#i have bi and mlm works already this month so i will work on more sapphic rep 👭

[yakool-foolio]

Phoenix Wright

Just gonna go off of what's listed on the shipping wiki, cause if I tried to rate every single pair with him with the amount of characters in these games we'd be here all month.

Phoenix x Iris: 8/10; very cute, me likey. Iris genuinely caring for Phoenix while pretending to be Dahlia is super sweet, and Phoenix instantly being able to tell the difference between Iris n Dahlia is concrete evidence he knows her like the back of his hand. While I personally don't see them dating again post-Bridge, they'd definitely stay good friends forever.

Phoenix x Mia: 4/10; can't imagine this relationship lasting very long before death knocks on their door, but the utter grief is suffocating. Their relationship would just be full of sadness on both ends; they'd probably date for a short time just to try to forget Mia losing Diego and Phoenix being betrayed by Dahlia. Romance as a coping mechanism.

Phoenix x Maya: 0/10; nuh uh, they're siblings to me. I refuse to see them in a romantic light personally, but it certainly isn't the end of the world if I come across it. I don't care what anyone else does, I just don't ship it in the slightest.

Phoenix x Dahlia: 4/10; only fun if it's one-sided. I wanna see either Dahlia silently hating Phoenix's guts as he boasts the pretty lil necklace she gave him, or Phoenix cursing under his breath at the thought of talking to Dahlia again while she's possessing Maya. I need them to be bitter or I shall turn my nose up at it.

Phoenix x Doug Swallow: 2/10; this is a thing apparently, according to the wiki. I mean, I can guess why people might ship it; Doug basically saves Phoenix from the impeding doom of Dahlia and then they make out about it. Only reason it's rated so low is cause I haven't seen anything about this ship to really get a sense for their chemistry, but I do get the baseline concept.

Phoenix x Godot: 6/10; a ship I see a surprising amount of content for and I think it's getting me to like it more. Another relationship sunken in grief, but it's a much better fit on them in my eyes. Coffee dates are the best dates. Imagine all the coffee shop AUs that exist just for them.

Phoenix x Gumshoe: 5/10; neutral on this one, but I do like the concept! Just a couple o' guys staking out crime scenes together, lovin' their work. The best dudes for the job. They're supposed to be rivals but it never works. They're homies for life.

Phoenix x Kristoph: 7/10; if I liked Kristoph more, I might like this ship more than I already do. I am a sucker for toxic yaoi, so I'll gladly take it! Kristoph definitely has respect for Phoenix, as much as he hates to admit it, so why not seal the deal by making them have a very shaky relationship that ends in one framing the other for murder. Phoenix is suffering Edgeworth withdrawal and it's leading him to dark places. Kristoph is the Maria to Phoenix's James (n Edgeworth's Mary) and no one can tell me otherwise.

Phoenix x Lang: 5/10; I have no idea where this ship materialized from, but it just sounds funny. Alpha Wolf hot shot and his sassy lawyer boyfriend. If you thought Phoenix's sass was apparent enough already, Lang just intensifies it by being around him and they have a blast gossiping about the competition. I wanna see them interact in canon now.

Phoenix x Edgeworth: 10/10; A CERTIFIED CLASSIC! ONE OF THE FOUNDING FATHERS OF MLM SHIPS! THEY ARE A PART OF INTERNET HISTORY! It's so hard for me to ever think of them not being hopelessly in love with each other. They're husbands to me. They have matching wedding rings you just need to look closer.

Phoenix x Larry: 3/10; I don't like Larry so in turn it's really hard for me to like this ship. I think it could be interesting if teen Phoenix is in his bicurious era and does practice dates with Larry who is more than willing to help him out. Two men realized they're bi that day.

[wolame-o-ccx]

Hey there! Just discovered your blog and your TOH AUs and look SO interesting but I can't find any easy way to get through your comics in order (or where to begin, what each AU is about etc)

Is there a post with a summary or some link for the chronological order I may have missed?

And if you're taking suggestions, a pinned post with all the info would be great to help newcomers like me get into it!

Thank you for your time!

Hellooo!!! Yeah welcome to this side of the toh fandom - my space is especially unorganized 😭 I'll take up the idea to make a post summary!! For now I'll just state them here for you while that's in progress :3

For any other newcomers, this post might help you! Click more if you're interested :)

- PITMDAU (Philip In The Modern AU)

MASTERPOST LINK !! CLICK HERE!!

This AU is just what you think! Philip in the modern AU :)

Just to quickly brief you on how this happened ;

Philip managed to escape the demon realm ahead of the hexsquad but passed out straight after he went through the portal. Hexsquad finds him and decides to bring him home, because better a watchful eye than a risk or mystery right? He woke up two days later confused and even tried to kill someone but didn't work and he passed out again and then he woke up another day later less aggravated.

Quick note! This Philip is a little less bad than canon but can still be considered a bad guy :3

For a whole month it was awkward living with him and he barely ate anything but Hunter did give him leftovers. After a month of adjusting to their situation, (and seeing that he doesn't seem to have any intention of violence) Luz starts teaching him modern day technology along with the rest of the Hexsquad!

Or TL;DR : old man confused about the modern day

Final notes!!

• There is a spin off to the AU, which is Gamer Grandpa where, Philip has a Twitch channel and streams and you can ask him questions! (I have not been answering them 😭 don't pressure me but I'm genuinely sorry 😭🌹)

• There are also crossovers with my other AU, SCAU (scroll down to read about that!) And also future canon!! :3

• Philip eats glyphs and hexes holdem cards to keep his curse at bay! :) no palisman sacrificing!! No siree! Don't argue with me on this! Its canon! /lhj

• Also Caleb is there too to mess with Pip giggles

- SCAU (Sharing Caleb AU)

MASTERPOST LINK!!! CLICK HERE!!

Sharing Caleb AU is an AU wherein Philip and Evelyn, well, share Caleb! Nothing went horribly wrong, Caleb didn't get killed by Philip and so on. But wait! Its more complex than you think!

In the masterpost and the first few links to the first few comics you'll see, I'd like to note that they were posted before what canon SCAU is now so Philip didn't find Caleb (and Evelyn) in his 20s or so, but when he was 8! Philip stumbled upon Evelyn in the forest rambling about Caleb after a month of wandering around alone in the BI and she takes him home and Caleb gets a beating /lhj

They then at some point find the starchild The Collector in the woods (again lol) somewhere and bring him home — Caleb adopts him, inevitably creating the Witteclaw Siblings (TC&Pip) (the chaos bringers) (Witteclaw are their parents) <3 (also we call him Enzo instead of TC it's like their deadname lol)

Final notes!!

• Philip is a WHOLE LOT more tame than canon, he's in fact even a whole nother person (he was still racist for a bit but he grew out of that)

• Philip is a mama's boy as we like to call him here :3

• This AU had a crossover with PITMDAU, as you'd know!

→ following that crossover, surfaces Pipson! A slash mlm ship between Pip and Jason, a character I made as a joke originally from PITMDAU. Jason, you'll find similar to a certain um.. god.. is a human, orphaned and has a younger sibling (I self inserted myself but I promise I'm nowhere to be seen, it's just like one brief mention once) (Me and Jason because I share the same birthday as Jesus lol)

• There's also already a future SCAU timeline but so far only glimpses :) it's still in the works as I try to make Hunter exist somehow.

• Philip still gets his curse thingy! Except! He carved glyphs into his arms thinking he would be able to open the door to the human realm (obviously, didn't work) and he's now immortal and in pain and needs to drink elixirs and eat glyphs.

EDIT : FORGOT TO ADD BELPAPA AU (don't send me hate pls ☺️🌹)

- BELPAPA AU

FUCKING CRIES it's a .. it's.. it's um.. it's a. Au where.. Philip and Papa Titan fall in love ... No there's no masterpost but if you click on the tag.. belpapa au .. you can find the comics.. very ez navigation I posted like 5 comics of these only so.. um.. um.. 😭😭😭 HEAR ME OUR HEAR ME OUT!!!1! no I am not elaborating further I will cry

I have not updated the masterposts navigation in a long time, and seeing that my sketchbook is full and I haven't bought a new one, maybe I can find time to arrange them! So bare with me ok :)

EXTRA GENERAL NOTES

The crossovers that happen are NOT CANON to any of the AU stories, else it will just disrupt the story as a whole and I do not have the brain capacity or power to change everything while trying to make it make sense

I mostly won't focus on lore, the crossovers being an exception because that's what it's purpose is and has always been

Most of these comics are for silly fun times!! So have fun!! Or if you don't like it, that's cool!

Feel free to ask anything you want involving AUs and I'll even take suggestions or headcanons you may have! :3 Fanwork is cool and I'm fine with anyone using my art with the condition of crediting so you don't need to ask me!

Don't be shy to interact with my posts! I promise I'm a nice person! I've seen plenty of people being scared to comment, they always tell me they're too shy and I just wanna say guys I don't bite 🌹

There's also a Philip exclusive crossover (very short, only like three posts?) where PITMDAU, SCAU, Canon and Belpapa AU Philips meet eo.. that's all..

[thepastneverforgets]

Yeah man cause the bvddies were right and he was just a plot device :(

Please write that fic!

he really was just a blink and youll miss him supporting character/plot device :c no different than bucks past relationships expect to come around and show buck that men are also an option for his lifelong inability to maintain a relationship. i was just so excited and drawn in by buck's canonical bi sexual awakening that i simply forgot what i already know at my big age: canon media that includes queer characters/relationships but that arent the focal point of the show will always be more shallow and lackluster than their fanon depictions. because fanon simply has the space and freedom to write for them in a way that an ensemble show never will

like before all this, i was "a bvddie" myself once upon a time lmao and i didnt even care about them ever becoming canon bc canon will never come close to touching half the 10,000 heartfelt fics they already had, but then we got actual canonical mlm couple bucktommy just to have it ripped away just as easily??? and it flipping sucks

and while i am a man/writer chalk full of ideas and muse and inspiration, i usually lack the conviction/motivation to stay committed to writng a full fic, but you know what anon? just for you. and just for me. ill give it a try and start working on a relationship study fic thats a month by month timeline of their relationship. one filled with all the cute little moments and hurdles the show was never acutally going to give us.

six months, six chapters. and then maybe more after that, so it becomes a fix-it break-up and make-up fic instead.

[foggyfanfic]

Headcanon: Bruno's Dating History

I thought about writing this as a fic, but one, it's way too long and two the ultimate ending is sad. I'm already writing one fic with dark themes. I don't want to get a reputation or anything. So! This is what I think Bruno's dating history was like:

cw: alludes to abusive behavior

As mentioned in another list of headcanons, I think Bruno is attracted to both men and women. Honestly, if he was a modern dude who grew up with the same culture as a lot of us on this website, I'd guess his labels to be bi, nonbinary, demisexual. But, he lives in an isolated rural community before the Pride movement in his country became a mainstream topic. So who knows what labels he would use.

The main criteria for Bruno to start feeling sexually attracted to somebody is "I can be awkward and weird around them without being told I'm a freak", although there are also certain vibes he goes for. Mainly people who are confident and passionate.

His first foray into dating is when he's 15 and he gets with a girl his mother approves of. The main thing Alma likes about the girl is that she is patient and not quick to cast judgement, which also becomes one of Bruno's favorite things about her.

As far as teenage romances go, it's very sweet. The town is only just starting to get nervous about Bruno, so for the most part every where they go, the young couple gets told how cute they look together.

On her side of things, she thinks he's funny, she enjoys his unique perspective on the world around him, and she really likes his eyes. Bruno is a caring boyfriend, who enjoys doing little things to make her happy. Plus at this point she's watching her friends' boyfriends put on pressure for a physical relationship, where as Bruno is content to let her set the pace.

About a year and a half in they decide they're ready to try having a physical relationship. They work their way up to sex over a six month period. Bruno relies heavily on the little snippets of sex he's accidentally seen in visions, but this turns out to be a more thorough sexual education than she has received so most of their experimentation is Bruno going "I saw this, do you want to try it?" and her saying yes or no.

Things go wrong when she notices Bruno likes it a bit rough. Bruno thinks what she's doing is amazing, but needs her to start out gentle, then work her way up to being rough. When he tries to tell her that he gets nervous, say something that sounds bad, starts panicking, makes it worse, and before you know it he's made his girlfriend cry.

When they've calmed down he's able to explain himself, but he's never fully able to get over the guilt, and to his biased eyes it looks like she isn't able to get over the insecurities he's caused her. So they break up.

She walks away from the relationship with high standards, because whether or not he realizes it, Bruno was a really good boyfriend. Even when she falls in love with a great guy and gets married, in her pettier moments she finds herself thinking things like, "Bruno wouldn't have forgotten what my favorite flowers are".

Bruno walks away from the relationship with low standards, because the village is beginning to criticize him more and more, and in his head he hurt her much more than in reality.

His next relationship starts when he's twenty. He gives this cute guy, Alberto, a vision that ends with the two of them making out. Bruno tries to apologize for it, but Alberto tells him to only apologize if he's not planning to buy him dinner first.

Alberto is a very pretty man, again, there's no way they had all the same labels that we have today, but it's a twink 4 twink relationship. Only, Alberto is a very neat twink, where as 20 year old Bruno is borderline too scruffy to be called a twink.

It starts out very loving, albeit secret. The only other mlm they know about is Alberto's best friend Dominic, and the Bible has things to say about this sort of thing, so Alberto especially isn't willing to go public with the relationship.

Bruno makes an effort to get along with Dominic, since he's Alberto's best friend, and finds out they have a lot in common. Alberto, for some reason, insists they aren't allowed to hang out alone together.

Bruno tells his sisters about the relationship, and although it throws them for a loop, they are very happy for him. At first.

Slowly, as the village continues to become more critical of Bruno, and his self esteem continues to decline, Alberto starts to become more and more controlling. In his mind he's trying to help Bruno win back the village's approval, he does genuinely care about Bruno, and he does genuinely think Bruno is the most wonderful person ever. He thinks if Bruno could just hide some of the more awkward behaviors in public, others would see how kind and intelligent he is. He continues to not care how weird Bruno is in private.

Bruno reaches a point where he's just grateful that somebody likes him enough to want to be with him, and he let's a lot of stuff slide.

On top of that, Bruno is a great listener, resulting in him being a great lover. Alberto will often spend all day thinking about how good that thing Bruno does will feel and can't focus on anything else. Including Bruno's pleasure.

Pepa is the first to point out how toxic the relationship has become, she's had her fair share of bad boyfriends, so she notices the red flags. Bruno brushes her off.

Dominic and Alberto have some sort of falling out, the details of which Alberto refuses to share, and suddenly Bruno isn't allowed to talk to Dominic period. This makes him a lot sadder than he would have expected.

Julieta starts to notice that the relationship is no longer a source of happiness for Bruno, and jumps on the "Find Another Boyfriend" campaign Pepa has started.

Finally Alberto himself eventually realizes he's doing Bruno more harm than good. They are three years in at this point and Alberto is trying to imagine raising kids with Bruno, but doesn't like the way imaginary future him treats imaginary future Bruno. Over the next year, he tries to be better, but keeps falling back into bad habits.

Alberto ends their four year relationship, apologizes to Bruno for the way he's acted, and makes a last ditch effort to convince Bruno that he's actually pretty wonderful. It only serves to make it harder for Bruno to get over the relationship.

Alberto walks away from the relationship thoroughly ashamed of himself. He marries a woman he gets along with well enough, and does the family thing, but if he's going to be honest he never truly stops loving Bruno.

A year goes by and the Madrigals get invited to Dominic's engagement party. Bruno (25 at this point) is excited to go, and hopes to reconnect with him. At the party he asks Dominic if he would like to hang out some time and Dominic says his fiancee probably wouldn't be comfortable with that.

Bruno responds to this with confusion, because he didn't think the bride to be bought into the Bad Luck Bruno thing. Dominic confirms that she doesn't, but she does know how he's always felt about Bruno.

Cue more confusion on Bruno's part. Dominic gets this look of slowly dawning horror as he realizes that Bruno didn't know about Dominic's feelings.

Turns out, Dominic had been in love with Bruno for years, but hadn't realized Bruno was into men until he was already dating Alberto. The falling out had been over Alberto accidentally letting slip that he'd known about Dominic's feelings, when Dominic had confronted Alberto about the way he was treating Bruno.

For a second the men just stare at each other, both suddenly over come with thoughts of what might have been. Ultimately, Dominic walks away, not willing to sacrifice the great relationship he has over a daydream. He has a happy life with his wife, even if he sometimes gets a bit wistful when he thinks of Bruno.

Bruno on the other hand, never tries dating again (or at least not before canon) and spends the rest of his life wondering what could have been with Dominic.

He is completely unaware that there are three people in the village who will always be a little in love with him, and gets further and further buried under his own insecurities.

[ultimate-marysue]

So, about Bi Caleb

Warning: very long post, discussing bi representation and biphobia.

*Sorry for spelling errors, English ain’t my firts language.

I can’t believe I have to tell you guys, but anyways: Caleb is bi whether he ends with a male character, a female character on a non binary character. That’s what bi people do, you know? they experience atraction for all genders. Saying that a bi character that ends with someone of the opposite gender is straight and queerbaiting is incredibly biphobic.

Yes, Vax was bisexual. Yes, he ended up with Kiki. Get fucking over it.

Now, I can understand why LGBT+ fans may feel disappointed when they tease a “gay couple” but the “straigth” couple ends up being endgame. Notice the quotation marks because there’s not such thing as a straight or gay couple for a bi person. They are bisexual in both situations, but I can see where the problem comes from. I’ve been queerbaited to hell and back by a lot of shows and it really hurts. It feels like they are laughting at you for caring. But I want those fans (whose feelings are totally valid, don’t get me wrong) to consider a few things when it comes to Critical Role, the first one being: it’s a D&D game.

Let me explain, because I know a lot of CR fans haven’t experienced what D&D is like in real life (and that’s absolutely valid, you don’t need to play D&D to enjoy CR). This is an improvisation game, not an scripted TV show. In a Tv show you can plan ahead of time what ship is going to be endgame, what themes are gonna come up for each character and it’s easier to deeply explore sexuality and gender as different planned arcs. In D&D you character’s sexuality may or may not come up depending on how you play it. Take for instance how other CR character’s have stated their sexuality:

Beau: overtly. Very *In your face* kind of lesbian. Marisha said “fuck it, I really just want to romance girls and be bad ass”

Yasha: openly, but not as in your face. Ashley Jhonson wanted to drink from that WLW cup while also being a shy disaster. Seafood market is her favored terrain.

Caduceus: Our Ace king has never hidden his sexuality, and yet he didn’t mention anything about it until chapter 114. He didn’t had the need to either hide it or state it. He was simply vibing.

I think Liam is going that route with Caleb. He’s flustered by Essek and Edwulf (Come on you guys, he always asks Matthew if he’s still hot). He also had/has a thing for Astrid and a think he might have feels for our favorite Tiefling gal. I know we are all too used to characters being teased as gay/bi only to have execs pull a “haha jk they be straight”. But this is not Sherlock or Supernatural. This is a show that not only has queer rep, but also supports queer organizations and creators. Hell, I’m sure some of the cast members are LGBT (but I’m not here to speculate on real people’s sexuality). If Caleb shows attraction to men he is not just queerbaiting, doing it for fanservicing or tricking the fans in any way shape or form: he’s just portraying a bi character. The thing is, since this is not a TV show, he is not doing it por woke points or to send a message. He’s doing it because he wants to play a bi wizard with depression.

So maybe there will be a point in which he can explores his sexuality more deeply, but remember he is playing a game. And his character is one that has a lot of trouble opening up to his feelings. Caleb is not someone that makes sexual jokes or flirty remarks. He is shy, awkward and has developed a really fucked up sense of love that he is now slowly fixing. Hell, in the same Talks episode Liam explained that Caleb was trained on Honey-pot tactics. Which, for those of you who can’t stand Bond films, means seducing your enemy/target to get information, manipulate them or assassinate them. WHICH IS A REALLY FUCKED UP THING! Let’s remember how he was the one to push Fjord to sleep with Advantica so they could spy on her. That boy has Issues when it comes to relationships. So if we don’t see him being as overtly gay as Beau, Molly or Yasha, well maybe it’s because that’s the way Caleb is. Bi people don’t owe you flamboyance, or dating both guys and gals for your approval. I wouldn’t make a post if it was only that, because I do feel the people who are aching for good bi rep and would love some more explicit confirmation. But Vax exists, so I know we can’t have good things down here.

VAX EXPLICITELY SHOWED ATTRACTION TO GILMORE. AS EXPLICIT AS IT GETS. HE FUCKING KISSED HIM. THEY WERE PRACTICALLY DATING. AND YET SOME OF YOU FUCKERS CALL HIM QUEERBAITING. AND I SAY: NOT ON MY WATCH! NOT ON MY FUCKING WATCH!!

How come a character can have canonically kissed another character in a romantic/sensual context and still be called straight? I know fucking Sherlock traumaticed y’all into having trust issues but believe me when I tell you: I’ts not that deep. This is not a “Haha I love u but in a no homo way bro”. It’s a “full homo darling, but also we’re gonna break up because I like someone else”. This is the opposite of queerbaiting. Instead of keeping a charade he was honest with Gilmore because he valued his feelings and realized that he couldn’t reciprocate them at that moment. And if you try to tell me that Vaxleth was forced and didn’t have a reason to exist except queerbaiting, let me tell you: you are wrong.

Vax saw Gilmore once or twice monthly while he spent a heck ton of time with Kiki. Sure, they didn’t had the kind of camera chemistry Gilmore and Vax had because Keyleth is not charismatic. She’s really awkward, and her relationship with Vax was more on the adorable and dorky side of things. I bring this up because I’m predicting something similar may happen to Shadowgast.

Trust me, I ship the hot wizards as much as any other critter (even though I’m a multishipper). But they haven’t talked to Essek in centuries. I think it may have been almost a month in rol and quite a few outside. And you have to take into account out-rol time to because they are humans (except Tal) playing a game and they forget about stuff (except Marisha and Matt). So Shadowgast may not happen because sure, they had really good chemistry for a month a month ago. People have crushes that die down over time All The Time. So maybe don’t be so butthurt about your ship not being canon that you accuse an ally of homophobia. 

The cast of CR put forward such an amazing representation for the LGBT+ community and it really hurts me that you gets stuck on the one thing that isn’t canon. Matt has created a world in which coming out is not necessary because no one assumes your sexuality. A world in which people respect pronouns and orientations (except Tary’s father, who is a villain). A world in which Cad or Caleb don’t need to explicitly say “I’m ace/bi” unless it comes up in conversation. A world in which his friends can be whatever they want to be without pressure or reprecusions. A world in which they get to explore different gender identities and sexual orientations with full freedom. Let’s not interfere with that (unless there’s missrepresentation), and let them play their game. If you really need mlm or wlw canon couples or more outwardly LGBT+ people you have plenty examples among NPCs and other cast members (Allura and kima, Yasha, Beau, Dairon, Keg, Reani, Tary, Molly and Vax among others).

There’s way worst shows taking LGBT+ cred for barely doing nothing. Fucking Supernatural is the most recent example! Critical Role works towards showing an honest portrayal of LGBT+ folk and accepts valid criticism from their fans on the subject (when they changed J’Mon Sa Ord pronouns from it to they/them). They don’t owe you making your ship canon or portraying their characters the way you want them to (again, unless when it’s constructive criticism). Stop being so Fucking entitled and enjoy the show for what it is

,Respectfully~

*Edit: I´m tagging Caleb’s ships into the post because most hate comes from shipping wars. Most Shadowgast fans are respectful of the cast’s decisions, even if it disappoints them. But since I’ve already seen people accusing Liam of biphobia in that tag and since I’ve already seen this shit with Vaxmore I’m tagging the ship. If you want to read my long ass post do it, if not, ignore it. I’m not forcing you to read it. I’ve also tagged it with biphobia so people can avoid it if it’s triggering. I’m sorry if it makes you mad that your ship is not canon, but that’s not an excuse to be toxic to the cast. Those of you getting mad are the ones that need to read this the most. Like I’ve said in the post: you’re allowed to be disappointed, you are allowed to want more, but you can’t force the cast to give you exactly what you want. And most certainly, you can’t accuse them of  some very serious stuff like biphobia and queerbaiting when it’s not the case..  

[bowie-boy]

Favorite LGBT+ headcanons for X-Files characters? Mine is that pretty much every main F.B.I. agent(including Krycek) is either bisexual or asexual(or both)! :)

This has been in my inbox for months and I keep forgetting about it I’m so sorry but TODAY IS THE DAY!!!! Happy TDOV Fox and @himbo-mulder (this is my response to your ask too)

LGBTQ X-Files Headcanons Because Someone Asked

Fox Mulder:

Bi and trans icon

The first person he told was Samantha

She accepted him immediately as her big brother and told him he should name himself Fox (it was her favorite animal at the time)

He was going to make his name William Mulder Jr. up until she disappeared, in which he actually decided to make his first name Fox (he misses her 🥺)

Came out to his parents sometime in high school, both took it badly

Bill was hella transphobic—he was already pretty shitty to Mulder but this added a whole new layer to it

Teena was more passive aggressive about it but still made withering comments about how she “lost two daughters now”

Some high school friends (*chants* PHOEBE AND GIMBLE PHOEBE AND GIMBLE) helped Mulder start T and change his legal name on government documents before he left for Oxford

Mulder wanted to go stealth while he was there but came out to Phoebe

When they broke up, she outed him to everyone

Things got so bad that he almost dropped out

Mulder joined the FBI, excited at the prospect of knowing no one and being able to go exclusively by his last name

He was somewhat happy of his solitude in the basement—no one really looked into him past his spooky nature, so no one could find out he was trans

Since Samantha, Scully was the first person who was truly accepting of who he really was

Got top surgery sometime before Colony

Definitely fell in love with Scully right after reading her profile skrjnwkdjwka

Mulder and Krycek were definitely an item for a hot sec until Krycek went evil

Mulder is 500% faithful to Scully but kinda had a crush on Doggett for a little bit

Mulder just wants to be a better dad than Bill 🥺🥺🥺

Mulder helped Byers realize he was trans!!! More on that later though

Dana Scully:

A bi queen

Definitely experimented in college and had a couple girlfriends there and through med school

Ending up breaking up with a girl she was really close with because Scully’s job was just putting too much strain on their relationship

It was really hard on her and made her swear off serious relationships for a long time

She thought Mulder was adorable from the moment she saw him but was really scared of actually developing feelings for him so she pushed it down

And kept pushing it down until she finally realized Mulder was never going to hurt her and actually let him in

I’m just ranting about MSR now oops

100% faithful to Mulder but thought Reyes was super hot

Scully is just a distinguished bi idk what else to say

Walter Skinner:

You can’t adopt THAT MANY LGBT agents if you’re not LGBT yourself, right?

Definitely bisexual

Grew up in a really conservative family and didn’t even consider it an option until he moved out

Skinner was attracted to a lot of guys in his squad in Vietnam but he thought it was just because there were no women around

(Spoiler alert: it wasn’t)

Skinner fell in love with John “Kitten” James and he fell hard

Absolutely did everything possible to protect that man

He was terrified of his feelings though and pushed them down, eventually starting to resent his best friend for making him feel things he couldn’t understand

When Kitten got infected by that gas, Skinner put his values over the man he loved, not just because he thought it was the right thing to do, but because he was terrified that he might be bi

He has regretted it ever since

Married his wife after the war and had a pretty good relationship until he became too consumed with his work

Their breakup was really hard on him and he delved even more into his work

Sometime after Avatar (maybe by season 5 or 6), Skinner meets a really lovely man and that man becomes his boyfriend

It’s really hard at first, but the guy helps Skinner to open up and allow himself to be okay with who he really is

They make time for each other outside of work and are really happy together!

Skinner’s boyfriend is 100% okay with the fact that Skinner has basically adopted all these agents

Skinner is everyone’s dad!!! No exceptions

John Byers:

Trans man!!!!

Discovered it pretty late in life, like he knew earlier but he Repressed it

First person he ever came out to was Mulder (as in my fic 😌)

Lots of internalized transphobia in this man but Mulder and the Lone Gunmen really helped him break out of that

Langly and Frohike obviously went with him to get his first T shot and chanted “MAN JUICE” while it happened (scaring a lot of the nurses)

Met Susanne before he transitioned so seeing her again in Three of a Kind was a little terrifying for him

She accepts him though and is a bi icon herself

Byers wears suits so much because they make him feel really validated

Ringo Langly:

Non-binary and gay!! Langly uses any pronouns (gonna stick to he/him for this list to keep things simple though)

Grew up pretty unaware about gender as a whole, just living his life

Moving away from home to a city was huge for him, he started going to gay bars and really realized that he was gay

Eventually started to experiment with his gender, using different pronouns etc., and found out he was non-binary!

Came out to Frohike shortly after learning Frohike was bi (more on that later)

Goes by Ringo because it’s somewhat gender neutral

He isn’t dysphoric very often but when he is it’s very hard for him to cope, Byers and Frohike are always there to support him and help however possible though

Langly gets way more dates than Frohike and loves to brag about it

Melvin Frohike:

We stan one funky little bi king

HE WAS AT STONEWALL I’LL DIE ON THIS HILL

Frohike had a mega crush on Mulder when he first met him and it persisted all the way until he met Scully

And then when he met Doggett he crushed on him too

Frohike is just kind of a hopeless romantic okay I love him

Absolutely bonds with Scully and they always debate which celebrity is hotter while they get more and more drunk

John Doggett

GAY MAN

Doggett was really repressed for a lot of his life, not because he thought his family would hate him for being gay but mostly because of his environment

(He was a drama kid though)

The military REALLY repressed him and thoroughly fucked him up

It wasn’t until he met Reyes that he started to accept himself more

At first Reyes being a lesbian totally freaked him out and he was really upset, leading to a huge strain on their friendship, but one night he broke down and told her he was pretty sure he was gay

Reyes really helped him through everything, especially his divorce from his wife and the loss of his son

Doggett eventually came out to his dad, who was super accepting

It took Doggett a long time to be comfortable enough to date but he started and met a really great guy, one who he’s now married to

One day he mentioned his boyfriend in passing and the rest of the Spooky Squad totally flipped out because they had no idea he was gay

Doggett just straight-faced “I didn’t think it was relevant?”

Sings musical theater songs in the office when no one else is there

Monica Reyes:

A lesbian

There isn’t a straight bone in her body have you SEEN her???

Absolutely crushed on Scully for the longest time at first, totally backed off when she realized she was involved with Mulder

Total mlm/wlw solidarity with Doggett

Reyes is super comfortable with her sexuality

I’m convinced that she’s married and she and her wife live in the same neighborhood as Doggett and his husband

Running out of brain power at this point but I just love her so much??? Mwah

Alex Krycek:

Gay rat

Everything he did against Mulder and Scully was fueled by spite at his ex-boyfriend Mulder

Daddy issues

Sometimes he breaks into TLG’s base and vibes with them for a few days

Rat (affectionate)

Deep Throat:

Gay :)

Bonus: Melissa Scully is a trans lesbian and Samantha Mulder is bisexual and they’re dating

[im-the-punk-who]

Hi! I’m new to the fandom and I’m simply curious (not trying to start a feud or anything), why don’t you like Steinberg?

Hello dear anon! And welcome to the fandom! 

Oof. That’s a question. xD 

I’m going to try and stay as uh. neutral as possible. Because I’ve already written the post I know I failed but, the intent in answering this is also not to start a feud or hurt anyone’s feelings. 

Okay, so I got fairly negative in this chilis tonight, so I want to start by saying that even in light of the opinions I’m about to express, Black Sails is one of, if not my number one, favorite TV shows of all time. Certainly in recent memory - I’ve been hyperfixating on this show for 18 months with no sign of stopping, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for everyone who worked on the show - even Steinberg. (The one exclusion is Michael Bay, he can go twist.)

AND I think Stienberg is an incredibly talented writer. Black Sails is one of my favorite shows because it does such a wonderful job of weaving stories, creating characters, and melding things in a way that is both unexpected and makes sense narratively. I have changed as a person because of the show, and they will have to pry James McGraw and Thomas Hamilton from my cold dead knives-attached-to-them hands. None of what I’m going to say is meant to detract from that.

I will also say that a lot of these issues are not particular to Steinberg and are in fact a systemic problem with American TV + Film. And I’m not leaving Robert Levine out of my criticism, it’s just that Steinberg had the biggest hand in the pot(he wrote a full half the episodes) and a lot of what I’ve heard as far as talking about the show comes from Steinberg. So, he gets the brunt. But it isn’t that I think Steinberg was the only problematic element of the show. 

Also, these are all my opinions and are colored by how I interact with my fandoms. I am not only a fandom veteran, but I work and pretty much live in the entertainment industry. I work in indie film and theatre and am surrounded by artists and creators of all walks of life, like, constantly. I know what is possible, and when I see something that can be improved, I want to note it because it is important to me to always be striving forward. Like Miranda says about Thomas, this isn’t out of malice, or out of hate. It’s because I genuinely love this show, and I love entertainment as a whole, and I think in order to get to a better, more inclusive industry we have to have hard conversations and look critically at the media we consume, and it is frustrating to me to time and again see the same faces in the room. 

But if that isn’t your cuppa, that’s fine! Fandom isn’t meant to be stressful and if all you want to do is watch a show about gay pirates that is your tomato and I applaud you. Have at it you funky motherfucker.

OH! One more. At some point I’m going to talk about Silverflint. When I do, it is NOT meant as a ‘you shouldn’t/cant ship this’ or ‘this pairing is bad’ or any negative attack on the people who ship that pairing. My criticisms in this post are exclusively about what it means for Steinberg as a writer and Black Sails’ representation of gay and mlm men. While it’s not my cuppa, this is a sail your own ship blog. 

OKAY! SO! 

My main criticisms of Steinberg & Co boil down to:

The homozygosity of the writers and directors shows a complete lack of desire to include marginalized people in the writing of a show that is about them. Which leads to:

The centering of white men while choosing a historical setting and time period that was in fact dominated by people of color and specifically a black woman, 

The gratuitous inclusion of violence against women, particularly sexual violence, and again, that the female characters are often sidelined for the central male characters. 

SO.

Black Sails is a show centered around queer, female, and black leads, and yet there were only two non white-male directors (one bi-racial man and one white woman) and only 7 female writers - one of whom was Latina. The entire rest of the major creative staff was white men. I’m not going to comment on sexualities but none of the writers or directors are out as queer according to a quick google search. 

Let me reiterate the important bit there. 

In Black Sails, where the last two seasons specifically feature around a real, actually-happened-in-history event that shaped black history in the Caribbean, there was not a single black writer on the entire show. 

This is the main difference between inclusion for inclusion’s sake, and actually centering marginalized voices. Black Sails has a ton of gay, POC, and female rep in front of the camera but practically zero representation behind it, which leads to storylines and implications that Steinberg and his writers, as white men, simply would never realize.

It’s like why Silver and Miranda never realized the true reasons James was waging war on England. They just did not have the life experiences to realize they were missing a piece of the puzzle, and so they filled in their own without even realizing they’d done so. 

Because no one in the room of Black Sails was a part of these marginalized identities, nuances get lost or mistranslated, motivations get muddled through a white man’s gaze(or a straight person’s) and implications that someone within those communities might think is obvious won’t even come up.

And again, because there were no writers or directors of color in the last two seasons (the biracial man directed episodes 2x02 and 2x04 - WHICH MAKES SENSE IMO) the entirety of the historical lore that the show bases itself on in its latter half is filtered through a white man’s lens. And so there is no discussion of how changing something changes the meaning, how leaving someone out or changing their role to be more minor might affect people for whom that is their heritage. How the entire story they’re telling might change with one simple exclusion or addition.

So, how does this relate directly to Steinberg, you ask? Well, simply, because it was his show. 

Steinberg(and Levine) were involved in every major decision about the show, from its conception, to the script, to choosing the writers and directors. They chose how they wanted the show to look, to think, what stories to tell and how they wanted to tell them. Their decisions(and the biases that formed those decisions) are woven into the show.

And look. I don’t for a second believe any of this was willful or malicious. I don’t think that John Steinberg and Robert Levine sat down one day and said ‘you know what would make the gays really angry? If we locked the only two canonically gay men up in a prison camp.’

But the decisions that were made in the show were based in ignorance in a way that shows more than just simple negligence or laziness(especially given the attention to detail in everything else). The things they leave out or change in the Maroon War plotline for instance are not small details easily missed. They are big, giant waving flags. They are things that are irreplaceable to still have the same events and stories and tell them respectfully. 

It shows an insane amount of privilege to, for instance, write a show airing during a time when the Black Lives Matter movement was at the forefront of the American conscience, include black characters and black storylines, and yet not include a single black voice on their creative team. 

In a show that centers a gay man’s love and his journey in attempting to process the horrible things done to him and his lover because of it, we are given just forty minutes of the entire show dedicated to their relationship - and just fifteen of those minutes actually feature the lover! 

(Relatedly, the entirety of the gay romantic rep is two kisses, and a forehead touch. That’s the entirety of your gay intimacy representation. And yet there are in the first two seasons alone - because that’s all I’ve clocked so far - something like twenty seven minutes of scenes involving a naked or half naked woman. Five minutes of that is explicitly wlw sex.

Again, I just want to reiterate this because it’s important in recognizing bias. 

There is fully twice as much female nudity in the first two seasons, as the entirety of the time the two gay characters have together on screen. )

Steinberg is a perfect example of how a lack of understanding why the diversity you are representing is important, matters. I dislike Steinberg because he, just like every other straight white cis man I have known, profited off of marginalized voices without including them or creating with them in mind.

Art does not exist in a vacuum. You cannot create something - especially something as back breakingly, intensely a labor of love as Black Sails - without putting several pieces of yourself into it. But those pieces color your narrative. They will expose things about you that you don’t even realize. And it’s in these places we are weakest, and why a diverse group of writers with a diverse group of experiences can help a piece be stronger. But for whatever reason, John Steinberg thought that he could make art with only people who looked and thought and experienced like him. 

The lack of representation behind the camera in Black Sails was evident in front of it and yet Steinberg is out here getting to pretend like he created the most inclusive groundbreaking show that ever existed. It is important to me, personally, to acknowledge that. And that it kind of makes my skin crawl in the way all media made by straight white (cis)men makes my skin crawl. I wish I didn’t have to feel that way about my favorite tv show just because it was created by a man of privilege, but here we are.

SO. I hope that helped? Feel free to take what you want and leave what you don’t! 

Below the cut is a more in depth look at things that I think show what I’m talking about, but that up there ^^ is the gist. <3 |D

SURPRISE!

The Maroons and the Maroon War

So the first thing I want to point out is that the Maroon War was a real thing that happened. It lasted ten years, and resulted in the most substantial victory the Maroons ever achieved against the British. Not only that, there was in fact a KICKIN’ badass female leader of the maroons named Queen Nanny, who is to this day honored as a national hero in Jamaica. While they weren’t able to drive the British out, the outcome of this war led to a mostly self-governing Maroon population in Jamaica from the mid 1700s on. This was a long term fight that had a very tangible and real outcome, even if it didn’t end in the destruction of colonialism. 

And what is this war turned into in Black Sails? A white ‘madman’s revenge’  that is doomed to failure after six months.

That, my dear pirates, is a problem for me. (And those familiar with my brand of spiceyness know that I do not ascribe to the ‘Flint is a Madman’ trope, but that IS what Steinberg ascribes to, what he seems to have written the show thinking.) 

There was no narrative reason to include the Maroon War in the narrative of Black Sails. The Maroon War didn’t happen until a decade after the Golden Age of Piracy, and aside from Silver’s wife being a black woman there is no mention of Silver ever having contact with them. To me, this feels like the choice of a showrunner who found a cool historical event and saw a chance to up the stakes of their white male heroes while getting in some sweet sweet POC rep. 

Except that they then took the major events of the Maroon War and gave them to their white characters, Flint and Silver. 

Here’s the thing. If you’re going to take a piece of culturally important history and use it for your show, you NEED to have sensitivity writers. You need to have people who are at least familiar with those events and who care about them to do them justice. Have an expert come in and read your script or go over your ideas. Or just like. Hire a black writer. Hire ONE black writer. As a treat.

The important Maroon figures, Nanny, Cudjoe, and Quao, all get sidelined or ‘sexified’ and then used as plot points for the white characters. Nanny gets split into two women - the older mother queen and Madi, the young naive warbent visionary. Quao(Mr. Scott is the closest, or Kofi possibly) gets killed off because the writers realized they didn’t exactly have a place for him in their writing. Cudjoe(Julius) gets a few scenes and one good speech but his entire role in the war gets given to Silver. And THEN. That sexy Queen Madi figure gets used as emotional bait for Silver and then has to learn he has betrayed her and destroyed the hope and freedom she had wanted to bring to her people. 

Gross, pirates. Gross.

Anne Bonny/Max/Mary Read - a heads up, this section includes a semi in-depth discussion of both Max and Anne’s sexual assaults. If that bothers you, the paragraphs talking about that begin with a ***

COOL NOW LET’S TALK ABOUT LESBIANS. Words my 20 year old self would never have imagined coming out of my mouth. 

Specifically, I want to talk about Max, and Anne, and their backstories both involving extreme sexual trauma at the hands of men. And then Mary Read and the once again sexification of female characters.

(Actually while I’m here another criticism I have of Steinberg is that his writing does not seem to recognize how queer people existed in the past - again, likely because he didn’t have any gay historians to be like ‘actually buddy that doesn’t make sense also why is Anne not dressing as a man? If you want to fuck with anything and insert modern day terminology and ideas into this show, make her non binary and REALLY piss off the hetties.’)

(This same ficitonal gay dramaturg who is definitely not me has also questioned John Steinberg repeatedly about where Mary Read is, unsatisfied with the answer ‘well we wanted her to be hot so we made her a sex worker and then had Anne have to rescue her but then we realized it would be weird not to include her actual character so we gave her a five second cameo at the very end of the series and also made her like 13.’)

Anyway! So my main point in bringing up Anne and Max is the sexual trauma they are exposed to in the show, particularly being that they are the two primary wlw in the show, who Steinberg has said he views as being completely gay, and what THAT whole unexamined idea looks like. 

***Max. My dear Max. There was literally no reason to have her be repeatedly r*ped(and for the love of god there was even less reason to make it that gratuitous and graphic). Max being assaulted like that did not add anything to the gravity of Eleanor’s betrayal. The traumatic event was being tossed aside by Eleanor, and that could have been just as emotionally damaging without the sexual assault. And the only reason for her to be continually assaulted was to bring her and Anne together. 

***The reason imo that Max’s r*pe plot was added was because it was the only thing these white straight men could come up with that felt emotionally damaging enough to them. The act of betrayal itself wasn’t enough, the act of being thrown away, of having a lover put your life in danger because of her own ambitions wasn’t enough, they needed her to be r*ped to really drive home the point. 

***Anne, on the other hand, is never shown being sexually abused, but we are given an explicit account of her own traumatic history and how Jack saved her from this vile beast who was passing her around to his friends.

But here’s the thing pirates - that never happened. According to every account we have of Anne Bonny, she chose her husband, and married him against her father’s wishes. They were probably relatively happy until her husband started being a pirate spy and Anne started cheating on him with Jack. 

And yes, when they were found out. Her husband had her beat. That’s not fucking cool, and if they really wanted to go the damsel in distress route they still could have had Jack ‘save’ her from that. But at no point was she sexually abused by her husband(at least not in any accounts I’ve read.) 

You know who did likely sexually abuse her or at least manipulate her and Mary for his own benefit? If you guessed our Rat man Jack Rackham, you would be correct, because when he found out about Mary and Anne’s (supposed, but probably real) relationship, it’s implied he extorted both of them into fucking him to keep their secret from the crew. 

The addition of sexual abuse to Anne’s past isn’t done to be true to her character and was in fact explicitly untrue. Now of course I don’t know the reasons why they chose to do this, but I can guess. Just as with Max, the most traumatic thing a male writer can think of for a female character is for them to be sexually abused.

And the most disturbing part of this to me? The parallels it has to the real world of why straight men think lesbians exist. These characters who would be called man haters in present day are given these incredibly traumatic man-centered histories. It brings up something very uncomfortable in me about particularly wlw sexuality being viewed as a reaction to trauma at the hands of men. It’s just gross, I dont like it, and honestly there is no fucking excuse for it besides a room full of white straight men writing this bullshit. A room that Steinberg chose, because they fit his ideas.

In Fact heck, the women of Black Sails in general

***I honestly struggle to think of a single female character who I think was treated fairly in Black Sails. Miranda and Eleanor are killed for taking sides and not understanding their partners, Madi is betrayed in the worst way possible, Max is given a pseudo empowering ending but has that fucking terrible start. Idelle ends off fairly well, but tied to a man she may or may not have any actual feelings for, in what is essentially a political marriage. And Anne has her entire identity tied to a man who will be dead in two years as she is robbed of any agency whatsoever without him. (Oh, and the whole r*pe thing. And also her support for Max’s r*pe or death until she started having fee-fees. Who wrote this stuff. >_>)

Even though the characterization of each and every one of these women is PHENOMENAL - and again I will repeat that I absolutely LOVE these characters as they exist in a vacuum. I think they are well rounded, real, feeling people given motivations and drives and FEELINGS and they SHOW THEIR ANGER and i LOVE THEM. 

But the show punishes them for it. Miranda is essentially fridged to move Flint’s storyline along, and to make room for Silver. Eleanor is killed for the emotional damage it will cause Rogers. Madi is placed at the center of a conflict she explicitly says she is willing to die for and then not only is her entire cause taken from her, but when she tells Silver to fuck off he - in possibly the most predictable white man move ever - says ‘no i will stay until you change your mind. I will never leave you. I don’t care about your choice in this matter, I will wait forever for you. I’m your biggest fan. I’ll follow you until you love me. papa, - paparazzi.’ 

And I touched on this before, but I want to talk in more detail about what is possibly my hottest take to date, the sexification of Mary Read and Queen Nanny, as they are presented in the show. 

Max is to Anne what Mary Read is, historically. She is the lover that Jack Rackham discovers with Anne, and then he joins them in their bed. They form a triumvirate that upholds Jack at the expense of the women. But for some reason, Steinberg didn’t want to just include Mary Read as an actual character. For some reason he needed to make Anne’s love interest a sex worker who was in need of saving (and who, coincidentally, we never see working the brothel after she becomes lovers with Anne, because she is now a madam. :) Gross.)

And Madi. My dear sweet fucking Madi who didn’t fucking deserve any of this bullshit send tweet. 

So, historically, Queen Nanny was the Queen, spiritual advisor, and the military tactician of the Windward Maroons. She would have filled both Madi and the Queen’s character roles(and Flint’s, but who’s counting. A BLACK GAY LEAD? Inconceivable. I digress.) But, I guess, because they were wishy-washing with Silver’s sexuality or felt they needed to give him a female love interest because of Treasure Island, or because they were leaning a bit too hard into the gay shit and needed to backpedal, they took Queen Nanny and split her into a character who is for all intents and purposes powerless in the war and Madi, who is young and naive and does not have any real world experience outside of the Maroon camp.

Because that’s sexy, or something. They could have had the Maroon Queen be a fucking badass lady who works and fights alongside Flint and Silver and one ups them and teaches them shit and has her own ideas about where the British can stick it, but instead they made her into the perfect caricature of a female monarch, letting the big strong men handle the dirty work or something. Because white male power fantasies. 

Just let women be powerful and not nubile and let them have character arcs over fucking thirty and let them be CENTERED in their own. fucking. narratives. 

God damnit Steinberg.

James Flint, mlm extraordinaire

Oh, my love. My most amazing child. The light of my life. My purest cinnamon roll. 

~~And now we’ve come to the dreaded Silverflint criticism part of our programming. Please please know and remember this isn’t a criticism of people who ship Silverflint. As I said up top, Your Tomato Is Not My Tomato and that’s cool. Please don’t take this next part as an attack on Silverflint as a fandom ship.~~

My criticism of Steinberg as it relates to Flint is related to:

What a romantic/sexual relationship with Silver being the basis of the tension and plot means for Flint in particular as a gay or mostly mlm man. 

Refusing to confirm Thomas and James being alive at the end and honestly the whole finale in general but like I’ll try and focus.

The major problem I have with Silver and Flint being coded as in love with each other is the implications there in terms of gay men’s relationships to other men. 

From every corner, men are inundated with the idea that any close relationship between them must be gay. That intimacy cannot exist unless there are sexual feelings involved. That a relationship cannot be close, deep and soul shattering and life altering, unless one guy secretly(or not so secretly) wants to bone the other dude. That two men cannot value each other as partners or friends or truly know each other unless they are gay.

Seeing both of the meaningful relationships Flint forms with other men be sexually coded feels a bit the same way as Anne and Max’s sexual assault plotlines does vis-a-vis being wlw. (Even with Gates, Flint never spoke about Thomas or his plans - Silver is absolutely the closest person to Flint besides Thomas and Miranda.) And this is just as true for Silver. Having both Flint and Madi - the two people he trusts - both be people he’s in love with also just feels. I don’t know. 

It feels like a confusion between male intimacy and male love that is so so familiar to me as a gay man I could choke on it. Where they wanted these men to have a deep and really lasting connection, but could only figure out how to do it if they were in love. Friendship wouldn’t have been enough - only romantic and sexual love is enough for the gay man(or men, at all).

Just because it isn’t queerbaiting doesn’t mean it’s good rep, and I would have liked to see truly deep male friendships that did not center on sexual attraction - particularly for Flint as a confirmed mlm(and Silver too, if you’re counting him. The same arguments for why I dislike Flint being paired with Silver are also true in the reverse.) 

Even if both Flint and Silver were confirmed mlm I still would have LOVED to see a platonic relationship between them. In fact I would have loved that EVEN MORE. Men! Who fuck men! Not needing to fuck each other to be important to one another! Who made this. Very delicious. 

But because there weren’t any queer writers on the show, writers who understand this kind of struggle that gay and mlm men face, they thought ‘oh, let’s also have them be in love with each other. More gay rep is better gay rep, right?’ False. THOUGHTFUL gay rep is better gay rep.

Okay and here’s my last thing. The fact that Steinberg refuses to say whether or not the explicitly mlm men are alive at the end of the show - that the words he specifically uses are ‘up for interpretation’ is. Fuck, it’s gross, okay? It’s fucking gross. 

I have been around enough men, enough people in power, enough people with leverage who also know how to play the field, to know that when someone wants a group’s support but does not agree with them, their go to phrasing is that it is ‘up for debate’ or ‘up for interpretation.’

Say the gays are alive. Steinberg refusing to acknowledge the reality of the ending of his show to maintain his own sense of artistic integrity is what, honestly, really sets me off about him and I don’t care if this is a nuanced take.

Like yes, death of the author. I honestly don’t care if he thinks they’re dead or alive. What I care about is that he thinks he can get away with being clever and leaning hard into a story is true/untrue’ - doesn’t realize what the implications of that are, and didn’t when he was writing, and didn’t have anyone else in the room who would think about it either. 

ANYWAY. So this is....my long drawn out explanation for why I do not like Steinberg. Uhhhhh tune in next week for more of my totally unpopular opinions!

[clocks-are-round]

@noctosun

*rubs hands together*

oh ho ho you certainly can

(I’ve written a couple brief conversations between those three here and here if you want more)

tw: homophobic language

welcome to the gulch of ✨misunderstandings✨

——

“Grif, Simmons, I want you two out of the base. I’ll be making some modifications on Lopez and I want some privacy while I’m doing it. Some father-robot bonding time, if you will.”

“[Dear god. Don’t say it like that.]”

“I don’t want you two bothering me while I’m screwing these nuts into Lopez.”

“[Are you Donut now?!]”

“That’s a good point, Lopez! Bring Donut with you. I just know he’d butt in.”

“Yes sir!”

“Great,” Grif grumbled, “You know he’s going to have a field day with this.”

——

Donut was running— skipping really— up ahead. “This is great, guys! It feels like it’s been forever since we’ve been a threesome!”

Simmons and Grif groaned.

“Well if this was forever, let’s try for infinity next time,” Grif mumbled to Simmons, who snorted despite himself.

Simmons wasn’t sure what Grif had against Donut. Grif was sarcastic to him and Sarge too, but what did Donut ever do to him? Grif acted like he had some deep-seated resentment for the guy.

Sure, Donut was annoying sometimes, but he was also a little endearing. Simmons liked to think of him like a younger sibling. He drove him to irritation beyond reason at times, but at the end of the day he was stuck with him and he was alright with that.

Is that how things were with Grif? He’d been trying to pinpoint a label for their relationship, but nothing sounded exactly right. He wasn’t really sure if they were friends. They hated each other too much. Although, Simmons was kind of questioning if he actually hated him anymore. He hated certain traits, but he didn’t hate Grif entirely. Siblings wasn’t it either. Whatever. Didn’t matter. Whatever they were, they had a system and it worked.

“Simmons, if I ever get that goddamn annoying, just do me a favor and kill me,” Grif was glaring at Donut from behind that orange helmet. Simmons had seen him do so around the base enough to assume.

“Oh, I’d hate to take that honor from Sarge, numbnuts.” Simmons wanted to ask about Donut. But he was worried he already knew the answer.

He’d put two and two together from that story Grif told on day one. Grif was extremely homophobic. Simmons could pretend it wasn’t true as much as he wanted, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t. And if he asked why Grif hated Donut-- implying he didn’t hate Donut, Grif might think Simmons wasn’t homophobic. And he’d been trying pretty damn hard to sell that. And then Grif would think HE was gay. And then he’d hate Simmons too. More than he did already, at least. And Simmons didn’t want to ruin their… acquaintanceship? That wasn’t right either. Why did he care so much about what Grif thought? He did, but he didn’t. Gahh. Emotions were hard. Stupid emotions.

“Hey, Simmons.” Grif’s voice pulled him out of his head.

“What?” Simmons couldn’t keep a guilty tone out his voice. He didn’t sound gay right? He wasn’t gay, he was bi, but still. Homophobes didn’t discriminate when it came to hating mlm equally.

“You’re doing that thing again. Going silent and tapping your fingers really fast. You good?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Nothing’s wrong!”

Simmons definitely wasn’t going to ask. He’d never do anything that could break their system. Nothing was worth it.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t ask Donut.

“Hey, Grif. If you want to just stop here and rest, Donut and I can take care of patrolling. We’ll wake you up when it’s time to head back.”

Grif sounded surprised but immediately sat down. “Don’t have to ask me twice.”

“Hey, Donut!” Simmons called out, “Wait up!”

——

Grif watched Simmons run after Donut. Hopefully everything would be fine. After all, Donut had been there months now and hadn’t told anyone Grif was gay. Grif was starting to wonder if he even knew.

At first he assumed Donut was putting on an act just to make fun of him. Now he was pretty sure that’s just how he was. The living embodiment of the gay trope Grif despised. He’d never let himself be associated with that pink pansy. Sarge and Simmons already hated him enough, no need to add to the fire. Donut could keep dealing with the homophobes alone. Grif would stay in his closet. It was safer there.

——

Simmons looked behind him. They were definitely far enough away from Grif now.

“So, anyways,” Donut babbled on, “Sarge asked ‘What’s the difference?’ as if salmon and fuchsia were even remotely similar! Any toddler with a box of crayons could show you they look absolutely nothing alike!”

“Donut, just shut up for a second. I need to ask you something.”

“Oh, uh, what is it? You sound pre-tty serious right now.”

“Do you know why Grif hates you so much?”

Donut paused. “Grif hates me?” Judging by his tone, the thought had never occurred to him.

“Yeah, it’s pretty obvious. And, I mean, more than his average dislike of everyone on red team. Did you do something to… I don’t know. Hurt him? Offend him? Did you steal his snacks?”

“I can’t really think of anything I could’ve done to make him upset.” Donut shrugged. “He’s kinda been a grump since the beginning, so I didn’t think it was anything personal.”

“In that case… Do you think it might be because you’re—“ Simmons stopped. Donut had never outright told the team he was gay. And if he was that clueless that Grif hated him, maybe he didn’t realize the vibes he was giving off? Was that possible? On the off chance he was in the closet, he didn’t want to out him. Even in private. And if he wasn’t gay, Simmons would probably never hear the end of it about ‘assuming’ and shit.

“I’m what?” Donut asked, with a hint of defensiveness in his voice.

Simmons decided to go the safer path. “You know… fabulous.” The word felt awkward in his mouth, but it was the euphemism Donut often used. At least, he assumed it was a euphemism.

Donut thought about this. “I mean, I think everyone on red team is pretty fabulous deep down. You all just need to learn to embrace it!”

“I really can’t tell whether we’re speaking in code or not. But I want to help you patch things up with him. Just, don’t tell him it was my idea.” If Grif could learn to accept Donut, maybe one day he could tell him. And Grif might, just maybe, accept Simmons too.

——

“Hey Grif, wake up,” Simmons stood over Grif, sprawled out on the ground snoring.

“Should we drag him back?” Donut questioned.

“Grif!” Simmons kicked him for good measure.

Grif spasmed, limbs flailing like a turtle on its back, “Wha- What’s going on?”

“We’re heading back to base. Get up, fatass.”

“Oh, and Grif,” Donut started excitedly, “I’ve been thinking of trying some new recipes! I haven’t really cooked since I was home, but I was thinking of getting back into it! Think you could be my helper in the kitchen? Or at least my taste tester?”

“If it doesn’t make me sick, I will eat all of it,” Grif stated with certainty. “And if it does make me sick, I’ll probably still eat it, I’m so sick of our stale-ass rations.” He pulled himself to his feet with some effort, yawning. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

The easiest way to Grif’s heart was through his stomach.

——

At first, Grif only showed up when the food was done.

But then Simmons noticed Grif going in sooner, when the scent of food was in the air.

A few months passed, and when Donut was in the kitchen, so was Grif. It turned out he knew a few things about cooking but couldn’t be bothered to cook anything for himself before.

Donut and Grif started cooking together, sometimes bickering about ingredient measurements, but over time becoming extremely in sync. They didn’t talk about what they were making unless the recipe was new. Instead they chatted about whatever came to mind. They’d reached that point. Donut still seemed to do most of the work, but Grif was enjoying himself. Simmons could tell that smile was genuine.

After Donut’s supposed death, Grif never lingered in the kitchen. The first week he avoided it entirely, asking Simmons to be his delivery man. It was his way of grieving. They were all grieving in their own ways.

With Donut back, Grif asked if he wanted to cook something together, trying to come across as casual, but he was pretty emotional.

On Chorus, he didn’t need to cook for himself, so he didn’t. But every time he saw the kitchen, he wondered what Donut would want to make if he was there.

On Iris, Grif and Donut were usually the ones to cook for everyone. The kitchen was the only place they really seemed to get along and the food they cooked together was always great.

And years later, when Grif cooked a full-ass meal to surprise Simmons on their anniversary, Simmons couldn’t help but wonder what would be happening right then if he hadn’t talked to Donut. Would he be getting a home-cooked meal from his husband? Would they even be a couple? How drastic would that butterfly effect be?

“And to think, it was all because I thought you were a homophobe!” Simmons laughed.

——end——

Sorry if the timeline is a little screwy in that last bit. I was struggling to remember when and where they were throughout the series. Hopefully I still got the idea across without it being too jarring to those who have the seasons better memorized.

Do you like my content? Maybe consider donating a couple bucks to my Ko-fi

[fishoutofcamelot]

Hi there! I hope you’re well. I just wanted to send a message to thank you for the elyan content 😍 he is my favourite knight but for some reason I never see much of him on tumblr! So it’s awesome to see him on your blog. I hope I didn’t bother you with this ask 🙈

I AM doing well, actually! And you didn’t bother me, asks will probably never bother me <3

I could go on for a million years about why no one makes content about Elyan - and sometimes forget he exists altogether - but I don’t wanna start drama so we’ll just. Not touch that topic with a 10-foot pole

BUT! Elyan IS a fantastic knight, and the fact that he is your favourite knight too is very iconic and sexy of you. Elyan fans/stans are the sexiest members of this fandom. That’s not even opinion, that’s just science

So! Here’s a list of Elyan headcanons, because he’s worth it:

Elyan is ace. Them’s the facts

He’s also gay but in that stage where he’s questioning if he might be bi. Unfortunately, he died before reaching an answer

I hate to talk about Hogwarts Houses in 2020, but he is one hell of a Hufflepuff. Elyan is his name and protecting his loved ones with life and limb is his game. It is very easy to earn his loyalty, and once you have he will ride straight through Hell for you

Elyan likes hoods. He wears hoods whenever he can (i mean c’mon, that outfit in season 3 was serving some killer looks)

He’s just a protective older brother to literally everyone in Camelot. Yes, even Gaius

Gwen, Elyan, Leon, and Merlin have family game night once every month. They all gather in their old house in the lower town to get drunk, play some dice games, and spend the whole night goofing off

Only a few people know about game night. Even fewer people have seen it with their own eyes. Arthur and Gwaine frequently try to sneak in to see game night for themselves, but somehow never succeed

Elyan loves swimming. They don’t get many chances for it, but whenever they do, Elyan is the best swimmer out of all the knights

He’s also like. Really good at sneaking up on people. Consistently rolls high on stealth checks

Out of everyone in the Round Table, Elyan is the most easily spooked. He hates it when they gather around the fire to tell ghost stories, bc he will NOT be able to sleep the rest of the night after that

Why do people think there’s no dynamic or chemistry between Elyan and Gwaine??? Those two had a SOLID friendship and I will not stand for this disrespect (also, Perelyan is good but Elyaine is godtier imo)

Elyan is bad at blacksmithing. Like really bad. No one even understands how that works, considering he spent his whole childhood training under his father. All the blacksmithing talent apparently went to Gwen somehow

He likes bugs. When he was a kid he would go out in the woods and collect beetles and stuff to stick in little terrarium jars. He’d even give them names and backstories and personalities. Sometimes he would sit under a tree and tell Gwen stories about all these adventures his bugs would go on when no one was looking

Leon HATED bugs, and got creeped out by them, which meant Elyan was legally obligated to harass him about it

Elyan doesn’t get much chance to catch bugs anymore, but he’s also the only member of the Round Table who can put up with spiders

Spider in the armory? Everyone is freaking out while Elyan just calmly picks it up and lets it outside - but not without lots of snark and eye-rolling, of course

The reason Elyan ran away from home was because his mother had died and he saw it as a personal failing. He felt that it was his fault she was dead, because he couldn’t protect her, and left Camelot because he couldn’t bear the shame of guilt

In the last few years of his time away from Camelot, Elyan fell in love and lived out an mlm cottagecore fantasy where he and his lover raised wyverns together. But when Morgause came to capture him, she killed his lover and burnt their wyvern farm to the ground

Elyan tries not to let his grief be known, though. Not just because he doesn’t want to burden Gwen with his pain, but also because his lover had magic and he could get arrested for having fallen in love with a sorcerer

Morgause had Elyan captive for a while before Gwen showed up. She even used the nathair on him in small increments; not long enough to kill him or damage him irreparably, but enough to make him suffer. It’s for this reason that Elyan was able to bounce back from being tortured by Morgana whereas Gwaine didn’t survive it, because Morgause had already microdosed him with that kind of pain two years ealier

Still traumatizing, though. Like. This boy is EXTREMELY traumatized, can someone please get him some therapy???

Moving back to Camelot with Gwen was simultaneously healing and harming. Healing, because  he visited his dad’s grave, rebuilt his relationship with Gwen, and his companionship with her, Merlin, and Leon helped him move on from the pain of his loss. But harming because of all the anti-magic prejudice that surrounded him, and every time someone said magic was evil it was like another dagger in his heart. That was his dead lover they were talking about and calling a monster. Someone who was kind and compassionate and funny, who didn’t have a lick of evil in them, who would have burned at the stake by Camelot’s laws

Elyan didn’t think about what it meant to be a knight of Camelot when he agreed to be knighted. But he was just so determined to fight and kill Morgause, the woman who had killed his lover and his wyverns and abducted him from his home, that he didn’t even think about it. He just wanted Morgause dead. It wasn’t until a few days later when he realized that being a knight of Camelot meant enforcing Camelot’s anti-magic laws, and this realization naturally caused him distress

Instead of abandoning his knighthood, Elyan found a compromise. He would support Arthur in everything, until magic got involved. If Arthur ever captured druids or put sorcerers to death, Elyan decided he would smuggle them out of the city. He would never actively kill or capture those with magic, and would sometimes even try to sabotage efforts in capturing harmless magic-users

Elyan knew full well what Dragoon was doing. He knew that Gwen and Arthur’s love was true and required no enchantment, meaning Dragoon had simply framed himself to get Gwen out of a jam. He appreciates Dragoon, and even though he supposedly killed Uther, Elyan can’t even fault him for that. Elyan wanted to kill Uther too

Merlin is the little brother Elyan always wanted, and Elyan is the older brother Merlin never had. They act so much like siblings it’s not even funny, and some people question if they were actually raised together 

He and Merlin like to team up and tease Gwen. They’ll walk behind her and chant stuff like “Gwen and Arthur sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G”. They’re like children, and it’s both very funny and very annoying

Gwen gets her revenge, of course. She always gets her revenge

They also team up to be like. Super protective of Gwen. The vetting process Arthur had to go through - between Elyan, Leon, AND Merlin - in order to date Gwen was ridiculous

Arthur: Merlin I’m literally your boss. Your friend. You've been my personal manservant for like six years now

Merlin: Yeah, which means I know exactly how much of a dick you are

After being possessed by the druid ghost, Elyan is a lot more in tune with the supernatural

Am I suggesting that Elyan can now see, talk to, and interact with ghosts, and even starts a little agency where he goes around helping them complete their unfinished business? Why yes, yes I am

When Gwen was banished, Elyan wanted to go with her. But she asked him to stay behind and keep an eye on Agravaine, as she suspected him of treachery, and to stop him from taking over Camelot should Agravaine make a move. And, well, Elyan has never been able to say no to his sister

Elyan and Merlin decided to try and find a way to prove Gwen’s innocence. There’s no way she was acting of her own accord, after all. There was some kind of enchantment at play, there had to be. Merlin doesn’t tell him about Shade!Lancelot directly, but does propose it as a theory regarding how Lancelot had come back from the dead. Elyan supports the theory 100%

About two months after the wedding, Merlin and Elyan locate the enchanted bracelet, and Gwen and Lancelot’s names are finally cleared

In Avalon, Elyan, Freya, and Lancelot spend the whole time watching/narrating the events of season 5 like sports commentators. They are all mutually exasperated at Merlin’s antics

When Arthur shows up in Avalon, the only reason Elyan doesn’t punch him in the face is because he’s too busy restraining Lance from doing the same

He does, however, give him a strong talking-to about how “all your magic and you still can’t save my life” is a horrible thing to say actually

Lancelot, however, is more upset about the “I guess I was wrong” speech

Gwaine shows up in Avalon like. SUPER traumatized. He died while being tortured by a nathair, died in a way that he perceived to be failure, and he’s kinda messed up because of that. Elyan, who has already had a few years to cope with nathair torture, is the one who helps Gwaine heal from his trauma

In the 21st century, Elyan gets reincarnated along with everyone else. His childhood is plagued with weird dreams, dreams that terrify him. Snakes and pain, wyverns and fire, all of it. He meets an old man who calls himself Merlin, who helps Elyan through the pain of remembering his past life. For once, Elyan gets to be taken care of instead of the other way around. For once, he is allowed to be vulnerable and weak and struggling. He doesn’t hide his tears. He gets the help he needs and works through his trauma

And one day, many years later, he is walking down the street when he sees someone who looks oddly familiar. The face of an old lover, perhaps

Thanks for the ask! <3

[mdzsartreblogs]

12,000 Post Round up!

It's that time again!! :D

Updates:

In honor of Pride month, I've added tags for character sexualities and genders. I already had "trans character" as a tag, but now I've also got "asexual character," "bisexual character," "non-binary character," and others! The individual character is also tagged - so, a work featuring pansexual Lan Xichen would be tagged "pansexual character" and "pansexual lan xichen." These tags are only used when the work is explicit in identifying the character's sexuality, such as by including a Pride flag or by indicating the chosen sexuality in text. They are NOT used if sexuality is merely implied or if a non-definitive term is used (for example: artwork of a male and female character in a ship does not imply that either character is heterosexual. for another example: the terms wlw and mlm do not indicate clearly if a character is homosexual/lesbian, since they might also be bi, ace, pan, etc., and still be wlw/mlm.)

310 tags have been added to this collection, for artists, attributes, and more! There are now over 5,000 unique tags in use on this blog. In addition to the Pride tags mentioned above, I also added a few media tags, and of course new ship tags and such were added as needed. Usual reminder: If you have a specific trigger or squick that I'm not currently tagging, please let me know (anon asks are fine) and I will add it to my list!

The blog has over 1,000 followers now - 1,064, to be exact. Thanks for joining us, everyone!

If you know where any of the works tagged unknown location are, please let me know. Likewise, if you know any of the artists tagged unknown artist (it’s pretty much all official art), I’d appreciate your help a lot!

If you make fanart, feel free to DM it to this blog, or @ me @unforth (don't @mdzsartreblogs, tumblr rarely shows me those tags). I don't track any unique source blog tags but I do check #mdzs daily and reblog all artwork posted there provided it doesn't break any of my few rules (also provided that the creator hasn't blocked me, or I haven't blocked the creator - I've been blocked a handful of times (10 that I know of, to be exact), and I block people who post hate in the main tag, and yes, that's included a few artists.)

Always remember to support artists! Don't just passively consume/view what's posted here - make sure you're liking stuff and, even more importantly, REBLOGGING!, to help encourage content creators!

-unforth

And now, behind a read more - some tag stats, because I like stats. (I do these tag audits every 1k posts primarily so I can catch any mistakes I've made, but also...I just like playing with spreadsheets).

Characters Tagged Most Often: no new characters this 1k...

wei wuxian (5,861 works) (no change)

lan wangji (4,723 works) (no change)

jiang cheng (1,739 works) (no change)

lan xichen (1,064 works) (no change)

nie huaisang (970 works) (no change)

a yuan (863 works) (no change)

jin guangyao (744 works) (no change)

jin ling (709 works) (no change)

nie mingjue (583 works) (no change)

wen ning (561 works) (no change)

xiao xingchen (525 works) (no change)

jiang yanli (483 works) (no change)

xue yang (452 works) (no change)

lan jingyi (379 works) (no change)

song lan (353 works) (new!)

Ships Tagged Most Often: always more rare pairs, and it makes me happy.

wangxian (3,305 works) (no change)

xicheng (217 works) (no change)

sangcheng (198 works) (no change)

songxiao (196 works) (no change)

xiyao (159 works) (no change)

xuexiao (111 works) (no change)

3zun (74 works) (no change)

xuanli (72 works) (no change)

xisang (68 works) (new!)

yanqing (67 works) (-1 from 11k post)

nielan (66 works) (-1 from 11k post)

zhuiling (62 works) (new!)

nieyao (43 works) (new!)

ningxian (42 works) (new!)

songxuexiao (29 works) (new!)

Platonic Relationships Tagged Most Often:

twin prides of yunmeng (382 works) (no change)

wangxian are dads (187 works) (+1 from 11k post)

yunmeng siblings (185 works) (-1 from 11k post)

twin jades of gusu (181 works) (no change)

grape uncle (179 works) (no change)

nie brothers (151 works) (no change)

wei wuxian is a dad (114 works) (no change)

junior trio (99 works) (no change)

lan wangji is a dad (86 works) (no change)

yi city family (81 works) (+1 from 11k post)

wen siblings (81 works) (-1 from 11k post)

junior quartet (73 works) (no change)

one brain cell trio (72 works) (no change)

burial mounds family (70 works) (+1 from 11k post)

wei wuxian is an uncle (69 works) (-1 from 11k post)

Artists Tagged Most Often: At the 11k check in, there were 2,778 different artists with at least one work on this blog; now there are 2,938 - and increase of 160! I think that's one of our smallest increases yet - but it's still roughly 1 in 6 works by a new, never-before-represented artist. It's always exciting to have this evidence of how the fandom continues to grow! Reminder that this ranking below is about how prolific an artist is, and has nothing to do with popularity or anything like that.

official art (156 works) (no change)

modao18 (128 works) (no change)

sketchyscribbles (111 works) (+2 from 11k post)

ibijau (103 works) (-1 from 11k post)

hilluhri (98 works) (-1 from 11k post)

joshua-beeking (89 works) (no change)

littlesmartart (80 works) (no change)

xiejie-liubo (formerly bees0are0awesome) (74 works) (no change)

bbeix (65 works) (+2 from 11k post)

valdrift (64 works) (no change)

v0006 (61 works) (-2 from 11k post)

candicewright (59 works) (new!)

shuanghua (57 works) (new!)

sweetlittlevampire (54 works) (new!)

elogval (52 works) (new!)

NEW! Most Prolific Artists Who Posted for the First Time since Last Tag Audit: I want to try to highlight more artists who've only recently become active in the fandom! Here are artists who've produced a lot and are newly added in the last 1,000 tags. This list includes all newly added artists who created at least 4 works that were reblogged here specifically since the last tag audit - you should consider checking them out!

artificiallygayrabbit (15 works)

ookamiarnarok (11 works)

sharpieshepie (10 works)

butterscotchfinch (10 works)

potatoodles (5 works)

kitsunace (5 works)

wickedwitchitus (4 works)

slap-me-xingchen (4 works)

raphcrow (4 works)

jamieemmanuelle (4 works)

Top 20 Most Used Other Tags:

portrait (10,223 works) (no change)

digital art (9,844 works) (no change)

comic (1,769 works) (no change)

flowers (1,715 works) (no change)

laughs (1,621 works) (no change)

sketch (1,443 works) (no change)

modern au (1,377 works) (no change)

chibi (1,201 works) (no change)

lan wangji has golden eyes (1,113 works) (no change)

wangxian hug (974 works) (no change)

chenqing (846 works) (no change)

fantasy au (810 works) (+1 from 11k post)

yiling laozu (800 works) (-1 from 11k post)

food (755 works) (+1 from 11k post)

pencil drawing (716 works) (-1 from 11k post)

ink work (715 works) (-2 from 11k post)

blood tw (712 works) (+1 from 11k post)

lemon (702 works) (-1 from 11k post)

hearts (636 works) (new!)

lan sizhui (631 works) (no change)

Actors:

xiao zhan (147 works) (no change)

wang yibo (106 works) (no change)

song jiyang (10 works) (no change)

zhu zanjin (8 works) (no change)

wang zhuocheng (6 works) (+1 from 11k post)

Animals:

bunnies (622 works) (no change)

birds (289 works) (no change)

butterflies (168 works) (no change)

cats (104 works) (no change)

dogs (74 works) (no change)

Character Attributes:

lan wangji has golden eyes (1,113 works) (no change)

yiling laozu (800 works) (no change)

lan sizhui (631 works) (no change)

wei wuxian has red eyes (544 works) (no change)

jiang cheng with braids (383 works) (no change)

fierce corpse wen ning (352 works) (no change)

blind xiao xingchen (312 works) (no change)

child a yuan (287 works) (no change)

jiang cheng has purple eyes (228 works) (new!)

nie mingjue has a mustache (186 works) (no change)

Ship Attributes:

wangxian hug (974 works) (no change)

wangxian kiss (458 works) (no change)

wangxian holding hands (382 works) (no change)

lan wangji carrying wei wuxian (105 works) (no change)

xicheng hug (82 works) (no change)

wei wuxian wearing lan wangji's ribbon (75 works) (no change)

wangxian sharing a bed (60 works) (no change)

wangxian duet (58 works) (no change)

sangcheng hug (58 works) (no change)

xiyao hug (53 works) (new!)

AU Tags:

modern au (1,377 works) (no change)

fantasy au (810 works) (no change)

canon divergent au (457 works) (no change)

creature wei wuxian (363 works) (no change)

creature lan wangji (332 works) (no change)

technological anachronism (215 works) (no change)

dragon (129 works) (no change)

merperson (118 works) (no change)

historical au (95 works) (no change)

creature jiang cheng (83 works) (no change)

Memes, Fandom Events, Holidays, and Character Birthdays:

october art challenge (200 works) (no change)

wangxian week (105 works) (no change)

wei wuxian's birthday (89 works) (no change)

lan wangji's birthday (89 works) (no change)

valentine's day (88 works) (no change)

mermay (6 works) (no change)

lunar new year (57 works) (no change)

draw this your style (55 works) (new!)

mdzs reverse big bang (44 works) (new!)

color palette challenge (43 works) (new!)

Instruments and Weapons:

chenqing (846 works) (no change)

bichen (388 works) (+1 from 11k post)

wangji (379 works) (-1 from 11k post)

zidian (319 works) (no change)

suibian (145 works) (no change)

sandu (126 works) (no change)

baxia (114 works) (no change)

shuanghua (109 works) (no change)

fuxue (92 works) (no change)

liebing (81 works) (no change)

Common Motifs and Objects:

flowers (1,715 works) (no change)

food (755 works) (no change)

hearts (636 works) (+1 from 11k post)

stars (603 works) (+1 from 11k post)

fan (596 works) (-2 from 11k post)

lotuses (487 works) (no change)

the moon (353 works) (no change)

alcohol (350 works) (no change)

fire (338 works) (+1 from 11k post)

jiang clan clarity bell (333 works) (-1 from 11k post)

Media-Related Tags:

portrait (10,223 works) (no change)

digital art (9,844 works) (no change)

comic (1,769 works) (no change)

laughs (1,621 works) (no change)

sketch (1,443 works) (no change)

chibi (1,201 works) (no change)

pencil drawing (716 works) (+1 from 11k post)

ink work (715 works) (-1 from 11k post)

lineart (567 works) (no change)

screen cap redraw (396 works) (no change)

watercolor (358 works) (no change)

work in progress (308 works) (no change)

meme redraw (283 works) (no change)

art of art (210 works) (new!)

markers (199 works) (-1 from 11k post)

Trigger Warnings:

blood tw (712 works) (+1 from 11k post)

lemon (702 works) (-1 from 11k post)

mcd + implied mcd (371 works) (no change)

body horror tw (168 works) (no change)

suicide tw (71 works) (no change)

Locations and Eras:

cloud recesses (494 works) (no change)

lotus pier (300 works) (no change)

lecture era (173 works) (no change)

burial mounds (137 works) (no change)

post canon (120 works) (no change)

pre canon (66 works) (new!)

nightless city (59 works) (new!)

yi city (48 works) (new!)

carp tower (43 works) (new!)

the cold spring (42 works) (new!)

Lemons:

bondage (70 works) (no change)

bondage using the lan clan ribbon (33 works) (no change)

blindfolds (27 works) (+1 from 10k post)

hickies (25 works) (-1 from 10k post)

bottom wei wuxian (21 works) (no change)

Other Fandoms:

tian guan ci fu (128 works) (no change)

ren zha fanpai zijiu xitong (115 works) (no change)

lang dianxia (10 works) (no change)

legend of fei (9 works) (no change)

douluo continent (9 works) (no change)

the husky and his white cat shizun (5 works) (new!)

yuri on ice (4 works) (new!)

word of honor (4 works) (new!)

star wars (4 works) (new!)

[dragynkeep]

reminder that rt doesn’t give a fuck abt it’s lgbt characters or fanbase & lgbt ppl who follow the show can & are allowed to rightfully be angry.

convince me otherwise that the only reason arryn was finally allowed to “confirm” blake as bi (even though she, barb & lindsey all said in that livestream that it was a hc & not canon) after years of salivating to do so is because it was pride month & rt was already getting (rightfully so) reamed out the ass for their treatment of black workers & more of their bs being pulled to light during the blm livestream.

for our lgbt characters we’ve had so far :

scarlet, not outwardly confirmed until a non canon manga & from the little we got of him in canon, was entirely the fay gay. he’s also the only mlm out of like 8 lgbt characters in the entire show.

coco, was leaning heavily into predatory lesbian trope in the book & her sexuality revelation was used as a marketing hook to get people to buy the book (especially when back then it wasn’t known who would be “the gay one” & mlm were thrown to the side yet again.)

ilia, who’s entire lesbian identity is tied to her having a crush on blake & feeling miffed that blake chose adam. that blake never looked at her romantically. if ilia was a dude we’d rightfully be calling this an incel moment but instead it’s completely brushed off when tbh, ilia should’ve been angry that blake was working with humans, like humans who got her parents killed. but no blake didn’t give her the cat coochie so say bye to your parents blake. she also got let off super easy.

cotta arcs, angels but lbr we’re never going to see them again. also the majority of the fndm takes them as lesbians but all we know is they’re wlw, but don’t tell the fndm you hc them as anything other than lesbians if you wanna live lmao. only lesbians matter.

may, minor character, did she even have more than five lines this vol? also props to rt for not deadnaming her & pulling a mass effect andromeda, we did appreciate that.

matte skye, nonbinary ship mate who will never be seen again lbr.

two background gays in mistral? do they even count?

also a combining factor for a lot of the lgbt rep in rwby is that they get confirmed off screen. the writers don’t actually have to confirm them in the show if they can just write a tweet later & be like yeah, they’re [insert sexuality here]! go nuts! like no that’s fucking lazy. they don’t have to be explicit with their representation in canon anymore if every tom, dick & harry in the fndm is gonna suck their toes when they put out a tweet like nora trans! jaune bi! even when there’s nothing for that in canon. it’s lazy. it’s a copout. it’s not happening in 2020 babey!

stop getting mad at lgbt people in the fandom when we say we’re not happy with the lgbt rep we’re getting, when we rightfully call out those who are cishet & speaking over us or rt who is not being allowed to skate by anymore. i mean for fucks sake, they “confirmed” one of their mains as bisexual on a fucking livestream barely anyone who isn’t on twitter saw. when did representation stop being something that was deigned in canon & started becoming extra curricular reading?

[queerchoicesblog]

Lawrence was a pleasure to see again, and thanks God he was there to talk some sense into Zetta ! "Sometimes our secrets are what makes our lives worth living. No matter with what high cost they come attached” What power in that sentence. What I also loved was that Zetta was honest with Richard. She has always been a straight shooter and it's interesting to see a dynamic where she would have much to lose from it but chooses to be (somewhat) honest anyway. With him. With herself. /6 (I think ?)

Part 2 of my response, sweet Nonny!

Let me start saying that:

1. You do not have to apologise for your English because it's brilliant and I'm Italian so no pressure!

2. I absolutely love your talkative mood and because of the kind words you reserved to my writing, I swear! I almost wish we would be sharing a table at a cafe (let's make it a patisserie: I'm a sweet tooth and you have decadent desserts up there!) and chatting about Zetta, Adele and a bit of everything 😊

Giving a voice to wlw characters is my main mission so thank YOU! I'm glad I could make fellow members of our community happy with my stories. I write them for free because it sounds like the right thing in these dark times when many face new personal budget struggles. Maybe one day, if I build enough confidence, I will try to get some works published but today's not that day.

Back to Titanic, I'm particularly glad you appreciate your compatriot Sabine (who will get a scene in the next chapter) and Lawrence. They were minor characters but gosh, how I love them. I tried to add more depths and give them a bit more space in the series since they only appeared from time to time in the original book.

I find the friendship between Lawrence and Zetta quite interesting and a bit endearing. At the Turkish Baths, Zetta described it in these terms:

Of course, it refers to the fact that they're both gay and they can understand each other better than anyone else. But these lines and the affability they showed when he joined Zetta's table for dinner in first class made me picture the two of them as that kind of friends who aren't close as they don't keep in touch or hang out together all the time but whenever they find each other, it's as though they never parted. As many of us feel today about their fellow gay/bi/trans and so on friends, they rely on each other for a support they cannot find elsewhere so they can chat of nothing and everything, laugh but also have deep conversations out of nowhere without needing explanation or excuses. They simply understand the need to talk of certain parts of their lives: finest historical mlm/wlw solidarity. I cannot bring myself to imagine, for instance Lawrence talking of Felix with other gentlemen but Zetta would surely ask him how he's doing. Vice versa I can see the only one Zetta would truly speak of Adele being him.

"Sometimes our secrets are what make our lives worth living. No matter with what high cost they come attached"

I must admit I am quite proud of that sentence 😅

I just thought the story needed something that could explain why Zetta eventually decides to "fight for Adele" in her own way, writing her that note begging to come to the party after months of silence, but also Adele's change of heart about secrecy. We know that Adele has been stagnating for some time after the sinking and the abandonment, dealing with trauma, loss and starting anew in a new country...or at least that's how I picture her? Hileni says she's hardly leaving the shop, she looks afraid to live in full survivor sense of guilt and suffering from the sudden disappearance of her love. Through those months she changes and I reckon this change includes the shift from this (in my playthrough)

To this:

Back on the Titanic Adele seemed almost unapologetic about showing her affection as if "pushing boundaries". True, she's an outcast unlike Zetta and the adeline pumped high in the aftermath of the collision but she was the lesbian hero everyone dreamed in the moment: proclaiming her love for Zetta and kissing her passionately in the crowd. Quite a shock for super closet lesbian like Zetta! Then, months later she no longer says "I don't care who's watching" but is the one proposing a secret romance, accepting to live her love behind closed doors and putting up a mask in public if that's what it takes to be with Zetta. I think she came to the same conclusion Lawrence stated. And I think it's interesting how the change in Zetta is somehow symmetrical: from freezing on the l word to realising she doesn't want to part from Adele - and kissing her on the deck uncaring of the crowd - to make it happen after her own stagnation.

As for the Richard discourse, I believe that what Mateo said was for once true:

Adele and her conscience, her courage inspired her to be a better version of herself while her compassion softened a bit Adele. At the beginning of the story, Zetta is bitter, sarcastic, utterly gorgeous but not so pleasant to have around, for her own decision: her guard is up and she's unhappy. Through the story, she shows a new side of her, compassionate, protective, smart and gentle that was there but Adele rekindled. In the next chapter I will give a hint of other ways in which I believe Adele inspired her to action.

But a change I picture being a tail end of this is being (somewhat) honest with Richard. Adele put her freedom at risk for her and I want to believe that gesture impressed Zetta more than she admitted to herself maybe. She praised her conscience and courage...now it was her time to be brave. Zetta not saying a thing after what happened made little sense to me, if she suffers so much as we get to understand. Complete honesty is not a safe route or at least one she is not willing to go for but she pushes herself as far as she feels comortable stating the truth: is he convinced to marry her even knowing that she cannot love him like he does? Seems like an honest and merciful warning: Zetta cares for her career but she is not a heart of stone and I headcanon she likes Richard even if not romantically.

Richard doesn't get the true meaning behind her confession but as you said, could she? Zetta is closeted and very careful not to draw the slightest suspicion on her. He couldn't possibly imagine the truth but I cannot bring myself to see it as completely dumb either. We cannot read a person's heart with Suisse precision but we can perceive coldness or when our feelings are not fully reciprocated. He probably knew already that Zetta didn't love him "like he loves her" and it explained it to himself as stemming from her independence, her being a lady who can't be entirely tamed. Which is not a lie, just one part of the truth.

Sorry, I went down a tangent here and ended up flooding you with words!

Hope to hear from you soon! Stay safe and healthy ❤

[oh-really-alicia]

hey you don't have to answer this if it opens up old wounds or you're over it or whatever, but do you think you'll be able to enjoy any new music hatari puts out after the whole r**** situation? i mean you're totally justified in your anger, but i'm super conflicted about this because it wouldn't be sincere of me to say that i'll just stop listening to them. at the same time there's the whole art vs. artist debate and i dunno i guess i'm just asking for your input on this

Okay, very long rant incoming cause all of this has been on my mind for ages and I will just throw it up now.

At this very moment I seriously couldn’t care less about the band itself. I don’t care about their music, their art, I don’t care about “A Song Called Hate” or Dansið eða deyið. I already didn’t care about the KEXPort gig after all. I deleted all of their songs from my Spotify library a few weeks ago and haven’t properly listened to them in about two months maybe? Because I’m truly unable to enjoy their music at the moment.

I tried to do the whole separate the art from the artist thing but I genuinely can’t, not in this case.

Most of their art just has a very dishonest aftertaste now. Them waving the pride flags at Eurovision, performing at Pride, their collab with tRASHY clothing who are supporting Rainbow Street whenever they can, even offering direct help for LGBT victims of domestic abuse on their website. All of this seems like a joke when the fiancée of one of the band members, who also used to dance for them and showed up in interviews mind you, thinks mlm couples shouldn’t have children and that trans people are “a threat to womanhood”.

Yes, your partner’s views don’t reflect your own and I still think Klemens seems like anything but a LGBT-phobe, but, especially to me as a bi woman, if I had a partner who sincerely holds those views I couldn’t just ignore that or live with it. That’s not an opinion, that’s openly saying a certain group of people doesn’t deserve the same rights as others.

And it’s just, they work with quite a couple of queer people; Andrean, Bashar, Atli. I’m not accusing Hatari of explicit homophobia or terfism or some shit, I don’t, all of their pro LGBT actions just seem kind of disingenuous now I guess. And god, trust me, I spent weeks trying to find excuses for them, hoping this is all just nothing and not true, but I just can’t. This time my optimism truly left me.

And the most recent encounter where they all met up with their little kids when they should be, oh idk in quarantine, gave me the rest, I guess. That was the moment where I was truly done with them. It reeked of ignorance and not realising how privileged you are. If they all met up on their own and didn’t have kids, I wouldn’t give two shits, their fault if they get Covid, but there were three toddlers with them, at least two of those three toddlers probably aren’t vaccinated so they’re blessed with a shitty immune system. And I don’t care if the unlikely thing happened and they all got tested before, it’s still irresponsible.

I myself am very privileged in this situation, I get to work from home, still earn money and only have to take care of myself, I could barely be more privileged and I know that. It seems like our “"middle class”“ white boys don’t. No offense, but maybe they’d had some more braincells if they didn’t have the luck of being born into rich families.

And this hidden ignorance (at least that’s what it seems to me, if you don’t think so, that’s totally okay) when they’re preaching anticapitalism and basically screaming “eat the rich” is just the biggest hypocrisy. And not the fun kind à la “lmao let’s wear 600€ jackets during our concerts where we scream about corruption and then plug our merch and fictional soda brand haha”, no, actual genuine ignorance.

And I’m just very tired of that. If something magical happens and they acknowledge at least some of those points, I might be able to like them and call myself a fan again, but right now all of them can truly kiss my ass.

[lacrossepapi]

6+17 mit Danny/Stiles? Pleeease. I love Danny/Stiles and i feel like having read all of it already.

Hi! So first thing you gotta know is I don’t actively ship Danny and Stiles and I’ve never actually even written Danny before! This was really exciting and a great opportunity to broaden my writing horizons. the second thing you gotta know is I don’t write sex scenes. so I’m sorry if that was something you were looking forward to! but I hope you like what I wrote despite all that! Friends to lovers + Sex then love

ao3: Link

Stiles knew he was bisexual, but he’d only dated and messed around with girls. Every time he thought he wanted to date a guy he would psych himself out. He’d never even kissed a man outside of drinking games, how was he going to enter a mlm relationship when he wasn’t even confident in himself? He needed a gay jesus to be his savior. Someone he trusted and loved had to introduce him to the other side of his sexuality. Jackson was a bastard on a good day, and would only laugh at Stiles like he was a freak if he asked. Isaac was in a relationship, but Stiles didn’t think he could look at Isaac’s dick anyways they were too close for that. Ethan was gone for the summer, studying abroad in Spain, not that he would’ve even kissed Stiles. He was definitely not Ethan’s type. That left only one person Stiles was friends with that also liked men. Danny was actually perfect. The more Stiles thought about how to approach the man the more he realized how easy it was to talk to Danny about anything and everything. He and Danny had always had an easy, flowing friendship, able to riff off each other even in the worst of times. Danny was whip smart, beautiful and attractive, and best of all was that Stiles knew his relationship with him wouldn’t suffer if he asked. 

Just because it made sense in his head did not mean Stiles wasn’t nervous. He sat outside Danny’s dorm for at least ten minutes before the other man heard him mumbling to himself the pros and cons of asking. “Stiles. I really shouldn’t be surprised that it’s you out here muttering to yourself like a serial killer.” Danny’s patented Serious while Joking face was a blessing. Stiles jumped up and pushed passed his friend and into the dorm room, “You know you love when I act like a serial killer.” “Certainly not.” Came Danny’s reply as he shut the door behind them. And just like that Stiles was nervous again. He was alone with Danny in his dorm room, no roommate to worry about interrupting since he had a single. Danny was looking at him and Stiles was starting to freak out again. “I don’t know why you look like you’re about to word vomit, but sit down and take a breath.” Stiles nodded and sat down quietly as Danny went to the little kitchenette and started to make them hot chocolate. “Just like when we were teenagers.” Stiles smiled. “It was the only thing that would get you to stop talking so fast and gesturing all over the place.” Danny’s response was coupled with a smile of his own. “Pleasehavesexwithme!” Stiles blurted out. Danny froze, the heated milk in his hand hovering over a mug, though his face remained impassive. “No.” And then he resumed pouring the milk into the mugs like it never even happened. “What do you mean ‘No.’? You don’t have any follow up questions?” Stiles was less panicky now that he passed the main hurtle. Danny looked at him for a moment before turning to get the chocolate syrup, “You want someone to have sex with you so you can figure out if you really want to have sex with men.” Stiles flailed, his mind stuttering over the fact that Danny had seen right through him. “How did you know that’s why I asked?” Danny sighed, grabbing both of the mugs and coming back into the living room, “I believe I told you when we graduated and you told me you were bi that I couldn’t be your gay yoda.” “Gay jesus was my thought process.” Stiles mumbled into his mug. “You know that you don’t have to be actively having sex with men to be bi, right?” “Yes. I know that, but I want to try being with a man. You know me. I research everything. I have to try everything safely before I can put myself out there. It’s why Lydia has my virginity.” Stiles shrugged, feeling self conscious. “That, and she wanted an excuse to have that V-card made for you to give to her.” They shared another fond smile. “The more I thought about who I would ask the more it made perfect sense to ask you. You never judge me or make me feel weird about who I am. You are always there for me when I need you, and we aren’t so close that seeing your dick would be weird.” Stiles looked at Danny, then back down at his mug before saying one final damning piece of information, “And I’m kind of excited and intrigued to know what your dick is like.” There, he said it. No going back now. All he could do was stare into his hot chocolate and wait for Danny to kick him out or tell him ‘No’ again. “Stiles look at me.” Danny’s voice didn’t sound offended, which was good, so Stiles did as he was told. “Are you attracted to me?” “Yes.” “Okay.” Stiles blinked. And then blinked again, “Okay?” “Okay let’s have sex. I want your first time to be good, and I know I can give you that.” Danny’s face was calm and collected while Stiles thought his was going to burn off of him at this rate. “I promise I won’t be a pillow princess. I can’t promise I’ll be good, but I will try.” Stiles said earnestly, his free hand coming to rest on Danny’s wrist. “If there’s one thing I’d bet my life on it’s that Stiles Stilinski will always try his best to do something.” Danny smiled at him again.-The first few times they had sex Stiles would sneak into Danny’s dormhall late at night and then leave early in the morning to get ready for his own classes. Eventually Danny noticed how tired Stiles was the next day and decided to change things. Stiles answered his phone of the second ring.“Hey man, what’s up?” “Wanna come do your homework here and stay the night?” Stiles’ mouth dropped in surprise, “You mean like right now?” “No. I mean next Tuesday.” “Oh! Yeah sure, but you’ll have to remind me.” “Stiles?” “Hmm?” “I meant right now.” “Oh! Oh shit, yeah, okay. I’ll be over in ten.” Which is how another month passed, Stiles coming over after class and staying all evening. Sometimes he left after both men were satisfied, but most of the time he left in the morning on his way to class. The next change that over took their friendship turned friends with benefits was due to the fact that Danny always ate dinner right as Stiles got out of class, which left one man hungry. The solution was simple in Danny’s eyes. He just needed to start feeding Stiles. He did it in the typical casual manner in which Danny did everything. Stiles had just entered the dorm room when Danny had him shoved up against the door, their mouths locked in a fiery battle of wills. Finally Stiles’ lips parted with a soft sigh and Danny claimed his mouth with a skilled tongue. “You’re excited to see me today.” Stiles gasped as Danny kissed down his throat. “Mmm. I’m hungry and you took longer than usual to get here.” Danny finished his sentence with a bite to Stiles’ collarbone. “Ah! I got caught up talking to Professor Whitt again.” Danny stepped back and examined his handy work, Stiles was leaning against the door flushed and panting. His chest rising and falling rapidly from his sudden arousal, his cheeks red and his pupils blown wide. He kissed him again, this time softer, “Let’s go.” “Let’s? Go? Wait. You’re actually hungry? Don’t you normally eat dinner before now?” Stiles flailed his hands, knocking their wrists together. Danny gently held the wrist he’d captured for a moment before using it to pull the other man off the door. “I didn’t have time today. Come on. I’m starving and I know you are too.” Their routine had went from late night secretive booty calls to Stiles practically living in Danny’s dorm, and eating dinner together every night. It only took Stiles three months to notice. “Hey babe?” Danny poked his head out of the shower with an inquisitive sound. “How long have we been in a relationship?” Stiles asked, leaning against the bathroom doorframe. “Oh I’d say about two or three months now. Ever since you started staying here more than your own dorm. But we started dating the night we started getting dinner together. Why?” Danny tilted his head as if he was actually curious, even though they both knew Danny was fully aware that Stiles didn’t know they were actually together. “No real reason, guess I just didn’t realize how easily I fell in love with you.” It was Danny’s turn to flail, one of the only times Stiles had ever seen him truly shocked. “What? You didn’t know I love you? What a shame.” Stiles stripped out of his clothes and stepped into the shower. “I guess you’ll just have to show me.” Was Danny’s reply as his boyfriend dropped to his knees in front of him.

[irinanonyme]

The whole stupid "Carole and Tuesday VS Yuri On Ice" thing (I'm kind of angry and it's long but if you have like 10 minutes you're welcome to read)

Hey, so I've seen a bunch of people throwing shade lately because "Carole and Tuesday doesn't have as much popularity as Yuri On Ice did and it just shows what kinda people those fans are."

People saying that just because it's not on Netflix yet it's not an excuse and then they compare it to Violet Evergarden.

Frickin' Violet Evergarden people.

Which is like, the worst example you can give. You're talking about an anime who was hyped up since back in May 2016 and released 2 years later in January 2018 not to mention that it's made by goddamn KYOTO ANIMATION. It ain't Bones my friends, yes Bones is great but Kyoani is just up there somewhere. Did you see A Silent Voice? Did you see Hibike Euphonium?? The trailer for Violet Evergarden has almost 4 million views while the trailer for Carole and Tuesday was released 3 months ago and it has like 400k views. Until now some people didn't even know that the anime is direced by Shinichiro Watanabe, the guy who worked on COWBOY BEBOP and SAMURAI CHAMPLOO.

Also it's not about "not knowing how to use kissanime", some people just want to support the official release financially and legally. Also some other people who already have Netflix accounts got excited when they heard it was coming to the site but now they learn that they have to wait 6 more months until it's fully released. You might love the anime to death and pirating it doesn't mean that you want to disrespect the creators but you sure aren't helping them now are you? I'm not trying to shame people for pirating, hell, I think that everybody on the internet has already pirated something at least once in their life. But please don't look down on people who have the money and are willing to help studios/creators financially. If they want to wait 6 months and binge watch it let them wait 6 months and leave them alone.

Also please don't get started on that whole "fetishizing" thing. I know this is gonna piss of a lot of people but here's the "hot tea" like tumblr users would say: LGBTQ people want to get accepted into a society where about 90% of it are straight people (which is completely fair and they *should* in fact get accepted) but whenever those straight people approve of a same sex ship it's fetishizing? So wait, when a straight girl ships a wlw ship "it's fine and hey girl you might be bi 😉" but if she's shipping a mlm ship it's suddenly "eew you disgusting bitch, fricking fujoshi I bet you jack off to that stuff, huh?" That's just effed up guys.

YOI got popular only after episode 7 because of the kiss, it was so incredible to the point where most people couldn't believe it, some still thought that it was maybe only a hug because it's rare having mlm and wlw relationships in an anime without the "yuri" or "yaoi" tag. It was also because for once a mlm ship wasn't shown in a bad light like having the taller guy rape the shorter guy then ending it up with "haha, omg I actually liked it haha. Now that you forced yourself on me I like you."

Or it being borderline incest like "Wow, even though he's my not-blood-related brother I have feelings for him."

Or having a huge age gap making it a borderline p*do thing like "He's a divorced adult and I'm only a high school student!! Oh gee what shall I do!!"

YOI became popular not because it was fetishized but BECAUSE it was in fact shown to be a healthy relationship by the creators themselves in a different setting than just "school/slice of life" it was a sports anime and there was no indicator of them becoming a thing. Many thought it was like Free where the guys are gonna have "gay undertones" the whole story but never actually get together. From my experience most "YOI haters" are salty people who still remember the stupid 2016 Crunchyroll awards who didn't mean a thing.

Also keep in mind that tumblr is not the whole internet and it doesn't represent everyone and everything. Even if there are surely some who really do fetishize same sex ships I don't think that most of them are YOI and/or Carole and Tuesday fans. People who really ship wlw and mlm ships are most and for all people who accept the LGBTQ community whether they're part of it or not which is already a big step onward for many. There are still some countries out there where you can get killed or sent to prison for being homosexual so when I see people supporting this type of content I get really thrilled. Not to mention that you can't really "accurately" tell who is "fetishizing" those relationships. You might look at a few reblogs and tell yourself that "Yup, this guy/girl is definitely a creep" but the truth is that you don't know. You have no idea who the person behind this reblog is, who's that person behind the screen. Maybe they're like 15/16 and they're not sure of their sexual orientation yet? Do you need to add a lesbian/gay/bi/trans,etc flag on your profile pic for you to be part of the community? No.

I'm honestly kinda tired of this "tumblr culture" where whenever you have an opinion it has to match others' opinions so you don't get hate/death threats by either kids or adults who don't have a grasp on reality and don't tell themselves that maybe "Hey, that person might actually be depressed and she/he might really kill themselves if I send them this so even if I don't agree with them I probably shouldn't."

People starting their posts with "here's the hot take/TED talk, I've been thinking about it for a while but was scared of talking about it" then it turns out that this "hot take" is 80% of the fandom's opinion and the sheeple in the comments somehow seriously think that it's controversial and are like "OMGG SPILL THE TEA SIS YASSS💖"

Or "Thank. You.👏👏 I was actually scared of saying it so I'm glad you did."

Or even "LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK SIS!!❤"

We're talking about a site where when you *actually* have a *real* "hot take" people will try to personally murder you and browse through your entire blog during 3 days just to find a stupid thing you said like 4 years ago to write a "call out post" on you with the meme "I'm about to end this man's whole career lol" then they be like "lol you fuckin' (insert bad thing here) supporter! I bet you're (insert mental illness/something that means "sick in the head" with a clever twist on words.)"

Then when you like a certain character or ship you have to make a 5k word explanation post where you start off by saying that you do understand that your "fav" is "problematic" and then you proceed to explain why and then you have to be a victim who was either bullied or taken advantage of in order to make people feel bad for sending you death threats and guilt tripping you so that they can forgive your different tastes and just call it a "coping mechanism" or saying that it's fine if you support that character/ship because you're mentally ill. Oh, and don't forget the apology post where you explain to people that just because you said something stupid when you were 14 on your blog it doesn't mean that you still think that way and that your views changed and yada yada yada.

Like?? What the actual fuck people?

Can't we just have a good time on this site for fuck's sake? Carole and Tuesday has only 5 episode right now which is not even 25% of the story since the anime is supposed to have 24 episodes. It's not available on Netflix yet and some people like binge watching series. Give it time, surely it's gonna get recognition soon and we're here to spread it too. I decided that no matter what I'm gonna have a good time watching this amazing anime and I support both CarDay and Victuri and any other healthy wlw and mlm ship, all LGBTQ people and anyone in this world who isn't a serial killer/terrorist/anything bad (obviously)

Thank you for reading the whole thing (hopefully) and if you don't agree and are about to write something really mean about me don't even bother please, you'll be talking to a brick wall and I only accept civilized conversations👌

[beaulesbian]

I decided to finally make a part two of this post, it took me half a year longer than I anticipated, but I rushed to finish it at least for June.

🏳️‍🌈 Happy pride month! 🏳️‍🌈

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley – The best kind of subtle romance I have ever read. Includes mysterious pocket watch, solving bomb threats in Victorian London, a lady scientist, changing of future based on occurring events, an adorable clockwork octopus, and so much more! Did I mention the best, most beautiful romance I didn’t even expect to get?? Read it! (mlm main characters)

All out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages by multiple authors, edited by Saundra Mitchell – This book was so refreshing to read!!! Retellings of fairy tales but queer and poc and mostly happy. I enjoyed each of the short story so so much, I don’t have words to say how much I loved this book, just, can we please have more stories like that? Thank you.

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman – Ever wanted a book with a main character boy and girl who won’t end up together by the end of the book? Then this is a book for you. Frances and Aled do not only become best friends who won’t end up together, but there’s even more diverse characters than these two main ones. This book even has an ace (demi) sexual representation, which I was very excited about, and the main character is biracial bisexual girl. There is lot of fandom talk and a radio show drama (kind of similar to Welcome to Night Vale). But also talks about other important topics like deciding that college might not be for everyone despite them being a great student in high school.

Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee – It’s a cute and sweet superhero themed futuristic story, first book of a trilogy I think. The main character is Vietnamese American bisexual girl, Jessika Tran, whose parents are both superheroes, but she doesn’t have any powers. She starts working for a company she later discovers belongs to town’s villains, but with time she learns that not everything about superheroes and villains is perfectly black and white. Also she’s working there with her crush, so that’s a bonus. It’s a really great book, there’s wlw romance and lot of diversity, action and silly scenes. The history behind the people’s superpowers and worldbuilding was really interesting too. The sequel is also already out, featuring a poc trans boy as the main character, who is part of Jessika‘s friend squad.

The Gentleman‘s guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee – A book everyone here should read!! A historical roadtrip with lot of angst, fluff and mutual pining of two of the main characters. It takes place in 18th century Europe. Monty is kind of an asshole, some moments you will hate him then you will love him, but as the journey progresses so does he. He travels with his sister, Felicity, and his best friend (and crush!) Percy, to visit few cities in Europe before he has to start work in his fathers company. This book addressed lot of issues, like white privilege and racism in that time period, sexism and ableism. But it’s also an adventurous book that’s funny and charming, and makes you feel really happy one moment and sad the next. There are also pirates!

Dreadnought by April Daniels – This is a first book of a duology about a lesbian trans girl Danny who receives superpowers after witnessing death of the superhero Dreadnought, which means she now has to become the new Dreadnought. But with the powers also becames real the ideal vision of her body, that she always wanted. She is very happy about it, but it also means she has to face her family and best friend and explain why she looks different. On top of that she has to help the other superheroes with stopping the new threat to the city, the villain who killed previous Dreadnought. Trigger warnings for transphobia, but it’s really worth to read.

Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller – I’ve seen mixed reviews of this book but personally I loved it. It’s a fantasy YA with lgbt protagonist, that I don’t have enough of. Sal is a genderfluid, also bi? pan? thief who enters a competition to become one of Queen’s Assassins. Basically the last one standing (or rather living) takes the place. Sal knows how to fight and survive but also needs to learn other things to win this position. Like taking classes of writing/reading which teaches him a lady of court they previously stole something from, whom Sal quickly starts to like more than they should, with the competition at play. For me it was a really great book to read and I can’t wait to read the sequel!

The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli – I had to read this one quickly before Leah on the offbeat came out, and it was a joy to read this one too! Again so much representation, I love Becky’s books and the Simon vs world. This story is about Molly who has had a lot of crushes but never actually dated anyone. She’s jewish, has anxiety, is fat, loves her family, is very creative, and has another crush on a guy who is her coworker. There’s so much cuteness in this book, I was smiling and crying the whole time reading it. More for representation: her sister is gay, she has two moms, a new Korean-American pansexual friend (who her sister totally likes) and more. I need to meantion trigger warnings for fatphobia, because of part there with her relative, it made me cry so much, it was very reletable and I hated it but there was very good closure for it in the end, which I’m happy about. Anyway read this book, overall it’s a cute and happy book with lots of fluff!

Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli – I loved Leah from the Simon vs book, so I was really happy we got more focus on her. She’s fat and funny, unapologetic about who she is, in her words: “basically your resident fat Slytherin Rory Gilmore”. There was mentions she likes boys as well as girls. Because of a tour for her college she goes with Abby to see where she will live the next few years and stuff happens. And then there’s also their high school prom, which she thought she was ready for, but maybe she’s not ready for at all. I’m not even going to write more, it’s an amazing book, I cried so many times.

Timekeeper by Tara Sim – This story takes place in a Victorian era Britain where clock towers are needed for time to flow correctly. Therefore there is lot of mechanics who repair said clock towers, because if the clock stops, the town around it stops in time as well. The main character Danny is one of those mechanics in London, but his father is trapped in a town that Stopped and Danny needs to find a way to save him. But after someone tries to sabotage a clock tower in a small city, Danny is assigned in that town to fix it, and he eventually finds out that the myths he heard – that in clock towers could sometimes be seen beings, spirits of the towers – might actually be true. This book was so nice to read, there was the atmosphere of the Victorian era, mystery, cute mlm romance and awesome female characters.

I’ll give you the sun by Jandy Nelson – I cried a lot reading this book. At first it actually took me few months to read past first two chapters, because the writing style was so different from what I was used to, but after that I got absorbed in it very quickly. It’s a story about two siblings, Noah and Jude Sweetwine, who both go through some difficult times, with family, school and personal stuff, it’s about making mistakes and fixing mistakes. It’s about love, art, sibling struggles and growing up.

Other books that I read and loved and definitely recommend:

Of Fire and Stars - Audrey Coulthurst (f/f fantasy romance)

We are the Ants –  Shaun David Hutchinson (m/m)

In Other Lands -  Sarah Rees Brennan (bi mc, m/m)

Release – Patrick Ness (m/m)

Our dark duet – V.E. Schwab (sequel of duology, agender character, not much romance at all in this duology, it‘s one of my favourites)

A Conjuring of Light – V.E. Schwab (a beautiful fantasy, last book of trilogy, happy ending for m/m pairing whose each story is important throughout the whole series. Again, one of my favourite series)

Magnus Chase and the Ship of Dead - Rick Riordan (I don‘t want to spoil here but it‘s good, genderfluid representation since book two, more in this final book)

Ice crypt - Tiana Warner (sequel of the Ice Massacre, wlw romance between mermaid and human girl, who knew each other since childhood, there is third final book, Ice Kingdom, already out, but I still haven‘t read it..)

Happy reading!

(tagging few people who i think might enjoy it ♥♥: @eradne, @poefinn, @twomillionfreckles, @eliotcoldwater, @queen-max, @tsukiyam-a)