#early positive rep of a gay character...

[amporella]

south park peaked at big gay al's big gay boat ride. that episode had it ALL

[beehunterkisser]

Have you watched the season 2 premieres of Hamster and Gretel?

I HAVE!!! Im assuming you want to know what i thought of em so spoiler warning for any dwampyheads who havent watched it yet. LOOK OUT!!!! also this is long as hell so be careful

Hakuna Ma Kevin

ok first and foremost. the ANIMATION WAS INCREDIBLE I WAS SO SHOCKED.. The budget mustve been crazy everything was so smooth. It really impressed me.. especially the action scenes and the hair movements. it was all super good

his va did a great job of being like annoyingly calm. its so kevin to somehow take a relaxation camp way too seriously (also the fact his life was so ruined by his date with hiromi flopping that he had to go on a 2 week retreat to find inner peace).

i was actually really interested in how they were gonna tackle that but a timeskip makes sense.

skip past kevins initial extreme misery and leave it up for the audience to make up. i am still curious as to what his friendgroup looks like because. did thjey stop hanging out. ARE hiromi and kevin too awkward to see eachother. anthony and fred are children of divorce. its so sad. well we'll see what happened eventually

It was great to see veronica hill back again too i missed my queen. i hope she finds love on the open sea.

actually speaking of that i was so sure that that was gonna be the boat from that sinking feeling and it was going to change the trajectory of the dwampyverse timeline forever but i think that was just a tease or a really really vague reference

the villain was also incredibly funny. great voicework too im sure it was some guest voice or something that i just dont recognize because it just feels that way to me.

great guy hope he comes back. and the reocurring THERE ARE NO LAWS ON INTERATIONAL WATERS BABY was actually funny.

also i cant not mention the CANON DWAMPYVERSE LESBIANS were BACK BABY women FIND EACHOTHER AT CLAM FEASTS ITS REAL AND TRUE.

it really made me happy to see that especially since i was so positive that we werent gonne get any rep from dwampyverse but obviously im WRONG and there are 2 beautiful women loving eachother and eating clams out there.

he played it so cool too. an ally.

I was almost disappointed the song was so early because i wanted a dramatic clam musical number but thats literally minimal complaint i have about that episode because it was such a strong opener.

also congrats to the newlyweds lunchlady and piano key vendor i think they will have a long lasting and beautiful relationship.

also when i saw those 2 old man leaving i was like wow are we getting a double whammy with gays but that was just a cameo. next time though

The Great American Telenovella

THE RETURN OF MY QUEEN. the opening in the hospital made me think it was gonna go in a completely different direction.

Both of these episodes had the songs super early on interestingly enough. i didnt even realise the Fresas De Amor theme song was THE song of the episode. i thought it was just a jingle..

i was really happy that we got a carolina-centered (well a stretch but she was there a lot) episode. i really like her.

the animation was back to normal in this episode too which was a little sad and maybe skewed my opinion of the episode a little bit but not TOO much. i think.

despite being tricked on where the episode was going the gimmick with making fun of telenovella tropes was really really fun.

it felt almost like a rarity investigates type thing where they get really into character trope LOL

the first lady they interrogated (THE VILLAIN IS THE VILLAIN!!) had such a great design too i really like her.. the whole bit with her abandoning the show to become a taco crunchies commercial star was great too she gagged me.

and also her being like ok ill just sit here and watch all my personal belongings burn. I giggled..i cant lie..i did giggle a little...

ok i cannot dance around it any longer but THE RETURN OF LA CEBOLLA. I REALLY DIDNT THINK ITD BE THIS EARLY I WAS SO HAPPY.

i saw her in the back as the lunchlady and i knew everything was going to be ok.. I was safe in her hands..

also her powers were used super clever i really enjoyed the Onion Fists. and also the dramatic shot of hamster getting concussed by an onion.

this kind of goes back to me being shocked the telenovella intro was the episodes song because i was really hoping we'd get another la cebolla number akin to fighting facial hair again

i also get another shot of her lying in a hospital bed. the one from her song is literally one of my favourite pictures ever so its great to have another equally as bizarre one

shes definitely maybe my FAVOURITE hng villain so it was great to see her again.

im biased so i wished she had gotten more time to shine but also i think that entire scene with hamster pretending to be her son la cebollito.

it was really funny karina did great with the line delivery there. i loved how she was like But why are you so small!??!?!?! i love that she runs on telenovella logic. a true method actor

i really did enjoy that episode but hakuna ma kevin really felt like the stronger episode to me maybe SOLEY because of the animation. im an artist im easily pleased. they cant just tease me with god tier animated hng and then rip it from my hands as soon as i get it. its ok...ill get over it..ill forget it soon... (single tear falls from my eye)

I HOPE THAT WAS READABLE i might do more of these for the rest of the episodes as they release its actually really fun. we;re so back. hng season 2 Is already peak. Its my favourite dwampy show for a reason. i am hng strongest warrior. WERE SO BACK

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 4, Wave 2, Poll 5

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and round here.

Ballister Blackheart-Nimona (Novel)

Qualifications:

He’s gay and an amputee

Propaganda:

He’s a lot more evil and also more established on what he’s doing than the movie. I think he’s neat, he does a lot more scheming and plotting and general shenanigans.

Suletta Mercury-Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury

Qualifications:

While this is something which only became a point in the last episode, in the finale of the show, following the big action parts, Suletta was shown to need mobility aids three years afterwards. Also in this timeskip, it is revealed that she has since gotten married to Miorine, who is another woman. Also I'm not autistic or trans but I have seen many people headcanoning her as both.

Canonically disabled by data storm infection, uses crutches on screen. Is married to her wife.

Canonically LGBTQ, as she is shown to love and later marry Miorine Rembran, a girl. Canonically disabled, as in the last episode, the Permet leads her to “lose control of her body” and even in the epilogue 3 years later, she is still using crutches and has not been able to get her body to the way it used to be before.

Suletta Mercury pushed herself to the limits of human survival at the end of the show, but survived. She's disabled and still uses crutches in the 3-year time skip. Her wife loves her and Suletta is still pursuing her dreams of creating a school.

Spoilers probably for the series. She is canonically engaged, later married to a woman, Miorine Rembran, and at the end of the series is shown to be physically disabled, with her both speaking on her physical therapy and her crutches being in several shots. Also she is written in a way that can be read as neurodivergent.

Partially paralyzed

Propaganda:

I love this character so much and I need everybody to as well. First of all, to get the biggest notes out of the way to establish why she qualifies (with major spoilers for episode 24), Suletta, after a three years timeskip, is shown to need crutches to get around a lot of the time. This fact is ultimately treated as an accomplishment on her part (/is never treated as a bad thing, just because I like clarifying this when it comes to any form of rep), since it took her some time to get to the point where she could move around at all. Also in this timeskip, the girl Suletta has been engaged to throughout most of the series, Miorine, has since become her wife, shown largely by the two of them having matching rings and Suletta's relatives being referred to as Miorine's in-laws. This makes Suletta the very first sapphic protagonist in Gundam. I've also seen headcanons or her such as her being autistic or transfem get popular. Getting to what makes me love her, Suletta, early on, is very easily intimidated in a lot of regards, largely because this is her first time actually being around anybody her age, but she's always been trying her best! She generally tries very hard to be positive and cares about those around her very much but can easily question her worth and is sometimes deterred. She is very willing to stand up and fight (usually in a literal way because she has won many mobile suit duels) when it most matters, a trait which remained consistent throughout the series, whether it's in regards to her role as a rescue piolet in the Cradle Planet short story, the drive which ultimately caused her to win the duel which initially got her engaged to Miorine in her first in-series appearance or the finale of the whole show. Suletta is somebody who has gone through a lot of hurt (especially in the series. Eps 17 and 18 put this girl through the wringer), and ultimately wasn't really raised to have too much autonomy. But despite everything, she keeps going. She's a very strong person who cares about those around her and I love her for it.

She is just the most joyful person ever who loves her wife.

Above, and: Vote for the newlyweds!

Everything above applies here. Suletta is shown to still not fully able to walk well without her crutches in the shot we get of her walking in the finale, her crutches are explicitly shown in several shots, and she openly talks about how her physical therapy is going to her, now wife, Miorine. On the topic of her and Miorine, they were engaged as of episode 1 with an iconic line from Miorine of "I guess Mercury is rather conservative. That sort of thing is commonplace here." in response to Suletta responding that she was a woman as a rebuttal about being Miorine's fiancée. Lots happens, and it's not uncommon to see either one of them yearning for each other, with a genuinely well written romance that leads to a happy ending with them explicitly married.

In the final battle of the series, Suletta highly exerts herself piloting a dangerous Gundam and significantly damages her body to save her family and fiancée. It's described that she was left mostly paralyzed from the neurological overload. Three years later, she still has significant scarring and needs to use crutches as a mobility aid, and talks about how her dexterity is "recovering." This means she was also disabled during her wedding with her wife, and they're shown with matching wedding bands as they discuss her health.

Anything Else?:

There's a whole lot more in terms of their relationship, and i've basically given a seriously lightened, budget sparksnotes version of it. Also, Suletta became disabled from a crazy battle for the finale, where she unleashed a giant rainbow data storm with a rainbow glowing Gundam. (Submitter 4)

The qualifications and propaganda paragraphs correspond, @insertbrowsinghere is the first submitter.

[eddiediazismyhusband]

Why do you insist on infantilizating the characters who were victims of Tommy, who have clearly forgiven and embraced him? Do you think you know better than them? You act as though every Tommy fan is a damn nazi while ignoring the actual POV of the characters of color affected by his actions.

Btw there are absolutely context clues given in the early eps that Tommy could be queer.

Stop acting like you speak for anyone but yourself. There have been a lot of posts by black, queer men, that are pro-Tevan that you seem happy to ignore. If you think Tommy is a racist, unforgivable character, fine. But you can't stop acting like you somehow staked a claim to some moral high ground here when the reality is you wouldn't care at all if he didn't threaten your ship.

oh look guys i pissed them off again by calling them out on their bullshit :) it’s been a while i was wondering when you’d show your (anonymous bc you know people would call you on your shit if you weren’t) faces here

i have never called you people “nazi’s” and think it’s vile that you view being called out on the constant defense of this blatantly racist character as an equivalent to being called a nazi

it’s disgusting behavior to say “oh you think im a nazi if you disagree with me” when you’re being called out and i cannot believe you had the absolute gall to say something like that on my blog

you are not a victim. this is the victim mentality i was talking about.

you say im only threatening by him bc he “threatens my ship” meanwhile the show has not treated him as a serious LI, and has actually taken more time to ignore him/parallel him to buck’s previous failed LI’s than setting him up as a serious contender for edngame w buck. you’re the ones (rightfully) threatened by eddie because he actually had plot armor and has a character that’s not a bunch of stolen headcanons that you’ve all placed on him

you guys love to call it infantilizing poc characters when we, yknow, fairly call out negative behavior but then you get so upset when people make valid criticisms of his character because you know his personality and character have no actual stability within the plot because he has not been developed beyond being racist and being gay

it’s funny that you ignore hen’s standoffish at best attitude towards him simply because you know that if hen was blatantly against him, you would have no leg to stand on because they’re never going to treat him as more important than hen

idk how what “context clues” you’re talking about in early eps regarding tommy being gay, but even if there were, that doesn’t excuse his actions. there has been no narrative development past his early episodes portrayal aside from them slapping a rainbow on him so they had someone to get buck out of the closet

i can direct you to countless people who agree with me on this, so i am not speaking for myself unlike most tommy cultists bc you all just woul rather take lukewarm queer rep when it’s a white racist man than the potentially groundbreaking queer story that can be told

sorry but that doesn’t give me positive vibes

you people love to bash main poc characters for their flaws and storylines when they actually take the time to tell these stories and provide context, yet when tommy is racist and misogynistic to hen and chimney, you all suddenly find it fine to forgive him the moment he kissed buck

i don’t claim to be on some “moral high ground” but you people have no room to claim that either when your fandom are out here spreading nothing but anonymous hate to people who call you out on your bullshit, while you also harrass the cast and crew for not giving your favorite racist a spotlight.

i fear you don’t have any stake to claim on whether or not someone is or isn’t “morally superior”

do me a favor and block me so i don’t have to lose braincells trying to process the bullshit that comes put of your brain while trying to defend a racist man

[yggdraseed]

My Deal with Giselle Gewelle

So, let me preface this by saying that I'm trans. I'm not saying that to invalidate the feelings of other trans people, just to specify that mine isn't some outsider's perspective. There's also spoilers for Bleach: TYBW, but I'm guessing that there aren't a lot of interested parties left who don't know about this. You probably also know this goes into transphobia, necrophilia, and rape, but if you don't, uh... trigger warning! Reader beware, you're in for a scare!

Recently, an episode of Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War came out in which noted bitchy asshole who uses too much product Yumichika Ayasegawa misgendered darling, sweet murderous trans babygirl Giselle Gewelle. It's also implied that upon necromancing Bambietta's corpse, Giselle had sex with her, probably against her will. That's all pretty fucked up, and I want to talk about it.

I started my transition about ten years ago, and exposure to trans or gender non-conforming anime and manga characters in general went a long way towards me accepting I was trans. Looking back, Giselle was one of the most significant characters to me at that early stage. I've always loved her design, and she was the first legit trans character I ever really saw and resonated with in anime and manga.

Get this: there used to be this thing in Shonen Jump's manga line-up called the Big Three. The most influential, bestselling manga in the bunch. One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach. And you wanna know something? Bleach was the first one to have a trans woman character. We can debate whether or not Giselle was good representation, but you know what? At the time, the closest we ever got was Haku pulling the "Oh, by the way, I'm a boy" card in Naruto's first major arc back in the early 2000s and a constant bombardment of okama jokes in One Piece. Okama is a derogatory term for gay men and drag queens, and for a long time, Oda could not get enough of making jokes about big, hairy men in women's clothing.

Now there was also Alluka Zoldyck in Hunter X Hunter, but the vast stretches of time Hunter X Hunter spends on hiatus makes it unclear to me whether she or Giselle came first. But within the Big Three - a designation which doesn't mean much now, but meant a ton back then - Giselle was first. Hunter X Hunter was never quite considered part of the Big 3. But either way, I think Alluka is the better character in terms of how her being trans is written. She's cute, she's precious, she's perfect in every way, and I'll make you pay if you say a single bad thing about her.

Years and years later, Oda would go on to write Kikunojo and Yamato. I still have complicated thoughts about Yamato as trans rep, but Kiku is great trans rep for being a relatively minor character. Oda has also phased the okama jokes out of the story over time. Jujutsu Kaisen also has a subtle, but well-handled example of a trans woman in Kirara Hoshi. She doesn't get nearly enough time in the story, and her identity hasn't been explored yet, but I hope GeGe will unpack that before the story's conclusion.

I tell you all of that so you realize that even if Giselle could have been handled better, Kubo was the first of the Big 3 authors to even try to write a trans girl. Not a femboy, not an okama - a trans woman/girl. He also gave us Charlotte Cuulhorne, and while Charlotte's depiction flirts with being just an okama gag and nothing more, she's so fabulous and so positive in her outlook on life that I can't bring myself to be mad.

So let's look at Giselle as a character. She's very cute, with her big eyes and goofy, purposefully adorable mannerisms. None of the other Sternritter girls try to be cute in quite the way Giselle does. Meninas likes cute things, but doesn't act cute, and that's as close as it gets. Unlike the other Femritters, Giselle wears clothes that cover up as much as possible. Even Liltotto's outfit shows off her shoulders and thighs some; Giselle keeps her shoulders and neck completely covered by a baggy sweater, and her legs covered by tights. Kubo drew a swimsuit picture with the Bambis all together, and he opted to put Giselle in a swimsuit with a skirt. It's pretty apparent that Giselle has concerns about how she looks and covers up as much as she can out of dysphoria. As a card-carrying member of the big jacket-long pants-closed toe shoes gang, I can tell you that when you're not very progressed with your transition, it's like that.

I think you can also make the argument that part of why Giselle acts so cutesy is because of her insecurities and feeling like she has to make up for them by being extra, overtly feminine and adorable. It's like that.

There's not a doubt in my mind that Kubo intended for Giselle to be trans. But is she good trans rep? Probably not, but she might not be as bad as she's made out to be.

People who criticize how Giselle is depicted as a trans character have two or three go-to arguments. Three points of interest to say that she's being written in a transphobic way.

1.) Yumichika scopes her out as trans and misgenders her.

2.) Charlotte says she and Giselle have a lot in common.

3.) The most damning: what Giselle does to Bambietta.

So, I've never liked people using Yumichika as a litmus test for how Kubo feels about trans people. Let me explain something to you: Yumichika is a bitch, an asshole, and the consummate gadfly. One of his defining traits is his awful personality and his inability to resist saying cruel, petty things to others. He's awful to Charlotte and he's awful to GiGi, and he's pretty much awful to anyone besides Ikkaku and Kenpachi, but especially Charlotte and GiGi.

Yumichika is an allegory for a closeted gay man. He has this deep admiration, respect, loyalty, and arguably love for Kenpachi and Ikkaku that's led him to stay in the 11th Division even though it's not where his talents are best put to work. He's adept at kido and his zanpakuto is based in kido, but he refuses to use the former or reveal the latter to his squad because he doesn't want them to reject him. The 11th Division is the manly man squad, all testosterone and sweat and bulging muscles and... ahem. Sorry, I got a little carried away. It's all very erotic. Anyways, Yumichika wants to be close to the men with whom he shares a bond of emotion and martial loyalty alike, and he refuses to embrace his gifts because of it. He's afraid his friends in the boys' club will kick him out for having interests and inclinations that most of them look down on.

I think you can make the argument that Yumichika hates Charlotte and Giselle precisely because they're being true to themselves, meaning they've made a leap he hasn't yet. He's too scared of what might happen if he doesn't keep the lie going about his zanpakuto, and he resents Giselle and Charlotte because they overcame a similar fear of rejection. And he expresses that by rejecting their truth, i.e., misgendering them. This is the interpretation I like the best. It's a sad fact that lots of gay men, closeted or otherwise, refuse to accept trans women.

Charlotte says she and Giselle have a lot in common, and honestly, I don't think this is transphobic either. If you choose to read Charlotte as a trans woman who isn't stereotypically feminine, but is true to herself, then what she's stating is just a fact. She and Giselle may not look the same, and Giselle may have an easier time passing, but they're both trans women if you ask me. And I think Giselle reacting with discomfort isn't innaccurate, either. Charlotte's confidence is admirable in some ways, but I think it sets of Giselle's alarm bells that she's going to be outed and rejected. Lots of trans women - myself included - are haunted by this fear that we'll never pass, never be accepted, or will be incapable of retaining our desired presentation as we get older. It's like that.

So, that brings us to the Bambietta Incident. Not quite as wide-reaching as the Shibuya Incident, but about as traumatizing for some, apparently. Full disclosure, I don't believe any heinous acts should be censored from fiction. If it makes you uncomfortable or awakens traumatic memories, then I'm sympathetic to that, but I do not believe that the right answer is to sanitize every work of fiction of every immoral act that could have that effect. You know where your limits are, so don't count on authors to protect you. Most of them won't, and I think you're stronger and smarter and more able to navigate a world with fictitious depictions like that in it than you realize.

I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, Giselle probably sexually assaulted Bambi. And is that right of her to do? Fuck no, it isn't. But nobody's really debating if that's right or wrong. The problem is that if you look at it a certain way, this is just reinforcing the old, awful stereotype of trans women being predators in disguise. Lots of shitty writers have done that, and it sucks.

However, those depictions assume that trans women are predators, by definition. Or at least sexual deviants. We could go down the rabbit hole of how sexual deviancy has historically been defined by people who use sex as a form of control anyway, but I'm not well-read enough to do that and - well, you've seen how long this post is. Be honest, you wouldn't want me to even try.

The point is that a depiction like that assumes trans woman = deviant. I don't want to make that logical leap here, because that means you need to assume that Kubo wrote Giselle with the intention that she assaulted Bambi because she's trans. I'm not a mind reader, so I'm uncomfortable with acting like I can know Kubo's intentions. It's a bad look to us in the Western sphere of the anime fandom, but I'm not sure how Kubo saw it. He might have not realized how it would look until that chapter was out there and he couldn't undo it, but given the fact they kept it in the anime, he either probably doesn't see a problem with it or there were other rewrites he saw as more important to allocate his mental energies to. Writing Bleach burned this man out, so I'll cut him some slack if so.

My point is, I'm not sure if you can say for sure that the story intends you to believe that Giselle assaulted Bambi because she's trans. When you look at it, Kubo seems to have a more in-depth understanding of trans people than some of you might have first realized. And I mean, shit man, he gave her biology manipulation powers. Every trans girl's first pick for super powers is shapeshifting or some form of biology manipulation. He knows. He's onto us. He's familiar with our ways. The jig is up, girls.

Looking at the broader scope of the narrative, Bleach is littered with characters who perform heinous actions and are not just shoved out the "All Villains Die" airlock. Chief example being Mayuri. The man committed war crimes, experiments on human beings, turns his own subordinates into bombs, and is heavily implied to have performed some very sexual deeds to reconstitute his daughter Nemu after Szayel parasitized her. Yet he still saves the day multiple times and he isn't gotten rid of, because he's more useful to the side of overall good alive than dead. Bleach is one of very few series to have characters who perform heinous deeds and still be treated as humans, rather than reducing them to those deeds and nothing else.

Plus, nobody really treats it as an issue with Kubo's writing that Bambietta killed one of her own fellow Quincies in cold blood just to vent her frustrations. I think because it's sexual and because Giselle is trans, she ends up being the lightning rod when... let's be honest, compared to what some of the Shinigami have done, what Giselle did is kind of quaint. She even helps rescue Candice and I think Meninas after they're taken captive by Mayuri in the novels, and she's considering releasing Bambietta from her control.

Given what we've seen, I think it's less accurate to pick on Giselle and try to say she's a case of Kubo being transphobic, and more accurate to say that living in the Shadow Realm under Yhwach's cruel, exploitative regime has made all the Sternritters fucked up in their own unique, vibrant ways. And for that matter, Kubo never kills her off. He clearly likes her enough to want her to still be around after the end of the series.

When you look at how Kubo draws Giselle in the manga and in illustrations after the manga's conclusion, you can tell he enjoys himself when he's drawing her. He always lavishes her facial expressions with detail, and you can feel love radiating off the page. That's more than you can say for a lot of the Quincies. I think Kubo was overjoyed to not have to draw PePe and his Vollständig anymore.

So like, yeah, Giselle is my problematic fave transgender character. And I don't think she's even as problematic as people's kneejerk reactions are to think she is. If you disagree, I don't care, I don't value your opinion. Particularly if you're not trans. If you're an ally, then that's sweet and all, but never try to speak for trans people about depictions of trans characters. If you are trans and Giselle made you uncomfortable, then I'm sorry you feel that way.

[stan-rabelais-et-diderot]

#AroAceJugheadOrBust

I am glad the Riverdale show is over. To the people gushing about how the show was nonsensical, special & amazing, I would like to remind (or tell) that Jughead is canonically asexual aromantic.

There was initial enthousiasm in the aroace community at the annoncement of this show in 2016 & early 2017, especially because the actor Cole Sprouse was initially x supportive of an asexual Jughead, had read the comics & claimed to have respect for the decades-long original material indicating that Jughead was aroace (even before it was official confirmed in 2016 in the Chip Zdarsky comics). After those initial statements of support, Cole Sprouse never mentioned it again, as far as I know (& I looked) after 2017.

In 2017, there was a months-long campaign, with the hashtag #AroAceJugheadOrBust. We kept up hope, especially because at the time, it would have been the biggest piece of aroace representation ever seen on television, in a mainstream show no less. And we weren't hoping for something out of reach, they were adapting a comic where the best friend of the lead was consistently depicted as aroace, for decades. And we were told we would get a fair portrayal of the character.

Time passes, the show aired, Jughead initiated a kiss with Betty & Jughead got a girlfriend. At some point someeone involved in the show straight up said (I would cite the source but I don't remember well & I didn't bookmark it at the time, sorry) that the reason they gave the character a love interest was that otherwise it didn't make for a compelling or interesting story (I don't remember precisely, sorry).

I stewed in that a long time, thinking about how I'm one of the most interesting person I know, being aroace isn't boring, if they can't have a character being interesting without giving them a romance plot, that's them being terrible at their job...

When all our hopes were dashed, other people, many queer people started to show up & then like that show. Rooting for it. I saw praise for queer representation for bi or gay characters, but I didn't see any mention of the straight-washing of one of the main characters & how maybe some solidarity was warranted (how any potential good gay or bi rep in a minor character wouldn't make up for the straight washing of a main character).

As an aroace person, I wanted the show to fail, for the widespread outrage of the queer community condamning straight-washing to underwhelm any positive review.

That didn't happened this time. I hope the next time people try to erase aromantic or asexual identities of fictional characters in popular media, things are different & we do get that solidarity & support. I hope things get better.

[ilistentogirlinred]

a bunch of ideas for essays i have

ESSAY IDEAS:

fandom and parasocial relationships with celebs

primarily musicians

KPOP!!!

shipping

how this effects the idols themselves

and the fans perception of idols

“delulu”

competitive nature

groups

positions

obsession

racism

infantilisation

“maknaes”

lisa, jungkook

ONE DIRECTION

fucking larries

obsession

FITTH HARMONY

SWIFTIES

the idolisation

white feminism?

performative activism

NOT SEEING CELEBS AS REAL PEOPLE WITH FEELINGS!!!

mysoginy in fandom culture

internalised mysogyny

mysogyny in the works themselves

how that is internalised

the prevalence of m/m ships

patriarchy!

boo

KPOP!!!

shipping

how this effects the idols themselves

+ their friendships with each other

and the fans perception of idols

homophobia in the industry

“delulu”

competitive nature

groups

positions

obsession

racism

non fans who dislike the industry/fans

infantilisation

“maknaes”

lisa (crazy horse)

jungkook (seven, etc)

DEBUTING ACTUAL CHILDREN

THOSE ARE CHILDREN WTF DUDE

SHE IS BARELY 14

SHE IS 13

SHE WAS 12 WHEN SHE WAS ON THE SHOW

possible human rights violations?

work hours

neglect

mental health issues

suicides

beomhan therapy video (managers)

homophobia in the industry

if an idol comes out, fans will treat it as “proof” that their ship is “canon”

or will just be outright homophobic

FANSERVICE

its not gay but…

influence of fandom on modern media

queerbaiting/queercoding to attract an audience

destiel

teen wolf

bbc sherlock

tropes

enemies to lovers

DONE WRONG

queer rep in media

queerbaiting/coding to attract viewers

supernatural, sherlock

destiel, johnlock

teen wolf

queer coding in disney!

accidental?

LUCA!!!

cultural differences?

anime

YOI, SK8, Haikyuu

Naruto

superwholock -> ourgoodshadows

early 2000s/2010s YA dystopia plague, ya books in general

hunger games

marketing

movies

divergent!!!

bad

no second half of the third one lmao

maze runner

technically first!

LOVE TRIANGLES

twilight (either read or consult ms elloy, mya, etc)

hunger games

“big strong guy” vs “childhood friend”

predictable

repetitive

c’mon guys make it gay for once

try a conga line love triangle

that resolves itself with polyamory?

SPORTS ANIME

why is it so popular?

fandom, duh.

ok but why?

easy. gay anime boys

why is sports anime so gay?

power of friendship?

close bonds between people of the same gender

lack of characters from the opposite gender so less heterosexuality and f/m ships

but thats fandomy

the inherent homoeroticism of sharing a locker room

referring back to friendship/close bonds

BLUE LOCK

HOLY CRAP BLUE LOCK

its gayer than haikyuu but there’s no power of friendship really

there are very close bonds and strange definitions of attraction tho

bachisagi, reonagi, ryusae

REONAGI SHOUJO SPINOFF

attraction -> obsession

soccer -> dream -> lack of care about self

RYUSAE FUCKED UP IDEA OF (and perception) ATTRACTION

soccer = attraction, bond, romance/sex, etc.

BACK TO HAIKYUU

rivalries

rivalry -> close friendship

mirrors enemies to lovers very slightly

tis the power of friendship

power of friendship combined with coming of age?

YUURI ON ICE!

the canon gays

SK8 the infinity

queer coding?

QUEERCODING IN ANIME

is it all perceived and unintended due to differences in cultural upbringing?

possibly but the undertones are still very much there

maybe its censorship? who knows

killugon -> possibly find sources

the homoerotic queer-coded rivalry or friendship

established from the start

sasunaru, kagehina, bakudeku, renga, killugon, fucking soukoku, etc

also tsukkiyama, matchablossom, leopika, etc

SOUKOKU (and the rest of bsd)

the irl authors - were they queer?

FIND SOURCES!!!

[fioras-resolve]

So like, representation in games is weird. It's critically important, but uniquely challenging due to the nature of interactivity. And a big part of this is that there's, by my estimate, two separate tracks for how representation works in video games. I'm going to be talking primarily about queer rep here, because I am a white, American, and (mostly) able-bodied transbian. If anyone wants to add on to this conversation, I absolutely encourage it, so long as you don't fling shit at people. So!

The first track of representation is one that's mostly unique to games. Representation as player empowerment. This manifests as giving players the freedom to be and express themselves in the game world.

So like, character creators are the most obvious example. What gender can you be? What race? What body type? A thing I've seen a few games do that I love is letting you pick any voice set regardless of the rest of your character, so like in Baldur's Gate III, you can pick a masculine voice but a feminine body, and that's just really cool.

Another way it's important is with romance options when applicable. Like, it was a problem with the early Mass Effect games that you couldn't enter a gay male relationship. It was a problem with Fire Emblem Awakening that for all of its marriage options across characters, apparently none of your 30+ units were interested in a same-gender marriage. Functionally, you aren't allowed to be gay in these games. So Mass Effect 3 letting you date Steve Cortez, and Fire Emblem Three Houses giving several options for queer S-Supports (although I haven't played the Mass Effect games and some of FE3H's romances are controversial) were welcome changes.

But the other track is representation as storytelling, and this is pretty broad. Basically every topic in the representation discourse surrounding other forms of media also applies here. I'm not gonna go into this too much because you've heard a lot about this already, but in my opinion it's important to have positive representation that mainstreams us to society, but also diverse representation because the human experience is vast. We need the joy, the sorrow, the rage, all of it, and games offer a unique artistic space to convey all of this.

...But sometimes, these two tracks rub up against each other. Because storytelling sometimes means disempowerment, but a disempowered player can often be viewed as "bad game design" by people who aren't thinking of video games as stories or art, but as entertainment or toys.

For example, remember when I mentioned Three Houses? That game was a massive stride in queer rep for Fire Emblem. But I had an annoyance as I looked through these romantic options. While yes, some characters can married as the same gender, all of them can also be married as the opposite gender. In fact, there is nobody in this game that a straight person can't date. Opposite-gender attraction is a given and the default. Everybody is either straight or bisexual.

To be clear here, because I know people are going to get at me for this, no I'm not against bisexual representation in Fire Emblem. I'm not even criticizing any individual example, Dorothea is one of my favorite characters. But what I am saying is that, in real life, some people are exclusively gay. There are a lot of men who a woman would never be able to date, and vice versa. I don't think that's a bad thing to want to express.

But from a pure empowerment angle, having a woman that a straight man can't marry is incomprehensible. Isn't having more choices better, rather than blocking someone off for "choosing the wrong gender?" I've actually heard this point from someone, phrased in this exact way, and I can't really sugarcoat this: I find it repugnant.

It's a stance that views these characters as entitlements and not as people worthy of respect. And I know that these are fictional characters and not real people, but a good character isn't just a proxy for audience expression. Also, if we take "romance as player expression" to its natural conclusion, then having a character who is asexual becomes bad game design. A character romantically inaccessible to me, the protagonist of the world? Blasphemy.

I think the real important thing about games is that, even outside of representation, "the player should be empowered" is a view that's often unspoken but unquestioned. A game can be moving, tragic, heartfelt, but it must also be an experience where you, the audience, are fucking cool. Every obstacle exists for you to rise above, every entity in the world that isn't you is either a tool or an adversary. Meg Jayanth calls this "White Protagonism" in her excellent piece that I couldn't do justice here. Keep in mind as always that it's both possible and necessary to enjoy media while also being critical of its more problematic aspects.

Empowerment is a valuable tool in game design like any other, but the issue is that it's also extremely popular, to the point where it's just become what games are. And it's worth pushing back against that, so games can grow as a medium. So that we can tell stories, and have characters, and convey themes, that aren't tied up in a game designer's quest to make the protagonist the coolest guy.

But despite how critical I've been, these two tracks aren't mutually exclusive. They do clash with each other sometimes, but ultimately there's room for both. I look forward to the day I can play a bog-standard RPG that lets me change gender mid-game. I look forward to playing a polyamorous character, in a game that recognizes that as valid. But I also look forward to more characters like Guilty Gear's Bridget, an actual character who goes through a genuine journey of discovery, in a way that's warmed the hearts of so many trans women, including me. Ultimately, we just need queer rep in games, more of it, and it's never been a better time to make some. Just remember, there's a difference between letting the player be queer, and having a queer character.

[ilikereadingactually]

She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat Vol. 4

She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat Vol. 4 by Sakaomi Yuzaki

i reviewed the first three volumes of this manga here, and apparently i'm going to review each new one that comes out also because i so deeply adore and appreciate this series!!! that previous review went into some of what i love overall, so i'm going to dive into this volume specifically here.

first of all, I LOVE YAKO SO MUCH. i desperately want to be friends with her. i love the ways in which she just puts her real self forward: she'll eat and buy supplies but she won't cook! she's an asexual lesbian and she thinks these baby gays around her are so cute! come on over to her house, she'll provide the booze! what a delight. and i appreciated the straightforward, respectful way her identity backstory was presented in this volume, and her self-understanding that came in gradual pieces, her lesbian identity early on in life, and her asexual identity much later. it's incredibly refreshing to see a character who's figured herself out in a realistic way, and who isn't angsting about it in the present, is just living her life and helping her queer friends explore their own identities.

Sena is also so wonderful! i love her growth in this volume, and the way that the acceptance of friends allows her to feel more comfortable with herself and her limits, and also allows her to push at those limits bit by bit, starting to eat a bit in their company and eat more on her own. i love this whole series' relationship to food, and how positive it is, without any rules or strictures or shoulds or shouldn'ts.

and of course, AT LAST, A CONFESSION! actually much sooner than i expected, given the way romantic manga usually go, which is another reason to appreciate this series. i enjoy a slow burn...less than the next person, probably, and i'm so excited to see how Nomoto and Kasuga navigate their new relationship in future volumes! their private worries felt so real and sweet, and their ongoing conversations about how they feel, what page they're both on, making totally sure of each other, are so simple and beautiful. i love how much Nomoto blushes! i love how deadpan Kasuga is, and yet Nomoto can tell what she's feeling! they're so different and so well matched, and so very sweet together!

i'm not sure when the next volume comes out in English, but i'll be on it the day it appears for sure!!!

the deets

how i read it: a physical copy that i ordered with a birthday coupon from an indie near me, Main Point Books. thanks for holding onto it for a month while i was traveling and trying to get my shit together XD

try this if you: liked the first three volumes, obviously, but also if you dig some excellent ace rep, love a love confession without awkward miscommunications, and love to cook and/or eat!

some bits i really liked: these cute baby queers

[bungakuxcomplex]

really normal discussion/translation notes for the hitoiki song tls ive been working on. just needed a spot to dump them

plus-minus-kakeru-waru

×÷繰り返して心丈夫になる (kakeru waru kurikaeshite kokorojoubu ni naru) is a really, really cute pun. the verb used for multiplication in mathematics is 掛ける– it has several meanings, one of which meaning "to secure" (i.e. locking a padlock, etc). That part combined with 心丈夫 (referring to emotional security or reassurance) can give off the vibe of "securing one's emotional security". this one makes me smile a lot :)

not sure exactly what this line is supposed to mean (what were they cooking?), but the galapagos speed dramatic part of the chorus did lead me to an interesting fact while i was trying to crack it! there's a phrase called the galapagos syndrome, which is a term in the business sector that was coined in japan– one of the early uses of this term is to refer to tech with highly specific features, which was unsuccessful outside of japan. more about that here, it's very interesting and def links back to yusei's role as the akiba rep.

＋−の天秤に人生のスパイスを (purasu mainasu no tenbin ni jinsei no supaisu wo). translated as "the positive-negative balance is what spices up our lives". two things here: jinsei is the typical reading of the unit name hitoiki (which, funnily enough, derives the kanji from the names of its two members!), and spice is a nod to the fact the two of them go out to eat curry. i'm not sure if it's mentioned what their preferred spice level(s) are though.

bungaku complex

月が綺麗ですねってこぼしたそれは (tsuki ga kirei desu ne tte koboshita sore wa). this line contains a literary history reference. natsume soseki (author of texts such as botchan/wagahai wa neko de aru) coined the phrase "tsuki ga kirei desu ne" as an indirect translation of "i love you", and it is still commonly used as a method of confession for characters in anime/manga.

電気街 (denki-gai) literally: "electric town". Often tacked onto the end of akiba as a nickname given the prevalence of tech stores in the area. kinda self explanatory.

過去と未来を通りゃんせっせと (kako to mirai wo tooryanse sse to)– tooryanse is the name of a nursery rhyme from the edo period. the melody from this rhyme is often used in crossing signals in japan, with the rhyme itself essentially being about a family trying to celebrate shichi-go-san (rite of passage ceremony for young kids, more detail here).

冥土の土産はメイドが見上げた (meido no miyage wa meido ga miage ta). this one is difficult as hell to translate in a way that conveys the genius wordplay in it, and that very much gives me a migraine because it's so good. 冥土の土産 is an expression which refers to something which the speaker feels can make them pass away in peace– 冥土 in particular referring to hades and his domain in greek mythology. メイドが見上げ literally just refers to looking up at a maid (as the line is sung by yusei, this tracks given akiba's abundance of maid cafes). unironically peak

ほらもう一丁 (hora mou icchou). icchou can refer to a serving of food in a restaurant, which means it's probably a reference to how yusei and rihito are lunch bros who go out to eat together on a frequent basis. icchou, when given the -me suffix, can refer to a city block. this is probably unrelated, but it may even be a subtle nod to the close proximity of kanda and akiba stations– being located less than 10 minutes away from each other in nichome kajicho and icchome sotokanda respectively.

[exitpursuedbyasloth]

(So I originally wrote the following in a reply to the post screencaped above. I wanted to reblog this as the S3B is premiering in a couple days and I have major concerns over this potential plot direction. However OP blocked me for my reply and I can’t, however they’re my words so I will repost them as I see fit. Including the original post for context only, and I added some additional clarifying comments.)

…that would be pretty terrible, ngl.

Canon Radovid (in the games, he’s like 12 at the end of the books, although his future turn is hinted at) turns genocidal towards sorceresses and other non-humans both for political power, but also because of the festering resentment of the abuse, manipulations, and wrongs he sees him and father suffer at the hands of the sorceress Phillipa and Dijkstra, including his father’s assassination by an elf at the behest of Phillipa. Phillipa controls him throughout his teenage years. That hate festers in him for years until he grows up, and instead of simply getting revenge on those who personally harmed him and his family, he decides the only way to rule was with an iron fist, and turned that fist against all sorceresses, witches, magic-users and non-humans (both because he hates/fears them, but also for political gain, as these things tend to go). He encourages the non-human hate, uses humans superior numbers to overwhelm and destroy groups of non-humans and magic users. He’s relatively militarily adept too. He made sure of that, because he wanted revenge against Phillipa even as a boy. I don’t think the show would abandon everything that makes Radovid Radovid (but then again, Eskel...), I don’t think he’s just going to be Some Guy. So his sadistic bigotry towards and genocide against all non-humans and (most) human magic-users will come into play at some point. And if it does, his relationship with Jaskier will HAVE to factor in somehow, that’s unavoidable at this point. But should this theory OP mentions come to pass (and there is a good chance it might, I have been concerned about this since it the news leaked of who Jaskier would be paired up with), that would mean the show made a conscious choice to have adult Radovid turn villain…cause his boyfriend dumped him? His boyfriend of like a couple months chose his family of 20+ years over him, and that was enough to make him lose it and just start stabbing everything? Or cause he was angry that Jaskier was using him as a shield because Phillipa was threatening him? And Radovid, a grown ass man, cannot handle this? This would put a homosexual relationship at the core of a xenophobic campaign of witch-burning, be the catalyst of it. And they would put that on Jaskier’s shoulders? Because he dumped Radovid?

Why? What does this do but add cheap angst where it wasn’t needed? There is no need to A.) Start Radovid’s xenophobic hate campaign 15 years early (they have so many world-spanning plots they already can’t write well, why add more?), and B.) connect it directly to someone in the main core cast by having them be the inciting incident for Radovid. That’s unnecessary, that doesn’t offer any narrative improvement to the story at all (FFS, the world is bigger than Geralt, Yenn, Ciri, and Jaskier). And is this the reason Jaskier is now canonically bisexual? Was that the only reason they did that, just to make him the casus belli of a genocide? That really would not be the kind of queer rep anyone should praise, and by god, does it feels downright spiteful.

And to be clear, I don’t think every queer story has to be all sunshine and happiness or perfectly positive (something I’ve been accused of when criticizing questionable writing of gay/bi characters in the past). But there is a vast ocean of difference between “Sunshine and perfection” and “Hey! Let’s change this catalyst for this genocide from ‘Paranoid Fascist takes what should have been a beef between him and like 5 people, and turns it into a full scale witch-burning industry and non-human genocide, for both political gain and cause he’s a paranoid xenophobic fascist’ to 'gay prince super bummed his boyfriend dumped him’, and let’s make sure we wait to show the boyfriend as canonically bisexual until the last possible second, just so people wonder if that’s the only reason we even bothered ”. A vast fucking ocean.

I’m fine with adaptational changes that add to or improve the canon material, or are just different but stand strongly on their own. But this? Would be a terrible miserable hateful idea, and is just cheap writing for forced angst (and I honestly would not put it past the Witcher writers, which is the worst part).

How is this good? How would this an improvement? What does this add? How does this stand on it’s own? Why would they take a bloody campaign of witch-burning and genocide that had a believable catalyst already, and retcon it happening because of The Gays? Cause a dude dumped another dude? If they did this, the writers would have to consciously make the choice to change the catalyst of the genocide to ���a gay guy was like super bummed that his boyfriend left him for a Witcher’. Do y'all see what that looks like?

[vamptones]

I think that the unreasonable fear I have of being pointed at by the public as a degenerate fujo for being an AFAB person who currently writes about gay male characters is gonna set me back a lot when it comes to the publication of my work in the future because I have seen it so often happen to artists and authors in a similar position as me. sadly enough it is impossible to transform myself into an american gay cis male in the early 00s to make my writing more plausible. does this mean my writing will be inherently perceived as a piece of Fetishized Garbage because I do not belong to any of the late mentioned categories?

A few months ago I asked an old friend how could I avoid this from happening in a hypothetical future. I did not want to a pseudo-refrainbow. attacked left and right by the Fujoshi and Bad Rep allegations. What I got as a response was to be secretive about my identity, and not indulge in the Anime Boy Art-making.

I didn't like that answer because, one) I ain't good at keeping my private life private, and as previously stated, I cannot pose as something I'm not. second) I am a true victim of the Anime Boy Drawing Tutorials and I cannot teach myself out of my roots.

the thing is, and the point I'm trying to make is that there really isn't a way that one, as a transmasc person, as a mlm, nblm, whatever, can truly produce content about a community they're essentially a part of, without being pointed at for various crimes such as Not being a Cis-gay, Fujo Fetishist Fuck, and being Cringe Online on the Cringe Website.

This is very obviously not a massive issue, of course. it's even niche. but I'm just a very anxious fuck who cares maybe a little too much about the way both I and my work are perceived as a whole. It got me thinking. I just wanted to ramble it out to the world since there's absolutely No One that wants to hear me talking about this. This is my blog after all.

[cryptidshadows]

I don't know if this is in your purview, but in a novel I'm working on, the main character - the one who cracked my egg in realization, in fact - is a gay trans man who started transitioning at 17 in 2005, in south florida, just north of miami. i figure he started socially transitioning between 16-17 (he didn't have a lot of friends in high school) and medically transitioning at 18 while going to college, with the support of his lesbian mom and her transbian friend, his "aunt". what advice or input would you give me on what it was like to be in early transmasc transition in the mid-2000s? i've had a surprisingly hard time over the last few years finding out what personal experience of that was like. thank you for sending out the transsignal on this!

Your novel sounds fantastic and I’d love to read it someday! I’ll preface this post by saying that it includes brief descriptions of experiences with transphobia.

I first came out in Georgia, but began HRT in Florida, and even in the 2010s, it was a process. In order to start HRT, you were “required” to have lived as your “chosen sex” for a full year, as well as have a signed letter from a licensed therapist that indicated you had been in therapy for at least 1 year as well, and had been diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder. So your character socially transitioning from age 16-17 before getting approval to start HRT sounds accurate!

My insurance, of course, did not cover hormone therapy (or any kind of transition-related health care) and my appointments at Planned Parenthood were awkward at best, with staff asking tons of invasive questions out of fascination while continuing to misgender me despite my corrections. They weren’t necessarily hostile, but definitely bewildered at the idea of it. When I went to CVS to pick up my prescription for the first time, I was refused, and told that “we don’t serve your kind here.” I had to switch pharmacies to get my HRT filled. I was loudly and purposely outed by doctors, pharmacists, my dentist, and at a job interview. I was harassed repeatedly while out walking, at the laundromat, in other public spaces. I was threatened enough at my previous job that I had to quit.

I did not know any trans people in high school (I graduated in 2005). Looking back, I had a friend who fit the description, but was never out as trans. We likely didn't have the language to describe what it was at the time, especially since what little trans rep that existed in media was, well, very caricatured, and not typically positive.

Finding resources during that time was tricky too! In the mid-2000s, Tumblr didn’t exist - my first resources were Susans.org (a trans support forum and web site that’s been running since 1995) and Livejournal. I was able to safely connect with people in those spaces, and it was mostly through Susans.org that I found the resources I needed to start transitioning. If your character was well-off enough to have Internet access in the mid-2000s, this is what I’d recommend! Libraries were a resource as well for local communities, both for access to these emerging online spaces, and also for the few books on the subject which were invaluable resources during a time when info was scarce.

I hope this is useful! Feel free to reach out if you have other specific questions you're looking to answer!

[blazekurumu]

MY THOUGHTS ON TOTAL DRAMA 2023!

Hey everyone! Hope you campers are doing well today because I have a review just for you!

Total Drama is a franchise I didn't get to watch live on television. Mainly because I didn't get to see it growing up. However, that all changed when I reached high school and got majorly hooked. I liked the campers, the challenges, the wacky hijinks, the romance drama, and everything that makes the show unique. My favorite season is ROTI for a long time (Please don't hate. World Tour is a close third to the Ridonculous Race for me). All the characters, even the terrible ones, have all made quite the impression on me. For years, I've waited for new content to be uploaded, watching the stupid Dramarama, was there when Reunion shut down, and enjoy the pseudo series of Disventure Camp.

Now a new season has come out and let me be positive in saying that this was one of the best seasons in a long time.

New Chris voice? Doesn't bother me since I kinda liked the new voice direction.

All new cast instead of the old one? Thank goodness! The old cast is great, but new people are fun too! Stop whining for the old and embrace the new for a change.

Multicultural and LGBTQ rep? Sign me up! I loved Nichelle, Priya, Millie, Damien, and Bowie so much! Was surprised at the pairing of Bowie and Raj, too. Love them boys so much!

Challenges that felt different, but still stuck with the formula? Heck yeah! I loved the selfie one, the hunger one was funny, and the catapult one was so cool!

Were there negatives? Emma and Chase brought the season down sometimes. I liked Emma, but not enough to call her my favorite. She just needs to break up with that egotistical slimeball called Chase! Scary Girl being eliminated early hurt me too. She was funny. Damien got robbed, but he did that to himself.

My favorite characters made this season great for me!

Priya is my baby! She's funny, determined, and a hard worker. An athletic nerd girl to her core who trained to be on this show. I don't get the Priya hate, she's amazing! Sure she carried Millie, but that's what a girl in her shoes would do to a best friend. I liked their dynamic a lot.

Millie surprised me with how much I started to like her. She started off as a closet nerd that had a pension for being judgemental and mended her ways. Making friends with Priya was the best thing that ever happened to her. I bet she would get more love if they made her a villian.

Bowie....need I say more? He's the moment, the true villian in my opinion, and he slayed! His relationship with Raj was sweet, his friendship with Emma was funny, and his rivalry with Julia was top notch! This boy should come back for another season and kill it again!

Scary Girl aka Lauren was a fun character. A sweet little psycho who was Gothic and funny. I lived her wild card mindset of just being kooky and nutty while displaying certain strengths.

Damien was a cool nerd. Like he was chill and scared, but also knew his science. He came on the show expecting the million to be given to him. He's like if you mixed DJ with Cameron and added a dash of awesome. He wanted to get off so bad that he wasted his time. Bummer...

I feel bad for Nichelle though. Girlboss turned Girlfail real fast. I thought she was going to be the cool girl a la Heather and become the major villian. However, I just wanted to hug her instead. Hope she gets another season too.

Raj and Wayne are package deal and the bestest of bros. Wayne cracked me up when he noticed Raj was gay. He was literally the fan base when we all heard. Raj was a sweetie too. His crush on Bowie was the right amount of meet cute, awkward glances, and then Bowie became his hero. Boy loves his man more than hockey itself. How darling!

The other characters were okay in my opinion. Some were decent like MK and Zee. Chase can go die in a ditch with his car's breaks cut. Ripper was annoying. Julia was like a better version of crazy Courtney with Heather skills. Axel was fine too.

Chris and Chef's dynamic was much better than previously bad ones and Chef made me chuckle a few times. He's such an overprotective dad figure to the campers when he wants to.

Overall, I loved how the new season gave us a new perspective. Thirteen episodes are just okay to me, but I hope for more next time. Give this season a chance and maybe two watches before you come down on the hammer. It has gen z kids as the protagonists now, they are going to be different from the old cast. They were early z's, these campers are late z's. Do not be so hard on them.

[artmunstudios]

Quick note about the No Goodnights Project! Aaannd maybe a little Internet History

This project was something I had started in highschool, and hadn’t touched properly again until just last year after stopping development back in 2017??? So because of that, there is a LOT of outdated information on the characters/story, so truthfully nothing before 2020 should really be considered as canon unless it it’s reiterated again recently.

Not to mention my biological extended family at the time was extremely nosy, homophobic, and I genuinely hate to say but on both sides they kinda filled some stereotypes when it comes to how the cultures I’m biracial in were. So I had sanitized certain aspects of what I had. Luckily that didn’t really bleed to on here, but some things did.

The biggest thing was Pinocchio’s sexuality—I never really imagined him as straight, but he was the protagonist, and…it’s really hard to explain to people who maybe weren’t online until like maybe 2017/18 on. The LGBTQ community was only just really becoming??? I hate to say the word mainstream because that’s not right either but.

It’s very complicated, I’ll put in a cut if you want to read about it go ahead and click the read more! If you are stopping here, that’s okay! Take a few sketchs of Razel and Pinocchio ✨

(I was still deciding on a name for him and almost named him fucking Reginault—)

Okay. So. How do I put this lightly…when it comes to the LGBTQ (I actually don’t even think LGBT was even a thing yet but feel free to correct me!!)…publicly, while frowned on to treat them badly, it was still considered not exactly a…??? It was not favored publicly, let’s just put it at that.

But online there was admittedly, in my eyes, a much bigger issue.

People, particularly anime fans/fujoshis….had a bad habit of treating the LGBTQ as a fetish/personal fantasy rather than, you know, having ships purely for romantic means. That isn’t to say they didn’t exist, but I don’t think I’m exactly wrong in saying that things like Yaoi (now called BLs since because of the past behavior Yaoi now has a bad connotation) were popular not because of positive LGBTQ rep, buutt moreso because the mass of underage hormonal teens (girls in particular) were in the mindset of “two cute guys kissing/having sex is hot”. This bled into real life as well, with many many instances of actual members of the LGBTQ being more or less sexually harassed by fujoshis. And. Lowkey,,, yeah I hate to say but some voice actor dubbers weren’t exactly helping and basically encouraged the behavior in their Q&As.

Don’t even get me started on the fucking Yaoi Paddles.

Because of this, LGBTQ ships during the 2010s, particularly early 2010s, MAYBE starting a little before that decade, we’re not viewed positively either. And admittedly I was one of those people who had that mindset. A lot of my friends were fujoshis, one fetishizing gay men to a point that it still makes my skin crawl tbh. But, at the same time it’s hard to be angry now because stupid teens are stupid teens and the mix of hormones and homophobia still being considered normal yields not fantastic and very confused results.

The reason Yuri!!! On Ice is still considered groundbreaking is because it was one of the first anime to treat LGBTQ romance as just. Romance. At the least, it was the first to become mainstream and taken seriously. I’ll be honest and say that it opened my eyes too. It wasn’t that I was outwardly homophobic as a teen, I think my mum would flip over backwards 20 times before chasing me across dimensions with a belt if I ever displayed behavior like that, but my biological father was homophobic, as was the majority of my extended family on both sides, like I mentioned. But the thing that repulsed me, I now realize, was not the sexuality itself, but rather how people treated the sexuality. I mean, yes it’s still an issue, but side of you guys have no idea how bad it was in the past, you seriously don’t.

But that’s why despite all the downsides of modern internet, I will never want to go back to the state it was during the 2010s, it was a fucking disaster, and hindered my own journey of accepting the fact that I was nonbinary/male-leaning.

So this long, long history/personal lesson is more or less to help sum up this statement here:

Pinocchio, at the very least, my Pinocchio, has always been gay—I just now feel that my space in person/online is actually safe to properly express my characters that are part of the LGBTQ!

[pandasmagorica]

First watch: 3 Will Be Free

tl;dr - Even though I'm not a big crime series fan, I loved this series and had to weigh whether to promote it to my top ten (I didn't, but it was close). There are some cringe moments and plenty of gun violence, not that much assault but still some. The plot holes weren't too distracting. Transgender viewers may be uncomfortable for episodes 1-3, but there's a real payoff for sticking with the series with a super-strong trans character.

This post is intended to be PG but the series itself is rated 18+ (I think for violence) just so you know.

Had been putting off watching this because it's not QL, even though I've watched other Thai non-QL (Gift Shop for People You Hate, 55:15 Never Too Late, and Midnight Museum). But after seeing some positive mentions about it here on Tumblr, decided to give it a try. And was very glad I did. And also questioning the take that it's not QL.

After seeing Tay Tawan in Dark Blue Kiss and the DBK prequels, as well as a guest turn in Midnight Museum, I totally did not expect his Shin character in 3WBF. Mostly mild mannered, a big contrast to his character in the three Kiss series, but don't underestimate him - he can take some wild action as well if that's his only choice at the moment - and there are some moments.

I also knew Gunsmile from his wisecracking ghost in He's Coming to Me. Here he's quite dark as a hitman.

As for guest appearances, I knew Sing from the same series as well as in Not Me and The Warp Effect, and Sine from brief appearances in He's Coming to Me and Secret Crush on You as well as her long-ago star turn in the horror movie Nang Nak. Sing's and Sine's appearances here were quite brief, but the story is the story and hopefully I will see them again in other work.

I've seen director Jojo's work before on Gay OK Bangkok and its sequel, which I liked, well, okay, but didn't love, as well as The Warp Effect, which I greatly enjoyed.

Enough introduction. On to the series itself.

The story gets off to a quick start. Neo (Joss Way-ar), a hustler and stripper, is having an affair with Va (Sine Inthira), the wife of a mob boss. When the husband Mr. Thana (Big Sarut) finds out, he sends hitmen Phon (Max Nuttawut) and Ter (Gunsmile Chanagun) to kill Neo, but Ter winds up accidentally killing Va instead. Neo runs from them to a dance bar run by Miw (Mild Lapassalan) only to discover Shin (Tay Tawan), who he seems to know, in the men's room. Phon chases after Neo only to be killed by Miw after being surprised to discover Shin (who he calls Mr. Shin, because Shin is Mr. Thana's son) and dropping his gun during the ensuing fight.

So now Neo, Shin, and Miw are on the run. The rest of the series is them trying to dodge the people who want to kill them and find a way to safety.

Except...Phon's lover Mae (Jennie Panhan), a transwoman (so is the actress), insists on joining Ter on the pursuit so she can get revenge for Phon's death.

This story had me with severe split allegiances: I wanted Neo, Shin, and Miw to get away safely, but I also found myself rooting for Mae as well. While the show mostly focused on the trio and their relationship, they gave ample time and character development to Mae and Ter. I'd say Mae's character underwent the most transformation of any of the characters, and that's not a pun. In the eyes of this queer, admittedly cis, male, this show has major positive transfemale rep. She is an incredibly strong characters.

On to the cringe moments: For a series that was as positive about a major transgender character, Neo's trans landlady and her roommate were absolute cringe and there only for comic effect. Their screen time was mercifully brief, but instantly too long each time they showed up. It also happens early in the series, before we've been able to fully see that Mae's character is going to be handled well. Their parts could have been eliminated with zero impact on the plot. I am completely mystified as to how a series that handled a major transgender character so well could fail so badly for the guest transgender characters.

So, I would recommend this show to my trans friends with the warning that it might be rocky going the first few episodes.

Spoilers follow

Okay, there are definitely some plot holes, mostly having to do with logistics: Why is Shin in the dance bar when Neo comes in? Why do some characters, such as Boss John, put themselves in danger when they don't need to? Why would the maid give Miw her uniform? How does Mae find Mr. Thana at the end? Why isn't Mr. Thana protected? With all the flashback reveals throughout the series, it's strange these aren't addressed.

But, aside from all the deaths along the way, it's a mostly happy ending for the trio. And Mae gets the right-sized amount of revenge and affirms her existence, at the cost of learning some hard lessons of the lengths she's willing to go to.

Is this QL? I tend to be expansive in what I'd consider QL and I'd say yes. The development of the poly relationship (even though it doesn't stay that way) is fairly queer as in LGBTQ+ and features at least one of the tropes, attraction at first sight. It doesn't matter to me that it's not the main focus of the series. Your mileage may vary.

It's a great series and I could eventually watch it again.