#lgbtq+ media

[mysweetsinfulobsessions]

Harley & Ivy kisses (minus sex scene) in Harley Quinn, A Very Problematic Valentine's Day Special, 3x11

[liyazaki]

in volleyball- anything can happen.

ROOKIE | MOVIE TEASER

[sunny-rants]

hey everyone frustrated with how the media prioritizes romance and who loves the platonic soulmates trope! go watch The Half of It and Straight Up, both on Netflix

they’re not perfect, and they won’t be for everybody, but I found them so refreshing and they made me cry

[mostofthingsmostofthetime]

I just finished the first episode of Heartstopper, so here are some of my thoughts in no particular order.

The opening song is cool (will probably look up the shows soundtrack like I did with XO, Kitty).

Why did the camera focus so much on Charlie's bag & Elle's drink? Is it product placement?

Wow, no hate to the actor, but Charlie's eyebrows are THICK!!!!

Tori is beautiful but also kind of looks like a ghost (I think she’d be great for the role of  Violet Baudelaire from A Series Of Unfortunate Events) & why was she so pushy about the "dream guy" thing? Like let the poor boy breathe.

Is Nick's actor that much taller than Charlie's? I hadn't noticed.

I’m sorry, but knees are so weird to me lol. Also obligatory, 🎵 she's a runner she's a track star🎵.

Wait, is that PE teacher that will later interrupt the team theorising about Nick & Charlie's relationship? It's crazy how they’ve found actors who look so much like the characters in the graphic novels (other casting directors should take notes).

Ok fair enough about wanting your team to be good & wondering if the quiet, skinny, nerdy, boy is even into sports but the shit about him being gay is so stupid (bet it was Harry that said that).

Glad Charlie didn't get injured learning rugby, lol.

Nick's shorts seem a lot smaller than Charlie's ones do, but maybe that's the costume designer's way of helping Charlie’s actor look more skinny?

Omg Stephen Fry, what are you doing here lol?

Wow, people weren't kidding. Olivia Colman really did show up just to say one line. What a legend, lol.

Ben, did you really make Charlie walk all that way for such a lame ass kiss? Also, let him talk about his Christmas, you jerk!

I don't think that Form tutor is very good at his job (while Nick thankfully turned out to be nice) it’s usually not a great idea to put the skinny, gay, nerd that has already been bullied with the bigger, popular, seemingly straight, athlete, especially at an all boys school!

Ben, you dick. Like I get wanting to keep your relationship secret, but you did not need to pull the 'who the hell are you!' card. All you had to do was say hi in a confused/uninterested tone (then apologise later). If anything, your reaction came off more weird than what Charlie did.

I'm sorry, but I don't get the leaf animation. I mean, I GET it, just why leaves? Why not flowers or hearts or something? It just doesn’t seem that impactful to me, but maybe they have a deeper meaning that I'm just not grasping yet? If so, please let me know.

Ok, so I'm torn over the gay teacher. Like artistic? That's cool. Those glasses? Cute. Him giving Charlie a safe space to eat lunch? Great. Him being worried over Charlie potentially being bullied again? Awesome (take notes, Form guy), but his advice to Charlie seemed slightly lacking. Obviously, honesty & communication are important in relationships, but I'm a little surprised that possible safety concerns weren't addressed at all, especially from a fellow gay guy. Like I get that he doesn’t know the kind of guy Charlie's "dating" & that just because someone doesn't want to come out yet doesn’t mean they should be labelled as dangerous but internalised homophobia can make some people lash out & after everything Charlie's been through his clearly more likely to be vulnerable to situations like that.

Nick is a golden retriever in human form, they're 100% correct 😊.

Isaac? What happened to Aled? I hope he still shows up. He may be quiet, but he was so cute during Charlie's 15th birthday in the graphic novel.

Interesting to get to see Elle's time at Higg's (fuck that transphobic teacher & whoever was throwing sandwiches at her). Sad she doesn’t have any friends but I'm sure that'll change when she meets Tara & Darcy. Wow, is it strict over there, though, like you can't even be on your phone at lunchtime? Damn! Surprised they did it this way, though, as I was assuming they'd just make Truham co-ed so all the characters could be in the same place.

Tao, my guy, the drink thing is sweet but that hair is.....certainly.....a choice 😅.

The shots of Charlie looking at food, without eating, make me ☹️.

I gotta be honest, the montage of Nick & Charlie saying hi to each other was a little cringy to me compared to how it came across in the graphic novel, but they're meant to be teens, so I'll let it slide. It's also an effective way to highlight how differently Charlie's "boyfriend" treats him compared to an acquaintance.

Ben's hand covering up Nick's smiley face got me like ☹️/😠. They're not even together yet & I already felt like telling him to get off Charlie, like that boy is not for you! It’s ridiculous, lol.

Ben what you did was fucked up but it's hard to be scared of someone who looks so much like a meerkat in a wig (no hate to the actor) also did it seem like he just....skidded away when Nick pulled him off Charlie? Like, was the actor wearing Heelys lol? Or had someone just mopped the floor without telling anyone? Also, it's lame to wear a coat when you're cold? What in the toxic masculinity are you fucking on about Ben?

Omg the bathroom scene was so adorable, but I wanna know what kind of pen Nick was using because being covered in that amount of ink is crazy 😆.

Overall, it's very cute. I like Nick & Charlie. It’ll probably take a bit longer for me to really care about the other characters. Ben can catch these hands! And I’m looking forward to watching the Narlie relationship develop.

So while not overly ground breaking (though obviously important for LGBTQ+ rep) it's definitely enjoyable in a comforting sort of way which (considering medias fascination with marginalised suffering) is obviously important for queer youth but also must be quite healing for queer elders. Because you deserve wholesome, cheesy, romance just as much as anyone else.

[crownspeaksblog]

I think Coffee Prince is THE first queer story I've ever watched! I watched in my early teens and back then, i loved it so much, because it was a love story, where a man falls in love with a woman, not knowing that she's a woman and my younger self was mostly like "oh my god it's true love!! He fell in love with her not knowing she's a woman!!" But i loved it so much more when i rewatched it, in my late teens because at that point, i was mostly aware of the queerness of it all and now I'm fully aware of it, like that was a story about a "straight" man falling, hard, for this young man he just met! He was suffering and in denial, that man was crying over the thought of being gay and then... he just fully accepted it and was more than willing and happy to run away together!!! He is a queer icon!!

This is probably one of the best ways to present a queer story because, one, it can slip right through censorship laws, i watched it, 10 years ago, on tv, in the fucking middle-east, dubbed in Arabic!! (i haven't seen the original version but I'm willing to bet some stuff was cut in the version i watched). Two, it kinda will confuse homophobic/ignorant people on what to feel, because the audience knows she's a woman throughout the entirety of the show, so people will interpret it as "he fell in love with her, not knowing she's a woman" NOT as, "he fell in love with a man, who turned out to be a woman"

Here's the thing, without internet and tv, most people are completely unaware of the outside world, not just their country, but the outside of their everyday life and when i watched that show as a kid, i didn't see the queerness of it (i had no idea what the word or the concept of gay is) and now i can easily recognize how that story is one of the biggest reasons to make me, a young middle-easterns teenager who's raised religious (kinda..) understand and accept queerness so relatively easily!

So yes, more stories like this, they are groundbreaking!!

[lilithfairen]

Also, high recommendation for folks who subbed to Crunchyroll for RWBY that if you want to support female-led, positive-themed, queer-as-heck media with your subscription, High Guardian Spice is a thing you can check out~

It's got adorable friendship, cute art, a cat-girl, a missing mom, a canon trans character, an axe-wielding murder-gremlin in waiting, a goth girl with Reactions to a magical-girl-esque transformation, an egg-in-cracking, and Parsley.

And you can totally binge the whole series during the week before the V9 finale~

[pipedreams13]

Not me rewatching Firebird for what is probably the 13th time and still having my heart shattered

[grrlofswirls]

In my final entry for this year's "What You May Have Missed" blog series, I discuss a variety of excellent indie comics and manga that deserve more love! Enjoy!

[raikantop]

What especially irks me is when people say "we need more weirder queers in media or more diverse queers". But yall can't handle trans people, or black trans people. Or black queer people in general.

Yall can't handle a person who isn't watered down to be a moral, self righteous, skinny,white gay who can do no wrong. What yall mean when you say you want weird queers, or diverse queers, you mean you want "good queers".

You won't get media with messier, more nuanced, more realistic queer characters if you keep flying off the handle the second a fictional character has sex, does drugs, swears too much, or acts vaguely like an asshole.

You won't get more diverse queer media with wider stories if you can't handle it when queer artists make art that is raunchy, crude, edgy, and gross.

You won't get more diverse queer media if you shut everything down the second it does something you, personally, get squicked out by.

You will never get more diverse queer media if you contribute to the way queer media is picked apart, raked over the coals, and held to unreasonably high standards.

You will never get what you want if you keep tearing queer artists down for their weird experimental art instead of learning how to say, "this isn't for me, that's fine, and I'll be over here in my own space."

[freakingnarniadotcom]

a quick elegy to one of my favorite shows, young royals (ended just this past march after three seasons), and how losing a show we're super invested on can be like losing a part of our life.

** THIS IS A VIDEO VERSION OF AN ARTICLE ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MY MEDIUM BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW **

https://medium.com/@cpinillad/when-the-credits-roll-navigating-the-sadness-of-a-favorite-tv-show-ending-6d4f70ab0b55

for more insights about my writing, as well as a nod to my fandoms here and there, visit my medium blog! link below!

if you enjoyed this, please like this video, comment, share, and subscribe to this channel!

SUPPORT MY CHANNEL:

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[liyazaki]

you have my attention 👀 | Aug. 4th

[the-rainbow-suit-dude]

Art appreciation post!

They mean everything to me

[cchickki]

If you haven’t started already, start archiving/downloading everything. Save it to an external hard drive if you’re able. Collecting physical media is also a good idea, if you’re able.

Download your own/your favorite fanfics. Save as much as you can from online sources/digital libraries. Recipes, tutorials, history, LGBTQ media, etc. It has been claimed, though I can’t find the exact source if true, that some materials about the Revolutionary War were deleted from the Library of Congress.

It’s always better to be safe than sorry and save and preserve what you can. Remember that cloud storage also is not always reliable!

Library of Congress - millions of books, films and video, audio recordings, photographs, newspapers, maps, manuscripts.

Internet Archive - millions of free texts, movies, software, music, websites, and more. Has been taken offline multiple times because of cyber attacks last month, it has recently started archiving again.

Anna's Archive - 'largest truly open library in human history.’

Queer Liberation Library - queer literature and resources. Does require applying for a library membership to browse and borrow from their collection.

List of art resources - list of art resources complied on tumblr back in 2019. Not sure if all links are still operational now, but the few I clicked on seemed to work.

Alexis Amber - TikToker who is an archivist who's whole page is about archiving. She has a database extensively recording the events of Hurricane Katrina.

I'll be adding more to this list, if anyone else wants to add anything feel free!

[mostofthingsmostofthetime]

I finished the second episode of Heartstopper last night (wanted to post about it yesterday, but I was too tired from work), so here are some of my thoughts in no particular order for you now.

Good on Nick for checking up on Charlie after what happened. I found it odd, though, that he seemed more emotional about it than Charlie, but I guess they're in two very different places, mentally. One being 'why do I seem to like this guy way more than my other friends?' & the other being 'omg stop being so nice to me, your straight!' lol. Plus, I get that everyone deals with stuff in their own way & poor Charlie is probably so used to being mistreated that he might just be repressing the full weight of how his feeling as a copeing mechanism. It was also probably very cathartic to finally tell someone everything that happened between him & Ben (as I'm guessing he kept most if not all of it a secret from his friends & sister).

WE FINALLY MEET NELLIE!!!! And she is as cute as I'd hoped (though for some reason I expected her to be a different colour).

Sorry, Charlie, but Tori's right. Your hair looks exactly the same. Also, love that they kept the gag from the novel about her scaring him with her, always showing up suddenly without warning.

Nice to see that the outfits are on point for our boys so far with the plaid/black jeans (trying to impress someone, I see Charlie) & T-shirt/joggers (also what product is Miss Nelson using coz Nick's tops look soft as hell).

Wait, what season is it supposed to be because it looked really sunny when Charlie was walking to Nick's house (I know he was wearing a coat & hat but Charlie is always cold) but then suddenly it's snowing? Idk when Alice first came up with this story, but as a Brit, I haven't seen proper full on Snow since I was probably around eight years old. But hey, maybe in the Heartstopper universe, global warming doesn't exist.

I don’t care what anyone says, I will never get the fun of a snowball fight. If I go somewhere with a friend & they start throwing stuff at me, I'm leaving! Also, picking it up with your bare hands? One, it's been on the ground 🤢, and two, where are your gloves? Do you not feel the cold? Snow angles do look fun until I think about how my entire behind would be frozen/damp. Sorry if that makes me a "stick in the mud", I don't care 😝.

Damn, that is one photogenic dog & and aww, they already look like a couple. Also, give it up for Nick's freckles, the real star of the show 👏.

Omg, being in the same group as someone you hate must be so hard, but I get why Nick can't really say anything about what Ben did, at least not right now. Also, what is up with that Imogen girl? Mind your damn business.

I think it's good we get to see Elle longing for a bond with other girls that she just can't get from her male friend group. Makes her transition feel more fleshed out (for lack of a better word), you know?

Yay, we finally meet Tara & Darcy & they're exactly how I thought they'd be (except I imagined Darcy with brown hair for some reason). Ooh I didn't know Elle was artistic. I wanna decorate pencil cases now. Tara's pink puffa coat is so cute. What is up with adults dictating how long kids' hair can be? Like who gives a fuck! Also "gal pals" had me 😆.

Oh, thank god, it's just misinformation. For a second, I thought Tao was making shit up just to make Charlie get over his crush. Are kids really like that, though? I can't imagine kissing someone once & having people insist, I'm madly in love with them to this day, like move on already.

Ok, I officially really like the gay teacher, lol.

Love Charlie's sweater & Nick's coats are also very nice. Where are these kids getting their clothes? Coz I'm embarrassed by most of the stuff I wore as a teenager.

The big hoodie moment should be cute, but I just can't help thinking about how skinny Charlie is, which makes me ☹️.

Ok, so I didn't care much for the leaf animation in the first episode, but omg, the little fire crackles when Nick was trying to hold Charlie's hand? Screaming, crying, throwing up!!!!!!! & the hug before he left? Fucking crops watered for life, bitch!

Was digging Elle's outfit, very 70's vibes.

Ah, so their "secret" is out. Also obligatory: 🗣 LET'S GO LESBIANS LET'S GO 🗣

Can't wait for the next episode, but I practically passed out after watching episode 2 (manual labour is hard, kids 😭), so maybe I hallucinated, but did that Imogen girl ask Nick out? I thought she was daiting Ben? Or is that a different girl?

PS. I found out Aled won't be in the show, which I accept & the only reason I haven't talked about Isaac is because he hasn't really done much yet

[crownspeaksblog]

I was thinking about lisa from the l word and i know 100% that lisa was only there to be made fun of.

You know how some men as a dumb joke say that they're a lesbian because they like women. The thing is lisa wasn't written like that, they could've easily made him as annoying, jerk of a straight, cis man but they didn't.

He always seemed so sincere about everything he said and done.

I know some people will read lisa as a trans woman or non binary person but i just can't see him like this because I'm so sure that he was only there to be made fun of.

It's just so fucked up how they wrote his character. Like he and alice were having sex and he didn't feel comfortable having sex with his dick or the scene when he's talking to tina about being pregnant and how wonderful he think it is. These scenes and other stuff made him so sincere and it's fucked up how the writers were basically like "see... he's so dumb... it's funny, right?"

They could have wrote him as jerk who hits on lesbians and then call himself a lesbian when he gets rejected but no, they had to do whatever the fuck the did.

[sillypenguinwitch]

to clarify (and some more thoughts): I'm not saying there's no good wlw media, I know it's out there (albeit few and far between), but there's seldom a lot of hype around it, and that generally means that no strong fandom with fan content (edits, gifs, fanfiction, fanart, discussions, etc.) develops. And to a certain extend I think that has to do with how consumers (aka potential fans) respond to wlw media (that's a whole seperate topic in itself tbh), but it also - to a much greater extend imo - has to do with the specific stories that are being told, how they're being told and the context in which the thing exists, e.g. the marketing, cast, (not being cancelled after one season!), etc.

A big fandom is much less likely to develop around one single film or one book even, no matter how well-written, than a show with multiple seasons or a book + series/movie adaptation or series of movies. There needs to be time for the thing to spread and people to recommend it to each other (while there's still new episodes/chapters/seasons/etc coming out) and overall there needs to be enough of the thing to go off of: to get to know the characters, to inspire discussion and to inspire the kind of content that keeps a fandom going! I also think for something to focus on the main couple and romance in the way the mlm examples mentioned in my original post do, it has to be somewhat clear early on that they're going to get together and neither of them is going to die - this is not something that can be guaranteed for a lot of fictional wlw couples.

Which brings me to my next point: shows with sapphic main characters or shows that are known for their wlw couples often have supernatural or otherwise mysterious elements, which takes screen time away from romance and character development to deal with monsters or murderers or worldbuilding - almost as if studios don't think just their romance alone is interesting enough - and drastically ups the possibility of someone dying. And don't get me wrong, I loove those types of shows! Every show with wlw couples, from Buffy to Pretty Little Liars to Sense8 to Killing Eve to Yellowjackets to First Kill - give it to me! This is not about putting down those shows!! First Kill is probably closest to the teen drama wlw-couple-focused type show I'm thinking of, but even that has that supernatural element. Again, I love the show, this is no shade *at all* and I'm not trying to take anything away from any of these shows I just think it's really noticable how there are hardly any shows that are just... regular wlw teens. I think we deserve it all: fluffy romance with maybe a bit of drama and angst but grounded somewhat in the real world *and* scifi/fantasy/supernatural/mystery plots with wlw love *and* everything in between! In fact, like half of those shows got cancelled way too early, so even the shows I'm saying "this is the only type that we get" we don't even really get. Ugh.

I actually think statistically the number of wlw and mlm couples or characters on tv is somewhat similar (I feel like I read that somewhere?) but that doesn't tell us anything about the type and quality of the representation or the amount of screentime. Heartstopper has sapphic characters (more than mlm characters even?) but Nick and Charlie are the main couple. Love Victor later had sapphic characters, but the main relationships are Victor's. The focus is always clear. Studios had no issue shelling out for 3 seasons of an mlm spin off (Love Victor) of an mlm thing (Love Simon), but couldn't adapt the existing wlw spin off book (Leah on the Offbeat) into one spin off movie? Yeah... although even then it would've been contingent on the mlm thing.

I've seen people mention that the other versions and seasons of Skam have wlw couples! I buried this in the tags of my original post but I know: I've watched the sapphic seasons of Skam España and Druck (Skam Germany) and loved them, they're *exactly* the kind of thing I'm talking about - but let's not act like they would've even been made without OG Evak. And there's no shame in using the popularity of an mlm thing as a jumping off point but it's always this conditional thing, it's always contingent on something else, always a second thought...

idk, call me greedy and bitter and nitpicky, I don't care - I think I (we!) have a right to be pissed off about this. And I know these types of things hinge on so many little conditions, there are so many potential reason something doesn't get made, it's not always purely that they don't think wlw romance is interesting, etc. etc., but don't tell me there isn't a pattern. And these are only a few examples, there are so many more! And if you're now thinking: "she's asking for too much" keep in mind that people have mentioned dozens of wlw things in these tags and replies, and none of them have fit these criteria, but I can *easily* name basically a never-ending list of mlm things that do.

Again, I'm not trying to be divisive, all of the things mentioned are great, please don't be upset at me for mentioning them in this way! My issue isn't with the things that do exist, my issue is with the things that don't: the seasons or existing shows that aren't getting made because something got cancelled prematurely, the pitches that aren't being greenlit because studios don't want to give their money to wlw stories, etc. I'm not angry at the mlm things, I'm angry that there aren't also similar wlw things (with the budget and fandom to match).

And maybe I shouldn't compare mlm and wlw media so directly and just accept that there's a different style to them, idk maybe that's what it is, but should we really have to accept that the fluffy, unapologetic, teen (or early 20s) main character romances are only for (mostly) white, (mostly) skinny, (mostly) ablebodied, (mostly) cis boys? Personally, I don't think so.

Sorry this turned into more of a rant than I intended for it to be.

okay so i'm not trying to make this a ~thing~ or a hot take or whatever, but can we talk about how all the hyped up queer shows still predominantly feature mlm couples? i'm not saying there aren't wlw shows/movies or the mlm-focused shows don't also feature wlw characters/couples, just... they either get nowhere near the same amount of hype, have some other main plot, end with at least one of them dying or experiencing something traumatic, get cancelled after one season in the middle of their arc, or they're not the main couple. And that's not to discount the representation you can get from secondary characters of course but just... ugh I want a heartstopper or rwrb or young royals or skam or love, simon or i don't even know... with girls. And I know I'm not the first person to bring this up and I know it's not that simple, but seeing all the hype for heartstopper and rwrb this week makes my heart ache a little bit so i needed to say this somewhere.