#the amount of characters i headcanon as lesbians but also sometimes headcanon them as bi separately

[myst1xx]

i love having multiple different headcanon fanons in my brain that directly contradict each other so it just looks insane to anyone on the outside. but to me it makes sense

[that-nerd-who-writes-fanfiction]

Okay, if you were asked who are in Merlin BBC that you can see based on canon that are gay/bi/pan/demi, which characters are they? Why?

I’m just gonna note that I’m not attached to any sexuality headcanon because people are going to have different opinions and it seems daft to lose more than half the fan content (art, fics, etc) just because of a headcanon. I’ll read more or less anything, I play around with queer themes in my writing fairly regularly and multiship everyone in the show, sometimes with characters from other fandoms too, but these are the sexualities I’ve written most of for each character otherwise this would be way too long.

And I know I’m assigning modern understandings of sexuality to medieval characters, but it’s a show with dragons and magic, also capes, a French castle, and whatever the hell that chainmail was so I think I can be excused for my historical inaccuracy.

Merlin: either gay or bi with a a preference for men. I could never get myself to really like Freya in the show, she wasn’t bad and I didn’t hate her, I usually just forget about her because it was one episode so I didn’t have enough time to get attached. She deserved more screen time and I love what the fandom has done with her character, but I usually see her where Merlin’s shipped with someone else so I honestly forget their romance exists most of the time. Other than that, I usually see him shipped with knights or Arthur or if he’s shipped with another woman, it’s someone who didn’t get enough screen time to get attached, or a mergwenthur (is that their ship name?) poly relationship.

Arthur: bi and demi. He needs time to like someone, canonically only started wearing a shirt after he got married but he walked around his chambers naked when it was just Merlin/no sexual implications in a servant of two masters. I’ve done deep dive character analysis into that and what it says for their trust of one another if anyone’s interested. It goes into them being platonic but acting like a couple and why meant so much for me to see as a kid and also why I think that proves their relationship is more than words can fully encapsulate. Also he’s had crushes on men and women so bi just fits.

Gwen: bi with a preference for men, she and Morgana had chemistry and I ship them pre season 3 but after that, not so much. Also had crushes on Lancelot, Merlin and married Arthur. They’re an adorable couple, honestly I love them. I don’t really have much else to say.

Morgana: aroace lesbian. Just my favourite headcanon, I like that she never had a canon relationship but she definitely had chemistry with Gwen. They’re just sweet together. I don’t know, mostly just vibes and my desire for more aroace rep.

Lancelot: bi with a preference for women. Gwen and Merlin. Yeah, that’s pretty much all I have to say. I just love that he’s such a great guy, I don’t think there’s anything more to it than two crushes in canon and vibes. I’ve written him as unlabelled or queer a fair amount, it really just depends.

Leon: Romance and sex averse aroace. Again, I just want representation and think he’s cool. I’ve seen him shipped with others, but I tend to default to aroace Leon in my own works more than anything else. Occasionally I’ll give him a qpr but it just depends on what I’m writing.

Gwaine: aromatic pansexual, he likes flirting but I think the idea of a permanent long term relationship would be “the one to tie him down” and it never entirely fits right. I’ve seen him shipped with Percival, I love that but usually if I’m writing it, I’ll have them in a qpr. I think he definitely feels low levels of romantic attraction but not enough to want a romantic relationship with someone, he loves so much, just not in the traditional ways and writing aroallo Gwaine is always super fun.

Elyan: I headcanon Elyan as trans masc but I don’t think I’ve got any specific headcanons for his sexuality. I’ve probably written him straight slightly more than anything else, but it’s a close tie between writing him straight and bi. It never usually comes up, so maybe just unlabelled or queer. I don’t know, he’s just Elyan. That’s all really.

Percival: I know in canon he had a wife and kids, I write him as being gay more than anything else, but my main headcanon tends to be that he’s bi or pan. Purely based on vibes but if it’s not relevant to the plot, I won’t bother mentioning it.

[roseandgold137]

We’ll go Cassie for the charecter ask <3

(prefacing this with im so sorry this took ages. I sent it to draft lands and unfortunately out of sight out of mind immediately kicked in rip

three facts about them from my personal headcanons

not quite sure what would count as a fact per se, but: curly mullet as a kid bc her hair wouldn’t grow as fast in the sides (a style she later resurrected for one of her later wonder girl looks); lesbian BUT thought she was bi until like 13/14 bc she had a crush on like westley from the princess bride; neither of them know this but Cassie and Anita used to get into drama on roblox but also both of them were pretending to be guys + they dated on roblox for like three weeks. To this day neither are sure if it was gay (two guy avatars) straight (they were girl with guy??) but it was in fact gay squared (two girls pretending to be two guys)

a reason they suck

id say her combination of recklessness and stubbornness with a healthy dash of hating finding out she was wrong about something. Definitely something that improves as she gets older, but like with constantly trying to get cissie back in the team, sometimes her stubbornness overrides clearly drawn boundaries

a reason they are great

in a way, also her stubbornness! The lasting conviction that she’s right, and the belief that there is right, even if everything is trying to prove that wrong

a reason I relate to them 

I too would like to maximise the amount of time I spend with cissie king-jones /j; but fr, her sheer desire to help (even if she isn’t necessarily equipped to) is admirable and I like to think I share that with her

(what I consider to be) the top tier otp/ot3 for that character

now ik I kinda mentioned Cassie/Anita up there, and cissiecassie is always a classic, however I would like to propose Cassie/George (as in Georgia Redmond) hang on I’ll try to find a picture of her. Basically George is her civilian friend (though I haven’t the knowledge if she ever actually appeared outside of this one issue) anyways baby butches <3

five things that never happened to that character that I believe should have happened

she needs to kiss girls like yesterday. I promise this is crucial for her I think it would actually solve a lot of her problems even just indirectly;

I think she should have had more time before Zeus granted her powers. Like I get why and it did suit the story they were going for but I really liked how cobbled together her costume and equipment was, I would’ve liked to see that for a bit longer (this may count as something that did happen that I believe should have just taken longer, but oh well);

I think that she should get to graduate from wonder girl, maybe by being faced with whoever will succeed her and passing the mantle on at the end of that kind of arc (maybe harken back to how Donna gave Cassie her wonder girl suit? I think it would be cute) which, while I’m thinking, would have been a far better way to introduce Lizzie, imo. Still not gone on her needing to be Diana’s bio kid (bc it feels like they’re trying to invalidate the non-bio candidates for Wonder Woman in the future tbh) but if she was just some girl (we can still relate her to amazons and the gods, just not Diana I think) then I think she’d have been received far better;

not just her, but also for yj in general - I think she should have followed the trend of leaving (not at the same time as say, Tim and Bart, bc then we’re down too many members) but I’d like to see her grapple with the guilt of that + also realising why cissie wouldn’t be coming back by sympathising with her, but still eventually rejoining (and meanwhile the others realise that despite her stubbornness they still value her as a leader and theyre all very relieved that she’s back);

as far as I’m aware she’s yet to receive an animal sidekick (Damian has honestly been hogging like all the animal sidekicks as of late like c’mon sir please share) so I think she’d benefit from one. Since Kon’s had krypto and Bart’s had dox (Tim doesn’t seem to have any either) I think there’s already plenty of heroic dogs to go around. World without yj is obv like alternate reality but her connection to Dionysus did intrigue me. So, I put forth a bengal cat that transforms into a leopard during combat (think cringer -> battlecat from he-man)

five people that character never fell in love with and why

ok this was a difficult question but I think I have some answers hopefully

Cass Cain -> hero crush, but Cassie was too scared of her for it to go any further than that and she didn’t really believe she existed for a while either

Anita -> was too hung up on cissie leaving at the start, then they eventually found out that they were each others bitter exes on roblox and Cassie’s brain immediately killed the chance for a crush to emerge

Greta -> felt wrong to like her when she’d only just remembered who she ever was, and again, was too hung up on cissie to really consider the possibility

Kon -> the crush she thought she had did not live up to actually being around him and he was part of the reason she realised she actually didn’t like guys

Jenny Hex -> tried to hit on Diana right in front of her

[thrilling-oneway]

You are so right with m/f stuff! I’m not familiar with a lot of VBS shipping discourse, but it’s annoying to see how people can’t write an analysis on how important Tsukasa is to Rui without others dog piling them and saying they’re delusional and ignoring canon for their yaoi “with no content”. (At least on twitter, tumblr is much better with this) And as someone whose also bisexual, it’s so annoying seeing people use bisexuality as a gotcha to ship m/f and act as if its progressive and that it gives them the okay to hate on f/f and m/m pairings.

YES YES EXACTLY. God I hate when people keep saying that ruikasa has no content and their dynamic is underdeveloped whenever anyone talks about them. Like as biased as I am because I like the ship, they do have a very developed dynamic regardless of if you like the ship or not. Literally there's three events about it (potato and pandemonium + it was a pretty big background element in curtain call), one of which is the third event in the game. like if you don't like ritk that's perfectly fine, but when people are dogpilling ritk shippers for talking about their dynamic/pandemonium chapter 8/wtv and saying they're reaching, especially if the person doing this is an account dedicated to another rui ship/are a rui fan, it's a bad look because you're literally ignoring a very significant part of his arc. Ignoring massively important aspects of a character you claim to like just because of a ship is low. This fandom is way too set on everything being about shipping like bruh no one is telling you that you had to view pandemonium as romantic you can view it as platonic perfectly fine and not need to erase parts of rui's character to justify your rui/female character ship.

it's an especially weird situation with VBS as well. as much as I hold the earlier EN fandom to a higher standard there was a lot of discourse around VBS and the fact that they're implied gay. like it used to be a situation where if you admitted you shipped m/f vbs you would get jumped. as a comeback people would accuse biphobia but i never saw huge amounts of people being actually biphobic. saying "an and kohane are quite heavily implied to be lesbians (and it makes some people uncomfortable to see them shipped with men)" is a true statement but people didn't need to attack others over it. not liking a bi headcanon isn't biphobic unless you're actually being biphobic about it yknow? luckily it calmed down after a while but now you get jumped for not shipping m/f which leads us straight back to the statement about an and kohane. gbr the situation with vbs shipping nowadays is much worse than the situation when i first joined, obviously partially bc of the massive increase in fandom size but mainly because people are spewing actual homophobic rhetoric over akty ankh (someone literally tried to claim heterophobia was real bc of people not liking m/f vbs a couple months ago. actually this has happened multiple times).

AND YES GOD THIS FANDOM'S APPROACH TO BI HEADCANONS IS SO FUCKING ANNOYING. Like people only use it as a way to make m/f ships more queer and try to 1 up people with it because oh yes male/female couple are not the norm at all and they're so cool and different and if you add a bi/pan hc on top of that it makes you more progressive (/s). HCing a character as bi does not give you cool points and the fact that so many people only do it for m/f ships pisses me off to no end because people treat it like Straight 2 when bi people can be in m/m and f/f relationships. People can hc whatever they want ofc but it's so obvious sometimes that people are only using bi hcs as a way to quickly round off their hcs for every character so they can multiship or justify their m/f ships as queer and at that point I'd rather they just hc'd them as straight because I don't like seeing my identity used solely for the purpose of making a ship more queer because someone doesn't want their m/f to be a hetship.

[sometipsygnostalgic]

i can make up a lot of reasons for why i just sort of disappeared from Adventure Time fandom a second time after an intense nine months being part of the Distant Lands community

i am pretty sure that the main reason is simply that following the airing of the last special there was very little left in terms of healthy fandom engagement, the main characters being... gone, and the only news left being for fionna and cake in an ambiguous amount of time in the future. it’s good to move onto greener pastures at that stage. not discarding AT completely but moving away from core fandom. 

the Distant Lands server i was in, well, it was a joy! but it was a very young membership so i couldn’t really engage freely like i can now with older fans. Also there were certain adult users who had migrated there from the older AT discords who i couldnt fucking stand. i want to stay away from some people and they are inescapable. sometimes i pop in and say hi again but those guys are always the ones talking most. 

however the most annoying thing of all time which was the biggest stick for me, it was definitely waking up on Reddit and Twitter every morning to more discourse about Princess Bubblegum, my favourite character.

What was the nature of this discourse? 

Twitter: “Princess Bubblegum was a bitch actually” - 9000 likes 800 QRTs everyone on Twitter talking about it all day and how wrong or right it is. How annoying. 

Meanwhile on reddit: 

“Princess Bubblegum is a lesbian” - okay nice, headcanon time--

“PRINCESS BUBBLEGUM CAN’T BE A LESBIAN BECAUSE SHE DATED FINN” - What??? Why???

There would be HUNDREDS of comments, EVERY other day with the same reposted meme, about whether PB is a lesbian or not.

Sometimes I would get involved with my own “evidence” - I argued hard that it’s a valid interpretation and probably canon - but it’s so alienating to me to have to pick apart my favourite character’s sexuality, as if sexuality is just something I can analyse like anything else. I’m a bisexual girl myself so it was particularly odd but also so creepy to see everyone else’s takes of “PB can’t be gay because Weird Thing That Proves Shes Definitely Into Finn”. 

Never again. We start arguing sexuality discourse again I’m going to pull out the Terezigun. 

Actually, Terezi and Vriska were the first characters I saw this sort of bullshit with. People arguing whether they were gay or bi, kind of treating it as if them being bi would be the end of the world. I thought it was a pretty valid interpretation of them being gay and had some interesting story to tell if it was true, but I more sort of interpreted them as being bisexual victims of compulsory heterosexuality rather than being closeted gay, whereas some of my friends at the time were more than a little aggro to bisexual fans... 

[cabeswaterdrowned]

emily fields!

Emily Fields

okay the numbering on this looks very weird because I kept having to use extra spaces to get around the words per block of text limit and I’m kind of out of patience to fix it to look better lol so apologies but here is what I wrote for the meme

three facts about them from my personal headcanons: 1. This is going off the canon detail that she really likes horror films but I like to think she developed that interest kind of alongside the A stuff happening (since I think it’s established in the middle seasons). And that she views them kind of in a Dru Blackthorn esque fashion where they’re less scary than her normal life and that makes them comforting in a way.. I don’t have an hc for what her favorite horror movie is because as we know I suck at watching films so I don’t feel like I have enough to go off even though when I do get myself to watch movies I do like horror … I do think she would watch yellowjackets and her favs would be Jackie and Nat and Van <3. And she has a love hate relationship with Shauna. 2. She and Mona made out in 2x19 during their secret rendezvous in the principle’s office to get the blackmail info. Because it pleases me to think that <3. 3. I think she has major abandonment issues between Alison and Maya dying and her dad’s constant absences and then his death post jump and I think it effects the way she approaches relationships throughout the series a lot.

a reason they suck: she can be prideful and stubborn and has commitment issues for days but I adore all those things about her tbh <3. In terms of things that really do bother me though her reaction when learning Maya is bi … really not good you could chalk it up to Pll writers biphobia and that would be true but I also do think there’s something there about ideas Emily’s internalized from growing up with Pam’s views combined with Alison’s behavior to her pre series that’s not an excuse for it just imo a possible explanation that makes sense for the character and her judgements.

a reason they are great: I mean there’s obvious stuff like her being a really kind and loyal and compassionate person and I do love all those things about her but they are pretty obvious so I won’t delve hardcore into explaining them, she’s a really good person. But I see there are being a lot more to her character at least from my perspective. She’s also a character who starts out with a lot of drive and ambition while it’s of a very different type to say Spencer or Aria or Mona’s ambition and she’s characterized as much quieter about it, and who deals with a lot of repressed anger as the series goes on and she experiences a lot of trauma which speaks to me in chars (don’t know what that says about me lol) and can be vmessy in an understated way that I generally enjoy… I love how hateful she gets sometimes lmao like they say she’s the sweet one but she can be fucking savage when a situation calls for it and I love that, there are small petty moments when she’s in a fight with someone that are really fun and then more serious examples with people who absolutely deserve her anger one of the best moments for this being put to use to it’s full potential when she’s the one to go up to Ezra in 4b after the 4x20 reveal to Aria and give him that speech that ends with “and can you make sure a real teacher gets this” I love herrr. Also love that she is a himbo lesbian icon tbh she’s so charming about it <3. She’s so charming in general… I love her

a reason I relate to them: oh I can relate to a fair amount about Emily lol a lot of her feelings about her sexuality in s1 are very real when I think of my teenage self or even my right now self, some things about her family life (in the show not in the books, book! Emily’s family life is… next level terrible omg one thing I am glad the show changed up dramatically). And I have some similar personality traits. I kind of can relate to specific facets of all the main Pll girls except Hanna and Alison in some way but Spencer and Emily the most I’d say

(what I consider to be) the top tier otp/ot3 for that character: ultimately Spencer/Emily has my heart the most although I do ship her with pretty much every woman of the main cast lol. But Spemily rules imo and it’s so my cup of tea dynamically (chars who seem like opposites (how Spencer is seen as uptight and a leader while Emily is seen as mellow and sweet) but are more similar when you look closely (at how they’re both perfectionists to please their family in different ways, leaders, fiercely loyal, stubborn prideful and competitive, that moment where Spencer says that she can see Emily is ambitious enough to want the team captain position as much or more than Paige does is such a great moment to me because of course Spencer would be the one to see that in Emily…), chars who clash intensely because of those traits but are also very tender with each other in moments that really count and have a lot of mutual respect) also ngl a factor is they’re both sooo pretty all the women on this show are gorgeous but they’re just insanely hot … and then for the ot3 a few dynamics have their moments but most consistently fun and interesting to watch for me is Spencer x Emily x Alison <33. I’ve mentioned before that I’m obsessed with the framing of Spencer and Emily clashing over different views of Ali in 4b and also late s1… also have made jokes before about how much Spencer hates all Emily’s girlfriends lmao (hate is an oversimplification because Spalison’s dynamic is very complex but. When it comes to Emily she doesn’t play lol). That’s specifically show-wise though books wise Emaria is my favorite ship for her I adored the way their friendship was depicted and it had shippy vibes a lot of the time, I ship them in the show too and when they get to interact one on one usually enjoy it a lot but it’s clear the writers didn’t care to focus on their individual dynamic as much as others, which is a shame. Tabby&Imogen’s dynamic on pllos actually to me is more similar to book Emaria in some respects…and I was into the Aria x Courtney x Emily stuff in Ali’s Pretty Little Lies and found that compelling.

five things that never happened to that character that I believe should have happened: 1. consistently go to a therapist who isn’t just the liars counselor as much as I like Dr. Sullivan (this one would be the first for every liar) 2. She should have had an actual arc post time jump around grieving her dad… it’s absolutely criminal that we just get that scene of her at Wayne’s grave (which is one of Shay’s best scenes on the show imo) and a little lip service done to it in the first couple of episodes but not even a flashback to his funeral… a million Haleb Spaleb Spoby flashbacks a Jaria flashback but not one to one of your leads losing a parent it’s not an exact comparison because anti-blackness specifically was a different factor with how Bonnie was treated in TVD but since I just got to her dad’s introduction in my rewatch and it’s on my mind could kind of draw a parallel to how her losing a parent was a peripheral plot, we saw her reaction in one scene and then moved on to other magical factors involved with her being stuck on the other side vs Elena’s grief about her parents and Caroline’s arc around losing her mom in s6. Like it is telling that on both shows it’s the WoC who doesn’t get the same space for her storyline (different factors again because anti blackness re: Bonnie and homophobia in Pll but .. you get it). But anyway, post jump sets her up as being a much less put together char than pre jump Emily with the dropping out of school and not telling anyone etc. so delving into how unstablized she feels, the ways she might want to emulate her dad (I do think that shows up but not in a very intentional way) and actually letting us see the flashbacks to how this impacted her relationships instead of being told. I actually have had an idea for a while about a fic I’d like to write about this but haven’t felt like I had the time to actually write it although this is making me think about it/want to go back to it again… 3. I don’t think this is controversial Maya should not have died, and Emily’s love life… well that could have gone in different directions and I would have been happy she and Maya could’ve broken up for a while then gotten back together post time jump, or they could have done Emison but actually committed to exploring what’s interesting about Emison instead of the milquetoast end of series Emison, or both of those, if we’re sticking with her canon li’s. I’m not a huge fan of Paily but I wouldn’t necessarily want it to not exist because I think there is some interesting narrative stuff there about what it means to Emily to be Paige’s Alison, for want of a better word. But I do think a lot of their relationship content isn’t that interesting and would have liked it to not be the big ticket ship/soo prominent just based on personal preference. And I would have gotten rid of.. maybe not every girlfriend of the week because I do like that Emily’s a ladykiller but most of them were flops so I’d have gotten rid of a lot of them and/or made them less prevalent. And if I had full creative control I obviously would have wanted her to date Spencer or Hanna or Mona but that also goes more into things I’d change for the other liars so I didn’t include it here 4) her s3 arc (if Maya still dies) should have actually gotten to be about her grieving Maya and how that coincides with A trauma (especially given how brutal she got it in s2 between the carbon monoxide barn and the ointment-induced ulcer and everything, and Mona didn’t kill Maya/isn’t responsible for that but it happened in the same spiral) and not about the Nate mystery… and if there was going to be a plot about transference in grief (which I could totally be on board for!) it should have been with someone who wasn’t Nate… 5) no egg donation mystery plot that leads to weird rapey Emison baby plot … I realize like 4 of those were very obvious things that didn’t merit much explantation and one I ranted about a lot.

five people that character never fell in love with and why: I’ll go with the assumption that she’s only ever been in love with Maya Ali and Paige (yeah I think she did love Paige even if it was maybe a less intense type of love for her than some others and even if it isn’t my favorite dynamic outside of enjoying it as part of a psuedo triangle with Spencer or Ali at different points) when writing this out 1. Spencer - They do clash a lot, I think it would take the right situation for them to have a more stable approach to their dynamic. Alternately I could also see them in a totally unstable situation and getting together in the worst way possible and I would probably love it xd. 2. Hanna — I feel like they could have easily fallen in love if you removed other factors like their other li’s and separated dramas, even though Spemily is my favorite singular ship dynamic I do think Hanna and Emily are ultimately most compatable. 3. Mona — in another life… but in this one they’re too fixated on their blondes. They do have great chemistry the rare times they interact one on one imo and I do choose to believe they made out in 2x19 and that also contributes (aside from the other totally valid reasons) to Emily’s extreme hostility towards her later lol. 4. Jenna - Emily is consistently the most hostile to Jenna out of all the girls which I find interesting (Aria is consistently the most receptive/compassionate towards her which is interesting to me for different reasons) part of it is because she gets close to Toby before anyone I also think Emily is a prideful person who deeply dislikes feeling guilty (even though she has a guilt complex about a lot of things) so Jenna is a sore spot for her. I did always think their actresses had chemistry though. 5. Sara - I mean… there was very little there for me to dig into tbh but ultimately I think Emily saw Sara as a project to fix and needed that post dollhouse because she prefers to be the caretaker, and that’s how I view the relationship/why Emily was so into her when she’s… quite a blank slate before the reveal she’s evil lol. I also think there was potential for some interesting stuff about transference from Ali to Sara but it’s not really in the text especially since Sara doesn’t act much like Ali despite having a similar backstory.

thank you for asking!

[5chatzi]

Okay I'm going to send you some partly-solicited recs for queer literature and classics because I have a decent amount of exposure to both~~

My qualifications include a degree in English and now being halfway towards my MLIS lol this is what I was made for

For queer lit, sometimes it depends heavily on your own orientation, like bi people want to read books with bi representation, etc. But those preferences notwithstanding, here are some generally quality titles:

Zenovia July by Lisa Bunker: A trans girl solves a cyber crime. Mystery, YA, contemporary setting, trans rep

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune: a gay man who lives a boring government-worker life travels to an island in order to monitor the family of magical children who live there. Fantasy, found family, adult fiction (it has some kid's book vibes but does contain mild sexual content and mild swearing), gay representation.

Ace by Angela Chen -- nonfiction, part memoir exploration of what it means to be asexual, for the author personally and for society generally.

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo -- a Chinese-American girl in 1950s San Francisco comes to terms with being a lesbian. Historical fiction, adult fiction (or might be YA?? There is what I'd call mild sexual content), lesbian representation, AAPI representation

Jeanette Winterson is a queer author whose work I generally like!(don't have specific title recs though) (I have read The Passion, and she has a couple biographies shelved in the queer library in which I volunteer. The Passion is not very explicitly queer from my memory but it is very good regardless.

For classics, here are titles that I personally Actually Enjoyed Reading and found relatively accessible:

To Kill a Mockingbird (and I also like the film-- I should have added that to my answer to your ask)

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf is my absolute favourite classic novel, but I won't pretend it's for everyone, or that it's especially accessible. It's written in a heavily Modernist style that involves a quite lyrical, non-linear plot. But the prose is breathtakingly gorgeous and it has a really moving anti-war message.

Also, Orlando by Woolf as well, and this one is also queer! Features a genderqueer/trans/otherwise gendernonconforming character.

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins is very long, but it's a mystery, and I found it engaging. The section narrated by the character Marianne is the best, and I headcanon her as asexual or possibly a lesbian.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker is what I would call poignant, and it's fairly short. Be warned that it contains some SA content, racism, and AAVE dialect that could be hard to understand.

Macbeth or Twelfth Night or King Lear are my favourite Shakespeare works to recommend. But with Shakespeare, it's better if you can see a film or live performance, since just reading the script can be difficult to follow.

Little Women!!! God, I love Little Women. Honestly not sure how that wasn't the first one I thought of.

Oh thanks so much for the thorough response!

I’ll admit most of these are wildly outside my normal genre, but I’m always willing to try new things.

I have read Macbeth in school but it’s been ages and I am pretty sure I’ve read Little Women but I can’t remember it would have been a long time ago. Oh and To Kill a Mockingbird. I think everyone has read that in school but don’t think I’ve read it since.

I’m gonna write them down and check them out and see how it goes. I pretty much exclusively read non fiction so should be interesting 😅

[eviltothecore13]

Jill having pictures in her room doesnt mean shes bi. Learn about women instead of sexulizing them for your fantasies. Pervert

...OK, no, it doesn't *mean* she's bi, that's a headcanon. A headcanon shared by several bi women I'm friends with, but a headcanon.

My question for you is: why is headcanoning a woman as bi inherently some kind of perverted sexualisation? Would you say the same if I'd said I saw a woman as a lesbian (Alcina, for instance), or as straight (Excella Gionne, for instance)? Is it also perverted sexualisation to headcanon a man as bi (I headcanon MOST characters as bi by default because there's a fair amount of evidence that most people aren't 100% straight or 100% gay IRL, but the most obvious example in my fic and on this blog is that I ship Albert Wesker/William Birkin)?

I've seen Claire fans (many of whom are women) talk about certain scenes in the RE2 remake saying things like "she's totally checking Leon out in this scene". Have you sent them similar messages because they, too, are suggesting that something a female character does might be an indication that she's attracted to someone? Or do you only have a problem with someone suggesting a female character is attracted to women?

Talking about a character's orientation and who they might be attracted to is not uncommon here on Tumblr. I mean, we are pretty much all some kind of LGBTQA+ here and naturally tend to look for representation. As there isn't that much definitively canon rep in RE but most of the characters are fairly open to interpretation in that regard, headcanoning them tends to be pretty popular (I must say, you're the first person on here I've ever seen object to this headcanon) and isn't usually seen as all that sexual (I really don't have very strong sexual feelings about Jill? This isn't an insult to her, she's definitely objectively good-looking, and a great character who I like, but she's not the one I sexually fantasise about, that would be Wesker).

As for learning about women, well, I can't claim to know everything about the experience of being a woman, but I know enough women to know that many/most women--those who aren't ace--are attracted to people sometimes. "He's hot", "she's hot", "they're both hot", aren't uncommon phrases to hear. I know at least one woman who has posters of shirtless Wesker and various other characters up in her house. I don't think it would be realistic to pretend, in fic or otherwise, that women are delicate flowers who faint at the thought of sex, instead of human beings who usually experience sexual attraction just like other human beings.

[kitkatopinions]

The amount of biphobia in the RWBY fandom is frankly staggering.

Honestly, yeah. I don't go into the main RWBY tags anymore for a number of reasons, including the godawful takes, lots of ableism or just uncomfortable red flags, the intense amount of worship directed to the mains and towards MKEK, the amount of bee shippers when I don't vibe with the bees, and the oversexualization of literally any woman character. But on top of all that, there was a lot of biphobia. Not long into my time in the fandom, I heard both "Blake is a canon lesbian and if you ship her with a man, you're a homophobe," and "Bumbleby is a non-existent ship and fans are just reading into things and then attacking the writers for queerbaiting because they're not doing what they want.' I heard both "I can't believe the writers are pretending Blake isn't straight when we all saw her be attracted to Sun," and "I can't believe people are pretending Blake was ever attracted to Sun when Bumbleby is clearly superior." I saw both "If you read anything into Qrow and Clover or Qrow and James, you're an idiot," and also "Guys, stop talking about your 'straight' Qrow ships, the man is a bi icon."

Yes, I've literally seen people say Blake or Qrow are bi, and then condemn people for shipping them with someone of the opposite sex or even talking about their possible feelings towards people of the opposite sex.

And meanwhile, Yang and Weiss are widely regarded as lesbians and people who headcanon them as anything different are sometimes shamed, while both of them have expressed attraction towards the opposite sex. And meanwhile, many other characters are being assigned 'straight' just because they've flirted with the opposite sex. "James was established as hetero the moment he arrived on screen," for instance, or people acting like Qrow flirting with Winter in V3 means he was definitely straight, or people acting like Ren and Nora couldn't possibly ever date someone of the same sex as them despite breaking up because "why can't we have one straight ship?" (Btw, if I was writing this on my phone, I'd use the vomit emoji to show how I feel about that last one.) Also bi isn't the only other option either. Characters can be asexual or pansexual or aro or demisexual. Characters aren't confined to heterosexual or homosexual, but they're also not confined to heterosexual or homosexual or bisexual. Also, people acting like everyone is cisgendered except the Happy Huntresses just because we've never had it confirmed otherwise is also a thing. Like, there's a number of characters who I could see as trans, non-binary, or genderqueer.

Some people don't even realize that's how they're acting or that's how their wording comes across. And I get that how the story writers present these characters plays a big part in their perception. For example, the first three seasons are written with a heteronormative lens that seemed to portray everyone as straight, and that's the status quo in today's society anyway. It's much easier for people to see Yang as queer than it is for them to think of Nora that way, and it's easier to say Yang has always been a lesbian than it is to admit that the writers likely didn't actually plan the bees from the beginning and are lying about it... Idk, I'm trying to be understanding towards it, while at the same time acknowledging that I do feel like this exclusionary language and 'either straight or homosexual' mentality I've seen has been a bit upsetting. Especially when it's used against people who are just making headcanons, or just shipping something that makes them happy, or are just angry at being queerbaited, and expecting MKEK to follow through on the 'support' they claimed they were giving while they were selling pride merch with Team RWBY plastered on it.

Long post short, I think the mindset of 'if they express attraction towards one gender, they're canonly only attracted to that gender' needs to die. And in the RWBY community specifically, making passive aggressive posts or going into people's comments or ask boxes to tell them they're shipping wrong because they have a different headcanon or want a different ship that doesn't fit the sexuality other people assigned a character... That really needs to die, too.

[teeth-farie]

It's so wierd to see people freak out over a feminine character cause like... I completely forgot most of the fandom consider the characters to be men. I'm so deep in my own headcanons of all of them being nonbinary or gender fluid that I forgot straight people play this game :(. There's probably a reason most of the people that follow my writing blog are men, trans/nb people, or at the very least bi hhhhh. Also a surprising amount of lesbians follow me!! And I'm vry excited to be able to provide them some good fuckin food with a canon fem character :)))))

I’ve been lost in my own world so long I’ve forgotten straight people exists fkfkfkkgmg really tho I check my followers sometimes and every so often it’s a straight person and I get whiplash like I forgot y’all existed dkdkrkrkr

[sodacanwritings]

Karasuno sexuality hcs

characters: everyone from the karasuno team

content: headcanons

warnings: none

notes: these are my hcs / oppinions. this was also my first ever post.

part 2: nekoma | part 3: aoba johsai

Hinata Shoyo: omni- / pansexual

Has a prefference towards girls (they’re very pretty and woahh) but could fall in love with anyone. Doesn’t really think about it.

Kageyama Tobio: demisexual / gay

He just really doesn’t care for all that..drama around sex, doesn’t keep him from making a lot of sexual jokes though. Doesn’t really label himself gay, romantically and in any way attracted to men though. He finds guys to be more interesting than girls because a lot of them will pick a fight with him and that’s what he likes. He isn’t repulsed towards sex, he genuinely thinks it’s funny and from time to time he finds there to be a lot of tension between him and other guys, it’s kinda just..a dangerous and tensed air, and the line between war-vibes and sexual tension is very blurry. However, he doesn’t feel the need nor want to innitiate anything sexual, making boys nervous and confused with his ambiguous jokes is very fun tho.

He never really considered his sexuality. Of course he’s aware that he’s supposed to like girls and the boys around him talk about it kinda a whole lot, but he honestly has never felt interest in them as the others did apparently. Girls were just..there. He’s too busy with volleyball and lowkey thinks thinking about that is a distraction and therefore less important. He just doesn’t feel it. Seeing guys that are amazing at volleyball though that posess skills he maybe doesn’t, makes him experience feelings that make him all mesmerized and lowkey obsessed. But if you have a strong personality or just something that really draws him in - woahh too. Or you’re just really good at volleyball.

Tsukishima Kei: asexual / gay

Nishinoya Yu: really really really into girls

BUT, yeah, but. He came to Karasuno for the girls uniform, but he woulnd’t not date a guy. His attraction towards girls is in another dimension but, he appreciates a pretty guy when he sees one. Thought he was straight a long time but now, he really just doesn’t give much thought to it anymore. He’s come to the conclusion that he likes and dates hot people, so that be it. Labels himself as hot-sexual, says he’s bi from time to time if someone asks, since it’s easier to explain.

Yamaguchi Tadashi: bisexual

(He also has the unfortunate luck of crushing on lesbians since they often are his type, he thinks they are strong, also thinks nonbinary people are badass- and he has a thing for dilfs. Big strong men that can throw him and pretty girls that would step on him- yes.) Bisexual girls are probably paradise for him, and if he has a girlfriend they’ll look after guys together.

More of a 80 to 20 prefference for women or maybe..70 to 30?? He really doesn’t know, it keeps changing. He has an overall prefference for girls, how much, don’t ask him..He’s noticed that his attracion to girls and boys feels different tho.

Kinoshita Hisashi: straight. ("or am I?")

Tanaka Ryunosukep: straight

Always thought of himself as straight, lately has been wondering if he might like guys too, it all really confuses him but you could say he’s bicurious. Anyway, he’s not closed off. A guy who blushes when other guys compliment him.

Narita Kazuhito: unlabeled

He really is that straight guy that seems very very gay with his friends, but he actually just is straight. Would kiss his bros and acts in love with them, but it’s all just a joke, really. He’s a big ally though and would scowl at homophobic or transphoobic people. (He also respectfully simps for lesbians, in a more friend-way tho, he’s a lesbian protector and really really admires them)

Has only had a crush on a girl like, once, and he’s not really stressed about the whole thing. Will flirt with his friends as a joke sometimes, there lowkey is some homoromantic vibes between him and guys he’s been on the court with but, he doesn’t really care, if he finds out, so be it, if not, it’s not that important.

Ennoshita Chikara: straight, probably

Sugawara Koshi: doesn’t really label himself

He’s had a girlfriend before, however also has flirted with guys, and tbh, he might even be bi. The only indicator for that is the giant amount of tension between the boys he’s flirted with and him, it wasn’t even intentional it just..kinda happens. Sees himself married to a woman in future, but who knows what will happen on the road to said future. 

Asahi Azumane: not..sure??

He likes girls and boys, in different ways, he looks more for personality traits and chemistry anyways, that’s what he says when someone asks, too.

That’s what he nervously says if you ask him, he’s never had a girlfriend, finds girls to be very pretty, around his second year of highschool he noticed he’s been getting kinda excitied about boys too..he can, see if they look good, let’s say that.

Sawamura Daichi: straight

Has throughout his school years, liked a few girls, never really dramatically, classmate crushes and the ususal, you know. He’s supportive towards LGBTQ+, “everyone should do what they deem as best and I don’t mind that.”. He isn’t closed off to dating someones who’s not a woman tho, he has never been attracted to them but, if he were to meet someone that he likes and gets along with, he doesn’t see a problem, “After all, it’s all about the person you’re with”.

[lokigodofaces]

Michelle, Marvel, & Pride 27

Link to questions.

What harmless stereotypes do the queer characters fall into? Things like wearing flannels or sitting oddly, that sort of stuff.

I'm only doing headcanoned queer characters because I haven't seen anything with Joey, Peggy, Valkyrie, and Ayo for so long.

Loki Laufeyson: This man sits in interesting ways, and he sits on the floor as well when there is furniture right there.

The comics are full of other examples, I just don't know them well enough to look for them.

Also, he wears leather a lot, and that might be a stereotype? I dunno, wouldn't be surprised.

As an ace stereotype, he is very much covered. Up until June 9, the most we saw of him was bare feet, hands, neck, and face. He is probably the most covered person in the whole MCU.

He's arospec & ace, and he likes the colors green and black (green is on greyromantic flag, black is on aromantic & asexual).

Bucky Barnes: I remembered where I saw the leather jacket stereotype (I should know this, I'm bi!). It's a bisexual thing, sorta. Yeah, Bucky can pull off leather jackets. Also, for a grey ace stereotype, he is also very much covered. Not as much as Loki, but he is very covered in public. Even while fighting, yes, the prosthetic can be seen, but nothing else.

Wanda Maximoff: She's only bi sometimes, but she has pretty cool jackets. She follows the general queer stereotype of having lots of queer apparel. This next one is a harmful stereotype that Wanda used to mess with someone when someone said it about her. When someone said her bisexuality (at the time, they didn't know she was abrosexual) was a phase, she responded with, "I know," and walked off.

Lance Hunter: He falls into the "disaster bisexual" stereotype. Hot mess of a person who happens to be bi. He also is overtly queer (lots of bi stuff) so there's that. And he's like a dad to a couple of agents that came out to him because they knew he was bi and a safe person to come out to.

Daisy Johnson: She has a bisexual bob (at times). If you don't know, there's a mini stereotype that bisexual women get this haircut.

And look at my girl Daisy.

Jemma Simmons: Look over here. It's a little longer, but awfully close...

More of a harmful one here. She is biromantic, but hasn't ever been with a woman in a romantic relationship so "hOw DoEs ShE kNoW?" And she's varioriented, so that doesn't help. But, for a non-harmful varioriented stereotype, I know who runs @variorientedcultureis and I'm told that there are lots of asks about having a hard time figuring out labels because being varioriented is hard to figure out. And I 100% see that being the case with Jemma.

Leopold Fitz: He also took a long time to figure out he's heteroromantic bisexual because it is hard to figure out you're varioriented.

Steve Rogers: Leather jackets here! And plaid shirts!

Carol Danvers:

Need I say more?

Well, she's also a leather jackety type of person. And is a very political person.

Peter Parker: Did you know bisexuals are less likely to come out of the closet than lesbians and gays? It's statistically proven, really, look it up. Well, Peter is one of those bisexuals sticking in the closet. Plaid shirts for him too. And you know the jokes about bisexuals not being able to do math, drive, or cook? Well, he can do math, but at least one of the others he can't. I would say he can't drive (crashed Flash's car), but he said he had never done anything past parking lots yet, so it's understandable. Also, heavy amount of queer memes coming from this guy. And he also sits interestingly. He is good at that because of how flexible he is. And he can do it in all sorts of places

MJ Watson: She is very political. And has some nice jackets. I don't know a lot of omnisexual stereotypes since I'm not omni and don't know any omnis, so sorry.

Tess: She's introverted and doesn't have any desire to get into a romantic or sexual relationship. She's also covered pretty well the entire time. She is a Space Ace.

Sam Wilson: He's aroallo, so there's bad stereotypes for that. I dunno about harmless ones. I can't think of any I would put him in.

Mantis: Space Ace. Likes the color purple. More of a harmful one, but is one of the more innocent characters of the MCU.

Nebula: Space Ace, fights with swords, no time for romance/sex.

Vision: well, he literally is a robot.

Previous | Next

[lakesbian]

hi, gay ryan anon back at it again. i totally get that people looking at him and being like “oh bisexual” is just coming from bisexual people wanting to see themselves which is very understandable. but sometimes people outside of the “this character is bisexual because i am bisexual” category there will be people who call him bisexual who will lean heavily into promiscuous bisexual tropes which is :-(. and also why i am suspicious of a lot of bi ryan interpretations because while i’m sure most people are portraying him as such in a “hey that’s me!” kinda way there are also people doing so to push weird stereotypes. maybe gay erasure was a bit too far but it at the very least feels… i guess inappropriate? just a bit strange. idk i’m a lesbian lol and i see a lot of my silly spontaneous yet simultaneously vulnerable and confused self in him i guess this also stretches to sexuality so i am pretty insistent about gay ryan because like you said it’s the most intelligent interpretation, like it just makes the most sense. when i say other characters could be bi it’s mainly acknowledging that although lake, ryan, and min-gi are the only character with heady LGBTQ+ subtext, any of the rest of the characters could be bi if you would like them to be. more so like headcanons and etc, sorry, i didn’t make that clear, LOL. thank you for responding!!!

oh yeah there's definitely nuance to the topic depending on who's hcing him as bisexual. i've seen a Disgusting amount of biphobia disguised as a cutesy headcanon. "flirtatious and slutty ryan ~sexily corrupts~ an innocent gay bean min-gi" is a fanfic trope in its own right at this point and it is fuuuucked up™! i'm suspicious of Fandom Interpretations in general because they're usually completely lacking in nuance & riddled with nasty stereotypes, but just "bi ryan" by itself doesn't set off any flags for me, bc, again, there's a solid chance it's an innocent headcanon from a bisexual person

basically what i'm saying is. if a headcanon is obviously derived from stereotypes then it's inappropriate. but i don't want to deem an entire lgbt headcanon as Always Inappropriate In Itself because that risks harming people with completely innocent identity-projection headcanons. the only time i'd take that stance on a lgbt headcanon is if there is no interpretation of it which does not actively propagate harmful stereotypes--which does not apply to biyan

[trunkzbriefs]

Any Son and/or Briefs family headcanons? Spicy hot takes? Truths Toriyama and Toyotaro themselves can not handle? Straight up lies?

GODDAMN SORRY this took a while cause i suck at putting thoughts together. i apologize for my obvious briefs bias i have more hcs for them than the son family despite loving them both :pensive: anyway heres some random stuff

briefs hcs:

all of the briefs are pros at non-verbal communication. i hc that saiyans have their own language (and also in my own Mind Canon they still have their fuckin tails) and a lot of it is done through tail movement/body posture/grunts/etc. etc so theyve all sort of picked that up. even bulma, who doesnt have a tail, is pretty good at getting across what she means without actually speaking. they still do speak normally but it comes in handy sometimes considering that both trunks and vegeta are prone to running out of speaking energy or getting very frustrated with words, so having another way to communicate works very well for them

vegeta is fffffffffffffffffffurry. without getting too deep into my own General Saiyan hcs (thats why i made a whole ass four subspecies!!) i think that the entirety of planet vegeta tended to be very hot aside from the part where the castle was, where the temperature would drop. meaning that saiyans working in the palace would grow thicker fur around certain parts of their body, and in the royal saiyans theyd be Especially fluffy. he kept it down on earth, but he has thick patches of fur around the bottom parts of his arms and legs. kind of like snowy boots and gloves! he also has fur that grows in on his neck like a lions mane.

future trunks is an actions sponge, vegeta is a words sponge. vegeta will pick up words VERY quickly regardless if he fully understands the meaning of it or not (completely inspired by 'THATS RIGHT BOYS... MONDO COOL' in z) and future trunks will unintentionally mimic the actions of people - around people he looks up to he might take a few small mannerisms from but this extends to copying the disposition of anyone; he's just very adaptive. this is the most obvious (and funniest) when he's around vegeta bc it really shows like. yeah damn that sure is vegeta's son

vegeta & bulla have an intimidating bastard smirk naturally. their natural smiles are pretty frightening and they have to put effort into a 'normal' one. this also extends to current trunks, his default smile is the Vegeta Bastard Smirk but he learned to have a normal smile quicker than his father and sister. future trunks has a slightly unnerving natural smile (the fact that his pupils are always drawn so fucking small makes me hc that he just has a very intimidating look of 'cat thats about to pounce on an unfortunate trapped mouse' whenever he smiles) but he learned to look normal even quicker than current trunks since he's around humans a Lot and is sort of their uh, Hope. don't want to look scary to the people who depend on you!

bulma has some fighting knowledge and mildly good ki control. vegeta taught her it as a just in case so that she'd be able to defend herself against Bigger threats if he wasn't there and also so she could raise her own ki to alert someone to her if she had to.

vegeta is extremely clean and can not stand to have things disorganized for more than like... an hour before he has to tidy everything up. every time he goes down to the lab and bulma is passed out in a pile of bolts and circuit boards it kills him inside just a little bit

future trunks has little concept of power control. since his timeline was always in danger it wasn't really an important thing for him to learn. the amount of mugs he's accidentally crushed is impressive

vegeta tends to not sound like he's asking questions when he is. he doesn't add the proper infliction to the end of his questions and just sounds flat most of the time. it's confusing to people who dont know him well.

im not even gonna lie, im a BIG fan of the chill demon panchy headcanon so i love the idea that the briefs have a Lil bit of demon in them but just dont know it ghjnkm

[banging my fists on the 'hcs that not even got could take away from me' table] future trunks has OCD

vegeta doesn't really get labels but he's bisexual & "debatably a man", bulma is bisexal & bigender transfem (sometimes shes Wamen and other times its like "gender? no"), bulla is a nonbinary lesbian, current trunks is a bisexual trans man & future bulma forgot to explain the concept of gender and sexuality to future trunks so he's a little confused on that front and his gender & sexuality are "i have literally never thought abt these concepts in my life but i think men are nice. i refuse to think about gender though" (i actually have two main hcs for future trunks which are either gay trans man or more-feminine-presenting nonbinary bisexual)

son hcs:

goku is Not as fluffy as vegeta at all, but he does have fur on certain parts of his body. namely on the back of his elbows + ankles, down his back connecting to his tail, and on his shoulders. its inherented from gine!

gohan is learning saiyan language from vegeta! vegeta acts grumpy about it but he's glad to have someone to teach. when gohan learned that most of the history had been lost he basically wished shenron for a big ol book on saiyan culture and gave it to vegeta just as an act of kindness and vegeta was like [in an angry voice but very touched] "Ok. Sit down. You're learning." by extension gohan is also teaching the rest of his family!

i will take ox king being actually non-human to my grave so like, chichi has horns and a very short ox tail! gohan and goten both have horns, but they're hidden by hair. goten's horns are bigger than gohans.

goten also has a more ox-like tail, with a little puff of fur at the end. generally, gohan looks more saiyan-like and goten looks more ox/human-like.

although he keeps up his cheery demeanor very well, goku is still haunted pretty badly by like... everything that’s happened in his life. he still has frequent nightmares about cell & buu specifically.

gohan will freak out at worse, zone out at best, if he's even tapped on the neck. it reminds him of the whole 'getting his neck snapped on namek' so that area is pretty off limits to everyone

goten gets along really well with android 17. they both have a love for nature and 17s kind of like his chill uncle, so whenever he gets too stressed out or just needs a break you can find him face down on the ground outside of 17's place on monster island.

goku is really really good at remembering completely random shit. bulma uses this to her advantage whenever she's working and has him memorize random technology stuff. a week later goku can not remember what he had for breakfast that morning but as soon as bulma asks "hey do you remember what i told you last week" hes like "oh yeah sure i have no idea what it means but [blurts out three hours worth of technical garble]"

oh boy is this a headcanon that has a lot more depth to it than just a bullet on a tumblr post, but gohan has DID!

goku, like vegeta, doesnt get labels either, and does not even Try, ask him about any of it and hes like "i dont get the gender thing but i think lots of people look nice :)" gohan is gay and like vegeta, "debatably a man", goten + chichi are both bi nonbinary, & pan is a lesbian trans woman.

both:

bulla and pan are both into music! i think theyd mess around making their own stuff w/ launchpads

i have a general hc of ki mixing or shielding, essentially, if youre close enough to someone people wont be able to tell apart your ki and you can also 'shield' someone with your ki for a small amount of time. if vegeta has his energy low, his and bulma's energy are the same. same thing with goku and chichi! goten and trunks are near impossible to tell apart, and same thing with gohan and videl.

though goten and trunks are both protective over their younger siblings, gotenks is that protectiveness times a thousand. look at bulla or pan wrong for 2 seconds and you're going to have an angry gotenks in your face asking if you have any last words. i like to think that trunks and goten fused casually a lot, especially around the time where bulla and pan were young, so its basically goten and trunks own attachment to them PLUS gotenks' attachment to them as his own person combined.

i like to pretend end of z did not happen the way it did so uub, using nimbus, travels back and forth a lot. goku isn’t the only one who teaches him how to fight as goten, gohan and trunks all think of him like a little brother and love training with him!

fuck you letters to toriyama/toyotaro hot takes:

cell, as cool of a villian as he is, definitely should have had a creepier final form. or multiple- just something that really drives in the fact that he's made up of other's dna & fuckin ABSORBS people. also his first two forms should have had a different absorbtion method other than the tail thing (not the drinking thing thats fine) it just feels.   Weird. not good

it would have been far more interesting to keep the bitter attitude towards vegeta that future trunks had imo... in super trunks was going through a Lot granted but the fact tht he wasnt more confrontational to vegeta being a dick to him seemed kind of off considering his attitude in z i just.. think it would be interesting and far better if they had more of a back and forth 'family but lowkey hate each other' relationship

i dont want to rant about super so heres some super condensed takes, goku black arc specific because thats 90% of what ive seen of super:

mai is a fucking freak ass weirdo, why did they not just make another character to pair with trunks

trunks not flipping the fuck out at his timeline being erased feels... out of character. also trunks deserved the win against zamasu

future bulma did NOT need to die

trunks should have just stayed in the current timeline

please fucking let trunks and goten grow up. we SAW a version of trunks who looked 14 (history of trunks....) and the versions of goten & trunks we have r/n in super do not look 13/14 respectively what in the goddamn hell is going on in the character design department

super definitely should have taken place later down the line

supers version of bulma and videl look awful. why are they That stick like.

vegeta needs to kill frieza. just once.

fu has enough potential to be a very interesting mainline character and i am so sad he's not

i would actively enjoy a sdbh anime with more  budget that isnt just a promo anime and has a plot that makes sense... i think db should have more wild spinoffs

xenoverse deserved a better story that went FULL in on the 'what if' type of timelines- like they did in raging blast which is a FUCKING GREAT GAME

straight up lies:

dragon ball z is a good series

[fuzzyface]

“You make your own fairytale” - Jester, comphet, and realizing you might not want what you thought you did

It’s no secret to anyone who follows me that I headcanon Jester as a lesbian and have enjoyed pointing out the not-so-straight moments she’s has on the show every week. Until recently, I wasn’t any more invested in this than I usually am in my lgbt headcanons - which is to say it’s fun and meaningful to me but I don’t think it holds much weight outside of my own imagination.

However…

These past few weeks finding “evidence” for this headcanon has felt like less a treasure hunt for subtext and more like just… watching the show. It’s been very easy lately to read Jester’s behavior as that of a closeted lesbian or bi woman, to the point where I’ve started questioning whether it even makes sense to continue calling it a “crack theory” or “conspiracy”. If you’re willing to entertain the belief that gay readings of characters don’t always have to be purely self-indulgent, please enjoy this long-winded explanation as to why I think there’s a legitimately good chance that Jester is canonically in the middle of figuring out her sexuality. 

To start I want to say that, no, I don’t think this is something that was planned from the start. I don’t have a portal to the inside of Laura Bailey’s head, but if I had to guess I’d say that she probably left Jester’s sexuality “undecided” at the start of the campaign, but defaulted to having her like men. Even then I didn’t see her as straight, but there were decidedly less ‘moments’ early in the campaign to support that. This actually lines up fairly well with my theory, which is that Jester’s arc is one of self-exploration. But more simply, I think the idea probably just wouldn’t have occurred to Laura when she was busy just trying to get a feel for the basics of her character. I don’t consider any of the early campaign to “contradict” anything I’m going to say next, I just know somebody would bring it up if I didn’t address it first.

(I have some friends who do very firmly believe that Laura is playing the full long con with Jester and has been slow-burning her sexuality crisis since the start of the campaign, and they’re valid, but I won’t really get into that here since that’s not my personal interpretation. If Laura wants to prove me wrong on a Talks episode sometime in the future, I will gladly eat my words.)

Jester did start out as a character who ostensibly “liked men” but even from the start I thought her way of interacting with that attraction was… interesting. She had an idea in her head of what an ‘ideal man’ was like and projected it onto nearly every man she found attractive, regardless of their actual personalities. All the men she likes are dashing, they’re all handsome heroes, they’re all suave and they’re all definitely interested in her. She thought she wanted a fairytale prince, and so she saw fairytale princes everywhere she looked. It was also really interesting to me that she never made an effort to pursue most of the men she was ‘attracted’ to. With the notable exception of Fjord, she only commented on the appearance of men after she was already distanced from them. Even Nott - the married woman - made more actual passes at men they met than Jester - the romance obsessed one - ever did. Jester seemed to care more about using her attraction to men as a way to gossip and bond with the rest of the party than she did about using it to actually court anyone.

Speaking of Fjord… boy, he’s a whole thing in of himself. Fjord was the first man she ever befriended outside of the very small bubble of people she knew growing up. He was nice to her, they trusted each other, their meeting probably felt like fate, and because of that Jester thought she was in love with him. The fact that Jester was in love with the idea of Fjord rather than the real him was something I had been speculating for a LONG time, but now that Laura has outright confirmed it I can talk about it without having to use any sort of disclaimer. Jester took a very short amount of time to decide that she was “in love” with Fjord, and almost all of the instances where her attraction was most obvious were prompted not by anything he did, but by things that reinforced Jester’s own beliefs on what romance was supposed to be like. She bought a cheesy smut book and started comparing Fjord to the protagonist because of course he’s exactly like Oskar - he’s a man and he’s handsome, isn’t he? Another woman flirted with Fjord and Jester got sick with jealousy because he’s supposed to fall in love with her, isn’t he? When the two of them were free from expectations they were cordial friends with no particular tension between them; it’s when Jester was reminded that they’re ‘supposed to be’ a love story that she got anxious, upset, or started putting on an obvious front.

A lot of this could be argued away as Jester just trying to take things too fast, but what really stood out to me was that Jester never seemed happy about her crush on Fjord. She wasn’t giggly and bubbly when talking about him, and with few exceptions she didn’t seek him out to spend extra time with him or confide her desires in him. The three times she openly addressed her crush - to Nott, the Traveler, and Caleb respectively - she was anxious, confused, or outright upset. Her talk with Nott seemed like she was trying to get reassurance that she was “normal” and that she was having the “correct” feelings in response to Fjord kissing her, which is extremely easy to read as Jester starting to realize that she might not have the feelings for men that she “should” have. Her conversation with Caleb was equally distressing, because by that point she was starting to see her fantasy was falling away. She asserted that she was “stupid” for believing it in the first place and openly admitted that she’s no longer sure her feelings still exist now that the idealism is gone. From that point forward all of Nott’s attempts to set her and Fjord up only caused her more anxiety and distress. The couple of times they were forced to be alone together they were stilted and awkward - a far cry from their original easy friendship - and after a point, Jester started to turn down offers to spend time with him altogether. “No, he’s not flirting with me,” she said, no longer even able to pretend she’s excited by the prospect.

The thing about Jester is, so much of her outward personality is based on appearances. She acts happy and cheerful and confident all the time because she thinks she has to, and she’s an accomplished liar who doesn’t like other people to see her upset or doubtful. Only in drastic situations does Jester willingly let someone see her vulnerable. It would have been incredibly easy for Laura to play Jester as her usual, cheerful, ‘no problems here’ self during her conversations about Fjord if we weren’t supposed to interpret her as being obviously and deeply conflicted. Something in her head felt very, very wrong when Fjord kissed her for her to be able to tell Nott that the only thing it made her feel was “not dead”. Something in her mind didn’t click right when she finally got what she wanted for her to be able to tell Caleb that she wasn’t even sure her crush was real.

The slow resurgence of the bond between Fjord and Jester recently made me wonder if I was wrong about my interpretation, if maybe Jester had just been sulking because she thought Fjord didn’t like her, and now she was convincing herself again that he did. But Laura confirming on Talks that Jester was mostly over her crush on Fjord solidified for me that her arc was intentionally about learning how to move on from unhealthy infatuation. So if it’s undeniably canon that Jester’s only real crush on a man was based on her misunderstanding both the situation and her own desires, and it’s canon that she is moving on from that attraction and starting to learn what she actually wants, that leaves us with the question: Where is Jester going from here?

I’ve talked a lot so far about Jester’s relationship to men and how so much of it mirrors the experience of a woman dealing with comphet; performatively talking about attractive men without pursuing them, idealizing and projecting ‘ideal’ traits onto crushes instead of developing them naturally, convincing herself she’s in a fairytale romance because a man was nice and nonthreatening towards her. But being a wlw doesn’t ‘require’ comphet, and regardless I can’t - and wouldn’t - build a gay headcanon just around her feelings about men. So let me talk now about Jester’s relationship with women.

Jester has been naturally complimentary of women since the start of the campaign. She’s quick to call them cute, call them pretty, compliment their clothes. I don’t necessarily think - until more recently - this was meant to be read as ‘not straight’. If anything I think it was just another example of Jester’s naturally flirty personality - she likes to compliment people, she likes to tease. However, the difference in how she approaches women and men has been extremely blatant recently and I genuinely don’t think it’s an accident. The ways that she - and Laura while playing her - acts around characters who are beautiful women isn’t the same ‘casually complimentary’ demeanor she had towards all genders since the start of the campaign. Jester calling Lady Olios ‘beautiful’ no less than three times in a single meeting and being noticeably flustered isn’t usual Jester behavior, Laura repeatedly asking Matt what the Bright Queen is wearing only so that Jester can be visibly awed by her beauty isn’t usual Jester behavior. The fact that she compliments women to their face, while with men it’s always an offhand comment after they leave, also stands out to me. It’s the little moments too that I notice, the times where there’s no reason to even make a comment in the first place unless you’re trying to make a point, like Jester telling Caduceus that the Wildmother is hot, or mentioning how attractive Yasha is in the middle of an unrelated conversation. It all adds up.

I’m aware of my biases in viewing these scenes as a lesbian, but completely outside of headcanons it’s obvious that Jester has an established fixation on beautiful women, and it’s obvious that this has come up more frequently now than it used to in the past. It’s the fact that this overlaps with her realizing that she’s no longer sure what she wants - that love and romance and attraction aren’t what she thought they were - that feels deliberate to me in a way that Jester’s earlier offhand comments about women never did. If Jester’s feelings towards women are meant to be entirely platonic, then the insistence on highlighting them - sometimes even interrupting scenes to do so - seems strange to me. It’s not played for comedy, it’s rarely relevant to the scene at hand, so why does it come up often enough that my friends and I keep a running joke that if there’s a beautiful woman in a scene Jester will comment on it at least once? (Play that game yourself when you’re watching new episodes, you’ll be amazed at how rarely you’ll be wrong)

So where’s this going, if Jester is being played as in the middle of discovering her sexuality? She gets over a major crush on a player character just to flirt with random attractive NPCs? Is Jester’s gay awakening supposed to be centered on her occasionally thinking powerful and unattainable women are hot, or would Laura have the logical sense to plan such a serious character decision around something that would have an actual impact on the party? Well, let’s be honest, you probably knew this part was coming eventually…

Jester’s relationship with Beau is one of the closest and most stable friendships in the group. The two of them have an intense love and trust of one another and are both verbally and physically affectionate on a greater level than any pair in the party. I’ve talked myself to death about these two already and I’ll do so plenty in the future, so I’m not going to give an entire summary of their relationship (if you need a refresher, here you go). Yes, I ship them. Yes, I’ve talked plenty about what I think of Beau’s side of the relationship. But it’s regardless of shipping or the potential of mutual feelings that, for the purposes of this essay, I say there’s a good chance that Jester canonically has a crush on Beau.

Hear me out.

The two of them had an ostensibly platonic relationship for the majority of the campaign. There were some charged moments but nothing that could really and truly be read as explicitly romantic or sexual without shipping goggles on. Then Episode 46 aired. Jester was directly in the middle of her crisis about her feelings for Fjord, Laura was clearly playing her as starting to realize that she didn’t feel the way she originally thought she did, the group had just been through a tremendously traumatic experience that made Jester question whether she could trust them… and then Beau hugs her, and talks about their shared childhood trauma, and tells her she’s beautiful, and tells her that she loves her. I can’t say for sure that this would have been the moment that Jester fully developed feelings, but I do know that if you were already planning for your character to have an arc about learning what she wants from love, this would feel like an awfully convenient moment to build off of. And I can certainly observe the ways that Beau and Jester’s dynamic has visibly changed in the episodes since.

We already know what platonic friendship between Beau and Jester looks like; we watched 40+ episodes of it. What we have now is Jester blushing and giggling when Beau blows her a kiss, Jester asking Beau if she’s secretly in love with her, Jester stepping in to counter every derogatory thing said about Beau with showers of compliments, Jester asking to look down Beau’s pants, Beau offering to let Jester watch her make out with another woman, Jester approaching Beau and only Beau to discuss her thoughts about love and romance. These are often explicitly flirty interactions that we genuinely never saw between the two of them previously, and given how it directly lines up with Jester falling out of love with someone else and clearly having romance on the brain, it feels oddly perfect to just be a coincidence. Even the more ‘dubiously platonic’ moments between them are more frequent and more tender. Jester doing things like giving Beau a massage to help her fall asleep (a scene she logically shouldn’t even have been awake for), pulling Beau aside to ask her to commit some vandalism for her, or repeatedly complimenting her when she shows any sign of insecurity. The fact that Jester immediately chose to stay roommates with her - in a house with so many rooms that the only other people bunking up are a married couple - at the very least confirmed for me that Jester has been prioritizing Beau in her life in a major way lately.

The little comments, the encouragement, the way Jester seems to almost hover over Beau for any sign that she needs to be comforted or reassured… it all adds up to something big in their relationship having changed and there is absolutely nothing contradictory or unreasonable in viewing it as Jester having developed romantic feelings for Beau. If Jester went up to someone the very next episode and told them she was in love with Beau, everything that’s happened between them would feel like a perfectly natural progression up to that moment. Call me crazy, but when you can draw a line that easily from A to B using only what’s available to you in canon, I think at the least you usually call that an entirely plausible theory.

So what’s my point here? Am I saying Jester is for sure being played as a closeted gay woman who’s secretly in love with Beau? Of course not. I don’t claim to be any more certain of what Laura Bailey has planned than anyone else. I’m also not trying to say that Jester is “coded” as gay or anything like that. But I can look at the storybeats that I correctly predicted due to my own headcanons (Jester questioning and ultimately abandoning her feelings for Fjord, Beau and Jester growing closer and having more non-platonic interactions) and follow it to its logical conclusion.

If all these things have been correct so far, and Jester being gay is an easy and logical interpretation that contradicts nothing and explains a lot, then why not assume it might actually be what Laura is intending? At the very least, why not stop treating it like a wild fringe theory that could never have solid supporting evidence?

Jester is gay, tell your friends

[totally-normal-boy]

My Utena Sexual Orientation (and also sometimes gender identity) Headcanons

Obligatory Disclaimer: Obviously these are all just my own personal interpretations of the characters, and if you think something different that’s totally chill. This is all in good fun, so please take the whole post with a grain of salt.

Utena: I genuinely can’t decide whether I headcanon her as bi or lesbian, I’ve seen really good arguments for both.

Anthy: Lesbian.

Saionji: Gay, but super angsty about it

Touga: The most distinguished of distinguished bisexuals

Juri: Heterosexual. Just kidding, she’s definitely a lesbian. I just felt like this list needed at least one super controversial hot take.

Shiori: Bisexual, but with so much internalized misogyny/homophobia that she mistakenly thinks her attraction to girls (read: Juri) is hatred

Miki: He’s trans because I’m trans and I say so. As for his sexual orientation, I honestly don’t think he’s figured that out yet.

Kozue: Definitely pansexual, possibly non-binary.

Nanami: Lesbian, but she hasn’t realized it yet

Tsuwabuki: He’s just a CHILD!!!

Mari: She’s also just a CHILD!!!

Chu Chu: I was going to make a joke about how he was “just a MONKEY!!!” But then I remembered that he was canonically attracted to both a frog and Tatsuya. So, now I’m just going stare into the abyss and wait for death to take me.

Wakaba: Bisexual. I also really like the idea of her being a trans girl even though there’s pretty much no canonical evidence for that at all.

Mikage: Between the vague but notable age difference between him and Mamiya, the rivalry with Akio over Tokiko, the fact that Mamiya is technically Anthy for most of the black Rose arc, and his weird (fake?) crush on Utena because she makes him think of Tokiko it’s easiest to just say he’s bi and call it a day.

Ruka: Memorable token straight guy

Kanae: Memorable token straight girl

Tokiko: Memorable token straight woman

Tatsuya: Forgettable token straight guy

Keiko: Forgettable token straight girl

Mrs. Ohtori: Forgettable token straight woman

Akio: Akio Ohtori forgoes traditional labels of sexual orientation in favor of giving each of his sexual conquests a numerical ranking in each of the following categories: Age Difference, Foot Size, and Amount of Shared Genetic Material. He adds bonus points if he ends up leaving them with irreparable psychological trauma because he’s a terrible, terrible man who deserves to die in a garbage fire.

Dios: He’s either heterosexual or a symbol for the illusory construct of hegemonic masculinity that only ever existed in the collective unconscious. I’m not really sure though! 🤷🏻‍♂️

The Shadow Girls: They’re lesbians. All of ‘Em.

Chigusa: She’s the antagonist from the Utena dating simulator. I don’t actually have a headcanon for her, I just wanted to remind everyone that video game exists.

Those Three Guys Who Are All Into Nanami: Seriously why are you still reading this?

Nanami’s two friends who aren’t Keiko: Please just go outside. Live your life.