#the hero we deserve but not the cishets

[burst-of-iridescent]

No, Shipping Zutara Is Not Supporting Amatonormativity (Please Use Some Fucking Braincells For Once)

- a treatise by a severely pissed off aroace zutara shipper

since words don’t mean anything anymore (if they ever did on the esteemed piss-on-the-poor website), let’s start with a definition.

amatonormativity: the set of social assumptions that everyone prospers with a romantic relationship, thereby positioning marriage as a universal goal of adult life. amatonormativity forms the basis of several institutional structures that are built to cater to romantic bonds over all others, also manifesting in social pressure on individuals to find a romantic partner by pushing the false narrative that those who do not experience romance are automatically lonely, unhappy and unfulfilled. it is usually characterized by the prioritization of romantic love over other forms of love, particularly platonic.

the anti-zutara argument based on this is as follows: wanting zutara to happen is amatonormative because it a) devalues zuko and katara’s platonic bond b) pushes the idea that men and women can’t be friends and c) doesn’t align with the themes of the show, as romantic love was never the point of atla.

i would like to take the time today to tell you that this is some fucking bullshit, for the following reasons:

one, this may come as a shock to some of you, but zutara shippers did not invent the concept of romantic love in avatar: the last airbender. you are more than welcome to criticize the pairings of suki/sokka, katara/aang, mai/zuko, yue/sokka, jin/zuko, jet/katara, and even kanna/pakku for perpetuating amatonormativity through their unnecessary romantic subplots. and if you don’t have anything to say about any of those pairings, then here’s a word for you: hypocrite.

zk shippers are not introducing the taint of romantic love into some kind of wholesome platonic utopia where it never existed. when we say zutara should have been canon, it is a statement that ends with the implicit instead of kat.aang and mai.ko tacked on at the back because if we were going to get a romantic relationship anyway, it might as well have been one that was well-developed, narratively impactful, and thematically relevant.

two, saying zutara is amatonormative is fucking rich when the main “romance” of atla is a three season long struggle to get out of the friendzone. aang’s desire to be in a romantic relationship with katara is one of his primary motivations throughout the show, and not once does either he or the narrative ever entertain the thought that just being katara’s friend might be enough. to the contrary, aang’s crush and the potential of its reciprocation is a fundamental part of how the story gets its audience to invest in both his character and the kat.aang relationship. they want you to want him to get the girl, and that’s the driving force of the ship’s development from start to finish.

you can see the influence of this in the way people defend why kat.aang had to happen: “aang would be crushed!” “it would break aang’s heart!” “aang deserves to be happy!” and that in and of itself is more amatonormative than any version of romantic zutara, as if this idea that aang is somehow doomed to a life of misery and loneliness just because he can’t be with the girl he likes isn’t inherently based on the assumption that platonic love can’t be as meaningful and satisfying as romantic love.

three, let’s be so fucking fr: a show written by cishet men in the early 2000s was not “subverting amatonormativity” by not making zutara happen, especially not when they went for the fucking olympic gold of romantic cliches — the hero gets the girl trope — instead. otherwise, why did the entire show end with an uncomfortably long liplock? if romance would’ve devalued zuko and katara’s platonic bond, then what the everloving fuck happened to their friendship in the comics and the legend of korra?

it is blatantly false to say that zutara shippers are the ones devaluing their platonic bond when the creators did it first. they evidently don’t view zutara’s platonic bond as equal to kat.aang’s romantic one, judging by their treatment of both relationships in the comics and LOK and the fact that they talked about kat.aang “winning” the ship war in the first place. because if the two relationships were of equivalent standing, why would there be a winner and a loser at all?

amatonormativity is baked into the DNA of atla, and while some people choose to reject this framework entirely (zk friendship >>> ka romance anyday), it is also not wrong for zk shippers to be annoyed at the treatment zutara received within the context of said framework. since the creators clearly thought a romantic relationship was better than a platonic one, they could at least have picked the couple that actually made sense instead of adding insult to injury by making that romance kat.aang. it is not amatonormative to acknowledge that zutara was not afforded the distinction it should have been in the eyes of those who wrote it, because it’s obvious that the decision to keep zuko and katara’s relationship platonic wasn’t to respect their friendship, but to position them as inferior to kat.aang.

four, detractors of romantic zutara often argue that their platonic relationship is inherently better & i’ve discussed before why that isn’t the case, but i also hate this argument because it’s perpetuating the very thing that aromantic people are trying to get rid of in the first place: the hierarchization of love. it is not the “gotcha!” you think it is to genuinely state that platonic love is better than romantic love, because it’s still buying into the idea that there’s some kind of order to categorizing human relationships. the solution to amatonormativity isn’t changing what form of love gets to be at the top of the list — it’s doing away with the hierarchy entirely.

i ship zuko and katara because canon already gave me their friendship. i already know what their platonic relationship looks like and that gives me more room for imagination in developing their romantic one because it’s a place canon didn’t go.

at the end of the day, friendship and romance are just different avenues of exploring intimacy. neither is inherently more valuable than the other, and neither is inherently more problematic. and if you truly believe in dismantling amatonormative beliefs, you would recognize that making a distinction between the two is only perpetuating the problem, not challenging it.

[snowflakesincalifornia]

I couldn’t reblog the og post bc ig Tumblr’s ruined the code, so this is a copy of it. Please give credit to the og posters.

milf-percy

It dosen't really matter that Percy isn't hurt by Annabeth insulting him all the time and sometimes even being physically violent to him(he should be because that's a realistic response from an abuse and bullying survivor but i digress),not just because he's a fictional character and not a real person with free will,but also because that's Annabeth's way of showing she fucking hates him.Her treatment of him has literally not changed since they were 12 yet nobody in this dumbass fandom can shut up about how ~developed~ their relathionship is cause they make out now and are planning on having a dysfunctional cishet marriage while trashing the characters of color for being 'annoying'.

Percy and Annabeth are not 'made for eachother' because Rick wrote everyone in-universe as telling them that and i'd like to remind y'all that this is the same guy who wrote Luke,an adult serial abuser and ped0phile,as a 'hero' because of the Great Prophecy.Destiny means jack shit and Annabeth and Percy-ESPECIALLY Percy,who's been doomed to trauma over and over again despite his best efforts to escape it-should've been allowed to choose who to love instead of having it shoved down their throats by both everyone in their franchise and the creepy weirdos in the fandom too

@southasianpercy

chaoticcerise

Hi! As someone with ADHD who's been in several abusive relationships before, I figured I'd add something about why it IS actually realistic that he doesn't appear hurt, but that's actually even more alarming. So it starts with meeting them (obviously) and especially if they don't really have any healthy romantic IRL relationships to compare it to (which the books go out of their way to emphasize that this is the case) then it can be really hard to notice when red flags like that start to come up. "Oh it'll get better!" "They're still adjusting to it!" All of which are valid! There's healthy relationships that start rough and there's relationships that start really well and then something happens that doesn't go super well and it turns bad real quick. I've been in a few of both. The problem comes when it still happens after they're asked to stop, which is what happens in Percy Jackson. This can lead to things like "Oh they're just kidding, surely they don't mean it!" "Oh that's just how they flirt/show they love me!" Which, again, is fine IF IT'S WELCOME. However if it's not then eventually it's "Oh they're just like that." "Oh it's fine I guess, it's not like I can stop it." Just because someone doesn't complain doesn't mean that they're consenting. It means they're resigned to the abuse. And that means that he's internalizing and normalizing it. "We don't hear any real negativity towards Annabeth in Percy's thoughts though!!!" Well no but we don't hear any love either. We don't ever hear any thoughts about her really ever. Nothing about how pretty she is or how cool she is or anything. Percy Jackson has thoughts about EVERYONE. As someone with ADHD, this level of no thoughts is concerning and no basis for a relationship. He deserves someone who will treat him well. She deserves someone who thinks about her fondly. Both of them deserve better but they both need to undergo some character development and serious therapy first.

[lakesbian]

ok Worm Bigotry Breakdown in more detail for @silverflyingpikachu

tl;dr: author is Cishet White Guy From Canada In 2011. he ostensibly thinks he is progressive. this does not change his proclivity for tossing his Cishet White Guy From Canada Biases into the books and then saying even more bigoted things in defense of those writing decisions on forums. wildbow is just some cunt on the forums with bad opinions on wildbow's writing. the book is 1.7 million words long but i believe in my ability 2 categorize this shit with decent accuracy. everyone who has ever said worm's CWs can't be categorized, including wildbow himself, is a lying ass bitch. this will include some vague spoilers, because i can't really go in-depth without a few examples, but i'll stay away from anything too plot-critical.

racism:

- worm is fundamentally a book abt systems of power and the ways in which they suck. some of the critiques worm issues--e.g, its depiction of how school systems enable bullying, inspired by wildbow's own experiences w/ the school systems as a deaf kid--are viscerally accurate and incredibly compelling. but wildbow fundamentally doesn't understand how certain systems of oppression work--e.g policing--and subsequently, his attempts at depicting them occasionally fall flat onto their face and land in racist territory. this gets particularly nasty when combined w/ the White Guy Author propensity for racist stereotypes--for example, his chosen face of police brutality is a black girl portrayed as predatory & animalistic.

- who is also one of the only black people in the book overall, alongside--for example--an addict portrayed as having less interiority & being less deserving of empathy than A Literal Fucking Nazi. also, the main characters have to team up with the nazis "for the greater good" (defeating the mean asian villains) at one point. it is a mercy to the readers when this part of the story ends. - there are two black characters in the main cast. for the first, wildbow just Straight Up Forgot to include the most compelling aspect of their background + characterization in the text (it was provided via WoG instead, which i provide to all wormreaders like a fuckin' DLC patch when they get to where it's relevant) & entirely forgets they exist towards where the end of their character arc should have been. the second is introduced w/ the most misogynoiristic description on the planet but blessedly has a largely compelling and well-written arc as the book goes on. - depiction of china is just like. fox news level sinophobic "it's all a brainwashed indistinguishable evil cult" shit. not relevant for very long relatively speaking but insufferable to read. asian characters are also like. we got Brutal Yet Honorable Asian Man. we got Fiery Asian Girl With Blue Eyes. it fucking blows it's not good

- oh yeah forgot this one someone mentioned in the tags. #it's an insignificant paragraph and nobody talks about it but the part where it goes #“yeah literally EVERY cape in South America is with a cartel and the heroes are barely distinguishable from the villains” #fuck you #not that the others aren't bad the fatphobia gets really gross but nobody mentions this and that one got me so yeah typical Insufferable Awful Imperial Core Author Understanding Of What Other Countries Are Like - i could make this section one million bulletpoints long but the gist is summarized i think--wildbow's varied racist biases leak fucking everywhere, into character design, into narrative assumptions about who's deserving of interiority/empathy or not, into attempts at Saying Anything About Society, into which characters he prioritizes, into who he offers validity via the narrative, etc etc etc.

homophobia: - theres a girl named amy dallon in it and she is the worst lesbophobic stereotype ever known to man. no other Problematic Lesbian™ you can think of has anything on this girl. the worst part is that she genuinely has a decently compelling character concept and arc, which her being awful is integral to, so you might accidentally find her interesting anyway and then she'll move into your brain - wildbow kept accidentally writing characters that scan as massive dykes and then got really mad about f/f ships for the book being popular in the fandom. he responded by making a deranged forum post involving the phrase "pandering is pandering" insisting everyone (but the bisexual "hedonist") is straight and writing a scene into the book where one of the characters literally turns to the camera and tells the readers "not to get the wrong idea" about her hugging her friend. - over the course of 1.7 million words he finds excuses to loudly inform you that all of the relevant female characters are straight and it's sooo shoehorned in you can always tell when he's doing it - basically worm is like if naruto was about homoerotic teenage girls who do violent terrible things, in terms of levels of unintentional homoeroticism, and the author responds to ppl going "lmao gay" about the unintentional homoeroticism with poorly restrained seething rage

fatphobia: - generic brand of fatphobia you'll see in p much all mainstream media where only side/bg characters are fat and it's obliquely used as a descriptor to indicate that someone has negative personality traits or should be viewed as sort of gross

anti-addict shit: - wildbow generally likes writing about how social circumstances--i.e neglect from society, oppression, failure on behalf of systems--causes crime. he generally likes demonstrating the ways in which the villainous main characters are traumatized teenagers failed by society fumbling to keep existing & holding each other up through The Horrors. unfortunately all of this intelligent writing flies out the nearest window when addicts are involved. there is a gang comprised entirely of addicts, all of whom are portrayed as disgusting, violent, dangerous, and of course often racially stereotyped. it is a mercy to the readers when they're no longer relevant to the story. - on a more subtle level, characters are every so often just like. a little more anti-drug than they would realistically be and you can tell it's wildbow's opinions leaking into their characterization. this is largely what the anti-addict writing is kept to after The Addict Villains leave the story iirc.

if youre wondering wellwhy does anyone read this book then. to that i would say that unfortunately despite it all it'sa fucking excellent book. so we all carry on reading the parts that suck and thinking about how they suck and then reading the parts that fuck and going "ouuugh my god" and rolling down 20 flights of stairs about how hard they fuck.

[lenaperseveranceoxton]

Listen, I know I said in this post from June 15th that Emily is perfect as a civilian, and I was vindicated when the Invasion story missions dropped and showed that Emily is holed up in some bunker in King's Row with omnics and bigots alike.

but Blizzard, PLEASE, I need more Emily content. I am starving. She deserves to be given a canon voice like Iggy in the Underworld mission. She deserves to have a canon last name. She deserves the world.

It's so infuriating that the Lena and Emily spray even gets censored in Play of the Games and highlights. I mean, I get why (and you can ask the winners of the 2023 Overwatch World Cup if you don't) but damn it!

I am SO sick and tired of seeing people ship Lena with men, whether it be self-ships, generic nude models in Blender, or male playable characters. (If you fall into one of those categories, please let me know so I can block your disgusting ass.)

I need the cishets to know- to have it absolutely drilled into their skulls- that Lena is dating Emily Overwatch. Give me a voice line about her in the Hero Gallery. Give me a weapon charm version of the Lena and Emily spray, or at least a weapon charm of an orange heart that says "Emily" in the center. Give me a victory pose where Lena is bridal-carrying Emily. Anything.

Also, this is going to sound very weird, but the "Caught you staring!" voice line still makes me uncomfortable every time I hear it in game. I get that Lena is a playful person, but did we learn nothing from the Over the Shoulder controversy in 2016? (Even the current Over the Shoulder victory pose makes me uncomfortable. It's one of the few victory poses I don't have favorited in the Hero Gallery. Why would Lena be striking a pose from a WW2 pinup poster?) I remember hearing complaints that it's unfair that Lifeweaver, Baptiste, and Mauga get to flirt with each other while our lesbian characters don't get to flirt with women, but Lena is in a loving relationship. I think she should be able to express an aesthetic attraction towards female characters (like Sombra saying "You're cuter up close" to any gender like the bisexual icon she is when getting a melee kill), but she should not be alluding to her butt whenever you use all three Blinks. The internet is so quick to objectify Overwatch characters, and it's disappointing to see Blizzard fueling those flames.

Rant aside, I also want to point out that Lena tells Emily to let the omnics in the bunker know about Null Sector.

I remember joking in a Discord server with friends who don't go here but know Lena "Tracer" Oxton is my lifeblood about the idea of Lena having paparazzi that write articles such as "The Rumour Come Out: Does Tracer from Overwatch is Gay?" after seeing them casually plan to meet Emily at the pub in London Calling Issue 1. Does everyone in the bunker just know Emily is Lena's girlfriend? Either way, I love to imagine the conversation that would ensue.

"So, omnics, I've gathered you here today to discuss some important matters. As you may or may not know, Tracer from Overwatch is my girlfriend, and uh... A majority of the omnic population in Toronto has been abducted and possibly even had their minds wiped. Overwatch was late, so they couldn't do anything about it. Sure, Null Sector could very well be breaking into this bunker in no time at all, but Overwatch is prepared now! We're going to be okay... I think."

I'll finish this off by saying that, if she can't come to Watchpoint: Gibraltar, Emily should at least be added to the Miscellaneous section of the Intel Database.

Thank you for listening to my TEDTalk.

[strangestcase]

Listen… what a lot of people on this webbed site don’t get is that the whole point of the batman and the joker is to reassure cishet men. these two are textually heterosexual -in most continuities, at least-, but notoriously read as queer men, and have done so since their inception, to the point that the homophobic rethoric used to forge the censorship of the Comics Code Authority was built on “clearly, Batman must be a queer hero, just look at him!” followed by “and of course a queer man can’t be a hero! we have to make him straight!” meaning that Batman couldn’t be written as queer while Joker could (for as long as you hid in the plausible deniability of “ah, but he’s attracted to women!” as if bisexuality didn’t exist, and his character wasn’t a homophobic caricature down to the bone). no, Batman and Joker HAVE to be popular with straight men and therefore associated with straightness BECAUSE of their queerness. When DC makes Batman and Joker textually straight AND centers all the attention on them AND makes them out to be the only characters that do things in DC comics, it is saying “look! a butch leather daddy and a flaming pansy that want to fuck each other ARE cool and badass!” as a means not of telling them gay men are deserving of respect… but to subtly sending the message that their little “infractions” of masculinity -which to cis men is as empowering as it is constrictive- aren’t all that bad. Look, this guy wears a leather harness and he’s straight (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) everybody thinks he’s intimidating, so you using cologne isn’t all that bad. Look, this guy wears makeup and bright colored clothes and everybody thinks he’s intimidating, so you piercing your ears isn’t all that bad. Etc etc. if they ever bit the bullet and said “yeah, they’re queer, how could they not be” these cishet men would flip their shit, but for as long as they’re “straight” and badass they will forgive them looking like they’re out of a gay bar. The Batman and the Joker ARE queer men in all but name, that’s the entire point. So of course whenever I see tumblr Gotham rogues enthusiasts go “I don’t like the joker because he’s evil therefore he’s cishet” my blood boils and my soul leaves my body. Like all Gotham rogues serve the “evil queer” role in one way or another, its just that the Joker isn’t allowed to be all-on confirmed to be a gay man because straight men like him PRECISELY due to him being all but explicitly gay!!!!!!

[whatiwillsay]

the thing that gets me is he didn’t just say it back the once he said it 3 times, I get it’s the heat of the moment but hard watch and I think anyone comfortable saying it so many times like that probably doesn’t really have a problem with saying it at all. It’s made me feel some kind of way and it’s not in bad faith I don’t care about Taylor and Travis as a couple but it shocked me :(

it doesn’t really make a difference to me how many times he said it. once isn’t any better than three times imo. but i’m not surprised at all. i feel like 90% of cishet dudes in america would drop that word in that context. that doesn’t make it ok!

he needs to issue a good apology which i’m sure he will. what was the last thing we all freaked out about and then i said don’t worry it will be set right? taylor not endorsing kamala? she set that right eventually hopefully jason does as well.

it is interesting to watch the different fandoms react. some are acting like he killed someone, some are acting like he’s a hero (not you anon just in general) i wish we could just have measured responses! no it’s not good that he said it but he doesn’t deserve jail time!

[jellogram]

It's really fascinating how so many (predominantly white cishet) men will say they are really into history when they're only interested in WW2 or maybe the Roman empire or vikings. Like fifth grade level history and only wars. They're not like, reading about aristocratic culture at pre-Revolution Versailles, or the development of musical instruments in ancient Persia, or the disappearing religions of indigenous groups.

Because these guys aren't actually interested in history as a means to understand people from the past and how cultures mix and how we ended up here, they're just using history as a fantasy world. They long for a time and place where they wouldn't have been a loser and instead they would have been a war hero fighting for glory. They're so drunk on toxic masculinity and short of finding some Fight Club to join, their only outlets for these feelings are video games and history. And society treats video games as a Loser Hobby, but we treat history as a Smart Person Hobby, so they call themselves history buffs instead. Despite using it for essentially the same purpose they use video games — to imagine they live in some other place where they get the respect and self-righteousness they think they deserve.

[evilwickedme]

I literally just found out like a week ago that DC has several trans heroes! Until DC says otherwise I’m going to get a little peeved that they’re putting a cishet man on pride covers (with the stupid having a nice butt joke too!!) while actual queer characters are pushed aside 😑

Sorry for the belated answer this has been a Hell Week (ppl following me on TikTok know details but long story short I've been more busy with work than I should've been by rights)

Anyway yeah I think that DC relies way too much on the sexualization of Dick - which is especially icky considering his history of being a victim of SA more than once. He deserves better as a character, and we as an audience deserve to be treated with more respect. I think putting Tim on the cover is a bit of a copout - unlike last year's cover which was just Nightwing with a pride flag, at least this time it's Tim who's bi so it's fine!!! But like. Shit or get off the pot, DC. If you're too cowardly to say that two members of the batfam are queer (let alone say three or four, ahem, Steph and Cass, ahem....), then they need to stop giving non-queer characters pride covers and actually prioritize queer characters

[edenhasfeelings]

The Multiverse Saga (1/2)

I gonna need everyone who’s saying MCU Phase 4 was shit to shut the fuck up like actually. It was an experimental phase. It was an intro phase to a new saga. The only projects in my opinion that were actually pretty ass were Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and She-Hulk. If Phase 1 of the MCU were to come out now as it did back then, people would be saying the same thing. Phase 1 was an intro phase, mostly origin stories. “Phase 1 all pointed to Thanos!”  The Iron Man movies didn’t at all? and we didn’t see Thanos until the very end credit scene of The Avengers. “We didn’t even get to see the big bad in any of these!” Um, maybe if you’re blind or didn’t watch all of the projects like you’re acting like you did. Also, instead of their being a singular greater plot, there are several; Kang and the Multiverse, Intros and Origins, what I’m calling Interdimensionality and Space Stuff, Street Level/Classic Avengers heroes, and introducing Mutants and the X-Men. Let me explain (yes, this is my special interest, leave me alone).

Black Widow The amount of bitch fits I heard about this movie, mostly from cishet white men. This movie felt out of place in Phase 4 because it was supposed to be released earlier than it was. The entirety of Phase 4 was a lot more crammed together because of, well, idk, maybe the fucking GLOBAL PANDEMIC. But it stood on its own as a great movie and a great intro to Yelena. 

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings An origin story for a new hero, never mind the mind blowing graphics and digital effects, made this a great movie. And here we have a hint at a major plot point, mostly highlighted in the end credit scene with Wong, Bruce Banner, and Captain Marvel. The Ten Rings are the Infinity Stones of this saga. It also fits into the Multiverse/Interdimensional aspects of this Saga by introducing Ta Lo (unsure whether that’s space stuff, multiverse stuff, or both).

Eternals If Marvel kept consistently making movies in the same exact way with the same exact directors, people would be bitching about how nothing changes. But them adding a new director and film style sent everyone into an outcry about how out of place it is and shitty. I had a couple of problems with this movie, the main one being the awkward extended sex scene in a Marvel movie, but overall I thought it was a really cool and interesting way to introduce Black Knight and this new element of the Space MCU genre. Also, I loved Makkari and Druig  This movie also got a lot of hate because of Phastos having a husband and 2 second gay kiss scene that occurred. “They’re poisoning our children and forcing things down our throat!” some people cried in ignorance. So the awkward unnecessary straight sex scene was perfectly ok, but the 2 second gay kiss wasn’t? As other representation goes, the POC representation was phenomenal, as well as Makkari being deaf and using sign language.

Spider-Man: No Way Home This movie is self-explanatory. I don’t think anyone had a problem with this movie and if they did, then why. It literally fit right into the theme of the Multiverse Saga in the most mind-blowing, perfect way I didn’t actually expect them to attempt, was a wonderful closing to the MCU Spider-Man trilogy, and also gave a perfect explanation as to why we wouldn’t be seeing Spider-Man as much anymore (thanks Sony). Also a mild set up to Multiverse of Madness.

 Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness Ok, I will die mad about how shitty this movie was. I was severely disappointed. I’ve not seen this movie getting as much criticism as it deserves, but people will rail on all the other female directed movies. Sam Raimi was not the man for this movie. They peddled it as “the MCU’s first horror movie”, but The New Mutants did a better job of superhero horror than this did. The special effects were unusually shit (and ik that quality suffers because of how Marvel is run and their artists are treated), but it was unusually bad. The “horror” aspect was weak jump-scares and overused horror tropes (Wanda coming out of the mirror all bendy, for example). Speaking of Wanda, they absolutely butchered her character and story in my opinion. We don’t see her corruption at all, we just see the end credits scene of WandaVision and now all of a sudden she’s evil. The “Wanda turns evil to get her kids that never existed back” was so much more compelling and fucked up in the comics. Her killing herself at the end felt really gross in my opinion. “There is no way possible to get my kids back so let me just kill myself.” They crammed way too much plot in, and the emotional scenes fell flat. Despite their plot cramming, they didn’t deliver the “mind-bending multiverse” aspects that were promised. And while killing off Black Bolt and Reed Richards in 5 seconds was yes, a terrifying display of her abilities, it completely undermined the power of this crossover and the respective formidability and intelligence of these characters. The last scene of the movie was weird and made no sense, and the end credit scene felt out of place and thrown in there just to introduce Clea. It leaves audiences with no specific adventure or movie to look forward to, just that something is going to happen. The MCU timeline being dubbed as Dimension 616 pissed me off, because, hello, main comic time-stream is 616, the MCU has to be different. Also, one more thing, at the end of the first Doctor Strange, they made it seem like main timeline Karl Mordo was going to be the next villain, but instead we got this weird Multiverse version of him. On a more positive note, the whole Monica Rambeau as Captain Marvel, fancast John Krasinski playing Reed Richards, live action Captain Carter, and Professor Charles fucking Xavier was really, really cool. Professor Xavier’s presence was the first hint at the Mutant storyline, and the whole thing obviously prioritized the Multiverse Saga. It was also a great intro for America Chavez, and I loved that they didn’t at all try to erase the queerness of her character. 

Thor: Love and Thunder Phenomenal. A work of art. Taika Waititi hit it out of the ballpark once again with the same hilarious vibes as Thor: Ragnarok. This was very clearly a Space MCU  movie, as most all of Thor’s movies have been.  I especially loved the comic accuracy of Jane Foster’s Might Thor, and the ending her character deserved. Getting to see Heimdall in Valhalla was awesome. Gorr was a truly fearsome villain that we hadn’t seen in awhile, and he really made you feel for him, especially at the end. His character redemption made perfect sense. Love’s presence in the end was a little confusing to me, as she is a solely MCU character, but I am excited to see what they do with her character.  The representation hit home for me with Valkyrie being King, her blatant bisexuality, Korg’s comic accurate homosexuality, Heimdall’s son being seemingly transgender, and, something I noticed but didn’t see mentioned by anyone, was that Meik’s pronouns had changed from Ragnarok and Endgame.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever “They shouldn’t have given the Black Panther title to Shuri! They’re turning all the men into women to be woke!” Shut the fuck up please and thank you and pick up a goddamn comic book. Aside from No Way Home, this was the best fucking MCU Phase 4 movie, and is up there with the best MCU movies ever in my opinion. It was raw, and emotional, and gorgeously cinematic in every way possible. Surprisingly, we get a tie in to our Street Level/Classic Avengers characters by the presence of Valentina de Fontaine, who had only previously appeared in the The Falcon and The Winter Soldier and Hawkeye. This was also a set up for Mutants. Namor states that he is mutated and different from his people, hence why he is more powerful, has different physical quirks, is essentially immortal, and is treated like a god amongst them.

I will be going into more detail about the TV shows and specials later in another post.

[katrinawritesthings]

Jonghyun/Taemin; Flashbabe; PG

happy Pride fellow gays here’s superhero Jonghyun going to Pride. He has light super powers it’s like Flashbang except he’s a babe

hey I wrote this last year and put it in the queue in like December so I definitely apologize that he's not 7000% more anti-pig lmao

One shirt is covered with diagonal rainbow stripes, including the black and brown stripes, and says, in big, bold letters, “Pride was and is a riot.” The other one is pink and just says simply, “fuck cops” in all black caps.

“The back of this one says cops don't belong at Pride, too,” Jonghyun says brightly, turning it to demonstrate.

“Hey boo—which one?”

Taemin looks up from his laptop, at Jonghyun walking in from the bedroom holding up two shirts. Taemin assumes that he's going to put them on over his superhero outfit, because otherwise he probably wouldn't already be wearing the stylish black and white and aqua accented suit. He never wears it at home unless he's planning to go out in it. His mask and shades are both tucked into the collar of his suit’s long sleeve shirt as well, which further leads to that conclusion. Taemin raises his eyebrows.

“You're going in the suit?” he asks. This whole time when Jonghyun was talking about going to Pride, Taemin thought he meant like, as a normal average mild-mannered citizen. Not as Flashbabe. Jonghyun nods, though, wiggling his booty in his comfy super suit skinny’s and flexing one arm to show off his beefy bicep.

“Yeah,” he says. “all of my little queers out there need to know that I'm fighting for them specifically.” he winks at the end of that sentence and Taemin rolls his eyes. That's true, he guesses, and also cute. Jonghyun holds up the shirts again, wiggling them insistently. “Which one?” he asks again.

This time Taemin actually looks them over. One is covered with diagonal rainbow stripes, including the black and brown stripes, and says, in big, bold letters, “Pride was and is a riot.” The other one is pink and just says simply, “fuck cops” in all black caps.

“The back of this one says cops don't belong at Pride, too,” Jonghyun says brightly, turning it to demonstrate. Taemin nods in approval. Both are good, but. Hmm.

“You're going to be on the news when you go,” he says slowly. “They'll censor that fuck in the pictures.” He knows that they will. They'll probably even censor the whole shirt. Jonghyun frowns, looking at the shirt with disappointment.

“You're right,” he says sadly. He tosses in the shirt over the back of the couch, and then puts the other shirt on right there. “I can just say fuck cops out loud when I get there anyway,” he says, voice muffled as he struggles to get his head through it. When he pops his head out of the collar, his wide grin is lopsided and dazzling. “They can beep me out but everyone will still know what I said.” he says.

“Hell yeah,” Taemin grins. Jonghyun throws him a finger pistol as he fishes his mask and sunglasses out from his collar.

“Sure you don't want to come, boo?” he asks. His voice is a little hopeful but not so much that Taemin feels guilty for shaking his head. It's too loud and crowded and hot out there and he knows his feet will hurt after like twenty minutes. And Jonghyun knows this, because he nods back with an accepting little shrug.

“I was going to watch the livestream when BoA starts performing, though,” Taemin says, tapping the screen of his laptop. No fucking way would he miss that. Jonghyun nods again, looking at his mask as he fumbles with it and tries to figure out which way is the right way to put it on.

“When is that, like an hour?” he asks, pulling the mask over his head so it covers his hair down to his nose, still showing off his mouth and perfectly framing his lovely jaw. Even though his mask has custom sunglass lenses built into it, he also pulls out a neon aqua pair of regular sunglasses and crams those onto his face as well. When Taemin makes an affirming little noise he makes a clicky noise with his mouth and ticks up an okay symbol with both hands.

“I gotta go hit up Kibs soon, then,” he says, “so I can bug him to draw me pan stripes and gender-fluid stripes on my cheeks before she starts so I can get there on time. Fuck, and Minho has my glittery high heel boots also, they were going on about tinkering with their armor to make them like bouncier or something?” Taemin can't see his eyes roll, but he rolls his whole head so Taemin knows that he did it. “You know how it takes them forever to do anything,” he mutters. Taemin giggles. He does. Or, well, he knows that Jonghyun thinks that Minho takes forever. He also knows that Jonghyun has approximately three seconds of patience before he starts getting annoyed.

“Are you leaving now then?” he asks. He looks like he's ready. Jonghyun hums, fixes his shirt around his waist, rocks back on his heels and then forward onto his toes.

“One more thing I gotta do,” he smiles. He flounces to the couch that Taemin is laying on, bends over the back of it, leans close, and presses a gross, slobbery, wet smooch to his forehead. “Love you, boo,” he chirps. Taemin makes his most disgruntled noise and turns to wipe his head on the couch cushion. He also reaches up to hold Jonghyun’s hand for a few seconds fondly.

“Have fun, lovey,” he says, tacking on the nickname just to watch Jonghyun’s cheeks literally glow pink. He sees it for just a few seconds before Jonghyun hides his face in his hands and stands up, but it's enough.

“Oh my gosh,” Jonghyun whispers. “Bye boo. I'll see you later.” And with that, he disassembles into a sparky ball of light, zapping into the lamp next to the couch, and then to the night light by the front door, and then outside into the closest street light, which Taemin assumes he's going to follow all the way up to Kibum’s apartment. He is incredibly certain that by the time he zaps himself unannounced into Key’s living room he'll be glowing pink all over.

The next time Taemin sees Jonghyun, it's when Flashbabe appears at Pride by zapping himself on top of a street lamp right over the stage float. He sits there, extremely visible in the livestream camera, faintly glowing through a cycle of soft rainbow colors and waving around at the crowd. He ignores all of the news reporters that catch wind of him and try to grab him for an interview, but when BoA, mid performance set, notices him and calls him to the stage, he zaps himself directly into one of the stage lights and drops down easily.

BoA hands him the mic and he gives a nice little speech about Pride and his identity and how he'll always do his best to protect his favorite little queers and wraps It up by zapping to sit on top of the stage float, pointing over at a group of cops on the sidelines, and saying, “Fuck y'all.”

Then he drops the mic down to BoA and teleports away, zipping from street lamp to street lamp, from float to float, to some of the marchers’ glow up accessories and outfits. Taemin just watches the concert . He doesn't have the energy to check all the news and the social media sites and whatever to keep himself updated on where exactly Jonghyun is right at every moment. He knows that his babe is out there having fun and supporting himself and protecting people. And he knows that Jonghyun will be back later to flop on top of him and give him just as much love and attention as he does everyone else.

[alwaysgold03]

Rainbow capitalism, the exploitation of gays in media, and All for the Game: An Essay

TW: talk of regular aftg tws

THIS WILL GET TO AFTG I PROMISE YOU JUST GOTTA READ THE BACKGROUND FIRST.

The other day I was watching a new video by one of my favourite YouTubers (@/aretheygay) called “the end of rainbow capitalism”, where he was explaining from a sociological and capitalistic standpoint why a lot of queer people feel disillusioned from the queer media we’re given… and it got me thinking.

While yes, there are more queer characters in media these days, and there are more queer centred stories being told, 8.5/10 times (random number I made up don’t ask for sources) these pieces of media portray a VERY specific type of queer person, something that can be easily squeezed into a box and sold at the highest price, because, of course, everything comes down to capitalism in our world.

So, these movie/tv producers (most of the time, but this can also be seen in books) want to make queer characters that are gay enough for the gays, but can also cater to their straight viewers. Why?? To Maximize Profit.

So, This YouTuber gives us an explanation as to why we feel disillusioned: because these pieces of media were not made for queer people, they were made for queer CONSUMERS. They were made for money and, most of the time, nothing else. (CW: This is not for all pieces of queer media, this is a generalization).

This means that a very large portion of queer media is based around a white, cis guy who goes through the throes of coming out and homophobia in their community (normally high school) but oh my gosh they don’t deserve it!!… and then it eventually ends with unanimous acceptance or death.

Therefore, even though we are *technically* getting the queer media we all so desire and crave as most lgbt+ people do (because let’s be real, everyone wants to see themselves represented in media to feel more accepted), we are also being told we can’t complain about what we are given. We hear “oh my god, the gays whine so much, we literally gave them what they want”. But really, we weren’t. Not at all.

We are given these tiny crumbs of representation that only represent a chosen few that are easy to advertise to the masses, and also perpetuate a queer stereotype in a cishet society. Selling a “homosexual box” all tied up with a nice bow when, really, you cannot possibly fit all queer people into one category. That’s why so many queer people do not see themselves in the characters on tv.

Now you may ask, what does this homosexual box include?

- extremely washed out queer characters (diluting them like gingerale when you have the flu, of all controversies and “bad” qualities. The gays can be gay but not if they have sex or commit crimes like the cishets!)

- Mostly white, cis characters played by white, cis, het actors

- One single narrative of the “queer experience” being homophobia and exclusion.

What does this mean? Well, it means that these producers in the media are making millions of dollars catering to consumers, and by doing so, trying their hardest to make the queer characters the most unproblematic, “good” people they can, pushing a new stereotype in media. The “gay hero”.

I kinda came up with this term on my own (once again pls don’t source me) but it’s something I’ve always had a problem with. It’s the YA novels and teen tv shows/movies that star a cis white gay guy that never does wrong and gets praise for coming out and “telling his truth” and then THE END! (ex. Love Simon, which isn’t technically bad,,,, but. You know…) and really, for most queer viewers, this story is overused and boring. We end up reading the same characters over and over, craving some sort of representation we can see ourselves in, but just receive the same person with a new name that we end up forgetting everything about and never want to read or watch again.

I’m not saying stories about cis, white, strictly gay guys shouldn’t be told, because of course they deserve a place in media too, but come on. We need more than this box. We deserve more.

Because of this, in a lot of queer books, tv shows and movies, the queer character never does anything wrong, and perpetuates the ideology that queer people are different, something OTHER than human. Because it’s just a fact that humans make mistakes and do bad things. That’s what makes us HUMAN. That’s what makes us interesting and gives us DEPTH.

So here is where I start to think to myself. I am constantly looking for queer media to consume, as a queer person does, but I am also highly critical of it, and will not hesitate to shit on a badly written lgbt piece of media (to my friends only, because I don’t believe in open hate that the creators could see when my opinion could be subjective).

Of course, as my main genre to consume, I want these books and movies to be good, but more often than not, I am disappointed and give the book to thrift stores without a second thought. These books most often portray characters that have no depth, no individuality, no tension, and honestly, overall, are simply boring! This is mostly because they never did anything WRONG. They weren’t, in any way, bad people. They weren’t realistic! They were blank slates.

And so, I look at the lgbt media I like the most! Aristotle and Dante, Cemetery Boys, Banana Fish, Song of Achilles, Red White and Royal Blue, Carry On, (Nico Di Angelo and Piper McLean specifically from Percy Jackson), One Last Stop, Radio Silence, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, But I’m a Cheerleader, Doukyusei, Tamen de Gushi. These portray characters with complex background stories and embedded personal and generational traumas that influence their actions, be it good or bad. Some do things that are morally wrong or grey, they do what they have to for their own wellbeing, they have motivations and goals that go beyond “oh gosh my whole life revolves around coming out”. Because that is just not accurate.

All of the characters we know and love as our favourite queer characters (for me at least) make mistakes. They do bad things.

This is where All for the game comes in, aka my all time favourite series and hyper-fixation. I’ve been obsessed for YEARS and was unable to understand why I loved it so much. It has its faults, but it has held me hostage for this long, without any sign I’ll be let go in the near or far future.

As I was watching this video on YouTube, I had a “holy shit” moment. Because even in all those queer pieces of media I mentioned, all the characters are considered the heroes by the end of the books, they end up being the “good guys” all along, even if they might not always be the greatest or most morally sound.

But what, you may ask, ISN’T like that???

ALL FOR THE GAME.

I read All for the game a while ago. I have analyzed so much of the series you would think I’d be bored by now, but for some odd reason, I never am.

All for the game is probably the only series I have ever consumed where every leading character (the foxes) is so morally fucked up that there are MANY instances throughout the series where I thought to myself, “damn, I really should not condone this!” And that makes it the most interesting cast of all time.

And yes, I do fault Nora for many things she has done. In all honesty, she was terrible at researching with accuracy for everything concerning the mafia, sports, mental illness, the use of medication, and basically all of the series’ main themes and subjects, BUT. That woman truly produced the most realistic set of character flaws ever in the history of anything I have ever read or watched. Every fox is completely different, completely their own, represents a different type of person, and interesting in their own ways. That, and Nora completely DE-STERILIZED the gays. She de-sterilized them so hard she basically dipped them in the Thames!

This, in my very uneducated opinion, is why we all love all for the game with such an intense ferocity.

Nora Sakavic created characters with so much depth, that were so fucking realistic, that we can see them as real people, with real problems and traumas, with realistic reactions to those traumas. Truly, I have not met a queer or mentally ill person who hasn’t related to at LEAST one of the foxes.

Because, to reiterate, this series isn’t a series where the queer characters “come out” and it’s a massive plot point and they are praised for it. It’s a series with its own plot with queer characters existing within it. They are queer characters being queer and living their (dramatic) lives. Queers in the wild! That in itself is realistic representation. This, along with the fact that the queer characters in the series aren’t, in any definition, good people. They have killed people for fucks sake, and otherwise done, morally, VERY BAD THINGS. But that’s what makes them so interesting! That’s why we can analyze them over and over and find new things to delve into constantly.

Nora gave us exceptionally interesting characters, and queer characters on top of that! Even the characters that never became canon (cough Renison the best wlw couple to exist cough), most everyone in the fandom agrees that they are together! It is communal knowledge that that series is full of traumatized queer characters because of how they were written with in between the lines context, canon or not. And, even though this is how we interpret the media, it is not a “gay story”. It’s a thriller, a sports novel, a mystery in some ways, and, of course, a romance. This is where the difference between “a gay story” and “a story with queer characters” comes into play.

And, yes, maybe the series is horribly unrealistic, and over the top, and dramatic, and badly researched, but the queer representation is REAL. It showcases everything, canon or not (it’s canon to us Nora, piss off)!

We have Neil, the main character, who is canonically Demisexual, and could easily be interpreted as a trans guy due to his backstory. We have Andrew, who is gay, with a very realistic backstory of sexual assault from men in foster care. We have Renee, a born again Christian who CLEARLY a lesbian (rainbow hair? Come on.), Allison the comp-het bisexual, Matt and Dan the poc bisexual power couple, Nicky the conversion therapy survivor gay poc who found a better life in a different country with a found family (we support fanon Nicky not Nora’s Nicky where she pushed obvious stereotypes onto him), and Kevin Gay- I MEAN DAY- who is so obviously bisexual that he publicly drools over Jeremy and then tells Neil that it’s easier to be straight. How would you know Mr Day??

And these are just. Facts in the fandom. And it’s all normal. There is no “holy shit, you’re gay?” *homophobia arc* moment when Andrew and Neil are sort of confirmed to be together. There is really no coming out moment for ANYONE, because it doesn’t matter! They just are!

And they aren’t made out to be these heroes who can’t do wrong! Because they are all royally messed up individuals who have made mistakes and went through shit and came out alive!

MORAL OF THE ESSAY: queer people can be morally skewed and still deserve love! Bad people can be bad and also be gay and still get the happy ending! YOU CAN BE A “BAD PERSON” AND STILL MAKE/FIND A FAMILY WHO LOVES YOU. YOU CAN GET A HAPPY ENDING DESPITE YOUR WRONG DOINGS OR TRAUMAS!!!!!

(I am not equating having trauma to being a bad person btw, I’m just saying that separately, most of the foxes have trauma, but they have also done bad things, and either way, with both, either or none, they deserve love.)

That, I think, is the key to why I love All for the game so much, as someone who is severely mentally ill and severely queer. We were given a story where the main characters are queer and mentally ill and traumatized and do bad things, but still get a good ending. We’re shown that what you do in your past, or what happened to you in your past, doesn’t define you. We’re shown REALISTIC, MESSY, IMMORAL QUEERS THAT DON’T FIT THE RAINBOW CAPITALIST BOX. We are given something we can see ourselves in. No matter her wrongdoings, I will always love Nora for that.

Anyways. I love all for the game. I think I always will. I hope you guys agree :)

[flaringgoosebumps]

I may just be reiterating what was said in this post (please read that one first) but anyway,

"Why do people want two teenage boys together so bad?"

This question only seems to come up about queer pairings, people don't seem to go out of their way to shame shippers of mlw pairings, especially in times where they should. For example, since literally forever and even in stranger things, there are sex scenes or implied sex scenes with teenager characters. The concern only arises with the mere idea that there would be a queer couple merely kissing or hell, even holding hands.

While I relate to everything @hey-its-bucky said, I have more reasons why I want Byler to be canon. Not just because queer people past, present and future, deserve to be represented and humanized and for their experiences to be validated but also!!

Queer representation in movies and tv are genuinely so boring! While I appreciate that we are getting representation, it is crumbs in comparison to what we could have. I'm tired of the whole shtick of a story centering about a young queer person trying to figure out who they are, in normal settings lol I don't find that appealing, it's not my ideal form of entertainment. I want Byler to be canon for selfish reasons.

I want a canon queer couple with proper build up in my niche interests! I want them to exist in horror and sci-fi and be treated just as important as cishet couples.

I deeply enjoyed fear street because while it did center around a few queer characters, it didn't center about them finding out they were queer. It centered around some fucked up supernatural shit trying to kill them and a girl desperately trying to save someone she loved. And we got a good ending! I want more of that!

I've seen very few queer pairings or characters in shows I've watched and a majority of them didn't get good endings

In Buffy the vampire slayer, Willow found out she was gay in the middle of the series and fell in love with a girl named Tara who also became a main character and they killed her off. Then they gave Willow a girlfriend that kind of felt rushed but that could be me being biased because they killed my girl!

Aubrey Jensen in MTV scream, was in love with her gf who was murdered in 2nd episode, then it's revealed she did some questionable things because she had a crush on her childhood friend (who didn't return her feelings) and they gave her a gf by the end of her story arc but it wasn't someone we saw build up with like??

There are shows I haven't even seen and I know their queer pairings are severed the same way.

Stranger things has the appeal of a lifetime! It's not a show that marketed itself as queer, but they planned for Will to be gay from the jump. They are building something and if they're building what we think they're building. It will be a game changer.

This is one of the most popular shows that is out, it is virtually inescapable even if you've never shown any interest in it or anything like it. If they make Byler canon, it would be a coming of age queer love story epic sci-fi saga. As far as I know, that hasn't been done before on film.

If they follow Leigh Janiak's lead with queer story telling, it would hopefully be the first of many stories that humanize queer people, and more than that, make us the hero, give us a happy ending, final girl(person lol) endings, romantic storylines on par with cishet people in the sense that it was planned out and executed in a specific way instead of just throwing someone in there and hoping that's enough crumbs for clout.

Representation matters for a multitude of reasons but Byler specifically, isn't just about representation to me. It's about good story telling and if they intended on making Will gay since they began writing and let that be the center of his character arc for an entire season and don't plan on letting him have the happiest ending possible with the guy he's in love with, what the hell was the point of bringing attention to it at all? Narratively. What the hell would be the point of that? Also what would be the point of building milkbones just to break it down so easily? Why would they go out of their way to do this to the characters they spent years on crafting just for no pay off?

The strangest thing would be if Byler wasn't their plan in the first place lol

[mage8]

It was definitely the gay firefighter show to start with. Even a show famously about Lesbians (L word) failed to portray, let alone center, butch lesbian women - which 911 did AMAZINGLY. Hen's character is revolutionary. And Michael's portrayal as a black gay man who is also a loving father and role model is also so so important.

But there is something different, something revolutionary about a character who has been portrayed as straight, shown only in straight relationships, now written as discovering his queerness - and not just realizing he's gay, but realizing he's bisexual. This is something that tv networks have resisted for a long time. Many shows that had canonically gay and queer characters resisted exploring queerness in characters - especially male characters - who were originally intended to be straight but through the organic narrative process started to read as queer. Often this led to queerbaiting. Teen Wolf, Supernatural and Sherlock are just some examples of this that jump to mind.

On a tv show, if a character is introduced as queer from the start, homophobic straight people can choose not to identify with them, separate themselves emotionally. Feel safe in their homophobia, in their heteronormative box. However, if a character who was previously presumed to be straight is revealed to be queer, a cishet is in danger of having identified with a queer. And if it becomes commonplace in tv for straight seeming characters to be revealed as queer, then it could happen to anybody, and then there are no safe characters for homophobic heterosexual people to identify with. To make it "worse", Buck is exactly the character originally intended for masculine manly men to identify with - the hot, athletic, womanizing hero.

This is of course far more threatening if the character is a man, and the homophobic viewers getting uncomfortable are men. It's way more common to reveal bisexuality or gayness in characters who are women - but a woman being queer is seen as much less threatening to the cishet patriarchal power structures. In fact, if she and her female love interest are both portrayed as femme and attractive to the male eye -such as Cheryl and Toni in Riverdale - then it's just a titillating storyline rather than a challenge to heteronormativity. And it's all about the challenge.

A big part of biphobia is that bisexual people challenge, muddy, & destroy the distinct line between straight people and queer people. It becomes a lot harder to prove you are straight when bisexual people exist. It's easy to prove you are queer - queerness sort of subscribes to a one drop rule. You can have straight attraction your whole life and one queer attraction can make you queer, but if you have queer attraction your whole life, no straight attraction added to that will be enough to make you straight, because all bisexuality/multisexuality is itself queer. When the line between queer and straight becomes blurred, it becomes harder for cishet people to other queer people.

So putting these two things on the screen - making a previously "canonically" "straight" male character queer, and making that queerness be bisexuality, is a huge challenge to the patriarchal heteronormative status quo, and deserves celebrating.

Instead of saying it's now the gay firefighter show, maybe we should be saying it's now the bi firefighter show. 😁 But really, it's just continuing its fine tradition of inclusivity.

y’all have been real quiet about Hen and Karen and Josh and Michael and David, but as soon as the blonde beefcake comes out, now it’s the canon gay firefighter show??

[cursedvibes]

naruto for the ask game!

thanks for the ask! hmm...

favourite "male" character: Orochimaru (just putting him here to leave space for Tsunade) One of the first favourite characters I ever had. And the first of many gnc Mad Scientists I've been exposed to. He was actually a positive influence on me regarding queerness when I was young. Even if he is bad representation. Aside from that, I just like that he is a straight up psychopath. As much as Boruto likes to pretend otherwise, there is no way to palliate what he did. He is frightening and cruel but still entertaining. Also one of the most intelligent characters in-universe. I wish we got to see more of his vast knowledge of jutsu. Missed potential.

favourite female character: Tsunade When I say I like the sannin, I'm mostly talking about her and Orochimaru. She has been fucked over by the shinobi system so hard, lost so much, hit rock bottom but in the end she did manage to at least improve a little bit for the future generation. More than many other hokage did. I also like that she straight up left the village and turned her back on being a ninja. It's not weak, after fighting in 2 ww it's her right. Konoha doesn't deserve her.

least favourite character: Hiruzen and Itachi Can't decide on one, so they're both here. Itachi is mostly just shitty writing because Kishimoto couldn't make up his mind if he's supposed to be a misunderstood genius and hero, or an abused child, or a cold ruthless killer. His arrogant attitude just pisses me off. I especially hate his fight against Kabuto. It solidifies that unless you were born into a powerful clan, you can't amount to anything and any struggle is useless. Kabuto basically got brainwashed into accepting that and keeping his head down. Hiruzen has no backbone and is responsible for most bad things that happen in the story. He didn't do anything to stop them. 9-tails? Naruto? Danzo? Shinobi WW 3? And then the narrative turns around and wants me to believe he's just a jlly old man. Nope.

prettiest character: uuh don't know, Orochimaru's hair? There are a bunch of good-looking characters but I wouldn't call them "pretty"

funniest character: Sai. great dick jokes

favourite season: Kakashi Hiden (in the anime, haven't read the light novel). It just shows all the problems with Konoha and the shinobi system so well. Now if only someone had done smth about it...

favourite episode: When Kakashi and Kinoe enter Orochimaru's old hideout. The tension there is really good. And you get a hint at the horrible things that have happened there, but you are left to fill in the blanks of how it got to that point. My favourite kind of horror.

favourite romantic ship: A lot of the stuff I ship doesn't involve romantic feelings but I like Tsunade and Oro as fwb. Like, in the least cishet way possible

favourite family ship: Not sure what this means but the Otogakure hideout in Boruto is horribly dysfunctional while still being endeering in a fucked up way. I want to see more of Mitsuki & Log and the other clones.

favourite friend ship: Orochimaru & Tsunade again? I want to see them work together in the medical field, either before they defected or during Boruto times. They could achieve so much together or have already. I'm sure they'd also really get on each others nerves while working.

worst ship: Any child/adult stuff. I'm not passionate enough about Naruto ships to hate a specific one.

[surpriserose]

could you fancast la squadra? ❤️

I forgot about all of ryan Murphys boytoys from American horror story for every other fancast so you get them im sorry la squadra looks like this now

Risotto omg okay so he has to be wes bently (rightmost guy) who tried his hardest to be fucked up and broody in ahs and it didnt work so hes the perfect risotto because hes gonna try that again 🥰🥰🥰 actually i think halfway through they replace him with jared leto because hes legit unhiged and no one even comments

Prosciutto okay im gonna make this super painful immediately....because they genderswap prosciutto so they can make cishet rispro canon so Cameron diaz prosciutto they still get to be old (ppl will call them a milf online) but at the cost of EVERYTHING ELSE

Melone is also genderswapped to help them sidestep the whole stand thing or just keep the terrible but actually non canon implications or just keep them and make it a predatory lesbian thing idk im really feeling that for fancasts today. Expect a lot of terrible jokes either way. Also melone has to be a lady so their whole thing can be motherhood uwu....lets go with billie lourd since im on an American horror story kick

Ghiaccio can be Christian bale actually you know how he was like im channeling the weird tom cruise interviews for american psycho? Its that again but specifically the high energy jumping on the couches interviews also he method acts by taking ice baths before every scene gzgahavsBssk theres your one good actor

Illuso has to be bitchy and la squadras gay best friend despite sorlato being there and actually being canon still so im going Zachary quinto he played bitchy gay for American horror story he can do it again and illuso deserves bitching eyebrows. Also hes so raunchy in this version hes like all sex jokes and gay jokes

Formaggio is seth rogan because haha stoner jokes and thats it i dont think he really gets to do anything but make stoner jokes and make everyone deal with seth rogans weird laugh

Pesci is finn wittrock (middle guy in the picture) because they are going for sexy pesci and hes got an awful spikey mohawk instead of pineapple hair because people wont let pesci just be pesci. Hes still got the self esteem issues but theyve been amplified so he can be the biggest uwu softboy...actually finn wittrock could probably pull off uwu boy to killer pretty well.....hmmm pesci becomes a fan favorite because of this and sexy pesci fanart skyrockets

Sorbet is andrew Garfield because tumblr has told me hes the cishet guy who just loves playing bi characters so hes a god or whatever ANYWAYS sorbet is now cracking one liners in all of his 10 lines because im so sorry they are keeping sorlatos deaths which is why they get to stay gay gotta kill them off

Gelato is evan peters because i mean hes got the hair and we are going for hot young marketable twinks sorbet and gelato. Evan peters is trying his best to be so so cunty but its not working because evan peters always looks like hes 12 to me im sorry hes trying his best but its not working but everyone online is like omg what a bad boy 😳

Other notes

Bad wigs for everyone but especially melone illuso and ghiaccio

Everyone is so so out of character theyve been boiled down to one trait harder than ever before but its not even the traits you expect this time

.........risotto is wearing so much leather

I think they get the suicide squad marketing tactics like its a "dark comedy" starring a bunch of koOkY anti heroes also james Gunn is directing....

[ao3cassandraic]

well wave the red flag in front of the comp-lit major bull why doncha

Sir Percy Blakeney, Baronet is the public disguise of the Scarlet Pimpernel, who (in the novels of Baroness Orczy) saves aristocrats from the guillotine via any number of clever stratagems and spirits them over the Channel to England. (I will warn you that these books are grossly, hideously classist. If you are a French aristocrat you are all things good and beautiful; if you are a French peasant you barely deserve to live.) So yes, already we have a hero among us who never lets on. (Maggie: "... you're an angel!" Aziraphale: *blushes, denies*)

Sir Percy is considered lazy, witless, out of touch, and pompous by those among his fellow English aristocrats who don't know his secret. (Compare Aziraphale's reputation among his fellow angels.) He carefully crafts and fosters this image because it keeps people from getting all up in his grill. (This is so Aziraphale I can't even.)

The Scarlet Pimpernel, however, is widely considered a dashing hero (as Crowley likes to think of himself). He has a sigil in the form of (of course) a scarlet pimpernel, a small red flower. (Crowley also has a sigil; he signed for the baby Antichrist with it. It's pretty reddish!) His commonest stratagem is disguising himself as someone beneath notice so that he can get close to someone he's trying to rescue without being suspected of even having a rescue in him. (Bildad the Shuhite, anyone?)

The commonest (though not only) named adversary in the books is one Chauvelin, a hateful French diplomat whose dearest wish is to see Madame Guillotine separate the Pimpernel's head from his body. Both Sir Percy and the Pimpernel run rings around him -- the former by critiquing his clothing and deportment, the latter by stealing aristos out from under his nose. He is nonetheless arrogant, spiteful, and destructive. If you want to compare him to s1!Gabriel or the Metatron (Chauvelin always wears black!), I absolutely would not stop you!

So if I had to guess, I would guess that the above is Neil not answering the dang question.

Here's a couple of fun bits to chew on:

Chauvelin does eventually figure out that Percy and the Pimpernel are one and the same, giving Percy another headache to work around. ("... you formed a de facto partnership with the demon Crowley.")

In later books, the Pimpernel puts together a posse! (Sorry, alliteration absolutely irresistible.) He forms a "League" of young men who help him with his rescues (and pair up with available women -- these books are absolutely cishet romances). I would not be sad to see Crowley do this in a putative s3. Or, indeed, for the posse to form as it often does in the books: Percy gets rumbled by youngsters who are then all on fire to join up with him!

So yeah. Percy:Aziraphale::Pimpernel:Crowley. Thus endeth my catechism.

Hello!!!!!

This is the first time I’ve asked you (or anyone) a question on tumblr like this so um Congratulations!

But i HAVE to know. In season one, when Aziraphale is taken to be guillotined during the French Revolution, is Crowley supposed to resemble The Scarlet Pimpernel ? The mini story of what happens there somewhat matches the basic story of that novel and I noticed it the other day so i thought itd be such a cool little easter egg!!!

Thank u >:)

If anyone resembles Sir Percy Blakeney it's Aziraphale...