#the queer rep still

[epiphainie]

the way we could've had such an interesting storyline about buck questioning the role he assumes in his romantic relationships via him trying to navigate the different way gender roles play out in his first queer one. the way we could've had a story where being queer was explored beyond which pond he wants to jump into such as unlearning the implicit heteronormativity which at times held him back from being fully himself with the full spectrum of his needs and emotions. the way we could've peeked into queer culture with buck as guided by tommy. the way we could've had buck just take a moment to take it all in. the way being queer could've been the fabric of his arc in various meaningful ways and not just used for breakup 5: electric boogayloo. only if this show was a little more braver.

[rooksilver]

so youre telling me. theres an adaptation of orpheus and eurydice. where eurydice was falling out of love with orpheus before her death but didnt know how to tell him, and when he walks into the underworld to get her back, shes forced to confess that she planned to leave him?? and shes the one to ask him to look back, but he doesn’t want to, because he knows she isn’t coming with him??? youre telling me that when he finally looks back, he does lose her, but only because he’s letting go??? you’re telling me its about grief? about drifting apart?? about moving on??? about love, and how its messy, and how sometimes it just doesn’t work out even if you go to hell and back for it, because we’re human and thats our tragedy????

you’re telling me netflix CANCELLED it?

[crunchycrystals]

this makes me want to cry

[bekolxeram]

Yes, Buck's bisexuality should only be about him, not who he's with romantically. Exploration and heartbreak are both pretty much inevitable in his journey to figure out what this new realization means to him fundamentally.

Yes, he's going to be miserable for a while, but he has people who love him, he has a community, he has a family. He'll be okay eventually, and he's going to come out of this stronger than ever.

That's how the show expected us to take it, that's what the cast and Tim said in the interviews. That's why even Lou asked us not to hate him.

But they severely underestimated the number of viewers who resonated with Tommy's story equally, if not more.

From Buck's perspective, this breakup is just a small bump in his continuous journey.

From Tommy's perspective, that's it, that's the ending of his story and it's a tragedy.

A lot of us are also from the "pre-Glee" world. We've done things we would later regret, we've hurt people unintentionally, we've kept people we love at arm's length, just to survive in an intolerant world. A world that might be making a comeback, judging by the political climate.

We've been lonely, we've yearned for a community that would accept us for who we are. On a meta level, we're Tommy, we watch the show because we want to be a part of the family.

But Tommy ends up alone, still too scared to take the risk, to open up his heart, to love.

If you don't have a solid support system to begin with, if you're not lucky enough to have always been accepted, then you're just too broken, too damaged for anything good.

For people like us, it in fact, does not get better.

[redysetdare]

I think queer stories would be better if people stopped assuming that queer representation hinges on if two characters are romantically involved at all. Like the moment you accept characters as being queer without needing romance to prove said queerness then i think we'd find ourselves with a lot more unique, nuanced, and interesting queer stories. but by limiting queerness to only romance you are stifling queer stories.

[wingsofhcpe]

actually there's a huge difference between queerbaiting/"Hey guys look how gay these two are haha they're definitely gonna end up together, give us views uwu oh- never mind oops they're going to superhell" and "Hey it's 2004-2012 and there's no way we can get away with having our protags/main couple be two gay men but we really want to show these two are soulmates so we'll do it through subtext and underlying messages and by literally telling you over and over again their relationship is the most stable and important in the entire show, and the ending will imply they lived and died together", and it's insane that some of yall don't see how these two are not the same fucking thing.

[nerdy-frog98]

Okay listen, I get that I have little experience in the 9-1-1 fandom, but what in the actual hell is the weird response to the bucktommy breakup? It was never this weird with other love interest breakups right? Of Buck’s love interests, Abby and Taylor were the only ones developed enough to warrant any sort of strong reaction. Tommy had no development.

Seriously. What did we know about him?:

He’s gay. He’s a pilot. He has a history of sexism and racism. He likes basketball and Muay Thai. And….? We saw nothing of his personal life, we saw little of his personality, and we didn’t see him and Buck actually power through any obstacles. Because that was the point, he was a plot device. It was painfully obvious he wasn’t going to be a lasting love interest…was it not? I don’t mean how little he was developed (because obviously that dev could’ve been done), but because of how HEAVILY Eddie haunted the narrative. Bucktommy’s first kiss genuinely shocked the hell out of me and my casual viewer sis-in-law because both of us felt it was obvious that Buck was trying to get Eddie’s attention. (seriously, that whole scene with Eddie on the phone in the firehouse and Buck peacocking to try and get Eddie’s attention…That was fucking obvious. I got a bruise from how hard that smacked me in the face.)

I realize I’m a buddie shipper so I am biased, but I’m a buddie shipper BECAUSE that is what the narrative has led me to. However, when Tommy was reintroduced, I made an actual effort to like him. I tried not to engage with the Buddie majority that hated him because I wanted to see if my mind could be changed, and ya know what? All it did was make me believe that there’s literally nobody else that they can end up with. Whether it was accidental on the writer’s part or purposeful, Buck and Eddie have been written into a romantic corner with only one way out, and that’s through each other. (Unless they somehow introduce two love interests that can beat a 7-season long slow burn friends-to-lovers with insanely good late bloomer queer representation. lol.)

I’m genuinely trying to understand though. How are people going this insane over Tommy? What exactly did he do that was so fantastic and amazing that he deserved undying loyalty? The kind of loyalty that sparks people to write weird fucking messages on Oliver’s instagram about him being biphobic(???????) and then making jokes about deporting him and Ryan. What the fuck.

I could maybe understand the outrage if it was a character who was well developed and beautifully written (like Chimney or Hen), and I could even see it if it was a beloved side character (like Ravi or May), but. seriously. Tommy?

Anyway, normally I would say “eh who am I to judge what people get attached to?” But in this case I am a little bit judgmental.

[miwiromantics]

watching the personal note section in @teambyler 's new video for byler really truly reminded me why byler is so important. I've read stories of older queers struggling when they were youths but once I've actually heard it for myself, it had me in an absolute tears.

It has reminded me (and likely most of yall) that representation matters the most right now. Byler isn't just some ship created for us younger generations to enjoy, sitting in our bedrooms and reading fanfiction and drawing fanart of them, it's actual representation.

It's representation of all the weirdos and freaks of the 80's, the ones who were bullied and outcasted, the ones who were told that their love was wrong, the ones who could not spend their life with each other just because of some unwritten rule, it's representation of all the people who made an impact in this world but were sidelined because they were gay.

I'm not saying byler being canon will be the pinnacle of all of queer media, but I'm saying that it will make a difference. We still have a long way to go about queer rep but this will actually matter. It will matter to all the kids who grew up thinking that something was wrong with them and it will matter to the adults they have grown into today.

It might seem small to us now, but to those who lived through that era, it really matters. Byler is not just a fun pairing but a piece of essential queer representation of that decade.

video link

[mc-tummy-blur]

Wait wait wait Nimona was trying to build a connection with Gloreth after being rejected by animals and Gloreth was accepting of her despite being a shape-shifter but Nimona was seen as a monster by the village which then made Gloreth switch her opinions because her parents and the village told her that Nimona was a monster and tried to kill her then 1000 years later Ballister ended up building a connection with Ambrosius a descendant of Golreth and after being rejected by the knights throughout his whole life basically since training started young Ambrosius was accepting of him despite being a commoner but then he was seen as a murderer by the town which had made Ambrosius changed his opinion on him because of what he had seen and what the knights/Director were telling him but unlike Gloreth who while was reluctant at first to treat Nimona as a monster but then gave into hating her and wanting her to die like the people around her did Ambrosius had been reluctant throughout the whole ordeal but in the end stayed committed to Ballister because he loved him despite what everyone else was saying about him and its like the movie was already drawing parallels to how Ballister and Nimona were the same and viewed as outcasts/monsters/murderers but there's notable parallels to Gloreth and Ambrosius in how they were people close to Nimona and Ballister and it came to a point where they had to go against them but the key difference in what happened was the side they chose and the aftermath when they were being forced to chose a side and it really showcases how their generations were different thus their mindsets were different in handling the situation and its just exactly like in real life when it comes to queer people like people especially children can be conditioned to hate queer people with enough fear mongering/hate speech and that's exactly what happened with Gloreth in how she ended up treating Nimona and it was going to happen with Ambrosius but a saving grace was that he was much older so it was harder to change his opinions on Ballister that and he is in a different time period than Gloreth showing how things had drastically changed and advanced in many areas and i feel that the whole point with the parallel between Gloreth and Ambrosius is that times have changed and how even though our past generations have treated queer people like they are monsters and that we should hate them when in reality its not too late for our generation to treat them like equals and that we should love them like holy shit this movie is so insanely and unapologetically queer in so many ways that I did not imagine was humanly possible

[angelsdean]

I need people to understand how S&P (standards and practices) works in television and how much influence they have over what gets to stay IN an episode of a show and how the big time network execs are the ones holding the purse strings and making final decisions on a show's content, not the writers / showrunners / creatives involved.

So many creators have shared S&P notes over the years of the wild and nonsensical things networks wanted them to omit / change / forbid. Most famously on tumblr, I've seen it so many times, is the notes from Gravity Falls. But here's a post compiling a bunch of particularly bad ones from various networks too. Do you see the things they're asking to be changed / cut ?

Now imagine, anything you want to get into your show and actually air has to get through S&P and the network execs. A lot of creators have had to resort to underhanded methods. A lot of creators have had to relegate things to subtext and innuendo and scenes that are "open to interpretation" instead of explicit in meaning. Things have had to be coded and symbolized. And they're relying on their audience to be good readers, good at media literacy, to notice and get it. This stuff isn't the ramblings of conspiracy theorists, it's the true practices creatives have had to use to be able to tell diverse stories for ages. The Hays Code is pretty well known, it exists because of censorship. It was a way to symbolize certain things and get past censors.

Queercoding, in particular, has been used for ages in both visual media and literature do signal to queer audiences that yes, this character is one of us, but no, we can't be explicit about it because TPTB won't allow it. It's a wink-wink, nudge-nudge to those in the know. It's the deliberate use of certain queer imagery / clothing / mannerisms / phrases / references to other queer media / subtle glances and lingering touches. Things that offer plausible deniability and can be explained away or go unnoticed by straight audiences to get past those network censors. But that queer viewers WILL (hopefully) pick up on.

Because, unfortunately, still to this day, a lot of antiquated network execs don't think queer narratives are profitable. They don't think they'll appeal to general audiences, because that's what matters, whatever appeals to most of the audience demographic so they can keep watching and keep making the network more money. The networks don't care about telling good stories! Most of them are old white cishet business men, not creatives. They don't care about character arcs and what will make fans happy. They don't care about storytelling. What they care about is profit and they're basing their ideas of what's profitable on what they believe is the predominate target demographic, usually white cis heterosexual audiences.

So, imagine a show that started airing in the early 2000s. Imagine a show where the two main characters are based on two characters from a famous Beat Generation novel, where one of the characters is queer! based on a real like bisexual man! The creator is aware of this, most definitely. And sure, it's 2005, there's no way they were thinking of making that explicit about Dean in the text because it just wouldn't fly back then to have a main character be queer. But! it's made subtext. And there are nods to that queerness placed in the text. Things that are open to interpretation. Things that are drenched in metaphor (looking at you 1x06 Skin "I know I'm a freak" "maybe this thing was born human but was different...hated. Until he learned to become someone else.") Things that are blink-and-you-miss-it and left to plausible deniability (things like seemingly spending an hour in the men's bathroom, or always reacting a little vulnerable and awkward when you're clocked instead of laughing it off and making a homophobic joke abt it)

And then, years later there's a ship! It's popular and at first the writers aren't really seriously thinking about it but they'll throw the fans a bone here and there. Then, some writers do get on the destiel train and start actively writing scenes for them that are suggestive. And only a fraction of what they write actually makes it into the text. So many lines left on the cutting room floor: i love past you. i forgive you i love you. i lost cas and it damn near broke me. spread cas's ashes alone. of course i wanted you to stay. if cas were here. -- etc. Everything cut was not cut by the writers! Why would a writer write something to then sabotage their own story and cut it? No, these are things that didn't make it past the network. Somewhere a note was made maybe "too gay" or "don't feed the shippers" or simply "no destiel."

So, "no destiel." That's pretty clearly the message we got from the CW for years. "No destiel. Destiel will alienate our general audience. Two of our main characters being queer? And in a relationship? No way." So what can the pro-destiel creatives involved do, if the network is saying no? What can the writers do if most of their explicit destiel (or queer dean) lines / moments are getting cut? Relegate things to subtext. Make jokes that straight people can wave off but queer people can read into. Make costuming and set design choices that the hardcore fans who are already looking will notice while the general audience and the out-of-touch network execs won't blink and eye at (I'm looking at you Jerry and your lamps and disappearing second nightstands and your gay flamingo bar!)

And then, when the audience asks, "is destiel real? is this proof of destiel?" what can the creatives do but deny? Yes, it hurts, to be told "No no I don't know what you're talking about. There's no destiel in supernatural" a la "there is no war in Ba Sing Se" but! if the network said "no destiel!" and you and your creative team have been working to keep putting destiel in the subtext of the narrative in a way that will get past censors, you can't just go "Yes, actually, all that subtext and symbolism you're picking up, yea it's because destiel is actually in the narrative."

But, there's a BIG difference between actively putting queer themes and subtext into the narrative and then saying it's not there (but it is! and the audience sees it!) versus NOT putting any queer content into the text but SAYING it is there to entice queer fans to continue watching. The latter, is textbook queerbaiting. The former? Is not. The former is the tactics so many creatives have had to use for years, decades, centuries, to get past censorship and signal to those in the know that yea, characters like you are here, they exist in this story.

Were the spn writers perfect? No, absolutely not. And I don't think every instance of queer content was a secret signal. Some stuff, depending on the writer, might've been a period-typical gay joke. These writers are flawed. But it's no secret that there were pro-destiel writers in the writing room throughout the years, and that efforts were made to make it explicitly canon (the market research!)

So no, the writers weren't ever perfect or a homogeneous entity. But they definitely were fighting an uphill battle constantly for 15 yrs against S&P and network execs with antiquated ideas of what's profitable / appealing.

Spn even called out the networks before, on the show, using a silly example of complaints abt the lighting of the show and how dark the early seasons were. Brightening the later seasons wasn't a creative choice, but a network choice. And if the networks can complain abt and change something as trivial as the lighting of a show, they definitely are having a hand in influencing the content of the show, especially queer content.

Even in s15, (seasons fifteen!!!) Misha has said he worried Castiel's confession would not air. In 2020!!! And Jensen recorded that scene on his personal phone! Why? Sure, for the memories. But also, I do not doubt for a second that part of it was for insurance, should the scene mysteriously disappear completely. We've seen the finale script. We've seen the omitted omitted omitted scenes. We all saw how they hacked the confession scene to bits. The weird cuts and close-ups. That's not the writers doing. That's likely not even the editors (willingly). That's orders from on high. All of the fuckery we saw in s15 reeks of network interference. Writers are not trying to sabotage their own stories, believe me.

Anyways, TLDR: Networks have a lot more power than many think and they get final say in what makes it to air. And for years creative teams have had to find ways to get past network censorship if they want "banned" or "unapproved" "unprofitable" "unwanted" content to make it into the show. That means relying on techniques like symbolism, subtext, and queercoding, and then shutting up about it. Denying its there, saying it's all "open to interpretation" all while they continue to put that open to interpretation content into the show. And that's not queerbaiting, as frustrating as it might be for queer audiences to be told that what they're seeing isn't there, it's still not queerbaiting. Queerbaiting is a marketing technique to draw in queer fans by baiting them with the promise of queer content and then having no queer content in said media. But if you are picking up on queer themes / subtext / symbolism / coding that is in front of your face IN the text, that's not queerbaiting. It's there, covertly, for you, because someone higher up didn't want it to be there explicitly or at all.

[that-disabled-princess]

I love all the representation in The Dragon Prince, don't get me wrong. But as a physically disabled person, I would love to see more physically disabled characters. The lists of queer, POC, and mentally disabled (especially autistic) characters (confirmed or otherwise) seem endless, but the only physically disabled characters I can think of are Amaya (deaf), Claudia (amputee), Ava (amputee), Kazi (glasses), Terry (also glasses, though not seen as much), Sol Regem (blind), and Villads (blind).

And half of those characters are antagonists. It doesn't matter how sweet and kind and good-hearted Terry is, he's working with Claudia. And that makes him an antagonist.

I would really love for Runaan to lose his arm for this reason, especially if he's getting a redemption arc. I dunno, this show could do with more physical disability rep.

**This is about physical disabilities, ableds don't derail**

[yi-kers]

I just binged all of M!ik, and i just have to say how much I love how diverse the gender expression is among its characters!!

Like the obvious one is Opera, who’s canonically Non-Binary and uses they/them pronouns (at least in the English translation, since Japanese doesn’t really use gendered pronouns the same way), and who presents with a mix of feminine and masculine attributes, without it ever being seen as something strange by the other characters. Like, everyone just accepts that Opera is neither a man or woman. They’re just Opera.

But even outside of everyone’s favorite cat-demon, theres so many other gender nonconforming characters, including the main character!! Like I know that him dressing up in frilly dresses is played for a joke at one point, but for the most part, it’s not something he’s ashamed of. He’s a bit embarrassed to go on national tv dressed as an idol, but he also has a lot of fun doing it, even leaning more into it during the concert portion of the Evidol Games.

I also have a special place in my heart for the gnc men in the series, because I feel like that’s not something you really see all that often, except for with the generic pretty boy trope. But in M!ik we have Balam, who is undeniably a very masculine figure, but he has a lot of equally undeniably feminine traits. He’s very gentle and physically affectionate, and has a great love for small creatures and likes to make cute picture books. And on the Physical side of things, he has long hair that he wears down a lot that he carefully takes care to maintain (at least after he grows it out again).

And there’s a lot more than that, even just in the background characters that appear, but these three are the ones that came to mind first.

[lights-at-night]

i might be shot but tbh i think fiction podcasts have an issue with racial representation

[autistic-katara]

does it annoy tf out of anyone else that when a character says smthn like: “i’m not in love with [a male character], i was in love with [female character], it took me a while to accept and i’m incredibly scared telling you please don’t tell anyone” people immediately go “ah yes, canon lesbian, i don’t know how u can’t pick up on that”

meanwhile when a character says smthn like: “i’ve tried for years to force myself into a romantic relationship, thought it would ‘fix me’. but i realise now that’s not how it works, a romantic relationship won’t fix me and i honestly don’t think i was attracted to any of the people i tried to date, im going to swear of romantic relationships for life bcz i don’t experience romantic attraction, later guys ily platonically” 99% of the fans go “oh, ok. so they’re probably asexual but it’s definitely up to interpretation. wtf is ‘a romantic’, yeah they’re a romantic; in a romantic relationship with their ‘best friend’ who i ship them with and is basically canon. very homophobic of the author to make them explicitly state that they weren’t into them like that. they must hate gay people despite the rest of the queer characters in here…”

[laurenfoxmakesthings]

I just learned of a specific moment in the latest Doctor Who episode (I've been too busy to keep up). And if anyone uses it to essentially go 'See! He can't be ace!' or treat it as a 'win' for queer rep like we aces aren't queer...

Folks, we can tell people are hot. We just don't find them hot to us subjectively on a personal level.

I'm not saying there can't be interpretations, I'm saying please don't use it as an excuse to erase ours.

[wrongplaceworsttime]

on dragona

i managed to track down some pictures of the jojolands raws, and specifically one of the pages where jodio talks about dragona. i think ultimately we’ll have to wait for more to get a real read on his gender identity and presentation, but i wanted to see what the original japanese was and what it said for myself

here is where jodio is talking about how his mom can live a peaceful life because of what he and dragona do. in the first bubble he starts with “オレたち兄弟” (oretachi kyoudai). the key word here is 兄弟, which just means sibling(s). so he says “we siblings” (or, given context, could also be “we brothers”). regardless, this phrase is gender neutral

in the second one, he says “オレと兄” (ore to ani). this is why i’m choosing to use he/him for dragona as of now, because 兄 means big brother, and as far as i know, nothing else. i’d translate this as “me and my brother” (or if we’re trying to be grammatically correct, “my brother and i”)

in this bubble, jodio again says “兄”, which, if you look up in a dictionary, only translates to older/elder/big brother. 

i think you could’ve argued otherwise if jodio had called dragona 兄貴 (aniki) because that once can be a little more ambiguous in terms of familial relationship and gender, but just 兄 alone reads to me like dragona is jodio’s older brother. i also don’t really think that jodio is purposely misgendering dragona.

given what we know so far about the characters, i think there’s enough evidence to say that dragona identifies as a boy, but enjoys presenting feminine. so i’m going to be using he/him for dragona unless something contradicts that in later chapters