to you, but I knew you were at lunch and didn’t want to bother you,” Roman looked down at his shoes, “Oops,”

The two adults looked at each other with an undesirable expression, but Dr. Picani signaled to the seat next to him and Mr. B sat down.

“Okay, Roman,” Dr. Picani bit his lip and looked up at Roman with worry, “What seems to be going on?”

*****

Microsoft NERD: Roman, you were not here for 6th period and we were supposed to debate today, is everything okay?

Microsoft NERD: I know we were supposed to go to that “Bubble Tea House” that just opened up; did you go home?

Microsoft NERD: Virgil told me you are in 7th Period, I do not know if you got your phone taken by your teacher, but you really should stop texting in class (also, I do not want you to sass me, this is my TA period).

Microsoft NERD: I am waiting by my bike for you in our usual spot.

Microsoft NERD: Roman, I have been waiting for you for about 40 minutes and you haven’t showed or texted me, I am just going to head home.

Microsoft NERD: I apologise, Roman, if I did anything to upset you or if something else upset you that was outside of me. Just, be prepared to debate tomorrow, I suppose. Goodnight, Roman.

[serenagaywaterford]

#5 - normally not a big fanfic reader, and never thought of Serena joy as a lesbian. But I am really enjoying your work. You are such an excellent writer, capturing Serena so beautifully, I can totally picture her say and do all those things. And sure, full fledged lesbian, why not? I can dig it... And that gifset, absolutely work of art! Amazing stuff. Keep it up! It’s much appreciated.

Hi Five!

Well, firstly and most importantly, THANK YOU for taking a chance! I know taht fanfic can be weird or uninteresting to some people, and it’s especially a leap when you don’t subscribe to the “shipping preferences”/character interpretation of the author/the story. So thank you for giving it a shot! That is very cool!!

And thank you so very much for your kind words about my writing!!! As @amusedrhyme can surely attest, I was quite iffy about posting it and how it would be received. I wasn’t sure it was up to snuff and she was very integral to me getting the balls to post it. If you can picture it and I’ve captured Serena to a sufficient degree, that is literally all I ask for! :D It means so much to hear.

Also, yeah, Serena being a big ole gay wasn’t exactly something I thought of in S1 at all. There were niggles but it wasn’t until S2 that I started to seriously play around with the idea in my head, especially because of its SUPREME ANGST potential and I fucking adore angst and conflict in my pairings. I will say however that I have zero illusions about it becoming canon. Neither Serena coming out of a closet she doesn’t even know she’s in, and especially not any June/Serena fantasy. The show will NEVER go there. I think partly because the LGBT community blowback would be too much (it’s a bad gay trope), partly because setting up even the hint of romance between abuser/abuse victim is so unbearably unpalatable (even if it does happen IRL sometimes. Eek.) and viewers would RIOT (and if you did even attempt to try it, it would be SO amazingly difficult to do for a mass audience), partly cos like 85% of viewers loathe Serena and would not abide her being paired with the main character they love, partly cos neither woman has been written as anything but super-straight and any hint of anything else is just the actresses’ chemistry/acting choices, partly because there is NO WAY IN HELL they’ll kill off Nick (unfortunately lol) and N*ck/June is like… their rabid fangirl catnip and there is no chance for June to even entertain anybody else whilst he (and Luke) is alive, and partly cos I don’t think they’ll actually redeem Serena to the degree I feel would even be necessary to remotely approach that idea. I think they’ll go that direction with her but how far? I’m not sure. I want to say ALL THE WAY!!! But I’m not sure THT will dare. I have a bad feeling they’ll kill her off in a season or two. (It always happens to my favs lol). So, it’s not gonna happen, lol. Too bad for me and like 20 other people. ;)

So, yeah when I watch the show, I don’t really ship it or see her as Big Gay Serena, if that makes sense? Like, I totally do on rewatches haha but initially on first watch I try to push it out of my head and just try to enjoy/watch (cos it’s not exactly enjoyable TV lol) as it is.

I just like to make her gay for my own entertainment. (Lesbian!Serena is my emotional support character/fandom coping mechanism muahaha.) I’m very aware in canon it’s 100% impossible and I get why people don’t feel it or the pairing. June is in a dumb love triangle with Nick and Luke (Don’t even get me started on making a show like THT play up a love triangle… ugh…) but ultimately I don’t think they’ll have her connected to any man. Well, I hope anyway.* Serena is going to die alone. I honestly don’t see them giving her anything else. She will not get a happy ending…

I did debate about whether to have her bi, or like full-on lesbian. I went with the latter. I left June as bi, which I feel is reasonable enough. I feel like it would be way too much of a reach to change June that much but Serena is more complex and less is known about her, and her emotional/romantic/(arguably, sexual) connection to her husband is 100x weaker than June’s (to either man, really). Not to mention her relationship with Fred, even in flashbacks has a lot of other layers and motives that I can ~warp lol. 

I’m just so happy there are people like you that take chances and keep an open mind! It’s so rare in fandom these days and so refreshing and wonderful. And like you say, “Why not?” It’s just fandom fun anyway. ;) Thank you so much again!!! Xx :D

.

.

*OKAY I WILL GET STARTED PLEASE FORGIVE ME. Now, I do get why they’ve put in a little bit of the Luke/June/Nick love triangle stuff because it really is a significant conflict that can realistically be expected. And it does have meaning to the larger story and especially June. I’m not trying to denigrate the impact Nick has had on June and her story. I just fear that in coming seasons they’re gonna keep the N/J thing going on and on and oooonnnnnn and it’s just so……. boring to me now lol. I feel like it’s served it’s purpose. I don’t particularly believe June will be able to reconnect with Luke on the same level they were prior to Gilead either. And I don’t want her just shoved with either man for the sake of a “happy ending” which Miller insists THT will have. I’d much rather her happy, with her daughters, and Luke can be in the picture, but not necessarily romantically any longer. (I do think Nick needs to die because I really, really, really don’t want an actual love triangle. I don’t want June to have to choose. (And I also don’t want a poly thing cos I…no. Not touching that and what it would say in the universe of THT.) And I wouldn’t be opposed to him dying while trying to save June, or another handmaid cos I’m tired of his only concern being June and not ALL the women that he’s complicit in oppressing. So, yes, I’m totally biased cos I don’t care for Nick. He bores me even if I understand why he exists (or I did. Now, I’m no longer convinced he should be around**), I don’t like him, in all honesty and I don’t want him to survive the season, let alone the entire series.)**When he magically reappeared after 2x11, sans any explanation or consequence!!!, I rolled my eyes so hard into the back of my skull I went permanently blind. It was so fucking stupid and completely nonsensical.

[clan-fuildarach]

breaking: ursus caught being sincere on main

skip this post if u just want dragon content and if, much like myself, you would rather self-combust than see the words ‘ace discourse’ on a fr blog again

but we have to clear up some misconceptions. for 2 years i sat down here at my desk and created content that i thought would entertain myself and others, with my primary goal being a safe and positive space for lgbt content. writing about our experiences, especially those that normally don’t get media attention (see: every lesbian character i’ve ever written about), with a secondary theme of mental illness and how sometimes it doesn’t always look how u expect it to look. since my break in august for animal care purposes (i got to foster kittens!), this blog and fr in general are no longer my primary creative outlet so things have been admittedly slow. 

in those years since joining fr i’ve met a lot of amazing people, some of whom have different opinions on cishet ace inclusion than me, which i don’t mind about. i still wholeheartedly consider them friends. i remember i got an anon on my old blog in 2015 asking me my stance on the matter and my response was ‘i don’t care’ because that is how i feel. i don’t believe cishet ace discourse is an appropriate hill to die on and i don’t believe it really matters irl. if you’re not a homophobe, ur good in my books. and on a related note, hatred towards asexuals is also extremely shitty. i just don’t believe that saying that an apple isn’t an orange means that u hate apples. if u get what i mean. and yes, i am allowed to make jokes about ace people, because i am an ace people.

this entire debate has trapped people into taking sides and fighting on an issue that holds absolutely no importance to greater lgbt activism. people who describe themselves as inclusionists or exclusionists and run entire blogs dedicated to fighting are people i find very hard to take seriously. i don’t really get why u would do nothing but argue and fight online. i guess ppl just don’t have better things to do. and i know the reason people have crusaded so hard against me and my friends here is because they find it entertaining, which, again, is something i don’t understand. 

throughout this entire one-sided debate i want you to remember who went out of their way to foster a hostile environment for young lgbt people specifically (let’s be real here, there are no cishet people being hounded as aphobes, and discoursers tend to be young), and who did not. if i dislike who someone is reblogging from, i unfollow or block like a grown up and i don’t send harassing anons. the few occasions in the past i’ve made PSAs were about serious issues, like people who fetishise gay ppl. meanwhile, certain people have been all over my personal blog, have sent me truly vile anonymous messages (most unpublished, to save ur eyeballs, but yes there was suicide bait among them), wanked endlessly on anonymous websites about me, whatever. at this point it should be obvious that the drama-starters are in it for the thrill of it and not for any sort of noble reasons.

now to clear up the misconceptions. no, i don’t hate ace people. yes i am ace. yes i am a lesbian who believes straight ace or aro people are not Lesbian Gay Bi or Trans. no i am not going to burst into flames if i see an ace pride dragon. no i am not ok with sexual abuse (??? lads? cmon?). no i am not a harasser. no i am not positing myself as some kind of leader (the fact that u think i am says more about ur attitude towards these online spaces than it does about me tbh). no i don’t care if u dislike me. no i am not going to debate or argue with you, this is a fandom blog. and no, i will not apologise for blandly stating my opinion in a neutral tone in response to an anon 7 months ago. 

i have been treated like a faceless art dispenser for years now and i want u to understand: just because ppl reblog my art doesn’t mean that i’m some sort of public figure who must be polite 24/7 or my ratings will go down or whatever. i’m an amateur artist who shits around on a blog, and ur not entitled to a stranger’s kindness on the internet. if you’re the type to write a Hot Take going “wow :/ ursus is mean i expected better” after i respond snappishly to a rude message, i want to let you know that i don’t care. i’m not here to perform for you, i’m here to participate in my hobby, which i do for fun. 

thanx for reading, enjoy 

if u have questions u can message me. if ur asking in good faith i can explain whatever 

[cowboylikedean]

Simon vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda is the most offensive book I’ve ever read.

I wrote this review for goodreads, but I’m also posting it here. Bare with me, it’s long.. much of it is under a cut. 

This is honest to god one of the most offensive books I've ever read. 

My reading goal I set with myself this year was to read all the LGBT YA fiction I could find. Even though I'm 26 years old, YA fiction remains my favorite genre, especially YA romance. It's something about the nature of adolescence being all about change and everything being for the first time and brand new... Writing about/for teenagers, authors can give the endlessly magical feeling of being on the precipice of something great without even trying. That said, some of it reads really young for me and I lose suspension of belief within the story because I am an adult and the intended audience is 14... Though, in my experience, in a really good book, that difference will be noticeable, but unimportant. In this book, however, it was instantly A Big Deal. I had to remind myself so many times in the first few chapters to forgive its terrible sentence structure and awkward wording. It was meant for someone much younger than me, and while it *was* using terrible sentence fragments almost every sentence, the author did that to set the age of the narrating character. I wish she hadn't. It's one thing to have Simon's emails and quoted speech read with every other sentence being a fragment... but for every page of narration to have that many fragments, it's hard to read... One of my goals in reading all the LGBT YA fiction I can find is so that I can better recommend books to the LGBT teens I know who need to read more/find more relevant reading to their lives/learn that reading doesn't just have to be the boring books they're assigned in school *and* use that reading to benefit their writing. When every sentence is either a fragment or a run-on, it kind of defeats that purpose... 

But aside from that, I have to agree with other reviewers about how much it shows the author's straightness. I took notes. So buckle up folks... Here's some of the worst offenses and my thoughts. This is by no means a comprehensive list as I have a character limit.

Okay, let's start simple.. Throughout the book, starting on page 21 with its latest reference being 179-180, Leah's objectification of gay boys in the form of yaoi and "slash" fanfic is written to indicate her support and allyship. Its first reference on page 21 comes right after Simon's declared that lesbian and bi women have an easier time of things because straight men like to objectify them. Is it 2018/2017 and we're really still going to praise something that passes straight objectification of LGBT people off as support??? Really??? And these reference to Harry/Draco are SO bad! The last one, I think is the worst. Simon tells Leah he knew she would be supportive because she's the one who introduced him to Harry and Draco, so it was never a question. The first one where we read Simon's exploration into masturbation wasn't fun either.

And that's something to talk about... Sex. I have nothing against sex in teen fiction. Teens have sex and when authors do it right, reading about a teenager explore sex in various forms can add to the story tenfold. However, here it comes off almost like Fifty Shades Of Grey level awkward. Multiple times it's written in the narration Simon tell the reader "I'm hard." Not "I have a boner," not "I'm turned on," "I'm hard." It's something that's just uncomfortable to read... And I don't even think it's just that Simon's a teenage character because I don't think it would have been so uncomfortable to read "I'm turned on" or "I have a boner," but the specific wording of "I'm hard" is very uncomfortable. And then the moment where Simon and Bram "each spend time in the bathroom" prior to Simon's parents coming home after Simon says "I'm hard and I can tell he is too" is just.. "I feel something *down there*" level awkward. 

But it's more than that... The emphasis on the word "sex" and phrasing like "I'm hard" give the effect that The Secret Life of the American Teenager had with how many times they said "had/have sex." It feels almost... clinical. It was actually during the first sex-centric email chain I went and read the author bio because I guessed she was a clinician. That's not a good thing. Throughout the book, I see moments of a straight person attempting gay humor... And it's just painful, because she'll get there... and then miss it. Like the passage the book gets its title from. "Blue" takes a shot at gay humor saying that all people coming out is "the homosexual agenda." A classic gay joke in a very safe form. Then Simon comes and runs straight past the joke and "all lives matter"s the joke by saying "I don't know about the homosexual agenda, the homo sapiens agenda. Isn't that the point?" But no, Simon. No it is not the point. If that was the agenda of the whole species, that's how it would work. Furthermore, the joke is a reference to gay hate replaced with gay love. I have to wonder how Becky Albertalli wrote that line without realizing it was the same general premise of "all lives matter." We are not equal in that fight. LGBT people are marginalized. That is the whole freaking point, as Simon would put it. Which brings me to... The cursing. If you're going to write a teenage character who is conscious of their language and doesn't curse, then do it. Don't be inconsistent about it, just do it. Simon will say "fuck" sometimes, and sometimes, he'll be very careful to say "freaking." He also assumes Blue is uncomfortable with cursing... I'm sorry, either a lot's changed since I was 16 ten years ago (which I doubt because, as mentioned, I interact with a lot of teenagers frequently in mentoring and tutoring), or Ms. Becky Albertalli is imposing some odd morals in this book real hard. At any rate, it's incredibly awkward. I want to talk about characters. A review quote from Publishers Weekly says "Readers will fall madly in love with Simon" and I'd just like to ask one simple question: What readers? Okay, maybe two... Why? Now again, let me preface this by repeating, I am a regular tutor and mentor to many teenagers and I interact with them regularly. They text me, facebook message me, snap me, instagram DM me, etc all throughout the day I am in constant communication with my little ones. These are all (for the most part) LGBT kids, most of whom struggle with mental illness issues that are giving them school trouble. Simon is insufferable. He's not just a complex character with insufferable traits, no. I love those characters, they tend to be my favorites. Quite the contrary... He has no substance. Simon was given almost no characterization throughout the entire 303 pages of the original version of the book. I mean I know he loves Elliott Smith and oreos and not much else. He doesn't like things being made into a Big Deal. He's in a play and we're told he liked being the center of attention as a child, but he doesn't seem to like it now and/or we get no description on it. We get a lot of narration about what other people are doing and how other people are thinking and feeling and it leaves very little space to explore Simon. Sometimes, the book feels narrated in 3rd person limited rather than 1st person because of how much exposition there is on others. Simon feels like an empty character that is supposed to be a self insert to the reader.. which again, makes those awkwardly worded sex scenes even more uncomfortable. But with that, there's very little character *development*. Simon doesn't grow or change too much from beginning to end. Things in Simon's life change, but as a reader, I didn't feel Simon himself changing. I think the biggest factor here is that once again, we have a coming out story written by a straight person in which the main character was outed without permission and in a publicly humiliating way before he was ready. If there is one thing I wish straight people would write down, crumple up and throw away/burn/dispose of in any given way to make sure it never comes back... it's this trope. Martin committed an act of violence. Outing someone against their will, especially as a form of public punishment by harassment, is an act of anti-gay violence. For Simon's character development to happen so that this ends up being the nudge he needs because he doesn't really deal with the trauma of it. I mean, it's mentioned... I'll give Ms. Albertalli that, but it's not *explored.* The book I read prior to this was The Symptoms of Being Human, which is a great book (with a few pacing problems) about a genderfluid teenager named Riley. To save spoilers, I'll just say there's also violence in that book... But unlike in this book, in Symptoms, Riley has time at home where we see and hear their pain and coping. The topic of coming out is hugely important in Symptoms too, but there, we get incredibly intimate with Riley's internal debate on the topic. In this book, Simon's internal debate happens completely away from the reader outside of his debate to tell Nick and Leah that one time in the basement after he told Abby. How am I supposed to feel the development of this character in a story of coming out in which I was kept away from the internal debate of the character in question? It's just bad writing. I want to talk about the other characters for a second too... Who are such annoying stereotypes. So first Leah. The straight girl obsessed with gay boys who spends her time objectifying them and feels ownership over her male best friend. The central point of her character throughout the book seems to be her jealousy and blind hatred of the other biggest female character. Yikes. Then there's Nick who is obsessed with Assassin's Creed (great series) and is That Guy who has to pick up a guitar everywhere he goes (AKA The "Anyway, here's Wonderwall" guy). Then there's Abby who, as far as I can tell is one of the two actual compelling characters. There's Bram/Blue, the other compelling character who loses all characterization once we find out he's Bram. It's like Blue is super interesting. Bram is a blank sheet like Simon devoid of any characterization. Martin who is a straight man who violently outs a gay man after blackmailing him because he feels ownership over a woman he doesn't know... And the worst part about Martin is in his final "apology" email, he says if he could go back, he'd blackmail Simon into friendship with him and then stop. DIRECT QUOTE bottom of p 289. Earlier in the book when Simon, Martin, and Abby are running lines at the Waffle House and Simon starts to feel like Martin's friend, it's passed off as a good thing??? What? I also want to mention Simon's stereotypes. Does he really have to mention Every Single Time Nick is playing video games (particularly Assassin's Creed) that he doesn't care? Really? Also... He seems to understand sports fine... and then all of the sudden after he comes out he slips up and calls soccer try-outs "auditions"???? Something I've literally only ever seen done on the TV show The Middle by its main gay character Brad? Really? Something else I want to point out... I'll go back to the Harry Potter Harry/Draco thing for a second... That's an abusive relationship that's literally mostly shipped and romanticized by straight girls. Okay, I just had to point that out explicitly. Abusive gay relationship. Okay... So I've saved the most offensive two bits for last. One: "Cross-dressing." Now I don't know know if Becky Albertalli had a trans person read this before publishing but Simon's disgust that he used to enjoy wearing dresses was so incredibly painful. As a transgender person myself, I am so deeply saddened that a book that has had so much praise as being incredible representation would include such hostility. Reading the passage of gender-bender day felt like a punch in the gut. To feel the vitriol disgust in Simon's words "A lot of the time, I can't believe that was even me" and "I never crossed that line," "there's something so mortifying to me about the intensity of those feelings." I get it Simon, you hate trans people. Probably you too Becky Albertalli... As a transgender person, a book with such a passage will never be okay. Two: The entire scene in Webster's with Peter. At first, Peter is an age inappropriate gay man who gets Simon drunk knowing nothing about him, including his age without any conversation. Within a few minutes of meeting him, he puts three drinks in Simon's system, then almost as if Ms. Albertalli was aware she was crossing the line into the "older gay male predator" trope, she magically reveals Simon's age to these college kids who send him on his way. He's so disgustingly happy being sloppy drunk. The whole thing is embarrassing and honestly seems to serve 0 point other than to give justification for Simon's parents to ground him. Simon is taken advantage of by a group of older gay men and then punished by his parents. What in the actual hell is that? Okay... so that's my list of most offensive things of this book. Honorable mention: Simon's parents saying they need to find "ground rules" for when Nick sleeps over. Straight people are so obsessed with the idea that people cannot be "just friends" (I hate that term, but you get it) with people of the gender they're attracted to and honestly, it baffles me. Do straight people not have friends? At any rate, between the writing style and bad sentence structure, the poor characterization, the anti-gay tropes, the fake allyship, the praise of straight objectification of gay people, the forgiveness of anti-gay violence, the anti-feminist aspects of the tension between the two main female characters, the poor narrative structure... I see very little to like, let alone love, about this book. It is one of the most offensive books I've ever read

[seblaine-rph]

@sapphichorror replied to your photo “► ALYSON HANNIGAN AS WILLOW ROSENBERG BISEXUAL PRIDE ICONS ◄ There are...”

she gay dude stop it lol

First, let me begin this by saying that I made these icons during bi pride as a part of a very large collection of other bi pride icons. In no way am I saying that these have to be associated with the actual BTVS Willow Rosenberg canon, though I used screencaps from BTVS because I am a fan of the show and I enjoyed taking random screencaps while I rewatched the show. I also made other bi pride icons for other characters from the same show, as well as others, that all could just as easily be used for the actors as the characters they portray in the screencaps I took. The people who potentially might want to use these might not even know her for BTVS, they might just like her. An Alyson Hannigan fansite, for instance, run by a prideful bisexual might have found a particular delight upon finding these DURING bi pride, when these were made. 

The bi pride doesn't even have to connect to her, it's okay to like two different things so much that you want them both in your icon.

Say, for instance, someone who already had Alyson or Willow as an icon prior to bi pride and did not want to change the trend. Like the fansite theory. The two literally do not have to connect, it could just be about someone liking Alyson and wanting to show bi pride at the same time. It could even be a Willow blog that's run by a bisexual and even if they write/canon her as a lesbian, the bi pride could be there for themselves. Two different things in the same icon for two different reasons. Pride icons are all about visibility. You can require a specific mascot in your icon that has nothing to do with your pride. That's a perfectly reasonable conclusion to come to, especially DURING bi pride. Which in case I didn't already mention, is when I made these. 

It's the same as me changing my icon for holidays. The holiday doesn't suddenly mesh with Seblaine so that I'm saying these two boys endorse/identify with the holiday I happen to be celebrating; that's not what it means to put the holiday together with my mascots in an icon DURING the holiday season. I'm just sharing my holiday pride. An example, if I were Jewish, I would put appropriate imagery in my icon during the appropriate times. That doesn't mean Seblaine is Jewish-- it would mean I'M Jewish and I like Seblaine/Seblaine is my mascot. See how that works? Two totally separate things, being shown off in one icon. In the same sense, you can like Alyson-- or even Willow herself-- and be bisexual and want both Willow/Alyson and bi pride in your icon, especially during bi pride. 

There are also many original characters that use her face as a representation that have nothing to do with Willow Rosenberg, even if they used my Willow screencap icons. These people also deserve resources.

Second, the subject of her sexuality is actually quite debatable. Did she say she was gay? Absolutely. Is that all it takes to be taken seriously as a gay person in real life? Absolutely. BUT, there are many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many people who feel slighted by the "you must be straight or you must be gay, there is no other option" mentality seen on BTVS; in Willow's case in particular. She is shown being very amorous and sexually attracted to men all the way until she meets Tara, who introduces her to her like of women. Yes, it is possible that she could be gay. But it's also just as likely that, had she not been written by heterosexual, biphobic people who had the proper LGBT resources in mind, she could have just as easily been declared bisexual. There are many, many, many, many, many people who roleplay and write her as bisexual that might have wished to use the icon. There are also many people who feel that the fact that bisexuality was never even mentioned as a possibility is a clear indicator of biphobia and bi-erasure. Bi-erasure is also a really big problem just in general. The way her sexuality was portrayed in BTVS hits home for a lot of bisexuals who once thought they were gay or straight because they thought those were the only options. You can't fault someone who identifies with Willow as a character that self-identifies their sexuality with hers because they watch her romance arc and apply real life logic and their experiences as a bisexual in a world filled with biphobia and bi-erasure and feel like that brave little toaster might be just like them. Just like I do not blame people who self-identify with her as a lesbian either. There is no denying that bi-erasure was evident in BTVS, especially with Willow. I get why you would want to down on the idiot man who made something you don't agree with, but to borrow some of your vernacular,

you could look at what you're upset about and take it into context before sending hate someone's way, lol. It's not like the bi-erasure thing is unknown, I haven't met a single person so far that likes BTVS and is unaware that 99.9% of the bisexual women who watched it were upset about the bi-erasure. It's one of very few complaints about BTVS that everyone hears about. It's not weird to make bi pride stuff during bi pride. It's not weird to use Alyson icons for non-Willow purposes, even if they are Willow screencaps. But it is kind of weird that we can't just be gay and try to get along, we have to go out of our way to show people we don't agree with them, even when we're only bothering to look at the tip of the iceberg before sending hate. 

[metaonfemslash]

You might have gotten asks like this before but I'm genuinely curious: If you ever found out that non-wlw people wrote femslash, would you be angry or would it offend or disgust you and if so, why?

Short answer: No, then I get more femslash to read. 

Longer, rambling answer: 

I think that in some point in the internet convos on diversity in media and unexamined bigotry the norm shifted a bit towards discouraging people from writing outside of their politicized identities, or at least expecting people to avoid writing about bigotry towards a marginalized group they’re not in. I’m not really a fan of either approaches, although the second one is more defensible.

Of course, there’ s a lot of varied discourse on this; I don’t want to homogenize the situation.

I think it’s perfectly normal to wonder about the lives of people who are different than you in some way. Obviously, there can be pitfalls and it’s important to read stories in group, but there isn’t a magical singularly agreed upon pure lesbian or bi identity (or so on). I think it’s cool if someone who’s not wlw watches a show or reads a book and thinks, hey, there’s chemistry between these characters and I want to write about them. 

Generally, I’d say both the writing and reading of fiction (including fanfic) is going to have a lot of different purposes for different people. We can see that in the many meta’d debates around why women write a lot of m/m (at least on ao3, het is usually dominate elsewhere). I’m sure there’s some women writing m/m because of ~hawt sex~ and some women writing m/m because of the chance to experience a different reality, including a different gender and sexual orientation, and infinite variants in between. I’m not particularly inclined to put a moral value on any of those. 

Also, the simple category of non-wlw includes nb people, trans men, and bi/gay men. I think it’s reasonable for people in the lgbt+ community to feel some solidarity even if they don’t share the exact same identity. I also think ppl who used to ID as wlw before realizing their identities sometimes have a carryover of affection for wlw communities and that’s ok too. 

I also honestly doubt there’s a large contingent of cishet men writing f/f fanfiction for purely porn reasons, although I do think there’s probably some writing original f/f erotica and posting that online. wrt a work that’s intended to be porn, it still doesn’t bother me as long as that person has good & non-fetishistic reactions to the non-fiction wlw they know/in general. It can be a slippery slope but I’m not inclined to assume that someone’s arousal = someone’s morality/general demeanour/etc. 

would you be angry or would it offend or disgust you and if so, why?

I am a little curious about this line... It kind of sounds like you assumed my answer would be negative. Which, I’m not judging u for that, although I am curious if that was the intent.