#queer representation is so important

[forgetyoursingalongsandlullabies]

Sometimes I think about how when I was first on Tumblr many years ago my main ships were Johnlock and Destiel and I think about how hard both shows went to try to disprove and dissuade the ships all the while somehow making them what could have been incredible slow burn romances.

There were barely any canon queer romances to ship unless I wanted to start posting about Glee (and I didn’t).

But now my favorite couples to blog are Jon Sims and Martin Blackwood, Melanie King and Georgie Barker, Stede Bonnet and Ed Teach, Aziraphale and Crowley… and they’re all canon!

16 year old me, who actually cried when I heard Macklemore’s Same Love on the radio for the first time just because it acknowledged gay people exist on a public platform, would explode.

[justbackgroundnoise]

Chappell Roan, a lesbian, went on a national broadcast tonight and performed a song about dating a closeted woman who refuses to acknowledge their relationship and denies the fact that she’s a lesbian. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that happening but here we are and it’s amazing.

As a lesbian woman, to have an artist go out and be so entirely herself in every way, to be so proud of her own sexuality and to perform a song like this and have it be broadcasted to millions of people…it makes me so emotional. All I have ever wanted as a queer woman is to have this sort of unabashed representation and we’re finally getting it in such an incredible way. What an era we are living in and all I can say is long may it continue and I am so proud to be a Chappell Roan fan.

[samwinchestermydude]

I think we as Sam fans should be more annoying and loud about the fact that his crossroad demons were men twice.

(This is me being pissed off about how people will say dean is of course bi due to some dumb shit like the siren, which was his brother, and “bi lighting” or something, and then turn around and say Sam is the straightest character. Like what.)

[boyquiet]

i think that we need to get over the narrative that you can’t have gay villains because that’s a harmful stereotype because there’s a huge difference between “this character is gay and a bad person” and “this character was written specifically to equate being gay and being evil/depraved/degenerate”. it’s just such a narrow minded view of fiction that leads to people afraid to write queer characters as anything less than morally perfect and then to a bunch of palatable but bland and boring queer characters that are arguably worse representation than a gay villain because they are not allowed to do anything wrong. while it is important to write all types of gay characters a work isn’t instantly “problematic” because the villain is queer and the hero isn’t. I think this is also related to the idea of subtext vs text in gay media and how I see a lot of people get mad bc the homoerotic subtext isn’t made canon without considering the context of it at all—sometimes creators make artistic decisions for reasons other than that they didn’t want the gay people to kiss because they’re homophobic. well written queer subtext can be better than a canon gay couple with no personality or relevance and a queer villain can be a better queer character than a gay hero because the characters in-universe morality isn’t inherently tied to how much care they are written with and the quality of “queer representation” isn’t determined by the amount of times they kiss on screen.

[royalarchivist]

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Eret: I feel so lucky I am able to be in a position where I’m able to help other people -- at the very least -- realize they are not weird, they are not alone, they’ve got someone who will look out for them. Because that’s something I didn’t have when I was growing up [...] I didn’t have any exposure to any gender stuff, or even LGBT stuff. Now, I actually get to be that representation for some people, and that’s f**king amazing for me. I hope I can continue to help people find themselves, and continue to be a positive representation for people, because I remember what it's like not to have that.

Eret discussing the importance of LGBTQIA+ representation.

Full video transcript:

[Responding who a dono who thanked Eret for helping them find and feel comfortable with their gender identity]

I’m so glad I could help you with your journey. I feel so lucky I am able to be in a position where I’m able to help other people — at the very least — realize they are not weird, they are not alone, they’ve got someone who will look out for them. Because that’s something I didn’t have when I was growing up, and I thought I was weird, I thought I was — I don’t know, I didn’t have any exposure to any gender stuff or even LGBT stuff. So I just thought, “Well these things going in my mind are f**king weird stuff.”

Now, I actually get to be that representation for some people, and that’s f**king amazing for me. I’ve gotten so many letters, and so many messages, and so many donations, and so many chat messages going, “Thank you for everything”. Meeting people in person at conventions, people literally shaking and going, “Oh my god, it’s you.” And I’m like, “I’m just me! I’m just a person. I just play games.”

To have people freak out over that is mind-blowing. I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to it. Like, I got recognized at my university, I used to get recognized doing random things, and people would just come up to me and go, “Seriously, thank you.”

I hope I can continue to help people find themselves and continue to be a positive representation for people, because I remember what it's like not to have that.

I want to make sure that anyone who feels alone, or anyone who feels they don’t have anywhere else to find understanding, I want to be there for them. I understand I can’t have that one on one connection, but at least I want a space where you can come to, and you’re surrounded by a big group of people who all go, “Yeah, I understand that! Yeah, we’re all on the same page.”

[bahoreal]

you know youre right im over queer storylines where people figure out that theyre queer. what i want is trans women as an integral part of a cast where its only mentioned offhand that shes trans because other parts of her character (being a meticulous scribe, processing expenses, being dumb of ass) are more important to her storyline. however she IS trans and its always there in her character even if the storyline doesnt focus on it. she got hair plugs bc she wanted long hair and likes her hair plaited cutely. when she got a wish she immediately used it to become a woman. this is a post about scribe elder ho tan from yonderland. i love her.

[bisexualfagdyke]

People only care about character's implied sexualities if they're implied to be lesbian / gay . As soon as a character is implied to be bisexual (e.g. explicitly attracted to / involved with both men and women) suddenly they're "lesbian / gay with comphet" .... what if I killed you with a rock 🩷

[thoseyoulove]

I don't see Emma D'Arcy playing Gabrielle because they're too young and on HOTD already, I don't think the schedules would work. Still, they're actually a great actor and one of the few non-binary performers we have AND Gabrielle is a gender nonconforming character, so this is one of the few fancasts of 30yos that have some logic? Yeah, it's not realistic, it will probably never happen and it's okay, but there's nothing crazy in wanting a talented non-binary actor playing a good gnc character.

[reflectionsofgalaxies]

HOW IS SHE REAL?!?? MA’AM~ ✨

From this interview:

[eliounora]

red white and royal blue was so cheesy and predictable I enjoyed it thoroughly. making banal queer romantic comedies is hard but necessary work

[simsdaughters]

.OLD MAN YAOI.

And everytime we kiss, I swear I can fly ♪

TOO LATE FOR PRIDE, EARLY FOR WRATH, LETS GO.

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

there are a lot of reasons i'm really, really impressed by how well sdmi portrayed the dynamic of an abusive relationship with pericles and ricky, and one of the big ones is how accurately they show what it looks like when abuse starts to escalate.

the extent of that is yet another thing that'll take a longpost of its own to go into, because it spans like.... the entire arc of their relationship in the show. but one thing that stands out to me in particular is their portrayal of the massive red flag that is a partner trotting out bigoted behavior against a group you're in. especially insults, and especially directed right at you.

this show has a LOT of fatphobia, jesus christ does it ever, and there are certainly some fatphobic tropes going on with ricky; but i've always been surprised and impressed by how many of the nastier ones they avoided, especially considering his role in the story and what his arc is about.

he is a major, nuanced character whose trauma is treated with full weight and sincerity. it's implied that his body type changed the way it did due to the trauma he went through when he was younger, and the ensuing mental illness, which is a pretty realistic experience for a lot of people. the things that happen to him are played for full tragedy and horror, when it would have been so, so easy for them to make light of it because Tee Hee Fat Guy and Tee Hee Male Abuse Victims Funnee. despite how his whole thing involves corporate greed, they don't go the route of portraying him as Gluttonous and Hedonistic; if anything he is very obviously not using all that money for even basic physical self-care, and the only time we ever see him eating anything it's when he's drinking wine grape juice with pericles. which, like, there's issues to be unpacked with that too, but jesus christ it's an improvement over what usually happens with characters like him.

he's a fat queer man who isn't degendered or made feminine in a mocking and/or predatory way. (there's nothing wrong with feminine fat queer men and they need more non-shitty rep, please and thank you god, but there is a lot of nastiness in the tropes they're often used for in mainstream media, and one of those tropes is when people consider 'fat queer man' and 'masc' to be oxymorons.) no one ever once calls him ugly; if anything multiple people in his life think he's attractive and desirable, for better or for worse. no one body-shames him. and no one ever mentions his weight.

except pericles.

'The Horrible Herd' and 'The Devouring' are two halves of a whole here, re: escalation of abuse. 'Devouring' is when the abuser goes full mask off and shit hits the fan; 'Horrible Herd' is the wind-up before the punch. HH is when ricky realizes things are getting Bad and he needs to put a stop to this now, and Devouring shows what happens when he tries, because by the point where it's gotten bad enough to give him a wakeup call it's already too late. it's how abusive relationships tend to go, and it's chillingly accurate.

and what's one of the things pericles says during Horrible Herd when that punch is winding up? something no one's ever said before now, including him? 'you pudding-faced dummkopf.'

he body-shames him. he insults his weight, and that's a major turning point. bigotry is something that's often there to some degree from the start, but not always, because some abusers are good at hiding things like that until they're confident they've got you where they want you. the message with ricky and pericles is loud and clear: when this happens, the walls are dripping blood. get out.

(if you can. and be careful when you try.)

when this show is good, it is really, truly good. god damn.

[trashratsaws]

No because something I love about King and Gold's story is the fact that there is no mother in sight. Hear me out. Rarely - like SO RARELY in fiction do you get the story of a single parent who's love for their child is whole and complete on its own without needing the supplement or feeling the "absentness" of the other parent. At the very least the second parent is always at LEAST mentioned, if not a huge part of the single parent or child's emotional development or entire character. With King and Gold, you have a father and a son, and there is nothing MISSING from that equation.

Could there be another parent with no big impact on the story? Sure. The second parent could have died many years ago, or left the family like Navy did with Purple, and Season 3 would've been almost exactly the same. But no. King and Gold are a complete family unit. There's nothing that is incomplete about it. The way King reacts to Gold's death is exactly the way we would expect for any other parent in any other piece of similar fiction media too, except there is no mention of a second parent, none of this "if only you were here" aimed at the absentee parent to indicate that being a single parent is somehow lesser than being a part of a two-parent family. I bet you didn't even realize that Gold doesn't have a mom or second dad. Because it was so well done that King and Gold is all you needed to see to understand - "that's a whole, complete family." Full stop. I love it

[mundifinis]

i pray the day never comes when tiktok discovers gregg araki's films (specifically the teenage apocalypse trilogy ones) because the amount of discourse i can already picture.... oh my god

[richkidcityfriends]

people's absolute inability to understand the purpose of metaphor will i think be the thing that kills me

[youngpettyqueen]

I love Spirk as much as the next person but some of yall act like they threw the first brick at Stonewall