#esp as a queer fan

[fryandleelasbigfling]

ive come to realize I have complicated feelings on fr/nder but I am hesitant to voice them lest I alienate a good 90% of the tumblr futurama fandom

[houkagokappa]

Bless Mokumokuren for outright stating that the genre tags for Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu have never changed, i.e. the official site never dropped the "BL" tag from the series as it got more popular to reach a wider audience. It's been a persistent rumor in the fandom, and one I'm afraid will start circulating again once the anime starts airing.

If you mainly follow English language sources, please remember that whatever tags different anime and manga sites, databases, aggregators etc., either add or leave out don't always reflect the author's intent and the official sources, and should NOT be used to argue for what genre or demographic a certain work belongs to. It can just be random people claiming whatever they want based on their own interpretations and I've seen plenty of errors and real time changes to them based on new chapter developments, that might help catch the attention of some people, but don't suddenly change the genre of the work itself.

Not having BL as a genre tag also doesn't mean that a work can't include any boys loving. The queer themes have always been present in HGSN, and if you're up to date with the manga, they've been outright stated. Having queer characters or a queer story line doesn't automatically mean that a work is BL or yuri, and not including those tags doesn't mean that it's just "baiting". This gets brought up so much I think Mokumokuren's gotten tired of it, because the other day they clearly spelled it out for everyone, assuring that the story is queer, although it's not tagged as BL or focused on romance.

Here's what they shared on their Bluesky account:

The genre tag and advertising direction on the official website have never changed since the beginning of serialization. From the beginning, it has been consistently promoted as a "coming-of-age horror" within the official reach. (It's also true that the official reach is very limited…) Whatever the genre tag is, and even if this story isn't a romance, as the author, I guarantee that it is a queer story. There seems to be a persistent false rumor going around that "the author suddenly removed the BL tag from the official website by the 3rd volume," but the truth is that there was never an official BL tag from the beginning. (This is not to deny any queerness.)

And further back:

My opinion that the genre of The Summer Hikaru Died is something that the readers are free to think about on their own remains unchanged, but I view it as a story that sympathizes with those who have been left out of stories about love and sex, so I describe it as "coming-of-age horror." I think the key is the fear of not being “normal” and not having a place to belong, which is common for all kinds of people regardless of their attributes. I think it's fine for queer stories that aren't romances to exist. That's why I've been careful not to position it as a love story from the start.

Let's stop obsessing over tags and allow queer stories to exist and thrive, even when they lack a clear romantic plot or subplot and are more subdued.

[griem]

ijbol idk man releasing screenshots of very polarizing things said in a private discord server between friends in a public "callout" post is #the most #tumblrific thing ive ever seen LOL.

#opinion 😱 in tags

[reel-fear]

Genuinely so curious who Mike thinks is gonna be buying The Cage or the new DCTL GN bc with the way he tweets as far as he's concerned, it's not gonna be:

The queer people he has actively admitted he will never show any representation of in the games.

2. The POC he has actively fought against representing in his franchise. [Who he also mocked for thinking they would be represented in his franchise]

3. The Bendy fandom which has always been concerned with topics of diversity esp in the sense of queer people since its creation. Who he has responded to really poorly esp in regards to the GN.

4. The fans who critique him. [He blocked me for doing so lol]

5. His fans in general who he tweets about like this currently. [He's being vague about why people were mad at him or sent him 'nasty messages' because if you actually looked into why you'd see he was in the wrong. Either way, a very hateful way to speak abt ur own fanbase.]

Reminder while Mike is trash talking his fans he has always treated them rather poorly. The fans who won the fanart contest for Chapter 5 never got their posters actually in game due to it being rushed. Not only was chapter 5 a big slap to the face story wise, but it was literally so rushed he couldn't be bothered to add in the art his fans gave him for his game FOR FREE. [Meatly blames this on a crazy timeline, reminder him and Mike are the literal ceos of this company. The proposal of future updates here is also pretty cruel considering Mike nowadays happily admits he corrupted Chapter 5's source code and therefore literally can't update it At All currently. Because he is a moron]

At least they got to be in Boris and the dark survival, and by that I mean that was the Only game they got to be in so far, isn't that just treating your fans like you love them? Shoving their hard work into a spin off game almost nobody has played or addresses much. [Hell, who knows if with the Lone Wolf rebrand they'll even stay there. In which case they'll be in None of the games, only in the credits of BATIM]

6. The Bendy fans who just generally disagree with him on stuff. Like the new ink demon design where there is literally a public poll showing people generally prefer the old one.

7. The Bendy fans who can see he is actively lying to them. To their fucking faces.

He says this has always been the case, but screenshots and links to tweets regarding the books being canon prove it was not. Does he really think bendy fans are stupid or something? [Unless he's admitting here he lied to Kress when he told her the books were canon which sounds worse!]

8. Anyone who doesn't like the idea of giving money to a guy who laid off tons of employees then afterwards thought it was a great idea to express his anti-union views! Also brag about how good of an employer he was, according to his employees, he was not!

So in summary; Mike is an awful person who has not learned anything from the awful things he did. I will not be purchasing The Cage because, combined with this and his absolute refusal to take any kind of critique or see any differing interpretation of his franchise, I have no reason to think my problems with the franchise will ever be addressed or fixed. I probably will pirate The Cage along with any future Bendy Products [Including the movie] and will do my best to avoid giving it any kind of monetary support. Unless this changes any time soon, I can't see myself making anymore positive Bendy posts soon.

Mike has just managed to make it so hard to speak positively or optimistically of this franchise when he's so willing to broadcast how little he cares about it or its fans. I'm at the point where I refuse to pull any of my punches with my problems with it. What's the point of trying to play nice with my critique when either way the people creating it don't care?

So with this post, I want to invite anyone who feels similarly about the franchise to tell me, make a post or send an ask talking about how all of this makes you feel. It may not change how things are, but genuinely seeing other people share my feelings of anger makes me feel better. It feels nice to see when other people share our same concerns and worries. I'd also love to know if anyone else thinks they'll be avoiding purchasing Bendy products over this.

I'm not forcing anyone to participate in it nor trying to say anyone who doesn't supports mike but genuinely maybe if we can collectively decide to boycott things like the movie, graphic novel and The Cage... It might at least make the bendy devs acknowledge how much they have destroyed their own fandom's faith and trust in them.

The way Mike tweets about his actions like he had no control over why people were mad at him at least proves to me he takes NONE of it back nor regrets it. If you didn't know about his actions and only went off his tweets, you would be led to believe Mike has been needlessly picked apart by fans over things he couldn't control [or in his own words, had his words twisted and taken out of context]. That is not how you speak about your actions if you have actually learned better from them.

anyway, that has been my bendy dev callout post. This is an open invitation to anyone feeling similarly upset about the way the franchise is going to talk about it. It's genuinely nice to see how people feel about this and the more we talk about the more it's likely the bendy devs are forced to address our concerns. I don't think they will but hey, that's why I'm not gonna support them with my money anymore nor am I gonna be nice to them in any content I make critiquing Bendy. I mean I'm also basically making this post just in case anyone asks me Why I feel this way towards to bendy devs/as a way to respond to anyone who thinks I am too harsh in my critique in the future.

As always, it seems the best part of Bendy isn't actually anything about canon but about what the fan's are creating with the ideas Bendy failed to do anything interesting with.

Also the books, the books slap.

[lovelyrotter]

can ppl in this fandom like... stop... implying that transmasculinity in hcs or (especially) canon is shallow or misogynistic or even transmisogynistic on princible, like literally just by being prescent in someones mind or in the text. like that doesnt fuckin feel good. thats kind of really nasty to imply. if its not okay to say about other trans experiences, maybe dont say it about this one either. why is there a weird little exception here. yall KNOW how much that sucks to hear all day every day. what the fuck

[lildoodlecat]

so as you might imagine i primarily read mxtx fic but i've had a recent resurgence of interest in tma (bc i discovered via yt animatics that there were bonus q&a n' such episodes i never heard so listened through all those) and from my last quick browse i wasn't particularly interested in the fic available. however, i remembered i DID have one open i'd thought about reading but ended up closing bc i just wasn't feeling it enough to let it keep clogging up my tabs

so, since i'm still riding the dopamine this is giving me i hunted down the aforementioned fic (luckily in my marked for later. ty past me for not at all underestimating my indecisiveness and hoarding of potentially useless things tendencies) and was like. ohhhh fucK that's actually an interesting canon divergence! i understand why i had this open.....

and then i binged through the first 4/9 chapters of this 145K fic in two days and?? i'm having so much fun. actually. which is really nice bc i kinda don't have enough like. fresh interests to exploit a;lksdjf as it were for my Disorder to be happy with. most things i've been indulging in for the last while are pretty well worn unfortunately

but ye i'm glad i'm having fun with this and also just excited to read such a fun fic :3

[termagax]

👂ianthe opinions ? 👀

i find her deeply compelling and fucked up and a very cool counterforce to harrow in HTN and i think about the "you are twenty two" "it's a universe away from eighteen" interaction on the fucking daily and the ianthe-harrow relationship lives in my heart and soul and i also think people on the internet are extremely callous about her and respond violently to even the SUGGESTION that her relationship w harrow may be predatory in any way. which is absurd coming from the "we love dark fiction we just want to explore DARK TOPICS you guys cant handle HORROR" crowd.

[vulpinesaint]

planned parenthood trip to get my blood drawn (taking testosterone levels) was so great this morning btw. in and out in fifteen minutes, they were SO fast about it, blood draw was easy peasy. so content with the nurse believing me when i said i was totally fine with getting my blood drawn it made the process so quick :D

[queer-and-nerdy]

as a blue ridge rock festival 2023 survivor i’m imagining l&co going to a rock/metal festival and it’s CARNAGE right (this is based on my experience with festivals in the u.s. i’ve never been to any in europe LMAO) also obligatory @wellgoslowly tag <3

the three of them go for all 4 days with on-site camping but they decide to share a single tent because “it’ll be cheaper and we already live together so how bad can it be?” BAD VERY BAD. fortunately, the weather was good but lucy forgot to take into account how much she and george snack when they get stressed. her and george take turns driving to and from the festival (lockwood is a registered passenger princess i love him but also don't trust him behind the wheel), but lucy is the one to park in the campground as george made several domestic and international terror threats if he had to pull into "that shitshow of a lot, are you mad?? who's idea was this, anyways? not mine, that's for sure. park the damn car without killing us, please and thank you." their three sleeping bags barely fit the floor of the tent, so the first night they spend practically curled up together. george, unable to handle the sheer amount of LocklyleTM, decides to sleep in the car for the rest of the weekend. lucy and lockwood try to sleep in an inconspicuous/non-awkward way, but somehow find themselves tangled up in each other's arms. neither of them comment on this, but they also don't separate right away (they make me sick). they all wear matching noise-muffling headphones that lucy made for them (lucy's hearing is already somewhat impaired and she takes care of her body; george bitches about his hearing being fine despite staying close enough to be able to touch the stage for every set he attends and complaining about a "weird ringing noise" constantly; lockwood never takes his off, even sleeping with them on - lucy drew little hearts on his). the three of them also spent the week leading up to the festivals making kandi bracelets to hand out, which earns them some friends they keep for years.

lockwood (the masochist that he is) has the time of his life all weekend. he’s thriving on the loud music and shitty overpriced food. he desperately wants to mosh but doesn’t realize that you don’t really have to ask to join, and his first few attempts just result in him either acting as a wall or getting pushed out of the way entirely. once he finally pushes his way into a decent-sized pit, he instantly gets sucker punched and george has to take him to the first aid tent (they give him a small bottle of water and tell him to “take it easy”). he doesn't sing along for any sets he attends, instead enjoying hearing the combination of the band and the audience. he stays on the festival grounds from first set to last, and when he returns to the campsite he spends several more hours chatting with their neighbors. he loves discovering new bands and genres despite how picky he is and gets along great with the people he stands around (except the person that kept talking shit about metallica). music is a great escape for him and helps him pass the time in his everyday life. it acts as a grounding force in his life, and something about the heavy bass provided by the live music gives him a sense of reality. despite his increasing lack of sleep each night he somehow is more energized each day. this baffles lucy and george, who are running on the fumes of fumes. hypothetically his positive attitude would make him an ideal tentmate, except for the unfortunate fact that not only are the showers largely inaccessible but he gets it into his head that “there aren’t showers in the wild; therefore, i don’t need to take any.” lucy and george set him straight the second night with some not so thinly veiled threats.

lucy is the one to suggest the festival as a “much needed vacation.” she is also the first to regret actually following through on it. she spends the hottest parts of the day in the shade of their campsite, usually only showing up for the headliners at the end of the night as well as some smaller bands she researched ahead of time. although george teases her for "hiding," she ends up being the only one to make it out without any medical issues or injuries. she makes sure to pack the right amount of food for the three of them as well as budgeting for festival food but she would rather die than pay $13 for a slice of pizza. she designates herself as the merch martyr, standing in line for two hours to get the three of them anything and everything they could afford (one shirt each and a magnet for their kitchen). however much she complains, though, she fully enjoys herself the whole time. she allows herself the freedom to relax in what would otherwise be a stressful environment for her, and she makes a few good friends. like lockwood, music is an escape for her, but instead of giving her a sense of reality, she finds it gives her an outlet to be someone she usually isn't. in a large crowd, with no one's eyes on her and any internal thoughts muffled by the loud music, she can let go and lose herself to the experience. she doesn't mosh but instead stands to the side and observes the moshers and crowd surfers. she becomes so wrapped up in the performances that, despite knowing all of the songs, often doesn't sing along.

george, like myself, has a myriad of health conditions, so the fact that he survived the entire weekend is surprising enough. lucy enlists lockwood's help to hold a gun to george's head to force him to take his binder off periodically. he hasn't had a drop of water in months and certainly isn't planning on starting now, which frustrates lucy to no end. the only compromise he makes is purchasing a case of gatorade, which he chugs half of and promptly vomits up all within the first day. he isn't a huge fan of moshing but he gets dragged into a few energetic ones and finds himself having fun. although he, like lucy, researched and planned ahead on who he wanted to see, he prefers to spend most of the day wandering around the grounds and sitting in on groups he didn't know if he has the time. for the groups he plans for, however, he's a bit of a scary fan. he knows all the lyrics, the band members' names, details of their careers, etc. he knows the setlist ahead of time even though he could sing each all of their songs perfectly from memory and excitedly tells the people around him what song was coming next. he starts arguments with a few people on the subgenres of metal, but also manages to get a cute guy's contact info after crossing each other's paths at a few different sets. to him, music is the only way he feels understood. he often doesn't know how to verbally explain his feelings, and there's something about music that he finds accesses deep within him. he passes out three times during the first day (lucy was there for the third one and exploded when he told her about the other two) but manages to only pass out one more time over the rest of the weekend.

skull is forced to stay home by himself despite insisting on being taken along [he will remember this]. the magnet lucy gets, however, satisfies him.

[variousqueerthings]

I mean, yes, there's a lot of nostalgia to the 60th anniversary, but I think people will conflate that with "automatically a bit shit" because a lot of nostalgia Stuff isn't that great after a glut of lazy nostalgia-based media over the last x amount of time, but that assumes that it was bad because of it being nostalgic, and not because it was irony-poisoned, self-conscious, and unwilling to interact with the changing times and therefore a poor copy of the said thing it was being nostalgic about, rather than continuing a story. the familiar phrase by now of "all nostalgia, no sincerity"

when I'm not a fan of what one might call "nostalgia"-stories, it's not because referring to the past is automatically bad writing, it's because the writing is stale and really often it's because it reveals that whoever made the new thing definitely didn't get the same out of the classic thing that I did, and at the same time is patting themself on the back for idk. something. doing the same thing again, only this time around worse (often it's that surface level interaction with tropes, rather than themes that outs them -- and yeah, that's in the trailer, but specifically the trailer is giving very little away, so knowing they're hooking people in with a bit of allons-y or the slap or donna being sassy, while keeping the things I'm really excited about a bit more mysterious, I mean... that just makes sense?? Yeah, I recognise the callbacks, but the really important things aren't being revealed yet, like the inverse of terrible movies that show all their biggest set-pieces in the trailer, because that's all they have to offer)

and I don't see people pre-judging the potential 60th on those criteria, just on the word "nostalgia." I mean, obviously we can say this might be bad, but it's sort of a nothing-statement, and it seems kind of unfair to say that rtd would do this, when he's not done that before, specifically on a show that is super nostalgic to begin with (that is, the longest-running scifi show of all time), of which rtd was a massive fucking nerd

I assume because it's three specials with dtennant and catherine tate, but also yeah, why the hell not be nostalgic both about classic!who and the series that you created that rebooted the show (the answer is "because ten isn't the only doctor that matters," and personally, again, rtd being a massive fucking nerd, feels a bit like putting words in the man's mouth that he's never said, specifically about a show that he's super nerdy about)

feels like people are putting the stance out there that they're ready to hate it and then they can always go, "oh it was surprisingly good, actually," in case it is good, rather than be just excited going in and risk disappointment, but it's a bit boring to be honest

tempering excitement is all well and good, until it makes you the irony-poisoned one, where all nostalgia is kind of stupid really, you don't even care that much, and you know this is going to be shit, and actually looking back rtd was never good if you think about it, and ten is overrated, and david tennant isn't even a good actor actually, and catherine tate was just a shitty comedian, and you've preemptively decided to refuse to enjoy yourself

it's an anniversary, that's when the nostalgia comes out, and has done since the 10th anniversary in (checks notes) 1972!

[reel-fear]

MIKE BLOCKED ME ON TWITTER FOR ROASTING HIS DUMBASS RESPONSE TO THE GRAPHIC NOVEL STUFF!!

grown ass man scared of the 19-year-old queer being mean to him over his public meltdown more at 8.

[ct-hardcase]

being a zutara in the modern day and age is suffering, not because of the lack of canonicity because that's been a thing for over a decade at this point, but because at least half the other shippers are clowns and you can't even defend yourself when someone calls the ship lame

[purplepixel]

Part of me hates to reblog something like this, bc the screenshotted post makes me physically ill, but damn you are right op and this needs to be said.

TW // Racism, Homophobic rhetoric

In case anyone has missed it, this person started spewing bigotry after the controversy with white washing april. Which instead of apologizing and learning from her mistake, she buckled down and drew april with black face as a response.

Then came the homophobic rant. The post is now deleted but it is your typical conservative christian rhetoric backed up by "The Bible". How queer people are disgusting and they are wrong for just living their life. Followed up by the classic "love the sinner hate the sin"

Which for the record, if anyone following me believes that statement, leave right now. I am looking at every Christian rise fan with my two eyes and telling you: if you believe this statement, You are just as bad if not worse as someone actively spewing blatant homophobia. I've educated someone in the past why this is a harmful thing to believe and I really hope I got through to them, but I never knew if I did (post is now deleted). I know there are a lot of young people in this fandom and I do believe people can change. This person however? Right now she refuses to and anytime anyone is pointing out what she's saying is harmful, she either doubles down or hides behind her mental health. She refuses to recognize that the stuff she's saying hurts people.

I've had her blocked for awhile so this is the only way I'm finding out about this....recent post. The cherry on top. Normally I like to stay in my own lane and avoid drama or call outs (its why I left twitter), but this goes beyond petty fandom discourse.

I do not tolerate bigotry and neither should you.

I know some of you that follow me, still follow her. Tumblr isn't the best to spread information unless you reblog, so if you didn't know now you know. I personally do not condone the cycle of hatred nor do I promote harassment, but I do know that this isn't ok and we should be more loud that bigotry is not accepted in the rise fandom.

yeah alright ima be that asshole cuz i dont see anyone else doing it

block this person fr this is literally them celebrating trump if you guys cannot put that together (which im not judging if you couldnt tell thats what this was, but i wanna make it clear if you were in the likes and didnt realize) imagine being this fucking cringe where people can see it lmfao

if you dont recognize them theyre doin that disaster twins comic about leo coming back from the dead. block em.

this actually deserves to be shamed. we dont fuckin sit by and accept that shit shame em.

people are gonna start feeling too proud of this DONT LET THEM BE.

[mayadoesfandomstuff]

Why is it so hard for people to not be homophobic in other queer people's posts?

Like, it doesn't matter if you're queer yourself, you're still being homophobic on a queer person's blog who you don't even know personally. Even if you're joking, it doesn't come across as that especially if you don't know them irl, you just look like a homophobe.

Homophobia is not cute or quirky. Stop it.

[rhfffas]

Barbie is PG-13 but incels are SO angry at it

The Boys is TV-MA but far right incels/MAGA loves it (a little bit) too much

Hmm I wonder why

Explicit content doesn’t make you naturally radical sometimes it might means 4chan

[cubedmango]

It’s crazy cause I really convinced myself if I hated on it enough production would never ever start and now it has and the tags are so… i’m not strong enough I really am not

YEAH SAME theres been 0 news since november and that trailer Still didnt get released so i jst assumed they werent moving ahead w it but man ....... maybe if we hate on it even harder itll work this time-