#i just wish the show attracted a bunch of weird queer girls like me

[halfbakedhedonist]

Being an mlp fan is like some kind of cruel, cosmic punishment for me. A show with a predominantly female cast with diverse personalities set in an interesting fantasy matriarchy world. It's like it was made for me. And yet of all things this show attracts the worst men that have ever existed.

[nastymeowmeow]

I had a refreshing weekend. I'm glad I didn't allow myself to be alone. I was with company pretty much 90% of my weekend and I'm grateful that I have so many great friends.

After my power nap I played Magicite and almost beat the god damn game, but I wasn't equipped for it, and hung out with Jr. and Migel. Amber came to collect her cats and their things so I was able to finish cleaning up my living room and it feels like home again. I brought my desk out and some shelves and put all my DVD's and video games and books on display and I set up my gaming area and plugged in all my newer generation consoles and my VHS player.

Then I had a "Netflix and Shibari" night? An old friend came to hang out and we watched The Black Swan and he practiced rope knots on my wrist and around my legs and I just chilled out and watched the movie. Definitely not a typical night between friends, but I think it's cool that I can do things like this and it stays platonic and I don't have to worry about being pressured for sex.

I vented to him about my breakup and he told me about his super dope poly viking girlfriend with hair past her butt and her super awesome viking braids and how she's his boss. Like what?! That sounds awesome!

I don't know what I should do with all of her things. I don't want to throw them away. A small part of me still wishes she would reach out to me and talk to me about her feelings and try to reconnect but a big part of me knows that's not happening.

I don't want to weird her out by just bringing them to her apartment and leaving it in a bag on her doorknob. I'm not emotionally equipped to arrange a meeting with her. I'll just end up crying or getting heart broken all over again seeing how attractive she looks and wanting to kiss her. I don't want to just show up at her work and beg someone to bring her things to her through the pharmacy window.

I think I might just put them in a bag and leave it in the garage until I've completely given up on her. Then I'll toss it. I found her broken fan that I promised I would fix for her while I was moving things from my closet to the living room. How the fuck am I finding so many reminders of her around my house? How? HOW?

Anyways. I think I'll do a digital clean up, too. I have all these pictures of her in my phone. Pictures of us together. Pictures and videos that I took for her. I have a whole document of every message we sent to each other on Facebook before I deactivated it. She said she wanted me to keep them for her so she would be able to look back on them. I doubt she wants that now. I was going to print them so she would have a little book of everything we've sent to each other.

Big sigh.

I also have so many files of drawings I made of her and a bunch of documents and templates for the Munchkin game I was designing based off of us and our lives and it was loaded with inside jokes we shared. We had so many that if a regular person were to join in on our conversation, they would be lost almost immediately.

That was one of my favorite things about our relationship was that we had such a deep rooted sense of humor and even though we were only together for a couple of months, we made every moment something memorable. That's so special.

Anyways. That's enough of me still being in love with the intangible manic pixie dream girl. Forever "the one who got away."

Ugg.

Today I'm designing NFT's and swag of poorly drawn cats with really cheesy cat puns. It's time for me to get back to making art and feeling good about myself. I'm a talented, funny, unique and queer oriental SNACK.

Let's go!

[entity9silvergen]

Mosaic (Disenchantment Fanfiction)

Summary: We are just mosaics of everyone we love and that mosaic shows everyone we love how beautiful they are. Bean doesn’t think she can love like everyone else but maybe that’s okay.

Fandom: Disenchantment 

Word Count: 2K

Characters: Bean

Relationships: Bean/ Mora, Mentioned Bean & Everyone, Mentioned Odval/ Sorcerio, Mentioned Zog/ Oona, Mentioned Zog/ Dagmar

Warnings: Internalized arophobia, first person pov, some self-deprecation, sex mention, drug mention, mention of interspecies relationships in fantasy setting 

Other Tags: F/F, Mentioned F/F QPR, Reflection/ Self-Reflection/ Internal Thoughts, No Dialogue, Queerplatonic, Aromantic Character, Aromantic Homosexual Character, Arospec Character, Queer Themes, Unreliable Narrarator, S3E6, Oneshot, AroWriMo 2021

Author’s Note: My friend sent me the line “I am a mosaic of everyone I’ve ever loved” about twenty minutes after I watched “Final Splash.” I’m working on the prompt for Week 2 of AroWriMo rn but I had to drop everything and write a short fic about this. Again, I didn’t really use the prompt but it kind of fits with week 1’s prompt romo/loveless & future. 

I’m headcanonnoning Bean as aro or demiro/ greyro. I think in the show it was implied she never experienced romantic attraction prior to meeting Mora because she likes women and I don’t want to erase that in any way but Bean still gives off a big aromantic bisexual homo(queer)platonic vibe.

_____________________

My name is Princess Tiabeanie of Dreamland and I’ve never loved anyone.

I mean, I love my dad and my friends and all that but I’ve never loved loved anyone. Is that weird to say? That makes it sound like I don’t really love my dad and Elfo and Luci and everyone. I probably shouldn’t say that then because I actually love them a lot. They’re my everything. 

One time, I was walking down Elf-Ally and this elf was sitting on the side of the road with some chalk. I feel like elves would really like chalk but I’ve never seen any of them use it, not even Arto, except this guy. I’d never seen anything like it before so I asked what he was doing and he said he was making this mosaic to show his love for this other elf he liked. I didn’t really understand it so he explained it to me like this: we are just mosaics of everyone we love and that mosaic shows everyone we love how beautiful they are.

I still didn’t get it so I just laughed at him and he got kind of upset and threw a piece of chalk at me. It didn’t really hurt but Luci was with me and the elf started throwing stuff at him and you know how Luci gets when he hits his nose so we left. I couldn’t really forget what that elf said though. 

You see, a mosaic is a mix of a bunch of little pieces taken from different things that all come together to make one thing. There’s this mosaic at the church and it’s pretty freaking ugly but the mosaic this elf was making was just so beautiful. He used so many colors and he drew all these little pictures and hid these words I didn’t understand in them. I’d expect it to be all crude and gross like those scribbly pictures Derek would draw when he was younger that Oona pretended to love but it all came together so well. It didn’t even look like separate pieces. It was just one.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The influences of countless parts of my life, weaving together into an insanely complex mesh- That felt like me. I always felt like something was broken in me but maybe I’m just a mosaic. 

I think my dad made me who I am the most. Even if he wasn’t really present most of my life. Sure, we don’t see eye to eye sometimes but I think we’re better because of that. He made me strong. His actions guided me into becoming the woman I am today. He taught me how to keep fighting. Literally and figuratively. He taught me to keep my head up and he taught me how to stab people. It’s pretty cool. I remember this one time as a kid he took me out to the courtyard, stole this guy’s knife, and taught me how to use it. I think I still have the knife actually. I don’t stab people with it anymore though.

(I hope he’s okay. He hasn’t been the same in awhile.)

My mom… Well, I don’t really love her anymore but I did for a long time. She was… How do I put it? A constant in my life. Even though she wasn’t there. What I felt towards her, it kept me together for a long time. When I had nothing to fall back on, I always had her memory. Until she tried to take over Dreamland, obviously. Now I just say she gave me my love for alcohol and that’s pretty sweet too. 

(I still miss her. I bet she’s dead.)

You know those pictures where the guy has an angel and demon on his shoulders telling him what to do? That’s Elfo and Luci, and it’s literal for Luci. And maybe for Elfo? He did go to heaven that one time. It can be kind of annoying to hear them bickering all the time, especially since they almost never want the same thing, but I wouldn’t trade them for anything. Elfo keeps me safe and Luci pushes me to be more than I am. They make life fun. Fuller. Less lonely.

(I’m scared they might leave someday. I wouldn’t blame them.)

I don’t really like Derek but I still love him. Maybe a little less since he tried to burn me at the stake. Maybe a little more since he chickened out at the last second. And a little less because he still went through with it. And maybe a little more since it was an accident. We have a complicated relationship but he’s still my little brother, as weird as he is. He reminds me of what I have to fight for, if that makes sense. I don’t really see him as the future of Dreamland or anything but he’s still a little kid and I can’t really help but have a soft spot for him. Don’t tell him I said that.

(I wonder if he’ll keep me around when he’s king. I’d be lying if I said I was surprised.)

The same goes for Oona. I never liked her but I think I love her. Especially after she tried to save me from my mom. And since she became an epic pirate. She’s awesome. She’s the mom I always wished I had except she was actually there the whole time and I didn’t realize it. I’m happy with how things turned out though. I don’t regret it. Plus she’s got great taste in drugs. I still steal them sometimes.

(I don’t know if she loves me. Maybe she did once but not anymore.)

I kind of hate Odval and Sorcerio in a weird way where I like them at the same time. They’re not really family but always been there. Like they’re kind of like second dads to me. Second dads whose the sex lives I know way too much about. My gay polyamorous uncles? But they kind of care under all that court properness and tradition nonsense so they’ve kind of wormed their way into my heart. They’ve always made my life difficult but I don’t think I would be myself if I wasn’t challenged so much.

(I think they’d rather have me gone. They don’t hide it every well but I can pretend.)

I’m going to be honest, I was really bummed when Pendergast died. We were kind of the same age and he hung around the castle for most of my life. And my dad trusted him so we actually did stuff together sometimes. A lot of adventures that never really went anywhere. He could be kind of a stick in the mud but he never really minded that I’m a girl and let me tag along on crusades and helped me get better with weapons and stuff. And Pendergast was weirdly loyal to Dreamland, even after Dad forked his eye out. Or was it spooned? I don’t remember. Some kind of eating utensil. I wasn’t there when it happened. But it was nice knowing I could trust him. He could be kind of fun though when he was off-duty. Total lightweight though. He threw up on one of those little guys who carries dad’s cape once. 

(I wish I’d known him better. I really miss him but I can’t tell anyone since Dad gets set off by anything that even reminds him of the guy.)

Who else is there? That’s right, Mertz and Turbish. Turbish and Mertz. Two peas in a pod. Plus Mrs. Mertz. Don’t get me wrong, they are idiots. Totally incompentant. It’s a wonder they’re still alive. But they’re sweet. And they try. They’re not good at anything but they try. Sometimes I don’t want to try but they tell me I always can.

(I’m waiting for the day they realize they could have a better life. It’ll be weird not having them around the palace.)

I even kind of like Merkimer. As a pig, not a human. God, he was an awful human but he’s a funny little pig. He lets Luci ride on his back sometimes. Both of them like it way more than either of them will ever admit. It’s cute. I think they’re friends. If they’re not, Elfo and I will start plotting until they are. Or maybe not. A Luci-Merkimer friendship might be too much for Dreamland to handle. They’re kind of a lot, even on their own. Merkimer always kind of had a big head and it only got bigger when he accepted his new life. It’s actually kind of inspiring how happy he is now. 

(I don’t want him to change but he already has. It makes me sad sometimes.)

And Bunty. Oh, Bunty. And Stan! The world doesn’t really deserve Bunty. Stan does though. I think they’re the ones who taught me what real love is. Bunty always showed me love as a kid, she was like the second mom I never had but actually did have because Oona was there. But she gave me something neither Oona or Dagmar could. I didn’t really understand it until I saw her and Stan and their family together. I still don’t. They’re really sweet.

(I’d give them everything. I know they just see me as some spoiled princess though.)

I want what those two have. Or what Odval and Sorcerio have. What my dad had with Dagmar or Oona. What Elfo’s had, and Luci’s had, and Derek’s had, and the knights have had. It feels like everyone’s had that kind of deep love at some point except me. I didn’t even realize until I was talking to Mora. 

I’ve had the chance to have it. Merkimer, that brother of his I accidentally killed, that one time Pendergast made a pass at me, that Steamland guy… I don’t think any of it really would’ve worked out though. I’ve had a lot of things with guys and there’s been kissing and touching and I’ve always enjoyed it but I think I always knew it would never go anywhere. That it will never go anywhere. And I can’t even blame my dad because it’s all me. It’s always been me. And I’m okay with that? Maybe? I don’t think so but I’m not really good at understanding my feelings. It’s just another thing on the pile of things I won’t work through.

I think I understood what I had with Mora though. It wasn’t… romantic but it felt like it almost was. We just… clicked. It felt right. She was tough and funny and she didn’t hold anything back. She followed her dreams and didn’t let the world get her down. That one night we had together, I felt like we were alone in the world.

Mora gave me the ocean and the stars.

She was beautiful. Maybe that’s what was missing? None of the guys I ever screwed around with were beautiful. Not like Mora was. Not like a woman can be. I really felt like this was it but there was still that disconnect. Like something was there but not quite. Like something was missing. I don’t know what it was.

But then she just left. I had that dream and I just felt so happy. I’d never felt happiness like that. And I never felt pain like the pain I felt when I woke up and the necklace was gone. I definitely would’ve cried if Elfo wasn’t there. I might’ve actually cried a little bit. It’s kind of hard to hear anything when Elfo’s sobbing. Some of those tears might have been mine.

Did I love her? I don’t think so. Not like Elfo loved that boat. It wasn’t romantic. But it was real. It gives me hope. I don’t think I’m capable of the same kind of love everyone else seems capable of and that’s not even a slight at me. It’s just reality. But what I had with Mora, however brief and imagined it was, tells me that’s okay. I don’t need the kind of love everyone else has. Not when I have so many others in my life.

Still, I hope I see her again, even for a second, just to feel that kind of happiness again.

I think that’s what that elf meant when he said we are just mosaics of everyone we love and that mosaic shows everyone we love how beautiful they are. Mora was beautiful and she didn’t see it but maybe she would if she saw how I looked at her. 

Stars and the ocean, I’ll never forget them. They’ll be a part of my mosaic forever.

Other AroWriMo Fics By Me, Posted on Ao3, Posted on FFN

[13eyond13]

Ok this is a very stupid question but I've been thinking if L was originally going to be Mello and Near's fathere wouldn't that make him canonly like girls?

Well if outright asked about it I’m sure Ohba would say all the characters in DN are cishet, because that’s the kind of writer Ohba is, he probably only puts explicitly LGBT+ characters in either as a derogatory joke or as porny fan-service / a bad predatory stereotype (like that one lesbian character in his later manga series, Platinum End). It’s simply not a subject that’s brought up at all for most of the characters in Death Note, so from a text standpoint it’s very open to interpretation for the audience. And people don’t usually base their headcanons for characters’ sexualities and such purely on authorial intent in fandom anyway, right? Sometimes as an LGBT+ person you might really relate to a character and feel like they probably have a similar identity to you so you personally interpret them that way, or sometimes you just think they’d be nice in a ship with another character of the same gender they have chemistry and a good story and/or good aesthetics with, stuff like that.

Personally I tend to just kinda get a vibe from the DN characters and how they behave and interact and go from there for how I see them and what they might like. I base it mostly on if it would seem legit to me in a shippy fic or something, and not really out-of-character in some way. I think L gives major bi vibes, so that’s how I headcanon him myself. He could very much like girls AND guys. And I think most of the fandom also tends to headcanon him this way, from what I’ve seen around.

Also, I don’t think it’s odd on behalf of fans to see things like the dynamic between L and Light as them potentially feeling some attraction or emotional attachment to each other, because even Ohba pointed out the suggestive aspect of L and Light handcuffing themselves together, for example. And most official adaptations and spin-offs of the manga have almost always pushed this aspect of it and highlighted it even more, showing that it’s easy to interpret things that way and that the ambiguous tension between them is also just one of the main emotionally compelling aspects of the story. Take the rain scene that was added into the anime, for example. There are obviously many different ways to interpret that scene, and L’s voice actor for the English dub Alessandro Juliani claimed he saw them as having an unspoken affinity for each other throughout the entire plot. You can really tell by how he delivers his lines to Light in that scene, haha, it’s pretty hard not to pick up some suggestive vibes between them.

Anyway, not to ramble a bunch about this, at the end of the day I think people should view the characters and interpret things however they want! The stuff I DO get worked up about is if TV shows deliberately queer-bait or put a lot of subtext in and then act like it’s weird or demanding when queer people therefore see themselves in the characters or get disappointed, having wished for something more than a condescending tease or being treated like their identity should just be a dirty secret or a winky joke or a hopeless dream. As someone who is gay and who grew up with a lot of internalized homophobia to work through I am personally very tired of that. Or when people act like you should always rigidly adhere to an author’s intentions no matter what, even when they never put such things in the text at all. Those kind of things.

[estelofimladris]

Queerness and Death in The Magicians by SE Fleenor (The Removed Syfy Article)

[ NOTE: This article is being reposted in its entirety because it was removed by the Syfy website where it was originally posted. I (estelofimladris) did not write it, but still had it open after its removal. Please read and enjoy - send the writer, S.E. Fleenor, some love if you can. ]

by S.E. Fleenor

SPOILERS FOR THE MAGICIANS SEASON 4 FINALE!

By now you already know that The Magicians’ Quentin Coldwater died in the Season 4 finale. Yes, D-E-D, dead. There’s no resurrection in the works and no trick of astral projection or Niffin state of higher being can bring sweet, depressed, narcissistic Quentin back.

The decision to kill off a major character — the major character, if the Lev Grossman novels still mean anything (they don’t) — is almost always controversial. But we live in the day and age of Game of Thronesand The Walking Dead and Thanos snapping half of the Avengers (and the universe) into nothingness. Any character could die at any moment (and sometimes all of the characters could die at any moment) and that’s the brave, new, kill-happy world our media is made in.

So, why does it matter that Quentin is dead?

Well, my friends, let’s revisit a little trope we like to call Bury Your Gays. Throughout media representations of queer folks, reaching back to 19th-century Victorian novels, the formula has been about the same: An LGBTQ+ character is introduced, they reveal their sexuality or an attraction to a specific person, and then they die, die, die, often horrifically. This trope is also called Dead Lesbian Syndrome due to the overwhelming number of queer women who have been slaughtered onscreen — not exactly the representation queer women have been begging for.

Back when archaic censorship laws ruled the page and the screen, writing about queer characters was taboo and the only way queer writers, or folks who wanted to create queer characters, could include LGBTQ+ characters was by portraying them unfavorably. Queer characters could exist, but only as a warning of what a “perverted” life would bring you. So, in order to get some kind of representation, LGBTQ+ characters had to suffer.

Sounds a little rough, huh? Like who would really bury their gays? Oh, just Buffy the Vampire Slayer, True Blood, The 100, The Walking Dead, The Expanse, Jessica Jones, Xena, Smallville, Battlestar Galactica, Hex, Torchwood, Hemlock Grove, Teen Wolf, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Dracula, The Vampire Diaries, Arrow, Salem, American Horror Story, Ascension, Lost Girl, Scream, The Shannara Chronicles, The Exorcist, Van Helsing, Doctor Who, Gotham, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Purge, and last but not least (and not for the first time): The Magicians.

Let it be noted that I have only included science fiction, fantasy, and horror TV shows on this list and only those that I know about. The list is much, much longer when you include non-genre TV shows and film. (Autostraddle has a very complete list of queer women on TV who have been killed off, for those of you who feel like being sad.)

Oh, did you recognize a bunch of queer-friendly shows in that list? Does that somehow feel like a violation of the promise made when a series goes out of its damn way to present itself as queer and feminist?

EXACTLY. And, that, my sweet babies, is why people are pissed about the death of Quentin Coldwater, generally speaking. We’re sick of seeing queer characters die over and over again. But, what specifically about the death of Quentin is so frustrating? I’m so glad you asked.

Full disclosure: I'm not going to get into the creators' rationale for killing off Quentin. I've read all the interviews with the creators and with Jason Ralph, who plays Quentin, and they all read like a whole lot of familiar BS. (At least Hale Appelman, who plays Eliot, gets it.)

In the first season of The Magicians, Quentin, Eliot, and Margot have a threesome. It’s the first time Quentin has sex with a man, as far as we know, and it’s the first time we see him start to confront his queerness. In Season 3’s “A Life in the Day,” Quentin and Eliot end up in a different Fillory, from before they were born, where they must solve an unsolvable puzzle. As they spend a lifetime working on the mosaic, they fall in love, raise a child, and make their queer family work. Upon returning to the main timeline, barely a word is spoken about their encounter, and queer folks everywhere braced ourselves for that experience to be treated as an anomaly from another timeline. (Another weird queer trope where characters get to be LGBTQ+, but only elsewhere or else when or, or, or…)

Season 4 brought unexpected twists and turns, such as Eliot being trapped inside his own mind by the Monster. With that, many a fan prepared to let Queliot rest. And, then “Escape from the Happy Place,” took us into Eliot’s mind and — after exploring a lot of deep trauma that has a particularly queer flavor to it — back to the day Eliot and Quentin came back from their lifetime in Fillory. As they sit on the steps of the throne room, Memory Quentin and Memory Eliot talk about what happened between them. Memory Quentin asks Memory Eliot why they shouldn’t try to be together, saying “Who gets proof of concept like that?”

Eliot kisses Memory Quentin hard on the mouth and then walks through the door that will allow him to take control of his body for a moment. In the real world, face to face with Quentin, Eliot gets a signal out that he’s still alive. He looks at Quentin and repeats the question Quentin had asked him, following it with, “Peaches and plums, motherf*cker.” When he realizes who he’s looking at, Quentin hesitates, a look of surprise and longing washing over his face.

This deeply emotional and compelling storyline appeared at the same time that Quentin finally officially rebuffed Alice’s advances, telling her he no longer wanted to be together, that he could never see her the same way again.

Then, after all that work, after all the maturation the characters undergo, the series undoes everything, shoehorning in a last-minute declaration of love between Quentin and Alice and killing off Quentin when he uses magic in the Mirror Realm, without ever seeing Eliot again. Quentin then goes to the Underworld branch of the library and meets with Penny 40 while reminiscing over his life and pondering over whether or not he died by suicide. (The treatment of suicide in the episode is problematic and deeply offensive.)

There are probably as many critiques of this ending as there are people who watched it, but I’m going to focus on the main issues that stood out to me.

The series has gone out of its way to confirm Quentin as queer and tease the possibility of a queer love story.

Queer viewers are used to surviving off subtext and tend to be fairly generous in what we’ll accept. Seriously, many a queer considers Thor: Ragnarok to be part of the queer canon when it’s not even implied onscreen that anyone is queer, and have you seen people shipping Carol and Maria in Captain Marvel? Maybe it’s because we’re used to being served scraps that the Bury Your Gays trope feels so pointed. Oh, you’re not happy with the almosts and the could-haves and the alternate timelines of queerness? Well, then we’ll make your characters queer and just murder ‘em right up.

After Season 3, The Magicians could have never acknowledged the relationship between Quentin and Eliot that takes place in another timeline or they could have shrugged and been like, “Must have been the opium in the air!” They’d already done as much with the threesome in Season 1 and all but ignoring Quentin's queerness in the episodes that follow. The series didn’t have to confirm that Quentin wanted to follow his attraction to Eliot and give being together a try. But, The Magiciansdid. The series took the time onscreen to show Eliot and Quentin kissing again, to show Eliot declaring his love for Quentin in their own code, and to show Quentin dedicate his time to helping Eliot get free.

Furthermore, how messed up is it that the series spends a significant amount of time dredging up the trauma of Eliot’s queer youth only to make him realize his biggest regret is how he treated Quentin, just for Quentin to be forced back into the closet? An episode that was deeply evocative and affirming of queerness smacks of voyeurism when taken in the context of the finale.

At the last minute, after confirming his queerness, the series forces a relationship between Quentin and Alice.

It’s hard not to see the last ditch shoving of Quentin and Alice together as an attempt to shove Quentin himself back in the closet. Season 4 shows Quentin rejecting and wanting to be apart from Alice, only for him to decide that he loves her and wants to give their relationship another try because? Honestly, I’m not sure what rationale he uses because it MAKES NO SENSE. And, what the hell does he think of imprisoned-in-his-own-body Eliot while making this decision? To judge from the series, not a whole hell of a lot.

It’s totally cool if queer or bisexual characters date people of different genders — that’s not the issue. The issue is that without a moment of hesitation, Quentin whiplashes from his lover who he knows is trapped by the Monster and cannot see, hear, or reach him to his ex-girlfriend who he has distanced himself from due to her selfish behavior.

In the context of his death, I like to call this particularly messed up turn of events “Bury Your Gays and Stomp On Their Graves” because all the work that had been done to show Quentin’s coming to terms with his own sexuality is undone shortly before he dies.

There are other ways to write a character off a series.

A lot of people fall back on bad faith arguments like: what is a show supposed to do when an actor no longer wishes to appear in the series?

The answer, of course, is: ANYTHING ELSE. They could have done literally anything else to write Quentin out of the show and release Jason Ralph from his commitment. The Magicians takes place in a world WHERE MAGIC EXISTS, where characters leave the main story to go on their own adventures, and where average human beings can become gods. There’s no excuse for falling into lazy storytelling and reifying a trope that has been well-documented and mourned for a long time.

In the novels, Quentin gets kicked out of Fillory and decides to use his discipline, minor mendings, to build a new world for himself and Alice. He essentially walks through a door and never comes back. THAT WOULD HAVE WORKED and it wouldn’t do the work of retraumatizing queer audiences.

It comes down to this: To ignore the wider implications of making a character specifically queer, having him return to his prior unhealthy relationship with a woman, and then killing him off is a disservice to queer people everywhere. It is, at once, a declaration of the meaninglessness of the queer experience and an unforgivable reminder of the expendability of queer lives.

Series like The Magicians (and before it, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) trade on their reputations as queer and feminist shows. We watch them for their powerful women and their kickass queer characters and their storylines that affirm the power of survival. And what do they give us in return? They bury their gays.

Does that mean that all LGBTQ+ characters should be immortal? The rational response would be: of course not. Up until today I may have agreed with that argument, but right now I’m feeling a little less generous. It’s 20-f*cking-19 and there is no excuse for Bury Your Gays to pop up in a progressive TV show. Maybe until series and creators who make their money off queer characters and queer fandom take responsibility for how they use the lives and bodies of queer people, maybe until then, all LGBTQ+ characters should be immortal.

I’m pretty damn sick of watching every character who loves like me, who looks like me, who explores the bounds of their sexuality like me, die. I’m sick of watching characters bust down the doors of the closets that held them back only to have their queerness erased or elided through their deaths. I’m sick of watching relationships between men and women blossom onscreen only to see queer relationships torn apart by death.

Queer people deserve happy endings. We deserve them in real life and we deserve to see them onscreen and we deserve them now.

Until that’s the norm, you better damn well consider any queer character you create immortal. Because if you don’t, we queers will f*cking haunt your basic ass.

[ncfan-1]

Gotham 4X13, ‘A Beautiful Darkness’

Star Wars: Rebels came to a close this Monday. I am still very, very dead, but I rose temporarily from the grave to give you all this. You’re welcome. This is Gotham.

- We open on Ivy and Selina going up to somebody’s house and Ivy drugging a woman—and a bunch of other people—into doing everything she says. Ivy turns a man into a plant for the heinous crime of… being a biologist, I assume. Selina is justifiably freaked out. His poor wife has to stand still, I think tears, as she forced to watch.

- We have an instance of Jim Gordon forgetting exactly who holds his leash.

- Lucius tries to get a hold of Bruce.

- Selina is still freaked out. Seems someone remembered her characterization. Selina freaks out and walks out. Ivy’s hurt, but doesn’t get the message.

- Bruce wakes up, presumably hungover, to find Ivy. He is a bit more polite in a private setting. Ivy kisses him and it is the squickiest thing ever. I’m sure the show will top itself in about five minutes or so.

- Cut to Arkham, and Oswald. Why is he in Arkham, anyways? Wouldn’t they send him to Blackgate?

- Oswald catches Jerome’s eye. This is surely going to end badly for Oswald.

- I don’t like this version of the Joker (Let’s be real, that is who he is). And we’ve established that there was six weeks between 4A and 4B.

- And we’ve also established that Arkham does shock therapy for everybody, not just Jonathan. And likely not practiced in a legitimate manner.

- Peyton List is very good at playing Ivy, and part of that is she is damn creepy.

- She nicks Bruce a little on the neck. I’m assuming the ensuing hallucinations will be where some of the weirder promo images for this episode came from.

- It’s Alexander Siddig!

- Granted, I would have liked to see him in the flesh, but this is good, too!

- I’ll admit I have a soft spot for weird, trippy visions that have fucking creepy visuals. So this is fun. Literally faceless Bruce is fun. (I’m weird, I know.)

- Sofia reminds Jim who holds his leash. Please let him get his comeuppance soon.

- Another repulsive Arkham scene. Someone’s forgotten Oswald’s characterization. I’m pretty sure S1 Oswald would have pulled a shiv out from under his shirt and stabbed someone by this point.

- Jerome is, like most other versions of the Joker, kinda boring.

- I’m pretty sure S1 Oswald would have determinedly stood still while they beat his legs.

- And of course the guards don’t care that one of the patients is being beaten in the cafeteria.

- Yay, Jim being a fucking thug.

- The scene with Ivy and Lucius is more uncomfortable than I could have ever imagined. Can we please go back to Bruce’s trippy death spiral?

- Oh, it’s hallucinatory costume party time.

- Jim and Barbara are still together in the hallucination.

- Normal!Bruce vs. Drunk!Bruce. To be honest, I wanted for Bruce to have his reality check through something more meaningful. Much more meaningful.

- The police station all completely enamored of Ivy is the perfect intersection of creepy and hilarious.

- Ed has come to Arkham to gloat. He even admits he’s there to gloat. Why do people like him again?

- Oswald. Oswald. The man dug up your dead dad to use his corpse as a weapon against you. Why the everloving fuck would you still find him attractive.

- Jim Gordon wouldn’t know how to apologize if his life depended on it.

- Jim pulls his fire extinguisher trick again.

- Something to note is that Ivy makes her little love-slaves adore her in very teenagery ways. They all talk about how she’s so incredible, how she’s the coolest. Another nod to the fact that Ivy is still a teenage girl. I know they’re just scraps, but it’s still something.

- Why does the interior of Arkham look so different than it did at the start of the season? They’re reset the lighting to be what it was the last time Oswald was incarcerated here but it just looks… Why is it so different?

- How the hell is Jerome pulling all of this off? Did he depose horrible Warden Reed or something?

- Oswald does mime to save his own life? Jerome is not impressed. But thankfully, he only mimes stabbing him with a stick, and actually plays along with the miming.

- I wonder where Jervis is. Do they keep him in solitary so he doesn’t hypnotize everyone?

- Jerome does have a good laugh, though.

- Alfred is just as unpleasant in a hallucination as he is in real life.

- And now we get to see Wayne Enterprise’s secret project, Project M. Turns out they took some water from the Lazarus Pit. Which Ivy promptly steals.

- Hallucination!Alfred is to bring Bruce to hallucination!proto-Batman. Okay, I really wish the way they chose to get Bruce back on track could have been more meaningful than this.

- Ivy reminds Jim that he murdered her dad. He completely sidesteps the fact that he murdered her dad and asks her why she looks so different. Because he’s completely incapable of feeling anything resembling guilt. Guilt is for people who aren’t Jim Gordon.

- Bruce is understandably a little shell-shocked.

- Jim is a little more honest with Bruce than he is with other people, and a little sweeter than he is with other people, but his admission that he has darkness in him is meaningless, and his reaching out to Bruce to tell him he cares for him is hollow when you think of all the other people he isn’t willing to expend that kind of effort on.

- Sofia really reminds Jim who’s holding his leash. Right before greeting Lee.

- Jerome visits Oswald in his cell and invites himself onto Oswald’s bed. Not like that. But he does act a little like that, and I’d like it a lot better if the only queer subtext in this show wasn’t so damn predatory.

- And Oswald is relying on Ed to spring him out of prison. Oswald, you can do so much better than Ed; get over him!

- We close with Ivy mixing her blood with the Lazarus water, only to produce a flower with… extremely lethal pollen.

- Peyton List does a good job with this role, but the writers seem to have confused “creepiness” with “character.”

- In the promo for next week, we have Bruce asking Alfred for help, only to be rebuffed with a “No, not after what you’ve done.” Alfred was such a piss-poor guardian that I’m honestly much more on Bruce’s side than his (And if Bruce actually had had arrested for child abuse, he honestly would have had it coming). This episode had some moments when it was fun in a campy kind of way, but I suspect next episode is gonna make me rage.

[awed-frog]

Hi! I realized something the other day (I'm really slow wth) My parents have the same age as Dean, lit (I know weird but wathever) and my mum is homophobic (I'm bi, sad story lol) and she watches the show with me. The thing is that I annoy her with Destiel and she gets really angry (at some point she started disliking Cas, imagine that) and she looks for back up in my aunt for example, peolple her age. But me? My friends know that I'm bi, one confessed she thought she was too 1/2

2/2 and one of my bf ships Destiel really hard too. And it made realize of just how difficult it must be for Dean to “came out of the closet” if he is bi (I’m sure he is but till it becomes canon…) I mean, it’s not easy for me, it’s not easy right now for a lot of people but I’m positive that it’s better than before. Dean and people his age had it worse I think and it opened my mind to how much he must have struggled, how possible it was that Jhon could have hit him for that, oh too long 2/3

3/3 Bc before realizing this? I was like “Jhon beating hip up for this? no way. Maybe if he caught Dean while drunk and half out of his mind, but sober and knowing exactly what he’s doing?” And i must sound really stupid sorry, bc now it happens this too but it’s just WOW poor Dean, I wanna hug him. Also Charlie is a champion, and those married hunter couple 😢 Why do people do this (Also, if you have more idea of how it used to be, could u tell me? Correct me if I’m wrong?) bye ❤

Hey there! Sorry you’re having some trouble with your mom, here’s to hoping she’ll grown more accepting with time!

(But even if she doesn’t, remember that has nothing to do with you - she can choose whether to be tolerant and kind, while you can’t choose whether to be bi or not, so the ball is in her camp.)

As for Dean - yeah, he’s more or less my age, but he moves in a background that’s vastly different from mine - I’m sure other people (maybe @bert-and-ernie-are-gay or @mittensmorgul or @thejabberwock?) could tell you what it was like to grow up in the States around that time, and how queer people were perceived. All I can tell you is that in my corner of the world, being gay was something people expected you to keep quiet about - in my school, only one kid was out, and five other had that kind of ‘we all know but they never said anything so we pretend we don’t know and maybe we’re wrong’ status, and I know life had its ups and downs for them. Some people were really antagonistic (it was mostly boy on boy banter that was the problem, and I know that the worst time for gay kids was P.E., because here everyone is expected to shower together, so a vague ‘Tom looks sorta gay, haha’ can quickly turn into a ‘Hey why is that f*ggot staring at me now I’m naked’ and then all bets are off), and most people didn’t really care one way or the other, but still - the trouble is, you grow up in a culture where you don’t really have positive representation of any kind - gay people were either men dressing up and wearing feathers in funny movies or hospital patients dying of AIDS in sad movies - even for someone like me, who grew up in a weird household and read all kind of books, it was difficult to imagine a gay person being - a normal person, you know what I mean? Someone who’d have a relationship one day, and a house and a whatever job and would fight over whose turn it was to wash the dishes. And for kids with conservative parents, things were often much harsher, as I wrote here. Plus, even in the 1990s, AIDS was a big concern for most of us, gay or straight, so that was a problem as well - the illness was no longer perceived as a ‘gay’ illness (which it never was, by the way), but the fact we were bombarded with messages about the importance of condoms and safe sex, even as kids, played a role in our general understanding of sexuality (our own and other people’s).

For me, personally, the consequence of this climate of silence and diffidence in how we approached the matter meant that I considered my crushes on girls to be ‘just a phase’, or something like ‘I want to be like her’ rather than ‘I want to be with her’; whether this prevented me from seeking out romantic connections with women, we’ll never know, but since I’m insanely happy with the relationship I have now and am deeply in love with the man who shares my life, it’s not really a problem for me. That said, yeah, it doesn’t really surprise me to see that the more openly we discuss the subject and the more we respect what we feel, the fewer people identify as straight - in the UK, 49% of young people are not straight, and to me that’s a figure that makes perfect sense. We generally fall in love with souls, not bodies, so the more open-minded we are about such things, the more our potential to form relationships with anyone broadens. And, of course, as we’re heading into an age where AI will be a thing, it’s likely our understanding of what a suitable partner is will change a lot over the next few decades.

As for Dean Winchester - as I said, I’m not an expert, but this is a guy who grew up in a very different - and often hostile - environment. Unfortunately, the US is still a country where members of the LGBT community face significant risks - risks teen!Dean would be very familiar with, since half his job as a hunter-in-training was going through the newspapers looking for cases. For instance, in 1993, when Dean was fourteen, there was the murder of Brandon Teena, and the year before, Allen Schindler was killed - since he was a soldier on duty, it’s likely John would have discussed that sooner or later, and the wider ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ issue. And, I don’t know - I don’t see John as homophobic, exactly, but still - he would have considered his kids’ legitimate wish to form a relationship with someone an annoyance at best (I wonder if Sam or Dean ever sulked when they had to move because they’d lose touch with a crush or a girlfriend, for instance - they must have, right?) and an irrational luxury at worst (a partner can distract you or get targeted by enemies, as John knew from experience), and as for Dean being bi - objectively, men are more dangerous than women, and there is a significant risk a predator will pretend to be gay to trap you and hurt you, so I’m thinking this is the reason John would have objected to Dean’s choices, if nothing else. Furthermore, we’ve seen how conservative the hunter community is (or used to be) - I think John would have agreed with the adults I met growing up - would have said that okay, whatever - if Dean wanted to have fun with a man, who could stop him, right, but he’d better be careful and he’d better be private about it and ‘Jesus, let’s hope the kid doesn’t like it up the ass’ because, whatever, people have been having trouble with this particular thing for the past three thousand years and that’s not likely to change any time soon. So, yeah - I think there’s a good chance Dean took a long time to even understand he was attracted to men as well, and there’s a possibility that his acceptance and understanding of himself was muddled by the fact he was abused at some point, and turned tricks later in life - personally, my headcanon is that his experimenting years happened during the Stanford era, when he was mostly alone, and since then he’s not really thought about the whole thing a whole lot - partly because he’s always with Sam (and Sam can be very judgemental), and mostly because Dean’s got zero time for any of that stuff, and a lifespan to match - we know he thinks he shouldn’t have any relationships at all, for a bunch of reasons, and that honestly breaks my heart. 

Poor guy. I really, really hope he’ll get his happy ending - God knows he deserves it.

[regrettablewritings]

Writer’s Tag

Rules: Answer all 21 questions, let the one who tagged you know you answered and then tag your writing pals!

I was tagged by:  @locke-writes. What beast hath you released upon these fields?

The Works:

1. Which is the imagine you’re most proud of?

Hmmm...Not a whole lot because it takes me a while to actually be content with the things I’ve written. At this point, however, I’m most pleased with Stripulation because it was my first Barba fic and done while also writing a long-ass essay on Titus Andronicus. Plus, I managed to speak to @ohbelieveyoume in the first place because I bombarded her with my thoughts on how Barba’s secret could’ve been that he was a stripper. I also think that how it was written sets the tone for my general style of writing: Dramatic, humorous, and just plain weird in some cases. HC set-wise, definitely the Kidnapped HCs. I’m rather proud of how they turned out almost like a regular, paragraphical story and I finally got to use some of the angst I disturbingly like to read about when reading rescue stories. ...Ignore that.  Plus, that sucker is 9 pages in Word!

2. Which is your least favourite?

Blargh, what isn’t my least favorite? . . . Okay but yeah, I’ve honestly never been too fond of The One Reason to Love the Glasshouse. I wrote it right before I blew a mental gasket and couldn’t be pleased with anything I wrote, and I think it shows. The writing feels so lifeless and boring . . . HC set-wise, the NSFW Digger Harkness piece, which is a shame because I love Capt. Boomerang. I think I was just in an off headspace at the time of writing it and also wasn’t sure what to do when it came to writing Digger’s accent.

3. If you were to recommend one to read to your mum/mom?

My mom knows I have a blog where I write, but I could never tell her who or what i wrote about. Besides, she’s wicked good at editing and would spot every single mistake I’ve made and I can barely handle the feeling of a classmate reading over my mistakes, much less my own mother. But if I had to -- gun to my head -- it’d probably be How to Be a Good Catholic. She herself is Catholic and would likely widen her eyes at the crap I wrote ( “We don’t do that anymore, crazy girl!!”). I would, of course, be hiding as she reads it.

4. Which one would you consider re-writing?

God, so many if I actually had the drive. I particularly am not entirely fond of how I ended The Hairy Situation; I know I wanted to go a different route with it, but I can’t remember what I initially had planned. I also probably should’ve divided up Day Bi Day: A Documented Study of the Bisexual because that bastard is way too long to hold general attention. I want to add more to the Dating Finn Would Include but may as well just make a second part to it when I had the time. Might rewrite or at least gussy up the NSFW Digger Harkness HCs though. I also wish I could rewrite the ending of  How to Be a Good Catholic. because I have a bad habit of never knowing how to finish a story until it’s already been posted and gained attention.

5. Biggest regret in an imagine?

Writing The One Reason to Love the Glasshouse. It was just so sloppy and I guess I just wanted to write it to force creativity out of me. It fell unceremoniously into a grotto in my opinion. Also, I wish I could remember how to write simpler. You can tell which imagines were from when I was first starting out because they’re shorter than my more recent stuff (with the exception of A Practice in Happy Memories). The reason why is because most of them were written on my phone

6. Biggest success with an imagine?

Writing Day Bi Day to play out somewhat like a documentary was a bit of a nightmare because documentaries are such an audible and visual thing, even with storytelling regarded. But I fucking did it (I think)! I’m also really proud with how the Kidnapping HCs came out, too. I was originally going to keep it short and simple and start with the reader already being kidnapped with very little interaction between Bruce and the kidnappers but it kept flowing out until I decided to give it a beginning, middle, and end

7. Your imagine with the most notes?

M’kay so it took some time (had to go through each one of these blasted things and record their note counts), but I’ve finally come back with the numbers. In terms of an actual imagine in typical fanfiction format, my most popular piece is . . . the Jonathan Byers Soulmate AU. I also looked at my headcanons as well! The most popular one for that format was . . . the . . . Dating Jonathan Byers Would Include. . . .  *sighs heavily and takes a swig from Dr. Pepper bottle* Y’know, I miss when Bruce was my money-maker. And I’m not ashamed to admit it.

8. Your imagine with the least notes?

. . . *skims through shit again* Uhhhh . . . HC-wise, I think my NSFW Digger?? I know there’s much lower but they belong to the basic HC memes. Traditional format-wise, The Hairy Situation.

9. What do you think makes a good imagine? Tips?

I. . . don’t really know. Honestly, I wing most of my stuff. The only thing I can say is write what you want to see with the notion that it’s not already there.

10. When’s the next update on your works?

Aside from the NSFW Frank Castle meme that’s been sitting in the cellar of my inbox since November, the only thing I got is the prize for my giveaway winner. Otherwise, unless somebody donates or whatever, I don’t plan on writing until I got my shit in order.

11. Number of followers before you started writing and after? I made this blog for the purpose of dumping my crap here instead of dumping it on others via their submissions box. So 0. At the time of this post, it’s 1,264. I don’t understand how it got this bad.

———————————————————————-

The Writer:

1. Which character do you love writing for?

The character who I keep winding up writing for is Barba. Since SVU left his personal life wide-fucking open (fucking assturds),there’s plenty to work with. I particularly seem to take sadistic joy in putting him in blush-worthy situations that force him to be more open with his significant other.

2. Which character do you dislike writing for?

There are, but I’ve never had to write for them to begin with.

3. What’s your favourite AU to write for?

Soulmate AUs are generally the only ones I’ve written for consistently.

4. What’s your least favourite AU to write for?

Haven’t written for any AUs other than a buncha soulmate AUs and one mobster AU.

5. What do you hope never gets requested?

Anything rape-y or morally disturbing.

6. What do you wish was requested more?

Hmmm... Well, I don’t really take requests until I’m doing memes to be honest. I can’t trust myself to handle actual requests for a bunch of reasons, though for some reason people only ever request things after I’ve finished asking them for their opinions on things to post.

7. Thoughts on writing Smut/POC/Curvy/MxM/FxF?

H’oh boy. So I’m gonna divide these up by least wordy to most:

1. FxF: I’m okay with it because my sexuality makes it easier for me to put on that mindset. 2. Smut: I can write headcanons, but not full-blown imagines. As a virgin who’s already got some weird situation going on with sex, I know I’m not capable of filling out two to three pages worth of intercourse of any kind. 3. POC: I’m most familiar with writing with a black reader in mind, given that I myself am black. I can try to write for other ethnicities, but admittedly will likely walk on eggshells about it. The thing is, you can’t always or even often write with a POC reader in mind and just leave it at that. While there may be some overlap in circumstances between some groups, each ethnicity has its own stereotypes and situations to confront and conquer in a given situation such as a relationship. Therefore, if I write with a non-black reader in mind, I would still need to ask a person from the group I’m intending to write about just to assure I do right by them. But still gonna be met with extreme hesitancy because that’s not an intersectionality I’m familiar with. 4. MxM: Okay so . . . I can’t do this. I was just explaining to a friend the other day and you can be disappointed in me all you want, but I can’t knowingly write MxM for a couple of reasons. I can try to write gender-neutral (if I remember to), but writing MxM is . . . Okay, just hear me out: I know it may seem like a copout, but I genuinely don’t feel comfortable writing for something I don’t quite understand. Now before you go yelling at me about how I don’t understand a lot of the shit I do write for, let me explain. I am not male. I have never been male. And at this point, I highly doubt I will ever identify as male. I cannot pull or properly fathom the experience of being a queer male, cis or trans. I cannot provide for it the depth I feel that it requires. I know that may seem like a lame excuse, but I mean it. I can write FxF a little better because my sexuality allows for me to comprehend attraction to another female and how it could potentially play out. I cannot draw inspiration or direction from reading MxM fics, either, because I don’t read them. It’s just not my bag. On top of this, a lot of MxM media, both fiction-wise and published story-wise, appear to be written by girls. And while many of them are skilled, I’m sure, my issue is that I can’t in confidence trust them to be entirely spot-on with their interpretations, either. Many interpretations of queer male relationships (at least in Western media) that females initially and even predominantly gain familiarity with come with roots in fethisization and an often occurring desire to see not two consenting males who are emotionally compatible come together, but instead a desire to see two of the most attractive (and often white/white-passing) males come together regardless of how healthy their relationship would realistically be or how much of a foundation it actually has to stand upon. I’m sorry if you’re disappointed, but I had to be honest. I don’t like lying. I just feel that it’s not my place to theorize the happenings of a real lifestyle that comes with struggles I would not and could not be familiar with or feel comfortable winging at. Just like with writing with a POC reader in mind, there are just some struggles that don’t blanket everybody no matter how much you wish it could because it’d just be simpler for you. Everything that isn’t cis, white, straight, and male (aka intersectional) has a struggle that not everyone is going to be able to comprehend with utmost perfection.

8. Which account is your biggest inspiration in writing?

Hmmm... I try to be dramatic and poetic like @ohbelieveyoume, or sensual like @xemopeachx, or nice and homey like @mrsrafaelbarba, or cute and with lovely references and diction like @jonedwardbernthal. I would like to be more broad with my fandoms like @locke-writes, too. Buuuttt . . . I guess what I got going for me now is a’ight. I pride myself off of using my weird sense of humor in my writing anyway.

9. How long have you been an imagine writer for?

One year.

10. Any upcoming secret works? 🤔

Ha! Nope. Just the two things whenever they get done and then that’ll be it unless something happens.

[theabsurdistcryptid]

Date with cute girl on Friday, we’re having drinks on her friend’s roof and then going to a queer bar in Brooklyn!! And then on Saturday I’m going out with this really attractive guy (serious daddy material) he’s going to smoke me out and then I’m going to his noise show!! And then on Sunday I’m meeting this really cute guy at a chocolate cafe in the afternoon. I love experiencing different kinds of people and different situations. Definitely not interested in a relationship with any of them but I just love getting to know people now. It’s so weird because 90% of my classmates are in long term relationships and talk about their boyfriends all the time and there’s not a single part of me that what’s any of that. Like what’s the point of moving to a huge new city, being in your 20’s but being in a relationship? I’d feel so bored. When I was doing makeup on one of the girls in my class I was telling her about this one night stand I had when I first moved here and how I regretted it a lot and she was like are you serious?? That’s so free spirited and empowering, I’m 30 in a relationship I could never do something like that anymore and I wish I did, it’s like a movie or something. I was like damn you right. It’s also crazy how confident I’ve become. I never would thought I’d be this kind of person. I just carry myself so differently now, I never get embarssed or shy anymore. I feel so comfortable with my teacher and classmates. It’s such a fun and positive learning environment and can’t believe it’s school!! Also remember when this blog used to be a bunch of depressing person posts?? Idk her!!