#seeing a lot of queer discourse right now

[captain-lovelace]

.

[jimingyue]

Cat Tumblr Dashboard Simulator

🖋️ meowful-musings Follow

🕊️ birdwatching Follow

what's wrong with dry food??? my humans feed me it all the time and i think it's fine

💀 elusivehider-deactivated948204

op wheres the natural feeding option

🌲 outdoorsy Follow

you guys are getting fed?

#im a barn cat so maybe im missing something here #meowtthew don't look

7,192 notes

☀️ pawsitive-affurmations Follow

ITS OKAY TO BE A MOGGIE

ITS OKAY TO BE A MOGGIE

YOU ARE NOT LESS VALID IF YOU ARE NOT A SPECIFIC PEDIGREE!!!!!

☀️ pawsitive-affurmations Follow

extra special shout out to cats who have "common" coat colors. grey tabbies and black cats i am rubbing against your head affectionately <3

🪤 m0usetrap01 Follow

as a grey tabby i really needed to hear this :"3

#i feel like i never see positivity posts for moggies even tho we're the most common type of cat....

154,688 notes

🎵 rage-against-the-meowchine Follow

i cant believe there are cats ACTUALLY advocating for kittens to be separated from their mothers before 12 weeks??? kittens still need to learn how to interact with other cats before being placed into their furever home omg you guys know you're advocating for undersocialized and aggressive cats right

❤️ loving-paws284 Follow

um op some of us??? matured early??????? i was separated from my mother at 7 weeks and i turned out fine... interesting how you assume that kittens being separated from their mothers at a younger age will lead to the degeneracy of the next generation...hmm i wonder where i've heard that before...

🐈 fluffy-the-cat Follow

OP got bit too hard during a play-fight as a kitten and it shows XD

🐟 tunafeesh Follow

also op have you ever considered that just because somecat is kind of scared and unable to deal with strange cats or humans, it doesn't mean they don't deserve to be adopted?? you sound like a vet psyop honestly

🎵 rage-against-the-meowchine Follow

oh meow god saying that kittens should be fully weaned before leaving their mother is NOT veterinarian rhetoric and i never said that they deserve to be euthanized!!! my mother literally died when i was 3 weeks old and it seriously messed up my development so stop putting words in my mouth, thanks

anyway friendly reminder that underweaned kittens are prone to illness and often struggle with basic cat behaviors like litterbox usage, and in some nyavinces it's even considered kitten abuse

#discourse #cant believe "kitten abuse is bad" is controversial now

32,456 notes

🍃 naturalliving Follow

BORN TO DIE

WORLD IS A FUCK

猫神 Kill Em All 1989

I am trash cat

410,757,864,530 DEAD BIRDS

#outdoorliving #outdoorcats please interact #outdoorcat friendly

48,971 notes

🎣 salmonpurina Follow

can't believe cats are uncritically reblogging that born to die world is a fuck post. i know it's funny but op is literally an outdoor cat truther

#like cmon now you just have to go to their blog #lulu speaks

34 notes

💀 tabbystripes-deactivated098712

gentle reminder that pushing cups off the table is not cute and can cause a lot of distress in your human!!!! gentle reminder that our teeth and claws can easily hurt them more than they can hurt us!!!!

🐰 evil-tabbystripes Follow

evil reminder that the cup should always be pushed off the table. evil reminder that you should always bite and claw at your human no matter what. you can do whatever you want forever

💀 tabbystripes-deactivated098712

make your own pawst

💀 laser-point-deactivated8574721

umm i know a tomcat who did that and his human ended up putting him down so...

👬🏻 nyasunaruenjoyer Follow

Nyaverage shelter cat behavior

#not nyaruto #re-nyab #pickles shut up

545,460 notes

🌈 nyaoi-warrior Follow

saw two male cats sleeping together on the porch today. homeow behavior imo

💡 discourse-meows Follow

hey um what the fuck??? it's really not okay of you to go assuming other cat's sexualities, especially cats you don't even know???? as a queer cat i'm VERYY uncomfortable. real-ass cats didn't consent to your nyaoi fetish, thanks

🌈 nyaoi-warrior Follow

1. i was making. a joak

2. i'm literally gay???

#literally what's your pawblem

7 notes

🎩 amazingcatshow12 Follow

reblog if you've ever caught the laser pointer

🎩 amazingcatshow12 Follow

i know you fuckers are lying

🍭 gaykittens Follow

this tom hasn't caught the laser pointer

🎩 amazingcatshow12 Follow

shut the heull up

988,653 notes

🐾 b-e-a-n-t-o-e-s Follow

grey toebeans >>>>>>>>> pink toebeans and don't let the haters make you believe otherwise

🐁 ladymouser Follow

op shut the fuck up ALL toebeans are beautiful!!! just bc you're miserable and insecure doesn't mean you can bring others down based on things they can't control

🐾 b-e-a-n-t-o-e-s Follow

oh so the cat-human separationist wants to preach to us

[dancermk]

I’m a little disappointed to see so much discourse, fandom competitiveness, and plain arguing going around at the moment in regards to queer film/TV. People complaining about too much sex, not enough sex, too cheesy, made for the hets, too happy, too sad, too realistic, too unrealistic, and a million other petty issues. I, for one, am a queer person in my 50s and I grew up with practically zero representation! Yes, we want to continue onwards and upwards with quality and varied shows BUT let’s be HAPPY we now have representation! Like, actual shows where the central characters are queer, not just a side character who gets f*cking murdered! There is room for all different types of representation - so enjoy the types you like, and let others enjoy what they like.

And on a side note: progress is progress and film/tv is a business that has to turn a profit! If some queer content is made to appeal to the straight community, and will also act as a means of reducing homophobia and increasing understanding, then that’s a good thing. That means in the future more and more content will include queer stories and representation. If only 10% (ish) of the population is the maximum target audience then shows won’t keep getting made!

There is a huge backlash all over the world right now - a “push back” by conservatives and religious groups that want to wind back the clock, and specifically the last decade of advances.

So stick together queers and LGBTQIA+ allies.

I’m super happy knowing I don’t have to wait years between content anymore. And I’ve loved all different types of shows over the last 5 years, for lots of different reasons!

Interview with the Vampire - is giving me the toxic, passionate gothic love affair I’ve always wanted. And addressing interracial relationships.

Heartstopper - is filling me up with pure joy and hopefulness for the future.

Shameless - gave me Ian and Mickey - unique, anti stereotypical gays with a tragic yet ultimately beautiful love story spanning 11 years

Lone Star 911 - is giving me TK and Carlos whose sexuality barely factors into the storyline! Yay!

Looking - gave me an authentic queer experience and an intoxicating love triangle.

Red, white and Royal Blue - gave me a sweet, cute romcom that allowed reality to be sidelined. Fun escapism!

Young Royals - had me captivated by first love and intense angst.

Fire Island - an underrated romcom that made me laugh so hard I cried.

Sex education - shoved the realities of sex in our faces and provided me with laughter and drama and a range of queer identities.

Gentlemen Jack -gave me historical lesbians with spectacular wit, and feminine power.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg- because there’s SO SO SO many more shows I could mention! Don’t at me because I didn’t mention YOUR favourite. This is my point! There is SO much great content it would take all day for me to include everything. This is just a sample - and that’s f*cking brilliant!!

So maybe we could all start posting/tweeting etc about what WE DO LIKE / LOVE / MAKES US FEEL LOVED AND SEEN and put down the device if we’ve got nothing nice to say.

Sending everyone a love filled week! 💜

[olderthannetfic]

Being a trans man and not being an anti is also isolating, which is part of why I think trans guys gravitate towards either being an anti or reposting anti posts. If you're not an anti, you get booted from discord servers, blocked on social media at best or sent misgendering rape threats, death threats and suicide bait by other trans men at worst, and now that I'm in college I've found IRL that not being an anti makes a lot of people in queer spaces available to the average college student incredibly uncomfortable. So you have to either be entirely alone - which is very difficult when you're young, queer, and just coming into your own identity - or you have to be around it a lot without saying a word. Agreeing with it at first wouldn't even be necessary. You just have to not say anything against it, and then you'll be able to be around other people.

It doesn't help that most trans men who get sucked into anti circles are teens at the time. There's 501 proposed anti-LGBT laws right now, not counting everything that has passed, the majority of it anti-trans. If you're a teenage boy seeing all this transphobia on the rise, you're going to feel powerless. Bullying people like antis do makes you feel power over at least a few people. Being told you can consume your way into being a good person via media intake makes you feel like you have power and control over at least that.

I was sucked in incrementally because I wasn't exposed to the more violent antis who fantasized about murder and hurting people for writing fiction, I met my only friend - who was an anti - after my dad had beaten me for coming out as trans, and I was sixteen. I got out when I was eighteen because once I went to live with my mom, a psychologist, she gently corrected me when I would say things that aren't based in fact. She pointed out how upset these people were making me. She taught me how to fact-check claims and look into the veracity of claims.

And when I tried to convey to my friends that no, what they were saying wasn't supported, they turned on me. Including the only person who had been there for me when I was hatecrimed, who had reached out to me specifically because she met me what day. I lost every friend I had in roughly 30 hours.

If I hadn't had a really great mom, a very intelligent rabbi who's well-versed in psychology and is a former lawyer who saw the "fiction made me do it" excuse used to defend heinous crimes and doesn't buy it, and an older half-sister who lived through people calling her a psycho lesbian because she's a lesbian who played D&D, listened to metal and dressed Goth in small-town Montana in the 80's/90's, I would have probably killed myself. Having those three people who accepted me and did not accept this extremist rhetoric kept me sane and repaired my self-esteem enough to keep me going.

But a lot of people don't have three adults who are intelligent, supportive, and know better than to fall for this faux-psychology. A lot of people don't even have one. Often, they have unsupportive people who also believe firmly in the faux-psychology of "if you watch a thing you'll do that thing IRL". So there's not only no one hauling them out of this, it's getting reinforced.

Being a non-anti who is a trans man gets me a lot of shit from a lot of people online and offline. (As other anons have mentioned during the ace discourse, online talking points come up on college campuses and in real life, because the internet is not an alternate dimension, it is something being used by the people around you who exist in the same physical space as you.)

A reality that I don't think people want to discuss is that trans men, just like all other people of all other genders, suffer a lot of psychological distress if they're put in a position where they have no support. I sure as fuck wasn't happy being in a position where I went from having tons of online friends, discord servers I could hang out in and fandoms I associated with good vibes to none of that, plus harassment, plus massive misgendering.

It's a lot less awful of an existence to be a trans man and an anti when you're young and need community and support than it is to not be an anti and be isolated. And humans gravitate towards the least awful option 99% of the time.

--

Yuuup.

Having some kind of real support network, usually offline but at the very least not randos you met a day ago on discord, is vital and is the difference between not only whether you rot in a pit of antidom forever but in stemming the massive flood of trans teen suicides. The overall queer rates aren't great, but the specifically trans rates... they're bad. They're so, so bad.

[romanarose]

Banner by @winniethewife

Oscar Issac/Pedro Pascal Fan Art and Fiction Pride Event 2024

Hello friends!

Let's try this again and I'll try to be more clear to not invoke discourse. That being said, it is *my* event and if you'd like to run one a certain way, go nuts. However, this is how I'm doing it.

I had a lot of fun doing Dead Dove December and the Triple Frontier Anniversary Event so I decided I wanted to do an event for pride this year! I know it seems far away right now, especially given how many of us in north America are still cold af, but I wanna give everyone time!

Each week of pride will have a theme to write or draw for (you don't have to do all of them! Think of it like kinktober.) at the end, I will put out a masterlist (or multiple depending how many)so we can all share each other's work.

Why?

Oscar Isaac and Pedro Pascal are both allies to LGBT people, Pedro having played multiple queer rolls and having likened his sexuality to that of Prince Oberyn. Despite none of the characters being canon queer, Triple Frontier specifically lends itself to queer stories. Recently, theres been a rise in stories of Oscar characters in relationships or Pedro characters in relationships which I love.

What I'd really like to do is encourage people to think past x fem!reader or canon presentation of characters. I want to encourage gay, lesbian, bisexual relationships, trans readers, trans interpretations of characters etc. More content guidelines will be in the what section.

Where?

Primarily tumblr.com, our very own shithole hellsight. However, especially given tumblr's censorship vs. twitter, I am encouraging posting on twitter or wherever you'd like. If you post something elsewhere, send me a link or send me a post you made about it on tumblr and I'll promote the link.

Additionally if you only write on ao3, I'd love for you to participate too! Once again, just send the link!

When?

in order to do the week by week themes and hold all of June, there will be 6 weeks from May 26th-July 6th

Each week will have themes. I won't be policing the weeks and these so if you do the 1st week on july 3rd, that's fine. The themes are keeping in mind both artists and writers. I only got one artist for DDD, a great piece and I've love to see more! Ideas are just for spit balling, do your own take!

May 26th-June 1st: Coming out. Ideas: Coming out to family, lover, friend. Finding gender affirming clothes/hair, first pride

June 2nd-8th: Transitioning Ideas: Surgary, surgery scars, starting T or E, binding (safely!!!)

June 9th-15th: Sex/kissing First time together, first time with certain biology or the same sex, sweet kisses, smut showing scars,

June 16th-22nd: Food, fashion, fun

All things queer culture and culture of different religions, racial or country backgrounds, queer fashion, gender affirming clothes, Keshet (קשת), listening to Lady Gaga or Bruce Springsteen, watching a queer movie

June 23rd-29th: Struggles Rejection, reconciling faith and identity, missing family that rejected one, comfort, candlelight vigil, day of remembrance.

June 30th- July 6th:Strength Asserting ones or a partner/friend/family's pronouns, standing up against hate, being loudly and proudly yourself, pride events

Who?

Writers and artists in any form are welcome. I also want to encourage working with each other, writers and artists together!

For characters: Any Oscar Isaac or Pedro Pascal character has to at least be in the relationship. Other characters in universes can be done, such as FishBen.

Reader can be anyone, just properly tag! If you want to come out to Marc Spector as bisexual, do it!!! If you want Joel to take care of you after top surgery, do it!

YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE QUEER TO PARTICIPATE!

However! Please do your research if writing or drawing an identity not yours. There are trans, nonbinary, gay, lebian etc bloggers all over tumblr who write about their experience, please divert to first person testimonies rather than assumptions.

What?

A few rules

MUST contain more than male character x fem!reader. Male character x fem!reader x male character does not count unless the two male characters are romantically or sexually involved or one or the reader is trans. Any Q's, dm me!

This is not a dark event. I'm not going to be policing the content matter but I really want to primarily focus on the pride. However, as a bisexual, gender non-conforming person I know a lot of pain can still be involved. What we are not doing is suicide, death, self-harm, or non consensual activity. If you have questions or would like to make a case for something, just dm me!

This is not inherently NSFW, but there is absolutely NSFW allowed. Always tag everything properly.

The usual no's like bestiality, incest, underage nsfw etc

As far as minor characters, SFW MINOR CHARACTERS IS ALLOWED. You can write or draw lgbt themes because being LGBT is not inherently sexual. For example, teenage Santi coming out as trans to Frankie or your own version of Ellie and Joel's talk about Ellie and Dina kiss. That being said, I'd prefer to reserve this to teens. Again, any questions or ideas that don' quite fit into parameters, just ask!

As always, I am allowed to use my discretion. If I do not want to include something, I won't. However, I know that there are rifts in the fandom. I won't be excluding you out of personal bias. As long as I don't have you blocked and you haven't plagerized or done something really bad to people, you'll be included. I'm not letting petty beefs get in the way. Harmful actions will, however. I need to protect my peace and keep

NO REAL PERSON FANFICTION. Do not write about Oscar Isaac or Pedro pascal being gay or trans and do not make any assumptions about their sexuality or gender identity. Oscar is happily married to a woman and Pedro has expressed his sexuality is like that of Oberyn Martell but has not elaborated much further, nor should he have to. Just leave ‘em be. You can speculate elsewhere but that’s not what this event is for.

How?

Simply tag me, @romanarose and use the #OscarPedroPrideEvent2024 please please please use BOTH so it's easier for me to find!!!

When the event is over, much like DDD I will compiled them into a masterlist and posted. This is a chance for every blog, big and small, to get a moment in the sun and to share each others works! Remember, reblogging, comments, and interacting is what makes this a community! I want to create an environment that is welcoming and we all help each other.

Please feel free to reach out to me for any questions or clarification!

However, if you go issues with me writing men kissing, chracters being trans, queer readers etc, I'm not really open to debate.

~A nonbinary bisexual <3

[daughter-of-sapph0]

tips for redditors joining tumblr

make sure you have a profile picture: otherwise people will think you're a bot. we currently have a bot infestation right now, so many people block on sight unless you look like a human

reblog stuff you like: reblogging is how this site operates. it's sorta like resharing the original post around, and it'll show up on your blog too so people who follow you will see it. sometimes you can add a comment or tags, but it's not necessary

make your experience better: if you're on desktop, download Firefox, ublock origin, shinmigami eyes, and xkit. these make the website usable, block ads, and let you know who you should murder on sight. if you're on moblie... uh, idk...

turn off tumblr live: literally no one uses it, and it probably steals your data. go to blog settings, dashboard preferences, snooze tumblr live. you'll have to do this every week, and we celebrate that on Snooze Tumblr Live Tuesday

we have lots of holidays: we have Out Of Touch Wednesday, Feliz Jueves, Kill A Cop With A Baseball Bat Monday, Get Lost In The Evil Forest Saturday, and Summon The Dark Lord To Bring About The Destruction Of The Earth Wednesday. some of these are real

don't go in the cave: don't go in the cave don't go in the cave don't go in the cave don't go in the cave don't go in the cave don't go in the cave don't go in the cave don't go in the cave

take lots of breaks: mental health is important. discourse is really stupid and dumb, and you can absolutely block whoever you want for any reason. be sure to log off if you feel tired or stressed

you have to be queer and a freak: this is the LGBT sjw website. to be accepted here, you need to act like a homosexual pervert. furries are really popular here. find a group of furries to be horny with. do it now!

most importantly, have fun: I never really used reddit much, but I know that it was like tumblr in that it was one of the social media sites that was most similar to the forums and message boards of yesteryear. as the internet is slowing being killed off by corporations and capitalism, it's important that we make the most of the small space we have left.

[lemonlyman-dotcom]

I see a lot of discourse✨ right now and I just think…

A queer, interracial couple getting married and having kids in the red state of Texas, and raising them with their incredibly supportive and close-knit found family is a very radical and bold storyline to put on network TV, especially FOX, in the year of Trump 2024.

This is good representation!!!

[scarefox]

The way some people straight up deny soft criticism of the BL industry (stuff that isn't even a secret if you don't close your eyes and ears!!!) Criticism by literally LGBTq people working in said BL industry in Thailand..... basically one of the only ones who's voice are most valid here in this discourse. That's not hypocrism of people working in the industry to open their mouth! That's called self-awareness and using this genre to convey a message and trying to fix issues. This is about Step by Step and Lovely Writer atm. But those are not the only dramas who brought up some critic but somehow people get salty now about that little poke from SbS? Did you sleep the past 3 years?? And it's not a coincident that it's always the same topics certain BL dramas brought up!

I feel like some people here don't get that you can criticize your own work place, your own industry, your own country WITHOUT hating, shaming or demonizing it completely! Yall need stop this black & white thinking and the constant urge to feel personally attacked by something like this...

Especially the message of LW (the same people who make SbS now) was that there is nothing wrong about loving BL stories and they do like producing them. BUT that there are some things in the industry that are bad and harmful NOT ALL OF IT, SOME THINGS! Like the treatment of actors and certain topics by companies and producers. And the main theme of LW: the toxic overstepping and overcontrolling shipping culture that can (and did) destroy real life relationships / friendships under the weight of the pretend relationship (pretend as in they are not dating for real (everyone knows that! or should know that! this is also not even a secret if you watch interviews outside of the fun and couple game shows) at least in most of the cases.... in some rare ones yes, in some very rare cases some actors actually date but they are too afraid to come out due to homophobia and the way the industry & fandom treats those cases (source Dr. Thomas Baudinette who studies the industry as a form of queer asian media and interviewed companies and actors since years... somewhere in this he talks about actor relationships, I can't find the time stamp atm))

ALSO the point about exploiting the LGBTq community is NOT about the fans or LGBTq audience who love these dramas. But about businesses and literal Thailand itself. For using those stories and actors / couples for advertising, for marketing, for tourism even. BUT at the same time some don't care for real life LGBTq issues and rights or the fact that Thailand is still not agreeing on equal marriage (which is not just about them not being able to marry but they get denied a lot of things married couples get. alone the fact that they can't see their partner in the case of an emergency in the hospital because 'they are not family'). In the said SbS scene they were literally discussing which pretend couple has the most fans and how they could use their fandom and fan clubs to gain profit. Don't you guys get how fucking frustrating this is for the LGBTq people and allies who work in the BL industry, to get paraded in front of the camera for money and image but still don't get treated equally??? THAT is what they mean with exploiting.... And it's a lot of producers, writers and some actors who voice those points, not just these few self-aware BL dramas. But doing it through the medium they adress is the best way to reach the right people, to make the right people aware and ask for their support. Since they can't say such things directly (even though they should) unless they want to lose their job, they still like to a degree.

And I am sorry but the opinion of actual thai people who are inside that industry is more valid than some random fan who just doesn't want to understand those things in order to enjoy their shows without feeling bad.... What if I tell you that you can do both and that this is not about shaming you or making you feel guilty (unless you participate in toxic overstepping behavior or are actually LGBTq-phobic, then yes feel guilty)! Acknowledging issues, supporting to fix those issues and still have fun with these dramas and actors.... Those things can and do coexist and nobody said otherwise!!

[kerrikins]

The casting for 4 Minutes, the trailer and the subsequent discourse in the fandom has really reminded me of how far the BL sphere has to go in terms of working past stereotypes and bias. (I'll note here that I actually don't know how much of this has gone on here on Tumblr, I'm mostly talking about what I've seen on Twitter and Tiktok).

From the start it weirded me out to see people say stuff like 'obviously it's JesBible' as soon as the casting was announced. Because like - based on WHAT? Regardless of what turns out to be the case (or what we've seen from the trailer, now), at that point the ONLY thing to go on was stereotypes. Jes is taller and a bit bigger so therefore 'obviously' he's the top, right?

Gross. (And oh, I really need the BL world to give me a show with a big masculine bottom and a shorter top just to see some of these small minds struggle to wrap around the concept, lol.)

Then there's been the absolute obsession with the topic of 'omg is it JesBible or BibleJes' ever since the announcement. I expected it from the fandom, but the extent that it's gone on and then also hearing it from the media as well this week was so off-putting. It's reminded me that people really don't like it when they aren't given immediate confirmation of their biases and pre-defined boxes, and they don't like not being given answers, either.

I'll pause here to say that oh, I so appreciate how both Bible and Jes have handled this. They've both made it clear that it doesn't matter, that it's not relevant. Bible even said at one point that 'BibleJes or JesBible doesn't matter, you should think more about whether it's GreatTyme or TymeGreat', haha. (Also, I just want to say that I agree with what one of my friends on Twitter said - maybe, just maybe, 4 Minutes will be the show where we start rejecting this rigid defining of pairs based on who's supposed to be 'the top' or 'the bottom'? Because personally I think BibleJes and GreatTyme sound a lot better than the other way around, lol.)

Another thing I've seen come up is 'oh it's weird to see Bible being a bottom', 'it's weird to see Bible being submissive'.

Girl, what?

He's an actor. Why would he not play a variety of roles! I never see people say 'oh, it's weird to see ____ play a villain', or at least it isn't something that's been said very often, so why is this coming up here? Again: stereotypes (and a bit of fetishization, probably).

As for submissive - one day people will realize that where body parts are going has nothing to do with submission and the world will be a happier place 😭

This is why I would really like to see BLs incorporate something that I haven't seen much of: switching. Both in terms of changing up what role the actors are playing, but also just straight up acknowledging that not all queer couples stick to rigid top/bottom roles! Of course some do, but some don't, and representation of that might help dispel some of this nonsense.

There's also always a faint whiff of bottom shaming that goes on in these conversations, a view that being a bottom is 'lesser' or 'weaker' and it really bothers me. It's insulting to the actors giving their all to the roles but it's also really insulting to all the queer men out there who are being viewed that way according to sexual preferences. (And that's without even touching on the heavy, heavy whiff of sexism and misogyny attached to all of this, because I'm sure we've all seen people refer to the bottom as 'the wife', etc).

Honestly, it just deepens my admiration for Jes and Bible in taking this on. Jes has already gotten a question about how his lakorn viewers will see him now and I think he fielded that admirably, talking about how he's an actor and he hopes/thinks they'll realize that. There's also a bit of an assumption that lakorn is a 'step up' from BL so I love to see him defying that. He's been very firm on handling the media, too - he had an interview yesterday and TWICE had to shoot them down on the 'BibleJes or JesBible' nonsense.

And of course, Bible, my baby - oh, I admire him in doing this. So many BL acting pairs stick to rigid roles and here he is, in only his second role, being willing to defy those and challenge how the fandom perceives him and take on all the weirdness and hate that he's inevitably going to get through at him. I've already seen some people expressing dismay and saying they can't/don't want to see him in this sort of role, and I'm sure he had to be aware that he was opening himself up to that. I'm so proud that he did it anyway and I hope those people reconsider their notions around top/bottom and their expectation that actors stay in neat little boxes.

And all the above is without even touching on all the delays and the history with 4 Minutes, which already made it a bit messy in the first place.

ANYWAY. I don't really know how to wrap this up, since I'm partly just venting here to get this off my chest. But I really hope that this opens up some conversations in the BL space and creates some change for the better.

[karenandhenwillson]

About Coming Out

I've seen some discussion about "how disrespectful and misogynistic it was of Buck to come out at his sister's wedding". And at first I laughed about that take, but after some consideration, I became pretty sad. Because I feel this is one of the most queerphobic takes I've seen in this whole fandom discourse taking place since May.

What does this take imply about being queer and coming out? It tells us that coming out is a big thing. Something that you need to do with great care and put a lot of attention to, that you need to expect everyone else to put a lot of attention to. But not because people might react poorly and it's a decision a queer person needs to make carefully for their own safety's sake (which is the very reality for most queer people in any given situation) and instead because everyone else has the right to make a big deal about it and demand to talk about it and fully concentrate on it no matter what else is going on.

Coming out should not be big thing. It should not even be necessary.

That it is necessary to tell people "hey, you know, I'm not straight" or "hey, you know, I'm not cis" or any other thing people assume about others is a problem of our society. We are living in a heteronormative world. People complain about children being exposed to queer themes, but at the same time the toddlers in the sandpit--one a boy the other a girl--getting along great for the afternoon they are playing together, are called boyfriend and girlfriend. And then they are teased about their "crushes" (at least as long as it's a crush of the oposite gender, of course. In any other case they just really close friends and isn't nice to see such close friendships?).

No one should assume about any real person they see on the street, or in class, or at work, or on the news, or on TV what or who they are. But in the end all of us, the queer community just as much as everyone else, assume about people they don't know that they are straight and cis. Or they assume just by their appearances that they are decidedly not straight or not cis. (I just recently saw a meme: A picture of Christina Aguilera on a stage, and a comment beneath about "the horrors of men dressing as women" or something along those lines. That’s sad for so many reasons, but I think it very much showed the mindset of many people about how their perception is more important than anything else.)

It shouldn't matter. But sadly, it does. We live in a society where I was nervous at 16 when I told my mom "I like girls more than boys at the moment" because I had a horrible crush on a girl in my class when she asked me about dating boys (to then be told by my mother that it was a phase and would go away eventually. I haven't told her yet that it wasn't a phase but that I do use another label now). We live in a society where I used a friend's struggle with her family concerning her girlfriend to very carefully see how my dad would react to me talking about this at 21 and then blurted out "I know how my friend feels because Mom was horrible when I told her I'm bi" (to then break down in tears when my dad just shrugged, said I hadn't told him anything new about myself or my mom and if my friend and her girlfriend needed any help).

I wish we lived in a world where sitting at a café with a relatively new friend and just mentioning "this woman I once dated" without it interrupting the conversation at all was normal. And where it is just as normal that this friend shared a little while later "that's why I mostly dated women before meeting my husband" again without it interrupting our conversation in any way. Our hug when we said goodbye might have been a little bit longer and a little bit tighter than is usual, but other than that it was not a big deal coming out to each other at all. I, for my part, didn't even think about it being a big thing because I feel comfortable and secure with this friend.

I wish we lived in a world where coming out wasn't even necessary.

I wish we lived in a world where others wouldn't make assumptions based on what others look like under their closes, or about who they love, or about who they find attractive, or about who they fuck. Where people wouldn't judge how people style themselves and how they look and what the scale might show about their weight. I wish we lived in a world where none of that mattered. I wish we lived in a world where a man showing up with a boyfriend or showing up single to any event would be as much talked about as a man showing up with a girlfriend: that there would be no talk about it at all.

We don't live in such a world. And when I look at people saying Buck was disrespectful and misogynistic (really, what??? Are people once more just throwing around random words to see which of them will stick?) by coming out at his sister's wedding, I know my nieces and nephews and probably even my grand-nieces and grand-nephews won't ever experience such a world. Because instead of working to normalize being queer, people are doing exactly the opposite. (And then of course the anti-queer laws we are seeing pop up again at the moment, but that's another topic.)

All that despite 9-1-1 showing us at least a glimpse of that world I wish we could live in.

We saw Buck struggle with some internalized homophobia, of course. Because I think that's exactly what his nervousness during the first date and his panic when Eddie showed up was about. We know that Buck isn't homophobic in the slightest. We have seen him interact with enough queer people in the course of the show to know that about him. But clearly, there was a tiny voice in his head--and I'd bet money it sounded very much like Margaret Buckley's voice--telling him it was shameful to date a man. He worked through it very quickly and I think that's a testament of how much he did work through the bullshit his parents planted in his head in therapy. And it might also be a sign of how much he really likes Tommy and wants to be with him that he managed to work through that hateful voice in his head in just a couple of days.

But then we also saw that coming out is very much not a big deal at all at the wedding. I fully believe Buck knew about the soot on his face (Come on guys, he's been a firefighter for over seven years. He worked in a forest fire at least once. Buck knows exactly how soot travels and how difficult it is to get rid of it again.) He chose to have the soot all over his face to show everyone how he had greeted Tommy. He dragged Tommy into the room holding his hand. He took that slight breath to prepare himself for any reaction and then beamed over his whole face. There was no spoken announcement, but it could still not have been louder. I'm sure, if everything had gone according to plan (and Tommy hadn't been stuck fighting a fire) there wouldn't have been any big announcement then either. They'd just have danced among all the other couples dancing at the wedding and let everyone else make their assumptions about it.

And everyone else just reacted like I wish it would always go: They smiled, happy to see Buck happy, and turned back to the main event. No one talked about Buck and Tommy. No one asked Buck and Tommy any questions. No one turned to Buck and said "But you've always liked women!" or asked "Were you hurt by a woman? Is that the reason you are turning to men now?" or accused "You should have told us an age ago! Why didn't you tell us? How dare you not to tell us!".

It was such a fucking beautiful coming-out scene. Because it was full of acceptance and support. And at the same time, it also showed that coming out really isn't a big thing. It showed to beautifully that it doesn't matter who he loves or who he dates.

Buck coming out to the rest of his friends and family was not noteworthy at all among all the events of that day. Because he's found great friends and a great family in LA and all that matters for them is that he is happy with the person he is dating.

So, I would like to ask those people who say that Buck should have gone around and come out to everyone before the wedding because doing it the way he did was stealing his sister's big day (and why only his sisters, anyway? Why not also Chimney's big day?) something: If Buck had brought a new girlfriend, should he have gone around to everyone to inform them about that first? Maddie knew about Tommy, I think Chimney might have known before getting sick. Aren't those the two important people on that day and the only ones who need to know, at least that he was bringing a date?

And also: Should have Hen and Karen gone around to all the guests who don't know them and come out to them? Which includes the Buckley parents. If Josh brought a date, should he have gone to everyone and inform them first about bringing a man as his date? Or to take his one ridiculous step further: Should have Athena and Bobby gone around to everyone who doesn't know them closely to tell them they are an interracial couple? (Because there are people who would still find that scandalous and could have made a scene! No matter that they are currently attending the wedding of another interracial couple.) Why have these couples the right to assume that no one will talk about their relationship when the focus should be on the bride and groom, but Buck and Tommy don't have that right? Just because it's new for Buck? Rally?

(And I'm aware that the people who I'm asking this question probably quit reading this text after the first 100 words or so. They probably didn't get 1.7k words into my essay to get to these questions. And that might just be another problem in this fandom discourse: Certain people are just not open to take the time and energy to openly and honestly deal with opinions that don't agree with their own opinion. Because that could mean having to change their own opinion, right?)

[pinkyjulien]

It's been rotating in my head all morning and since I have to wait a few hours to get my day started, might as well throw my two cents in a proper post

We really should talk about Kerry Eurodyne

Now before you run off, I think it's important to point something out; As a fandom veteran who been here since early 2021, I think others will agree when I say that the discourse surrounding Kerry has always been a hot topic that comes back around every few weeks- but why does it keep coming back?

I'm well placed to know that ignoring a problem and not talking about it publicly doesn't solve anything; everyone is quick to throw assumption and accusations, to make "callout" post, to blow things out of proportions, to take someones's squick as personal attack, and the mob mentality does the rest; everyone follow whoever is going to be the loudest about an ongoing "fandom drama"

This isn't an attempt to show anyone that they're "wrong" or "right"; there is no right or wrong in this recurring discourse. This post is an attempt at opening an healthy and mature conversation! I come in peace gfhgfh

Prefacing this by saying that I'm not a Kerry fan, and I'm not bisexual. So why the hell do I care? Well to be frank, I don't particularly care, I have my own opinions on the character, but I do care (to an extent) about this "community" and I hate seeing what happened to me happen to others, especially new commers who never meant anything wrong. Nobody deserves to be bullied out of a fandom for sharing their opinions on their own blog/space!

Alright this intro was long but let's get on it- buckle up cause this is going to be a looooot of rambling

━

Through the years/months, I've noticed something rather sad; this isn't a debate between bisexual people vs biphobic people, as a lot of people might think and assume; this has always been queer people sharing, sometimes in a really awkward and hurtful way, their interpretation of a character (don't block me yet, please hear me out)

Those who know me knows that I personally care a lot about the canon and writers's visions, so first I want to share some posts about Kerry made by his literal "parents"

Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz, Narrative Designer at CDPR, shared informations on the different romance interest back in December 2020, on the game's release day

When asked about a MLM relationship option, here what he states:

(don't leave just yet)

On a now-deleted comment, RTalsorianGames, original creator of the Cyberpunk tabletop game and by definition original creator of Kerry Eurodyne, stated the following:

Please note that CDPR did in fact consult with Mike himself about Kerry being a MLM exclusive romance!

(Also this isn't a debate about if Kerry cares about V or not, let's not derail this conversation, remember that everyone is allowed to interpret a character and a relationship as they wish)

I wanted to share these tweets to point something really important; there is no "right" or "wrong" label for Kerry, and it all boils down to interpretation < key word

Kerry have multiple states; we HAVE to remember Kerry exist in some kind of cyberpunk multiverse!

We have his 2020 and 2023 self that are confirmed to be bisexual; this is the Kerry Mike and RTalsorian created, the Kerry they have full control and say over; the same young Kerry we see in Johnny's flashback

And then comes his 2077 self, which we see confirmed above as labeled as Homosexual (which again as been approved by Mike himself)

I personally think it's important to start with what his different creators have to say; Kerry is both Mike's and CDPR's character; Kerry is both labeled as being Bisexual and Homosexual

There is a lot of reasons why this change / evolution was made, even tho we all know the main reason; they needed a MLM romance in the game to complete the LI roster. But why take an already established character, a Bi character even, for the Gay romance?

I've seen a lot of people saying that CDPR erased his bisexuality, I understand why it might feel like this, but I don't think it's true or fair! Again, remember that Mike gave his OK for this; he could've at any moment said no, Kerry is HIS baby first and foremost

In game, we learn about Kerry's ex wife and kids; this is something CDPR could've not included at all (and THIS would've been erasing his bisexuality imo) it's not even something that is said out loud, but something to be found by dedicated fans; it's here on purpose, to give depth to the character and to his personal life!

We also see a couple of feminine clothes around his villa; let's not assume anything here, clothes have no genders especially in the 2077 setting, but it can also well point at one-night stand with women and/or multi-gender orgies for example

But, this won't be anything new or controversial, Kerry pushes femV advances in game- this is simply a fact! Like it or not, that's how CDPR's writers, RTAL and Mike decided to evolve Kerry's character for the game; everyone was ok with this

━

Now comes the root of the debate; Is it homophobic to mod Kerry to be romanceable by a femV? and is it biphobic to not be comfortable with this?

No, and no - (don't leave just yet, please read a bit more)

Remember that I'm "just" a gay man, I've had discussion with friends of all gender and orientation about this topic and it's been enlightning to hear the different opinions on the matter!

As previously mentioned, it all boils down to Interpretation.

The discourse recently came back because someone shared their uncomfortableness regarding mods that change Kerry's preferences; in the post tags, OP made sure to say that everyone was free to do anything, to ship anything, and that this was just their opinion; but obviously the fandom didn't read that part and started to throw accusation around, and here we are (I shouldn't have to remind people that we all are free to share whatever on our respective blogs, if it hurts you just block the person, don't jump them)

OP is a Bisexual Man; a lot of other Bisexual Men related to this post and rebloged it, sharing their thoughts in the tags (I also rebloged it, I know it caused a few people to back off and block me as a result, which I respect totally)

Going to pick up my questions back up to hopefully state my opinions and "analyses" of the situation as clear as possible

Is it homophobic to mod Kerry to be romanceable by a femV?

No, it's not

Kerry is bisexual, he was married to a women, and potentially still have sex with women and fem individuals, these infos are all canon in game.

Kerry pushes femV flirts away; but since he experience attraction to women, who is to say that in someone's own canon, their fem OC isn't a V, and doesn't have Johnny involved, changing how Kerry and their OC meet drastically; Kerry could fall in love with her! He could; he's bisexual after all.

Is it biphobic to not be comfortable with this?

No, it's not

Kerry has a clear preference for men; CDPR choose to show this multiple time in the game, during Johnny's flashback we can see him make out with a masc fan, we can see him being vulnerable with Johnny (imo, his lil crush is showing hard)

I personally haven't seen it/heard it in game, but I've been told that after learning about Kerry's ex-wife, Johnny has a vocal, surprised reaction, has if imagining Kerry with a woman is strange to him

However, there is a lot of biphobic things being said in the discourse, and not in the way you might think of

I thankfully never see the full extent of it; I don't see the obviously biphobic takes, stating that Kerry SHOULD NEVER be with a femV, people being nasty and ATTACKING femV/Kerry shippers; this is never ok, these have been blocked for a long time now

But I sadly see the other takes, which always icked me a bit; the takes that say, "you bisexuality isn't worth of respect if it isn't a 50/50 attraction at all time", takes that are sadly biphobic in nature (making it clear that I'm not pointing finger at anyone, nor am I accusing anyone of being biphobic)

This is what it boils down to, I think, this is the root of the problem

As mentioned before, a lot of Bisexual Men expressed their uncomfort when it comes to femV/Kerry mods; it invalidated Kerry's preference. But this isn't about Kerry, he's fictional, he CANT be hurt by anything, by mods or art or whatever; It invalidate Bisexual Men that share the same preference in Men, Bisexual men that related to Kerry for X or Y.

Bisexuality is a spectrum, queer people has been fighting against Bi erasure for years, but also against Bi stereotypes; and I think this is one of them? (Please correct me if I'm wrong)

Bisexuality isn't a strict 50/50 split preference- it can be! But 60/40, 20/80 and even 99/1 attractions are still Bisexual attractions. I've met a lot of queer people who, despite being bisexual by definition, choose not to label as such (prefering to label as straight or gay depending on their preferences) just because of this "bisexual police" imposing a strict 50/50; "How can you be bisexual, you've only dated men/women" etc

This is what is being imposed in the fandom, this is how it might looks like to people; when you attack a Bisexual Man sharing his uncomfort in seeing people not respecting a Bisexual character's preference, you're telling them "Hey, your bisexuality isn't valid if you have a preference". You're telling them "Your bisexuality isn't correct". You're showing them that you "fixed" a "flawed" bisexual character "that got erased as gay for having a preference" by "modding his bisexuality back"

Kerry being written as MLM exclusive in Cyberpunk 2077 isn't bi erasure; he's still Bisexual, he simply has a strong preference for Men. A preference that he always had, but that can also be amplified after his divorce with his ex wife, for multiple reasons; I also don't have to point out how many queer people in real life explored their homosexuality after being in a hetero-marriage for most of their lives! And that's ok, queer love is an ever evolving spectrum, and I think it's awesome we get more fleshed out characters that explore this in depth

I've seen people compare Kerry to Johnny, and I don't think it's fair; for the simple reason that Kerry is a romance option and Johnny is not.

Johnny express a clear preference for women; however he replies to V (and flirt, in some case) the same way regardless of gender! Kerry on the other end, as previously said, pushed femV's advanced away. Something Johnny can't do since he's not a romance option; tho if he was, and if he was pushing mascV advances away, it would be the exact same situation and same problematic!

Another character that is canonly bisexual is Goro; he replies to V's flirt through text messages the exact same way, he doesn't seem to express any preferences (and no, his "obligation in japan" isn't necessarily a wife, this is heteronormative and another problem all together, not the subject here)

People can express being uncomfortable seeing Johnny with a given gender, or Goro with a given gender; but there isn't any """reason""" to it outside of personal preferences

Kerry situation is problematic because it lies in his clearly, canonly stated preference, how people decide to interpret it, and how it can come off to other queer people who might share sexuality and/or preference with the character

━

Everyone is free to ship whoever however they want

But please; remember that everyone is different. People being uncomfortable with a character bisexuality preference being ""fixed"" shouldn't be too surprising; and if it is, please re-read my post/ You have to be ok with this fact, it's OK to make content that might be uncomfortable for others; this is fiction!

There isn't any Right or Wrong way to be bisexual, to be queer Kerry's bisexuality is perfectly fine; unmodded or modded Everyone is Different; Every Queer experiences is different People relate to characters in different way

Nobody is being misoginist; there isn't any double standard at play

Bisexual people sharing their opinions on their own blogs on how a fandom handle a character's bisexuality isn't biphobic, or an attack to anyone who interpret the character differently!

I promise you nobody is attacking anyone, and a lot of things being said accidently comes off as biphobic on both sides of this eternal "debate"

It all comes down to respecting others interpretations, and agreeing to disagree! Tumblr's filtering system work great, you can easily filter and block tags, or even people if needed

I might've said things awkwardly, and for this I apologise; but don't put words I didn't say into my mouth! If you don't agree, that's fine, and you're more than welcome to filter/block me if needed; but please do not paint me as biphobic or misoginist, same goes to everyone who shared their thoughts on the matter, these are serious accusation and can wrongfully hurt a lot of people

Ship and let Ship, take care of yourselves and remember to curate your space 🙏

[decolonize-the-everything]

You are literally going to get people killed by pushing them to vote third party. People voting third party is why Trump won in 2016, which allowed him to stack the Supreme Court with conservative garbage which is going to negatively affect us for DECADES to come (already has, since it led to the repeal of Roe v. Wade which has LITERALLY killed people). I'm baffled, because you've done so much good work on this website (like I still go back and regularly reread your posts on whiteness etc because they're so informative), but advocating for voting third party going into one of the most important elections in recent memory is actively harmful.

Like have you heard of Project 2025? In case you haven't it's literally like a 1000 page manifesto for the Republican party to reshape the federal government to essentially let the President become a dictator. It also expressly mentions plans to roll back rights for women, the LGBT community, and pretty much any other minority you can think of. I know things are bad now - not arguing that at all - but if Republicans win next year, things will get EXPONENTIALLY WORSE.

You can sit there and yell about Democrats being "just as bad" until you're blue in the face, but it's literally not true. The Democratic Party itself is obviously just another problematic institution and there are definitely Dems who showed their entire asses with supporting Israel, but like... Progressive Democrats do exist and while they're obviously not perfect, it's absolutely a step in the right direction. Not to mention Republicans literally need to cheat by gerrymandering and attacking voting rights for minorities in order to even get elected in a lot of places, whereas Democrats tend to win when more people are registered and actually show up to vote. They are not the same, and the harm they do is not the same.

Again, I have a lot of respect for the work you do, especially with your recent posts on the Palestinian genocide. But I vehemently disagree with your stance on voting third party in this upcoming election. Ideally I would love if we could vote third party and actually have multiple options that more accurately represent us as a population, but our current system is a two party one and unfortunately we literally do have to vote for the lesser of two evils, because one option sucks but preserves what little democracy we have (and gives us a chance of making it better) and one will literally bring genocide against trans people. I would personally rather not see that happen.

How can you say this and mention the Palestinian genocide in the same ask.

Democrats are getting people killed. In fact they're committing one of The worst crime against humanity possible and then only thing you're worried about is that things might get worse for gay people if a Republicans wins.

I'm the biggest queer I know. I'm native. I'm brown. I'm almost definitely on a watch list. And listen to me and understand the depth of my words when I say: my people have been oppressed the way Project2025 outlines.

And maybe you personally cared or helped us protest that. But most people didn't. In fact I can't remember the last time the US supported native rights at all.

But now that YOURE under threat I'm supposed to risk my life because the queer community can't be bothered to stop discoursing about neopronouns long enough to actual give an shit about saving the community?

Y'all got a lot of damn nerve, let me tell you.

Go bark up some other tree cuz this is not the one.

Also I'm not pushing anyone to vote 3rd party. I'm laying out facts. Facts are a Gallup poll says 63% of people would vote 3rd party. Facts are my Tumblr poll says that number is STILL at least 45% on the hellsite.

And since people are interested in voting 3rd party they should know their options. The people who say "I would vote 3rd party but they don't have support" also deserve to see the articles that said 63% of people would join them.

They deserve to know that 3rd parties currently hold a not insignificant amount percentage of support from the two main parties. 20% of votes. When 33% is an even split are good odds. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sorry, blue Fascists, but this country is in fact still a democracy and just because you Want people to vote blue doesn't mean they have to and you feeling they're the best doesn't make you right!

Other people aren't "wrong" for not wanting your conservative Jurassic party in power anymore.

They can vote how they want.

And if you see a poll that says 63% of people would rather NOT vote for either major party and your first thought is not: wow 63% is enough to elect someone we want, I'll support that.

And instead you go: how can I force them to vote for my party instead.

Then please understand it is not THEM splitting the vote. Biden will get MAYBE 40% votes. You gonna force 63% of the country to vote for someone they don't even want?

There's a name for that yeah?

How'd it work out in 2016 when y'all "forced" us to vote for Hillary by putting her on the ballot? She lost and she wasn't even actively commiting a genocide.

But you think Biden will not only earn votes from that 63% but he'll also win the election. Against trump. Which less blatantly shitty democrats have struggled to contend with?

Democrats are legitimately delusional.

Your problem is you see Democrats as being better than Republicans. While the rest of us see less and less of a difference every year. And you can only say you're "better" if you're different enough.

See this is what happens when you vote for the "lesser evil." Eventually that evil balances back out and you're left with the truth that your two main options are just evil.

Now the only people actually different enough to make that argument are third parties.

Coincidentally, that's what people are drawn to right now.

I know, go figure. It's almost like it makes sense to lose support when you consistently prop up shitty candidates nobody asked for every 4 years.

We do not have a two party system and you know that, that's why you sent this ask.

Cuz you're stressed dems might lose. Cuz you KNOW people have other options.

Good. Cuz they will lose if Biden is the democrat's nominee and Claudia de la Cruz stays in the race, which she will since she's running with PSL not democrats. So there's no competition. Her party is organized and chosen her and a VP already, she's guaranteed every one of their votes because her party works like a union does.

It's a wrap.

Biden can't use his "lesser evil" script with Claudia De La Cruz on the ballot actively challenging his genocide and imperialism.

Vote Claudia De La Cruz cuz you are a scooping water out of the Titanic trying to get 63% of Americans to think voting for a Genocidal warmonger is what's best for any of us, let alone the planet. And we didn't want him BEFORE he did any of this.

[marengogo]

Rambling in INFJese - Part 10: Queerful In South Korea

SGMB and RPWP focused playlist

[Music is a very big part of my life and I’m MOSTLY INCAPABLE of writing without music, so I just thought I'd share what I am listening to while writing this]

🐺 — 🐺 — 🐺—

Gurls, Bois and Enbies … Hellooooooooooo 📢 Yes, I’m finally, officially, back from my travels.

Am I feeling relaxed and refreshed?

NO.

In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m more tired than when I left 😬. You see, there was more excitement than I thought, or even budgeted for, but, lowkey highkey I knew it was going to turn out like that, so, it was what it was and it was unforgettable 😊💜. 

Now, on to the topic of today!

As the title kinda spoils, I would like to bring forth the topic of queerness in present day Korea, touching upon specific sub-subjects within this main-theme, which you will discover as you keep reading.

In order to provide more context and understanding, I’ll have to bring up a bit of Geography, a tad of Politics and a lot of History, and let me make this clear, even though I have been out of politics for quite some time I used to be very invested in world politics … I am presently indeed somewhat annoyed, because there seems to be a lot of misinformation that has been going around with regards to what it might mean to be gay/queer person in South Korea, in the big year of 2024, which is why I’d also like to encourage us to be proactive and do some research, on our own, with the available resources that are out there. I know it sounds heavy, but I promise I’ll try and make it as least cumbersome, and as much relatable to what might concern all Queer people, and JK and JM of course, as possible ✌🏾.

Let’s start with some Geography.

Asia … is a big ass continent. Because it is so big, amongst the people who make these kind of decisions, it was decided that this continent would have to be divided into 5 regions: Central, East, South, Southeast and West. The regions we are going to be concerned with are East and Southeast also known as ASEAN. The East has a total of 8 countries, out of which we are going to focus on 4 being; China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, while the Southeast has a total of 11, out of which we are only going to concentrate on 1, being Thailand … aaand that was all for Geography; painless right?

Great. So now it is time for some of History. We are now going to be talking about the history of the BL genre and the Queer art genre within two particular cultures; Eastern and Western.

BL, otherwise known as Boy’s Love, is a genre that was born in Japan in the 1970s. To properly discuss the world of BL it would take way too many blogs, so I’m afraid I won’t delve too deep into it, but in order to proceed with our discourse I need for everyone to at least understand the substantial difference between, for example, a series like The Eight Sense and Heartstopper. The first is a BL and the other is a Queer Coming-of-Age Drama. These two series are the I most point out very positive outcome of a lot of struggle and progress within both the BL and Queer art genre through the years.

The East and BLs - BL was created by women to be consumed by other women in Japan. It had nothing to do with creating content for gay/queer people, and this is very fundamental for everyone to understand. The thing is that it doesn’t matter where in the world you are, if you are or were a girl/woman you know the struggles are real. Different parts of the world deal with this frustration in different ways, and Japan and eventually the other 4 Asian countries I listed above found this to be one of them. The BL genre is basically having two men in a forbidden relationship, driven by mad passion, and who would always choose each other over the rest of the world. Star crossed-lovers where one of them would always be the Seme/Top or male-male and the other the Uke/Bottom or female-male. At the core of it all, BL was intended to be escapism, which eventually turned into fetishism and now can be all the above and something else entirely; evolution aye?

Mainly Asian women perhaps used BL to feel like their opinions and emotions could matter, in an environment where like also many other countries in Africa men are the ones that have the last say, or just any say at all. So they fulfilled their fantasy of being heard, and having power, while at the same time having the “strongest/most ideal” of men fall desperately in love with this male version of themselves. It is obviously much more complex than my two line sentence explanation, but for now, kindly keep this image in your mind.

Moving on!

The West and Queer Art - The queer genre in the West for the longest time was almost always a guaranteed tragedy. Interestingly enough, even though the first movie that mentioned homosexuality was in the 1960, the beginning of Queer culture in movies was, also for the West, in the 1970s. I can’t tell you the amount of books and films I have read and seen in my day says the woman in her thirties LOL and, despite the heart-wrenching looming tragedy, I would still enjoy finding comfort during those few chapters/scenes when the couple/pairing was happy, even though I knew for a fact that either one of them or both would die, or be eternally separated, or some other kind of tragedy.

The funny thing is that I would just accept it, because why not? Is not like my reality showed any different. It wasn’t like I was aware of happy and successful queer people around me, so why would I expect to read or watch anything else? Also I am a nasty ass angsty person so really I have no excuse. 

… are y’all following me thus far?

Now, let’s take a bit of a leap into the 2000s where money-makers finally clocked in on the fact that there is mad-money that can be made with BL in the East and Queerness in the West. In the East we start adopting fanservice within boybands and Asian-Dramas, we start printing thousands of BL mangas, and producing as many animes to match. In the West we keep having the token queer comedian appear on every show as well as making movies of historic queer figures who have impacted the world somehow, so that the queers can feel represented, even though all the actors are for the most part straight, because at this point in time, even though we acknowledge that Queer people exist, coming out is still very meh.

As the 2000s progress and we enter the 2010s thanks to actual progress within some western countries, the interweb and social media it becomes increasingly easier for an Eastern Fujoshi/Fudanshi/Fujin (Bl lover girl/boy/enby) to find themselves in say the UK, which has areas that breathe queerness and queer history and for a Western Queer to find themselves in say Japan where they can easily buy a manga about “queers” in happy relationship or, somewhere in South Korea, can easily see two very attractive boys/girls from a random kpop band openly kiss.

And then, in the midst of this “cultural” exchange, and awakening, something happens.

The Eastern Fujoshi/Fudanshi/Fujin realise that there are actual real queer people in the world sounds stupid, but believe me, it is not. That queer people are not just characters in a book, or anime, and that in fact there really are people in the world who are for example of the same sex and truly wanna be together and, if gay, for example, can also be both very masculine and still want to be together. At the same time the Western Queer realise that they actually can be happy, and that they deserves a happy ending, because some of this BLs aren’t half as bad and they sometimes make valid points and then you find out that actual queer people are now also writing BLs so things start to make some sense. 

As I mentioned, society was also changing, Queer people in the West started gaining a few rights, such as being able to get married in America and some European countries, and as a consequence, in the following decade, we now have series and movies that have Queer protagonist, with happy endings to boot! In the East, things are either not moving at all or moving a bit differently, or kinda slowly, but still it is movement. Within the countries that are moving differently, talking about Queerness is still heavy but has finally become something that they “don’t mind” just talking about and the gay neighbour is actually seen as the gay neighbour, whether they will talk to them is debatable, but at least they are recognised as such and not absurdly explained away or their existence ignored.

Now back to geography. The reason why I mentioned those 5 countries (China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand) is because at some point in the 2010s they were the main producers, and consumers, of BL within the Asian continent, and yes, while still being hella homophobic and, but let’s be real for a second, queer people have been around since the beginning of time, so even though BL was made and intended for women, our Queer Eastern Siblings would find a way to secretly also consume BL, being the closest thing to reading about a queer relationship, so added to the westerner consumption as well, it is no surprise that these 5 countries suddenly had a boom, despite having been being homophobic. 

Hence, it can be said that these 5 countries were on the same wavelength in the early 2010s, but what about now? With the considerable change in behaviour and thought with regards to Queer people in these countries in the early 2020s where do these 5 countries stand with regards to their Queer people and politics? Well, China has now banned BLs entirely, and I will not delve into their further lack of queer rights. Taiwan and Thailand have legalised Queer marriage. Then there is Japan which is making progress towards trying to legalise Queer marriage with to my greatest joy a successful ruling that happened this year in March related to same-sex unions … so, what about South Korea?

Well … SK is so close 🥹 … Yet so far 😫

It’s like they are taking 4 steps forward and 3 steps backwards, constantly. They are well far from China-levels which is a fucking relief I tell you! but they are dragging their feet to be at Japan-levels (and Japan is very close to Thailand and Taiwan Queer status currently). Yet, it is not as negative as it seems, or as some people try to portray it. You look around social media and they depict SK as if it were China. SK is currently facing a situation where it notices that things are changing and change is scary y’all. Resistance is the usual reaction to change, and the older generations, mainly those led by the Christian groups are not really where is at. SK’s youth and older liberal generations hold the answer to the Queer Korea questions.

So what exactly makes SK look hopeful? Well, time to get back to some History again 😘

The first Queer organisation in SK was formed in 1993 by 3 gay men and 3 lesbian women. The following year the 6 separated into 2 groups and formed the first gay organisation and the first lesbian one respectively. In 1997 we have the first demonstration for gay and lesbian rights, which then lead into 2000, the year of the first Pride Parade, which is one of the events of the very first Seol Queer Culture Festival Daegu Queer Culture Festival will be created in 2009, do keep this in mind … but another major event happened in the year 2000.

Y’all know that saying X walked so that Y could run? Well Hong Seok Cheon was basically forced to walk so that Queer Korean could learn how to properly train to run.

Though Seok-cheon is presently back to being somewhat popular again, his coming out was pretty traumatic. His career as comedian/actor started in 1994 and he was quite popular which landed him a good number of acting roles, and a lot of placements in comedy shows, as well as a kids show. In 2000 he was asked about his sexuality and he had no qualms in replying that he was gay. The show editors decided to cut out that part but a journalist gotta love them 🙃 got a hold of the footage and forced him to “elaborate”. Upon confirming, Seok-cheon lost all his jobs and was shunned verbally abused, discrimination and the lot, oh yes … by his own country. 

Not surprisingly, given that nobody in his own country wanted to interact with him, he at first thought of moving to the US to start afresh, but then decided against it. Seok-cheon decided to stay and prove to everyone in his country that he could make it and be successful again. And that he did. In 2002 he opened the first of what now is a high end chain of 9 restaurants in Itaewon. 2004 he joined the Democratic Labor Party and was selected by Time magazine as the Asian Hero of that year and in the following years Seok-cheon will keep racking up achievements  🎶🎵Did you see my bag? Did you see my bag? 🎶🎵 Namean?! (I’m not gonna list them all but you should definitely look him up and learn a bit about him, if you are interested).

But how does that connect to today? In 2008 he started his own talk show Coming Out and though there was a bit of resistance at the beginning as expected, the youth came in force and he started gaining audiences and boom! He was back on TV and slowly he’d get also a few cameos on prominent media, such as the Netflix drama Itaewon Class. Now let’s leave the lime-light for a second and let's look at the military 😬. It is vitally important that people understand that being gay is not illegal in any of the 5 countries we’ve been talking about yes, even China, but the public opinion and beliefs of each country greatly influence how their queer communities are thought of and treated.

Now, SK Military has become pretty infamous within the queer community for conducting witch-hunts in order to find out and humiliate gay soldiers, so much so that organisations such as Amnesty eventually had to step in. That being said, let's be real real real for a second. Though it is appalling what they have done to the queer soldiers, the SK military was also very famous for hazing, assaulting, causing cadets regardless of sexuality to want to unalive themselves and what more. All of the aforementioned, which put SK’s military on the map in a not so positive light globally, added to the increase in suicides, made the government address the situation, and they eventually came up with solutions such as the buddy system, which was first implemented in 2003. But, back to the gays. The most popular witch-hunt happened in 2017 where two soldiers amongst others were outed, but these particular two were found guilty of having sex off-base, during off hours.

In 2022 this conviction was overturned, the soldiers were no longer guilty and it is now no longer illegal, for queer soldiers, to have sex off-base during off-hours. You know what else happened in 2022? SK aired their first Queer reality shows, one being To Me(a)rry Queer and and the other being His Man. In 2023, His Man 2 will give us our first successful real-life queer couple, who are our beloved couple Junseong and Seongho (together known as Junseongho). They are the first queer couple to ever appear on Dazed magazine and we are all familiar with Dazed, it is not the front page like our boys get, but we all know how big of a deal this is, right?

You know what else happened in 2023? Remember that Daegu Queer Culture Festival I was talking about? The Mayor of Daegu (big Christian sympathiser) tried to stop this festival which includes the Parade and many other events, even though the Court ruled it was okay for the Festival to be carried out. The Mayor gathered other supporters and pulled up to the group, but the Daegu Police protected the Festival and removed the mayor and his “friends” from the premises. This was big and made news worldwide. 

In fact, Daegu’s Queer Culture Festival is the second largest one in the country, after Seoul’s. This is mainly possible because the Local Authorities (such as the police) are quite independent in belief from their present Mayor and the Christian factions. In contrast, for example, Busan’s Queer Culture Festival had a two year run but was then cancelled in 2019. Unfortunately, in Busan, The Mayor, the Local Authorities and the Christian factions are buddy-buddies making it much harder to get protection and permissions, aaaaaand things like that, kids, is why it is super important to vote for your local administration as well.

Even though these are all very important stepping stones, SK is nowhere close to being the UK, obviously. The LGBTQ community still has to get all their core rights being legalised, and queer people can still be subject to random ass attacks, such as the singer Holland had in 2022, which, by the way, also still occasionally does happen in the UK and everywhere else in the Queer World. Which is a general minority reality I’m afraid.

Furthermore, it is still illegal to have sex on base, which the country maintains that they are upholding because they are trying to prevent possible sexual assaults not too mad about this tbh, which is a valid concern, but most importantly they now know that the world is watching and why is that important? Because, for example, even though they are now separated, one of the boys from the Me(a)rry Queer couples enlisted around the same time with JK & JM and from his posts and photo-booth pictures that other soldiers posted of him, he seems to be making friends and to be comfy as comfy as you can get while serving, kinda like Joonie and most likely JM & JK

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Not quite the attitude of someone fearing a witch-hunt, right? But then again, there isn’t much to hunt when you are already out, it is afterall illegal to hunt people and the world is now aware; is there? …

Now back to the general people of SK. According to a survey conducted in 2023 last year, 56% of South Koreans still oppose same-sex marriage (in comparison with only 26% of Japanese). 56% is not bad but then 72% don’t want queer people in their neighbourhoods and  workplace, though 81% think that it is not right to terminate people because of their sexual orientation 4 steps ➡️3 steps ⬅️… … … Basically it’s okay to be queer here as in SK, but not here-here, perhaps over there like a queer only neighbourhood or something which at the moment is the Itaewon district. 

So yes, 2024 Queer SK is still struggling though they are not going to be overtly nasty about it, because the world is watching. I mean, don’t get me wrong, progress is progress and we love to see that, it is actually amazing, but there still needs to be a general environment where LGBTQ rights in SK need to be recognised and for queer Koreans to not be discriminated against in their social/work/family life. It is also great that Queer media is trying to transition more and more from only BL to actual Queer Drama, for example I am really looking forward to watching Love In The Big City which btw also stars Kim Go Eun.

There is still work to be done, but I think Jung Cueri, a lesbian woman who helps with the Seoul Queer Culture Festival, says it best (here is the full article https://www.dw.com/en/why-are-south-koreans-less-welcoming-of-lgbtq-neighbors/a-68698268 ):

“I think the attitudes of younger generations of Koreans are getting better," she said, pointing out that young LGBTQ+ individuals "tend to come out sooner to their families, in their workplaces and schools than my generation because they are more aware of their sexuality through social media and exposure to various discussions that are more tolerant of LGBTQ+ people." And the cultural festival can help to be a catalyst to change further, she believes. "It will get better," she said. "And that is why the organizers and everyone else involved in the festival are working so hard; they know that Korean society will get better, and they want to contribute to that.

From where I stand it seems Hopeful, Queerful, if you may.

So, Fighting!, Queer South Korea!

Always respectfully yours,

Marengo. 

[olderthannetfic]

Until I read the comments on that one post I had no idea the Bechdel Test was a joke and wasn't supposed to be a serious measuring stick by which you gauged if something was feminist or not. Everywhere I'd ever heard it brought up, it was brought up as a very serious thing, and it was a failure of media if it didn't pass it. I remember the debate about Mako Mori from Pacific Rim and if she was a character you were "allowed" to like as a progressive person despite the fact that Pacific Rim doesn't pass the Bechdel Test, the discourse, the discussion of if the director was sexist for not writing in another woman for her to chat with about non-men related stuff, the camp of people trying to insist that having a fully realized character arc and being as developed as any of the male leads = good writing even if she doesn't talk to another girl...

And I've also had the remark about my writing not passing the test, just not to my face. I searched my fanfic's name once, curious to see if anyone was discussing it outside of tumblr and AO3, and found a Tiktok complaining about it not passing the Bechdel Test. The top comment was "motherfucker YOU don't pass the test but we still watch your ass". I cackled and moved on, but neither the commenter, poster, nor I had any awareness this wasn't Feminist Media Critique 101 theory and was, in fact, a goof.

Right now there's a segment of fandom debating if Blue Eye Samurai is feminist since when Mizu and Akemi talk, they do bring up men, since, y'know. Women aren't considered people with rights in their era in Japan and thus it's something they mention instead of only talking about being cool girlboss badasses who never bring up gender. If something doesn't pass the Bechdel Test, a smug segment of the internet high-fives itself and congratulates one another on being More Feminist Than Thou.

They then get really angry if you disagree, even though by this metric, Sleeping Beauty (the original animated one, where Aurora has only 16 lines of dialogue) is more feminist than Blue Eye Samurai.

--

*DYING*

Okay, so, nonnie....

Dykes to Watch Out For (1983-2008) was a long-running comic and major piece of lesbian media. I grew up buying compiled volumes at the bookstore. To be honest, that kind of 90s-ish lesbian culture isn't really my scene despite me being bi, but it was very nice to have this slice of life-y somewhat realistic, occasionally somewhat parody, look at the queer communities around me. It's up there with Tales of the City for me in terms of being a window into a particular culture and time and place.

If anybody is interested in queer history, in addition to looking up factual info, I think a read of the complete Dykes would give a really good overview of how people were thinking about things and what issues came up a lot. You'll see things like Barnes & Noble increasingly putting feminist bookstores out of business in the 90s, attitudes towards porn in lesbian circles—all kinds of cultural issues of the day.

I drifted away as I got later in my teens and found more genre fiction I cared about, but at one point, this comic was a very welcome antidote to the glurgey coming out stories that made up a lot of the more realistic media.

Anyway, here's the comic itself, reproduced in its entirety because I think it's important to actually understand the context.

This is from 1985, so the era of Rambo, Conan, and Death Wish, each of which you can see being made fun of here. It's based on Bechdel's friend Liz Wallace's actual rule for seeing movies.

That's it. That's the origin of this whole stupid test.

"LOL, fuck 80s action movies". That's it. That's the joke.

The fact that blockbusters still routinely fail to pass in the 2020s is shameful, but that was never the point of the strip.

[sapphoscorner]

Edit: please reblog this with some information about demisexuality, I did make a mistake here by saying "Cove doesn't understand sexual attraction" he does, so my bad on that part

SO, I usually don't get too involved in fandom discourse, but with how Baxter fans are acting about the loss in the MDDB I snapped and decided we should have a talk.

(This turned out longer than expected so more under the cut. I BEG YOU TO READ THIS AND TOP UNDERSTAND WHERE THE ANGER AND FRUSTRATION COME FROM.

This is all over place, I tried my best to make this as comprehensible as possible)

Specifically I want to talk about this fandom obsession with him and how, is getting to a point where people are legitimately re-writing the game and erasing Cove existence to have this fucking man instead.

And look, I want to say that I get the appeal, I do, but I don't because Baxter's route is genuinely the worst written one out of the three; Compared to Cove's and Derek's (and Derek treatment in the fandom is a WHOLE OTHER ISSUE) is really not. I'm not here to judge one taste, I am here to tell you that your love for him is ridiculous.

It is genuinely ridiculous how much popular he has gotten and so many of you are forgetting about Cove and how important he is to the story, and generally how he is important to a lot of marginalized people. Some of you keep forgetting that Cove is autistic and demiseuxal and that is such a rare representation to see and it is already erased in the fandom (especially his autism), but now is even more erased because people are grabbing everything that makes Cove Cove, and are applying it to Baxter.

That is also not touching the fandom treatment of Derek and how overly criticize his route his compared to Baxter's, like...DEREK'S PARENTS ARE GETTING MORE SHIT THAT BAXTER CANONICAL BIGOTED PARENTS LOL, WHAT IS THIS?? Are you guys serious?? I've seen a fanfic with Irene being transphobic, why the fuck would someone write that when Baxter's mom is right there?

And Derek shitty treatment doesn't end here because people are straight up erasing the guy and not ?? talking about on how well written he is ?? He is not erased sorry, he's forgotten, no one cares about him. And when people care is a) rare or b) so criticize to the point where is no longer a criticism but just you bitching about it.

And it doesn't end there! Baxter is so talked about that people are more interested in him making a cameo in OL:N&F than the main characters of that game, THAT'S HOW THINGS HAVE GOTTEN, We've gotten to a point where people cares more about some white man than Qiu or Tamarack, which are way more interesting than him as characters but neither of them are white skinny man so lol, who cares about them.

AND TO TOP THIS SHITSHOW IT SOMEHOW GETS WORSE FROM HERE BECAUSE PEOPLE DON'T EVEN ARE CARE ABOUT THE INTERESTING ASPECTS OF BAXTER'S CHARACTER!!

Everyone is molding him like clay to create this, confident rich white boy when he is not?? and that's...the whole point of his route?? That he shouldn't need to put up this mask and to actually be a fucking human being?? THE FACT THAT HE IS A QUEER KID WHO HAD TO CUT OFF HIS PARENTS AND HAD TO BE INDEPENDENT FROM THEM AND LEARNING TO NOT DEPENDENT ON HIS PARENTS? (monetarily wise that is)

And like, people forget the man is queer, he is queer, he's a queer person who had to hide who he is to his parents and then had to cut them out for his own sanity, and no one mentions it.

The fandom as a whole erases queer identities,when this game is literally made FOR queer people don't you love it when straight people come into our spaces and erase our identities lol, that is a problem that more people should acknowledge, alongside the fact that Baxter's stans have taken over this safe space, overtook the main love interest, and ignore the genuine interesting aspects of Baxter's character to make him their own little doll they can play with and not appreciate a guy who is trying to learn how to stop being that mask everyone in the fandom has fallen over.

And I know, I know , I will get shit for daring to go against your favorite white boy, but consider that some of us played this game because an autistic character was in it, consider that this game is queer friendly and the fandom is also erasing that queerness to make horny fan fiction**, consider that some of us fond comfort in Derek and Cove's story and now we see everyone overtaking their stories by a white boy (that you can find in every other game), consider that his talk is tiring, consider also the fact that Baxter is technically queer and no one ever talks about it, consider that this game was a safe space for marginalized people and now it no longer feels that way

.

.

.

**with horny fanfiction I mean people re-writing Cove whole personality (and sexuality if we're being honest here) and making him this...horny big man when...he is not? He got stressed out by simply having to share a bed with MC, he's extremely shy around the subject of sex and he gets incredibly nervous about it.

I personally think that is due of both his queerness and autism (and yeah his personality, but autism affects ones personality so lol, sue me) since demisexuality means he genuinely doesn't understand how people can feel sexual attraction, and mixing that with autism means he probably doesn't understand the SOCIAL pressure around sex and having sex.

Granted that's speculation on my part but as someone who is (probably) autistic and asexual I can tell that, at least a majority feels this way and Cove is literally is the type to have this kind of mentality, he does not understand how Baxter can flirt with him after mere seconds of knowing each other

[matt0044]

Why does Indie Animation lend itself to such intense discourse?

If I had to speculate from my own observations (feel free to call me out on an overgeneralizations), it would be that the harsh turn against any given indie project would be akin to a mother scolding a child with, "I expected this from your sibling but you?!"

See also the "We were rooting for you" gif often tossed around.

Indie Animation be it from a small studio or crowdfunded is seen as bypassing the hoops and hurdles of getting your foot in the door of the highly corporatized entertainment industry. With the likes of Disney or Nick or any given streaming service, creator driven projects are subject to the whims of the company who holds the IP.

And those whims are often to said IP's detriment. It'll more often than not be willfully neglected at best or treated as just something to fill a time slot or shove onto a streaming platform as "content." Enough may be allowed to flourish but their either uncerimoniously cut short at best or being dragged out as a franchise at worst.

To keep from going on about the whole Legend of Korra vs. Spongebob thing (I was there people, there was an LoK fandom believe it or not), indie animation has often been seen as small scale but also within the creator's general control since they control how long it goes or how it's written.

Many cartoons like Gravity Falls, Owl House and Amphibia have talked about trying to get their vision across while contending with a lot of Standards and Practices. Their story which had a "kids and adults alike" target audience would have the top brass insist on something more just for the former category.

While they find work arounds, often to stick their tongue out at the FCC, this can be a hard reminder of who has the final say despite it being what you want. Indie animation is seen as an answer to "What if Alex Hirsch didn't have to comprimise elements of Gravity Falls for the FCC?" or "What if Dana Terrence could just blaze her own trail with The Owl House with little to no notes?"

Especially when it comes to animation with queer characters. Animation made to be "fit for kids" have it tough enough even today but adult animation has to "play it for laughs" since comedies have been the defacto standard for that type of cartoon.

However... a show being creator driven or creative team driven comes as a double edged sword for the fandoms they form. Not all stories that play out across multiple episodes of varying lengths are going in the direction YOU might want to.

Creators might tire of a certain direction or formula and mix things up with things that come to mind almost on the spot. Even with a solid plan, the status quo will get a shake up that can and will alienate those who fell in love from episode one.

Indie Pilots spark the imagination something fierce. There's theories as to what any little detail could mean going forward and speculation on what a character's arc could be. These go wild because Fandom is all about the hypothetical, the unknown, the what could've/should've/would've been. Whole phenomenon would be dead in the water otherwise.

Thing is that not all theories will be proven right if any at all. The creators aren't mind readers and even if it isn't a legality like in corporate, they don't read fanfics if only because they don't want their vision to be totally compromised. Any good creator knows not to just give fans what they want. However... trampling over all these fanfics and theories makes it feel like any given fan had their "child" dragged into the streets to be shot.

A harsh phrasing but that's how a lot of fans act when continuing episode bump up against initial impression of this character or that storyline. It was their creation but new lore, new backstory or what have you is liable to override them. It's been an occupational hazard of being a member of fandom for ages yet it's become the center of a lot of discourse now more than ever. Say thank you to social media for creating such a combative environment everybody.

It's this... feeling of ownership that has existed in fandoms of other shows owned by corporations but amplied by the smaller scale of it, how creators seem more... approachable. And THIS is how the YouTube "critic" scene comes in to capitalize.

So... yeah.