#there are enough stories only showing cishets

[purpletrashcans]

every story should have at least three queer characters

[gotta-bail-my-quails]

is anyone else kinda annoyed how obvious it is the SL game just wants to appeal to a certain cishet male audience because dude. how is it that nearly all the recent hunters added are women, half of whom haven't ever even showed up in the original story?? like, you can make a cool looking dude too you know. you could have another half of the population play your cash grabbing game if you just treated both genders with equal fanservice mindsets

[magentagalaxies]

i really want to start making a table collecting statistics on the audience demographics i'll perform my aubrey material for (like what generation most of the audience is, whether i'm performing in a predominantly queer space, etc.) and how well the jokes land bc like. i need to collect more data points before i can properly present my findings but the results so far have been fascinating

[edwinspaynes]

You know, I've been mulling over how the streaming business model - specifically the @netflix business model - actively discourages the creation of diverse shows.

Netflix's idea that everything has to be a Big Hit caters to the concept that everything that's worth making should be mass-streamlined for the largest possible audience. That audience is, of course, going to fall into majority demographics - straight, cisgender, neurotypical, probably white (though I don't really feel comfortable speaking about that so much as a white person myself. If a PoC wants to add onto this post, I'll reblog it.)

Anything with queer representation is going to be heavily watered down or tailored to a cishet audience if we are to follow the Netflix business model to its natural conclusion. Shows like Dead Boy Detectives, Ratched, First Kill, Shadow and Bone, and Warrior Nun include nuanced stories about queer characters and their journeys, and the sad fact is that many cishet people simply don't even care to try to relate to these stories. They're overlooked in favour of straight-made, straight-majority shows like Bridgerton, Never Have I Ever, or Stranger Things. All three of these shows include a queer side character, but that character is either never fleshed out or made queer in the most perfunctory and performative way possible. Straight audiences still care to watch them for the straight characters. This leads to the cancelation of authentic queer shows because they don't "have the numbers" to be hits.

(Btw, I can say with confidence that Dead Boy Detectives at least did have the numbers needed to be a hit, and they're ever-growing. But walk with me and take Netflix's stupid ass claim at face value for a second.)

No shit queer shows are going to get canceled if you're basing everything on "hit" numbers.

According to the Williams Institute, 5.5% of US adults identify as LGBT. That's a pretty huge minority, which is surprising for most of us queer people who tend to hang out in groups like little queer magnets. But it's true. Even if half of the cishet population is happy enough to watch queer shows, that's still only 55.5% of people who are maybe going to watch. And we can't expect everyone to watch every Netflix show. That's unreasonable.

So, to summarize, you're going to only make hit shows? That means you're only catering to majority-audiences. That means that we are going to have NO diverse media that doesn't get the ax.

It also really sucks that Netflix seems to use Heartstopper (a great show!) as its "bbbut we're not homophobic" billboard. Like, okay! You have one cute little coming out show. And we love it! Doesn't make you an A++ Ally, though.

But what about other queer stories? Ones that aren't about queerness? Why can't we see ourselves as supernatural detectives or vampire debutantes or morally gray psychiatric nurses?

In the immortal words of one of the best, most complex queer characters ever to exist, "it's so fucking stupid it's unbelievable."

[velvetvexations]

I've been thinking about something recently. It's not a story the transradfems would tell you.

There was this Adult Swim cartoon called Superjail, and like, there is not enough time in the day to get into the politics of that radioactive wasteland of edgy offensive 2000s humor, but the of the main cast members was Alice, a trans woman who was without a doubt one of the single worst transmisogynistic caricatures that has ever existed outside of explicit right-wing propaganda*. In one episode, the cast met the staff of Ultraprison, a women's prison where they all had genderbent counterparts - including, naturally, Alice being mirrored by a trans man named Bruce.

Strangely, despite what one might intuitively expect, Bruce appears to be very much like Alice physically. Instead of, say, a Barbieesque body with a moustache, he's big, fat, musclebound, with a very masculine and "ugly" face. About the only thing in his design that hints at the idea he's meant to be AFAB at all is that his lips and eyelashes are subtly feminine. His name and being the counterpart to Alice are the only reasons you'd ever guess he was meant to be a trans man and not just one of a million insulting depiction of a butch lesbian that were dime a dozen pretty much every time the word "lesbian" was uttered outside the context of porn aimed at men.

And it's like. Hm. It really seems like the societal offense that the show is highlighting with both trans women and trans men is that it's abominable for a "woman" to be associated with perceived masculinity, and that both someone transitioning away from masculinity into femininity and someone doing the opposite are considered identical gender mutant freaks reviled for the exact same reason, with trans men tainting themselves with what trans women are tainted with from birth.

Does that mean the source of all transphobia is what you might call "misandry"? No, of course not - hatred and devaluation of femininity is just as big a deal as anything else, and I'm also still not saying anything like "cis men are oppressed." Rather, what I'm saying is that we have to recognize that hostility to masculinity outside it's accepted contexts (physically powerful and emotionally invulnerable cishet white masculinity) exists and plays a powerful role in transphobia that can't be ignored with the ignorant and ridiculous idea that masculinity is always advantaged and rewarded.

*maybe, it's complicated, stay focused okay?

[brian-kinney-apologist]

random qaf thought i wanted to share

brian kinney was always a very special character for me personally and one particular thing about his writing still feels very dear to me to this day. brian was an openly gay man who always knew who he was, he didn't feel shame about his sexuality, and basically was living his best life as an out and proud queer man (no excuses, no apologies, no regrets etc etc). AND YET he wasn't out to his parents. it was never his intention to come out to them because he knew the exact reaction they would have. brian wasn't scared of their reaction though, he never needed their approval or waited for them to understand him (at least when we meet him in the show (young!brian is a a topic for another discussion though)). brian knew that his coming out would only resolve in useless drama. he didn't owe his parents anything just because they were related by blood. they didn't deserve to have an explanation or to know his truth. that's the point that the show makes with his character: you don't owe people your coming out. (yes, brian did come out to his parents at some point but with his mother it was purely coincidental and imo he wouldn't have came out to his father if debbie hadn't pressured him into doing so)

usually in tv/films we only see closeted queer people (usually teenagers) whos whole story revolves around them being ashamed of their sexuality, being scared about other people finding out their secret, and they also often behave like bullies themselves (chris hobbs moment). they also often outed by someone/forced to come out and end up having to deal with the consequences of them being gay. and yes, storylines like this have a right to exist and there're probably enough people who resonate with these types of stories. but there're other life scenarios too. and brian imo is a great example for people who had/still have to survive in our homophobic world but who know exactly who they are, who don't really struggle with their identity and who are at peace with their sexuality. off the top of my head i can name a number of characters that fit the first description but brian kinney is the only one who fits the second one. (maybe you know other characters with the same attitude but I doubt that anyone has ever openly said the actual words on tv/in films. brian was the blueprint for sure)

to be honest, it was a revelation for a 16 year old me when I first watched the show that you may be confident, out and proud and at the same time you not explaining your sexuality (or gender identity) to random (or not so random) people (proving to cishet people that you are a normal queer™️ OR on the contrary visibly queer enough) doesn't make you any less valid or a liar or a coward. brian being allowed to chose who to share his identity with not out of fear or shame but out of his own free will was and still a very important message to send to queer people everywhere. so many things that were illustrated through brian's character were so true and were ahead of their time imo. there is no one yet to match his level of queer wisdom on tv (and i doubt ther ever will)

I hope this makes sense because idk how to put it more eloquently. I've been thinking about all of this for some time now and wanted to put it somewhere so here you go

[innbetween]

Question more so for Hannah than Tessa but who knows, maybe podcasts exist in the dnd world.

wanted to know if you had any queer fantasy and/or sci-fi audio drama recommendations. I’ve listened to and loved Welcome To NightVale, Jar Of Rebuke, Absolutely No Adventures, Zoo, The Bright Sessions, and of course, Inn Between. Thanks regardless :]

DO I

Yeah I definitely do. I'm actually one of those cishets myself, so just to be absolutely clear, i'm going to include only shows with at least one main character who's not like. You know. One of me. I'm also looking at your selections and noting a sort of steady pacing, respect for exploration, and character focus, so I'll be leaning toward those.

FANTASY

Dragon's Rest is a sitcom in the vein of ANA and Inn Between--a fantasy inn, a grumpy owner, her hapless hero hopeful busboy, the local lush, a bard who, and I cannot stress this enough, is too dumb to read. It's delightful, honestly.

Eeler's Choice is a strange and beautiful oceanic adventure about magic, siblings, and giant eels. The music slaps also.

Electromancy: imagine if Harry Potter was a) not written by a freakin transphobe, and b) actually asked hard questions about imperialism. Like hey, should we be doing imperialism?

The Kingmaker Histories is hard to describe. I can say "steampunk," and "magic" and "magical politics" and "Collette's got a jewel stuck in her head that explodes people sometimes" but that's not even the half of it.

Sidequesting is like, best friends with ANA. Rion, a brave hero, is given a magic sword for an epic quest...and promptly goes and does literally everything else. It's so nice.

Starfall hey what's up Starfall I love you Starfall, Starfall's about a magic theater troupe and definitely not also about how imperialism is bad, actually. Fel and Leona own my whole heart. Friends.

Sci-Fi

Ask Your Father is one of those shows that hits you in the teeth. When an accident sends an astronaut and his AI bestie way off course, he finds himself lost in space, answering questions from his kids and husband that will absolutely break your heart. I cried. A lot.

Gastronaut is near-future sci-fi about a bougie foodie who goes on a journey to discover the food of the Asian diaspora throughout the solar system. And things go...very bad. This show loves food so much and it loves the characters even more.

Midnight Burger is...everything. How do you even describe it. It's hard sci-fi dressed up in a found family package and served with fries. Or maybe beans and rice, if Gloria's cooking. It is a deeply cynical show that nevertheless insists that the universe is worth fighting for, with everything you've got.

The Pasithea Powder is explicitly written for people who like a gritty, uncomfortable, messy romance. Like, did you like Stucky fanfic? So do the writers and it's amazing. The tagline is that a retired fighter pilot/war hero and a disgraced scientist/war criminal used to be best friends. They still might be, if the other one will pick up the phone.

Second Star to the Left is about colonization and xenobiology and the kinds of connections you can make light years away from each other. It's about rules and when it's okay to break them. It's beautiful.

Startripper!! is also very ANA and Inn Between--an accountant decides to ditch his day job, buy the far-future equivalent of a Millennium Falcon replica, and travel the universe for the rest of his life. It's so fun.

The Strange Case of the Starship Iris is like, if Firefly had real Asians in it. It's about a group of space smugglers turned galaxy heroes, and it's absolutely incredible.

Travelling Light is another travelogue, but this one features a person doing archival work for their community and meeting amazing people and hearing amazing stories while they do it. It's so gentle and wonderful.

World Gone Wrong is a chat podcast between two separated roommates who are trying to make sense of the end of the world. Like what do you do with that extra hour in the day now? Is my community going to lose its mind because some of the trees look like women? How can I throw a poetry jam that's inclusive for my werewolf friends? It's so well crafted and well acted. I think about it every day.

Wow this ended up long. There's a few to get you started!

[starstruckbyacomet]

Tevan, Buddie, and the Diversity Quota

This is a speculation about the reason behind Tevan's break-up:

9-1-1 show was launched in 2018 using racial & gender diversity to differentiate itself from other procedural shows, However, majority of audience are white cishet men & women, who are probably conservative leaning. Thus, the show's been trying to balance the casts, to make all groups within the audience happy. Most movies & TV shows, whose target market is the general audience, operate in similar manner. They include diversity in their shows to attract liberal-leaning audience, but within a certain quota, to prevent upsetting the conservative-leaning audience.

It seems like the quota of queer diversity is one representation for each queer group per show. For example: Lone Star has one queer couple (Tarlos), one bisexual (Nancy), and one trans (Paul). Other shows like Spartacus, Game of Thrones series, even Grey's Anatomy also seem to maintain one queer couple most of the time. If there are more than one queer couples, the situation is usually temporary.

In 9-1-1, there has been one established queer couple since the beginning: Henren, but the show hadn't had any bi/trans representative yet until Season 7. To attract new audience, Buck came out as bisexual on 7x04. Luckilly, this move garnered positive response from the general audience. Yes, Oliver gave a speech about how humbled and proud he was to play a bisexual character on a national TV channel. But he gave his speech AFTER the rating/viewership number came out, not before.

To draw as many viewers as possible, Tim made Tevan's love story like a romcom, a genre which has been proven to generate massive loyal audience (see Bridgerton and other Shondaland's works). Tommy is also made very likable, and welcomed by the rest of 118 family. This to make the General Audience symphatizes towards Buck and is willing to follow his journey in nursing his brokenheart. The show also put a lot of signs that indicate the possibility of Tevan reunion, to keep audience curious enough with a 'will-they, won't they' trope. How about Tevan shippers? The show expects Tevan shippers to behave like Buddie stans: watching the show religiously week after week, while searching for signs of Tommy's return. The show has been stringing along Buddie stans for 6 years and counting. It seems about to do the same to Tevan shippers. Alas, by saying that Tommy could show up in the future, Tim has dropped the first crumb, which Tevan shippers ate so eagerly.

Does Tim actually wants Tevan to be end game? After the break-up on 8x06, I doubt it. It looks like Tim genuinely likes Lou, but his hands are seemingly tied to the quota: one queer couple for every show. The queer couple spot has been occupied by Henren, that's why Tevan has to break up. And that's why Buddie will never happen.

Our only chance for Tommy return is if RATING/VIEWERSHIP LOW ENOUGH to push the show to pivot.

This is hard to happen if you keep watching via the official channels, live or streaming. Submitting complaints to the show also only worked right after the break-up episode (8x06) on air. Posting comments after 8x07 indicates that you keep watching, even after the show shattered your heart to pieces. Similarly, it's better to refrain using 911 hashtags, except to post critical pieces like this one. You are promoting the show for free, exactly what they have expected. You can use Bucktommy or Tevan hashtags instead.

[mintacle]

Was talking to some friends about how Jason hits differently as abuse victim representation than many female characters, specifically what the difference between him and Harley is, considering that they are both victims to the same man. And disregarding the meta differences in their character development over time, the biggest difference for why it's easier to identify with Jason as a victim is that Harley is treated completely voiceless as a victim. She is not given her own personality, motives or character while she is abused and manipulated by Joker, but is the "female" media archetypical victim. She later emerges to have agency and a character, but in her abuse she is interchangeable, her context or her actions do not matter and in a way she is the perfect, innocent victim and can not be faulted for what happens to her.

This is what AFAB people are told and expected to be, if they are really victims. You are exoected to show your purity in modern witch trials to assess your innocence in your own abuse, but that is not how it works. Jason is commonly denied his status as a victim in canon, and during his assualt and murder by the hands of the Joker he was never portrayed as without agency. This agency is a blessing and a curse, because it makes him real and gives him that voice, but it's abused to paint him as responsible for what was done to him. He never got the benefit of the doubt to be considered a true victim. He brought it onto himself, he could have known to defend himself, he was reckless, he was overconfident, etc.

The truth is that victims don't fit Harley's story well enough. That deliverance and forgiveness is not given to us for the crimes committed by others onto us. Victims are made to pay the price of their abusers actions because it's easier to believe they must have done something wrong and deserved it, than to face the staggering evidence of a world that is catered to protect the image of the white cishet male savior and defender. To defend that under the status quo those deserving of safety will be granted such and perserve the illusion of a just world.

So it's not about something superficial like the character's gender why people might gravitate towards Jason and not Harley. Even for cis women, relating to Jason might be easier, because who is ever so completely exonerated from fault from their own abuse? Who gets the luxury of being such a perfect victim, so easy to care for? No one gets that in real life. Which is why Harley's victim story is more fiction than reality and certain beats can only be hit by a character so consistently controversial as Jason. Because victimhood is never granted easily.

[ultimateloserboy]

im so sorry i love the dhmis fandom but some peeps don’t understand the characters (or even the show in general) on even the most basic level and it hurts me. (cough cough… white man youtube theorists cough…) for example, every time someone is like “OMG RED GUY KNOWS EVERHTHING AND HES SO SMART AND HES BREAKING OUT OMG HES CRACKED THE MATRIX 🤯🤯🤯🤯” i want to explode. HE IS FUCKING STUPID!!!!! THAT OLD MAN DOESNT KNOW A GOD DAMN THING!!!!!!! THAT HOMO COULD BARELY READ THE PETERSONS AND SONS NAME OFF THE WALL PLEASE BE SO FOR REAL!!!! the main point of the show is that none of them know whats going on or why. sometimes they might get little realizations or memories but (at least as of right now) their dumbasses havent ACTUALLY realized a single thing, at least that they havent forgotten. and this isnt even just about just that, people have always mischaracterized all of the characters since forever! and before anyone says “well the show is meant to be different for everyone and subjective-“ youre right! the show itself and the way the world works is subjective. but while the world/story/message may be up to interpretation the main three characters themselves ARE NOT!!!! they are VERY fleshed out characters. you can find EVERYTHING on them. we know their fears, their allergies, their wants, their hatreds, their desires and the series dives heavily into their insecurities!! these characters are the only non-debatable things about this whole series and yet people ignore that small bit of canon in favor of making the show MORE difficult!!!!!!!!! WHYY!!!!! I JUST DONT UNDERSTAND IM GOING TO SOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!! STOP MAKING SHIT UP ABOUT THEM PLEASE THEYRE JUST LITTLE GUYS PLEASE DEAR GOD!!!!!!!!!! “oh but what if yellow guy is just PRETENDING to be stupid-“ what if red guy could shoot lasers out of his god damn eyes!?! THATS WHAT YOU FUCKING SOUND LIKE!!!! SHUT UP SHUT THE FUCK UP SHUT UP!!!!!! I DONT KNOW IF DUCK WON THAT TOURNAMENT AND I DONT KNOW HOW OLD HE IS BUT I KNOW FOR A FACT HE ISNT THE FUCKING DANGANRONPA MASTERMIND OR WHATEVER YOU CALL IT. THE FUCKING MAN BEHIND THE SLAUGHTER I DONT FUCKING KNOW. HIS ASS IS NOT SMART ENOUGH TO TAKE ON LESLEYS JOB. STOP GIVING THE MAIN THREE THIS MUCH CREDIT I PROMISE YOU THEYRE ACTUALLY CONFUSED AS FUCK THEYRE NOT PRETENDING !!!! im so tired can we please make a rule where cishet white dudes stay on their podcasts and stop trying to analyze this series.

[criticallyacclaimedstranger]

Blind Dates and One Night Stands [Frankie x f!reader]

Read on Ao3

My Frankie Morales masterlist

Fandom: Triple Frontier

Ship: Francisco “Catfish” Morales x you (cishet f!reader)

Warnings: reader wears a thong, cunnilingus (duh, it's frankie!), piv sex, multiple orgasms, frankie is flustered and cute!, but also smoldering and hot! safe sex, also frankie is a big boy but we already knew that, some drinking but not too much.

Summary: Frankie has a blind date that doesn't work out, but maybe the night goes well anyway?

Words: 3,639

A/N: I feel like I haven't written in months, but that's not entirely true. I feel rusty, however. I hope you like this.

Update: There is a sequel! One Night Stands and Phone Numbers.

Frankie's leg is vibrating restlessly, feet perched on the metal footrest of the bar stool. He takes his cap off, swipes his hair to the side, and puts it back on, then takes it off again. Maybe he shouldn't be wearing a hat, it's impolite. But without a cap, he feels formal, and he doesn't want that. He puts it back on, then glances at his wristwatch.

She's late.

Cursing out Benny again for this idea, Frankie shakes his head at the bartender who looks at him with a raised eyebrow. No, he's not ordering yet. He has to wait for his date, the woman Benny set him up with. "She's cute, blonde, and friendly," his younger comrade in arms had reassured Frankie. "You need someone to take care of you, or at least get laid."

Frankie had finally agreed to meeting the woman, if only to get Benny off his case. But he was starting to regret it.

He regrets it even more when the woman finally shows up. She's nice enough, and definitely cute, but Frankie can tell almost immediately that this is not going to work. She seems to want to make an effort, though, and he chides himself for not just excusing himself and putting a stop to this.

Because he doesn't put a stop to it, he ends up sitting with her through two orange umbrella drinks, while he himself nurses a beer. At some point his date seems to understand that there's no future for the two of them, downs the rest of her drink, and calls her friend who's been on stand-by to drive her home if the need arose.

Frankie very dutifully gives her a quick hug and watches her leave the bar before he sighs deeply.

Another one bites the dust.

He takes his hat off, runs his fingers through his hair, scratches the back of his head. This is getting exhausting. Sure, not everybody gets to experience the love story of the century, but how is even just a night of good sex with a nice person so hard to reach?

Leaning against the counter, he gets the attention of the bartender, and orders a Scotch. Might as well get fucked up.

"Comin' right up."

You pour the man whose broad shoulders are hunched in defeat a whisky. He wanted it neat, and you make it a double because you feel so sorry for him.

"On me," you say as you place the glass in front of him. His eyebrows shoot up and you give him a lopsided smile.

"That was a terrible first date."

"First and only," he confirms.

"Good," you nod. "Never waste any more time on bad dates."

"I'll drink to that." He lifts the glass and nods at you. "Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Over the next couple of hours, you return to the guy with the Standard Oil baseball cap to chat between customers. He's easy to talk to, drinks slowly, is interesting and funny - and really handsome. You feel his gaze on you when you pull beers for the increasingly inebriated crowd, and you find yourself wishing that his eyes could be on your ass (which looks really good in these jeans) and not on the back of your head. It's speaks for him that he clearly finds your intelligence attractive as well, but there's something about him that makes you want him to look at your body and go, "damn".

A quick glance at the clock on the wall tells you that you'll be closing in two hours, and the customers are already thinning you. You sway your hips as you do a lap around the room to pick up empty glasses and wipe down a couple of tables, and when you return to the bar, you find the man staring at you, just like you wanted him to.

And it turns you on more than you could have imagined.

You decide to employ a cheap trick, so when you come back around the bar for a chat, you bend over it for a lazy lean that displays your rack. You even fold one arm underneath your tits and frame them with the other, coquettishly propping your chin on your hand. And bless him, he looks you straight in the eye even with the soft swell of your tits right in front of him. You detect a hint of color on his cheekbones, though, and it makes you like him even more. He's a gentleman, perhaps even shy.

When it's time to close, he stays behind to help you stack chairs on the tables. He easily keeps up the conversation - the topic is baseball, turns out both of you played in high school - and eventually accepts your offer of a nightcap. You hop up on one of the barstools, a whisky in hand, and he slides onto the seat of the one next to yours.

"How did you find her?" you ask, sipping your drink. He raises an eyebrow, not understanding, so you make a gesture in the general direction of the stool where his date from earlier tonight sat.

"Oh. Right. Um, buddy of mine set it up. He thought it was a good idea."

"Your buddy is a terrible matchmaker," you judge. He laughs.

"That he is, but he means well."

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions, isn't that the saying?"

"I guess it is."

You take another small sip of your whisky, feeling it burn all the way down to your belly. It might be the sleep deprivation in combination with the alcohol, but you blurt out:

"You might still get lucky too, if you play your cards right."

He raises his chin a little as he stares you down. "I've never been good at playing cards."

"That's a shame," you shrug, feeling your cheeks heat.

"So, for the sake of just speeding this up... what do I have to do to get permission to kiss you?"

Your heart is beating so hard and fast that you almost feel light-headed.

"You just need to ask," you manage, your voice a little shaky. He smiles, and it doesn't look like the confident grin of a player, no, he looks like a little boy who just found out he could have another cookie.

"Can I kiss you?" he asks quietly, and he barely has time to make his request before you're nodding:

"Yes!"

The relief is plain to see, and he slides down from the barstool so that he can get closer to you. When he leans in, you can smell his cologne, and when he very gently puts his hand on your arm, you can feel him tremble a little.

There is something about the tentative teasing of his lips,  the bristles on his upper lip, the fullness of the lower one that drives you wild. You're usually not this forward with a complete stranger - you realize that you haven't even asked his name yet - but it's like he makes something just snap in you.

"What's your name?" you ask, and he blushes slightly. Shit, that's hot.

"Frankie," he introduces himself, and you taste his name, let the syllables roll off your tongue, before telling him yours.

And then you kiss him, devour his mouth, take his hands, and place them on your ass, thread your fingers through his hair. His hat falls to the floor somewhere behind him, and he's kissing you back, like he wasn't all blushing and timid only moments earlier. He grabs handfuls of ass and squeezes, pulls you snugly against himself. He's getting stiff, and there's something so primal and pure in that. You're just two people meeting each other by chance and being turned on by each other, and it spurs you into making him harder, so you eagerly rub yourself against him. He moans into the kiss, and it's the sexiest sound you've ever heard. You tear your mouth from his and meet his gaze that is somehow both hazy and intense. Your hands land on his belt buckle.

"Can I?"

"Please."

So polite. You tear open the belt buckle and his fly, and Frankie wants to reciprocate.

"May I?" he asks, as if you aren't ripping his jeans to shreds. You grin.

"Absolutely."

His gaze drops down to your fly as he deftly undoes the button and pulls down the zipper. His breathing is audible, just like yours, and then his hand is down the front of your ass-hugging jeans. One long finger is pressed along your slit, the tip teasing in between your warm, damp folds.

You catch your lower lip between your teeth and exhale in a small moan. So eager that you're almost too rough, you shove your hand down his underwear to find a thick, stiff shaft.

Oh. Working his jeans and underwear down his ass cheeks, you release his cock, eyes widening when you see it.

Frankie notices your reaction.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," you assure him, "it's just... you're really big."

He slides one finger inside you as he leans in and nuzzles your neck, before touching his lips to your ear: "Don't worry, I'll make sure you're wet enough to take me."

You are shaken to the core by the smooth rasp of his voice, the words, the way he now inches his finger into you.

"Please do," you manage, and Frankie pulls his hand out of your pants. He grabs you by the waist and hoists you up on the barstool. You hold onto his shoulders, so wide they take up almost all in your vision field, so very secure and you imagine that they're perfect to hold on when life is stormy, and you need something stable in your life. He devours your mouth again, kisses you full of his whiskey breath before he asks you, in that same raspy, low voice that makes the hairs stand on the back of your neck:

"Can I go down on you?"

Mutely, you nod, and he helps you to get rid of your jeans. You're wearing a thong, not your usual underwear but there's just something about the way your ass looks in those jeans without any extra layer underneath, and you hook your thumbs under the thin straps, but Frankie shakes his head.

"Keep it on. Hold onto the counter. Careful, don't want you to fall."

Touched by his concern and turned on by his request to keep the flimsy garment on, you carefully lean back, supported by your elbows, on the bar. Frankie moves in between your legs, spreading them, and kisses you breathless again, before starting to trail kisses down your neck, over your cleavage, his hands pushing up your tits towards his eager lips and tongue. He then skips the part of you that's still covered by your shirt, and comes to his knees, putting him right in front of your displayed pussy. You wait with bated breath, sliding down a little on the stool to give him better access, your cheeks burning at the way he keeps intense eye contact with you. He has gorgeous eyes, beautifully brown, soulful, and absolutely filthy right now, with the way he stares right into your soul, like he's already fucking you. Gone is the bashfulness from before, and the change is thrilling.

"Is this okay?" he asks, still all polite as if he wasn't smirking like a little devil. You let out a breathless chuckle and try to sound sassy.

"You sure talk a lot."

"Hey, consent is sexy."

A retort is forming in your brain, but Frankie doesn't give you time to finish it: without breaking eye contact, he leans in and presses his mouth and chin to your dripping pussy, his tongue probing in between your slick lips. All you can produce is a choked gasp at the sudden intensity, and you grab hold of Frankie's thick hair as he lifts both your legs over his shoulders.

"You steady?" he wants to know, and you nod frenetically.

"Don't stop now."

He grins at you, and then he utterly rocks your world. The way he uses his tongue, his mouth, his prickly chin on you is goddamn magic, you've never had anyone eat you out like this before. He's everywhere at once but not in a disarrayed way, like he doesn't know what he's doing, oh no, he seems to know exactly what he's doing as he alternates with long, stiff licks along your slit, tongue dipping inside you before drawing out your juices and his saliva in a swirl around your clit, ending in a soft suckle, his mustache scratching you just right. His arms are around your thighs, holding you securely to him, and that's good because your arms aren't really doing their part anymore as you writhe on the stool, overcome by the fervor with which Frankie is pushing you towards a release that almost feels intimidating. Holy shit, he's going to kill you with this orgasm, oh God, oh shit, shit, shit, shit...

You don't realize that you've been going Oh God, oh shit, oh shit, oh fuck at a steady pace for a few minutes until the volume of your own voice becomes so loud that you yourself are startled by it. Frankie's now focused on your clit, tongue working faster than you thought was possible, and your hips have started to move, seeking more friction, more and more and more.

"I'm cumming," you announce in a shrill gasp, never once thinking about how stupid it sounds in porn when anyone with eyes can clearly see what's happening, no, you must let him know, Frankie has to know that you're about to come apart under his tongue, that he's making you cum now, right now -

The orgasm is just as intense as you feared, and so much better than you ever imagined. You're actually screaming, which has only happened once before and that was that time you got drunk on a Saturday night and edged yourself with your Magic Wand for hours before you finally let yourself orgasm.

When you come back to some form of rational thought, your eyes blinking open against the faint lights of the bar, your ass is cramping, and your neck is sore. Thighs shaking, you nudge Frankie away from you, and let your legs down, a whine finding its way over your lips when he gives your throbbing clit one last lick.

He grunts when he gets up from his knees, and you realize dimly that both of you are perhaps a little too old for acrobatics like these, but there is no mistaking his proud smile when he comes up to kiss you. His lips are unbelievably slick from you, and you hum into his mouth.

"Am I wet enough for you now?"

"So fucking wet, baby," he assures you in a voice that makes you clench. His cock is rock hard against your thigh, and you mumble something about condoms.

"I've got rubbers," Frankie immediately assures you, and reaches into his pocket for his wallet. You take the condom from him and take a firm yet gentle hold of his thick cock. Christ, but it's thick, this is going to be intense. Frankie's eyelids flutter and he lets out a groan when you slowly stroke him a couple of times before putting the rubber on. This is fun, you think with an evil grin, you could do a lot more damage to him if you weren't dying to have him inside you.

"There," you whisper, taking his cock and pushing your soaked thong to the side so that you can slide him through your lips to lube him up. "I want you to fuck me now, Frankie."

He captures your lips in a searing kiss as you nock him at your entrance and let him start inching into you. Even with how wet you are, and how slow he's going, he still takes your breath away.

"You can take it," he growls, his low tone vibrating through him and into you. "You're doing great, baby..."

Holding onto him, you lift your legs and wrap them around him, hooking your feet by his ass, to lessen the angle of entry, but it's still a tight fit, God, he's big but feels so good, you want him to fucking ruin you.

He pulls back a little before pushing back in, and your moan gives him pause.

"Am I hurting you?"

"You're just really big," you blurt out inelegantly, smiling a little at his expression of alarm mixed with pride. "Maybe if we try it from behind?"

He pulls out and turns the stool around. You lean forward and brace yourself against the counter as you slide yourself to the back edge of the stool, angling yourself right. Frankie finds you, pulls your underwear to the side, and pushes in. He can't get as deep this way, but he still takes your breath away.

"Fuck, that's better," you moan, "take me hard, this is perfect!"

He takes orders well. With his large hands on your hips, he quickly finds a devastating rhythm that creates a filthy song of his thunderous panting in your ear, your loud moans, the slapping of skin against skin with each impact of his hips against your ass. Possessed by a new urgency, he paws at your tits, shoves one hand inside your bra to free one breast from the cup, the other hand still holding on to your hip, fingers digging into the flesh. His breaths are burning your neck, his cock is working you mercilessly, thrust after thrust after rough thrust, as his groans rise to a growl. You release one hand from the counter and put it over his to make him squeeze your breast. You want him to bruise you, want to feel him on your flesh, in the grip of your hungry pussy when you wake up tomorrow - later today. You don't know him, but you want to, you've never felt this way before with anyone, it's never been this easy with anyone, this easy and overwhelming. Fuck, you might even be able to cum again.

You slide your hand down to your sensitive clit, bracing yourself with one arm on the counter, Frankie draping himself over you from behind, fingers roughly pinching your nipple.

"One more for me," he huffs, "that's a good girl."

You cum almost immediately, his praise working wonders for you. As your squelching pussy flutters around him, Frankie's loud moan joins your wail. His hips stutter, then still, and his forehead falls to your shoulder as he catches his breath. You're shivering, parts of you stiff from strange positions and holding on, other parts like jelly. As you draw a trembling breath, you realize that you've dribbled saliva from one corner of your mouth, and you quickly wipe at your chin and slip down from the stool. Your legs almost buckle under you, but Frankie quickly catches hold of you.

"Easy."

"Thanks," you mumble, suddenly a little embarrassed. You've never been good at good-byes after the few one night stands you've had. Your thong chafes, your crotch is soaked, and you're feeling a little uncomfortable as the passion wanes and you're starting to feel the late hour.

Frankie's hand rests on your waist. "You okay?"

"Yeah," you hurry to reassure him, "I'm just... tired. It's late."

"It is." He takes off the condom, ties it up, then looks around for a trash can, finding one a few steps away. Having disposed of the rubber, he tucks himself in, and pulls up his pants.

"I had fun, though," he offers, his voice soft. You're just stepping into your jeans, and as you pull them up, you return his shy smile. Look at that, all raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens again.

"So did I," you reply, meaning it. "I had real fun, I mean... it was really good."

Both of you finish getting dressed in silence, then you do your final checks for the night, cash up, and turn off the lights. Frankie's with you as you lock up, and then you turn to him.

"Well... my car's over there." You point in the general direction of your parked car. Frankie gestures towards it, inviting you to start walking.

"I'll follow you to it. Make sure you're safe and sound."

Such a gentleman. It's half a block on a silent, empty street that you've walked down countless times before, but you don't mind the company, not to mention the gesture.

You yawn widely when you reach your car, and Frankie immediately asks if you're okay to drive.

"Sure," you promise him with a tired smile, "this isn't my first night shift. I don't have a long drive home, anyway."

"I could drive you," he offers, but you just shake your head and shoot him a flirty look.

"Then you'll just want to come up for coffee, and we both know how that story ends."

He chuckles, looking down at the ground. When you reach your car, he looks at you shyly.

"I got two questions before I can let you leave."

"Shoot."

"One: can I kiss you? And two: can I have your number?"

You pout and tilt your head, as if deep in thought.

"Yes to the kiss."

He immediately leans in for a surprisingly sweet kiss that ends way too soon.

"And the number?"

You grin mischievously.

"Come back tomorrow night so I'll know you're for real. Then you'll get my number."

He laughs at that, then stands watch as you get into your car, and drive away.

The next afternoon when you return to work, you find his baseball cap on the counter where the cleaner left it.

Now he definitely has to come back.

[deripmaver]

Which is worse, rape or murder? - Or, should Casca have died during the Eclipse?

Unlike most of my meta posts, this is one I'm making as a direct critique of a specific take I've seen. It's similar to my meta about apostle Casca in that regard, where I want to look at a specific idea and why I dislike it, as opposed to wanting to explore my thoughts on an aspect of canon. To be clear, this is only something I do if I've seen a take a bunch of times, enough so I know it's not a one-off. It's also not something I do because I want to engage in discussion with the people who've said whatever the take is, it's something I do in case other people who agree with me might be interested in a meta post that's more in line with their viewpoint.

I provide this disclaimer because, as I've said a few times now, the idea that it's the better choice to have Casca die during the eclipse is one that I just really dislike, and I make that preeeeetty fuckin clear. I can't control who sees this or who comments, but I did think I should make my stance explicit.

Berserk fandom is an absolute treasure trove of bad takes about rape and sexual assault. Considering the seriousness with which the manga takes rape, despite it's sometimes quite dodgy framing and portrayal, the fact that the fandom is Like That is fully a testament to cishet men's inability to consume media without turning into a brainless amoeba of toxicity.

I have to say, though, what shocked me the most was that this particular take, that Casca should have just died during the eclipse, was not from the dudebro side of fandom ('cause if she had they couldn't make their silly little "casca enjoyed it" jokes).

I'm coming right out of the gate with my opinion, which is a firm no, Casca should not have died during the eclipse, and the story would be weaker if she had. I'm going to presume during this analysis that the people who say this assume that her death would be instead of her rape, as opposed to her being raped and then dying, which would be... Horrific. Even more horrific than canon, lol.

I do have sympathy for some of the people who wish she had died, and in a way I understand, though I vehemently disagree. Some of the posts with this POV sound almost traumatized as they proclaim I wish she would have died, it would have been better. As this is something I've only noticed in the tumblr fandom side of things, where most people are women, I think this comes from women readers feeling furious and sick about one of the most vile rape scenes out there. In some ways its intentionally vile, in others - ie how grotesquely sexualized it is - it's unintentional. Then, of course, she continues to suffer in her disabled, infantilized trauma state. I hear these readers wanting to shout at Miura that he should have just killed her off rather than force her, and us, through reading that. It would have been kinder.

I have... Far less sympathy for others. There's a side of fandom that simply does not care about Casca (in a different way than the dudebros who don't care about her despite gushing about how she's peak tomboy waifu). It's amazing the veneer of progressivism these people put on as they say that Casca should have died, because she did not contribute to the narrative before the eclipse, and she certainly hasn't after. Going to get even spicier for a second and point out fandom's long history of wanting female characters dead because they get in the way of mlm ships, and how I think this is SOMETIMES simply another manifestation of it.

To be fully fucking clear, I do NOT think that being a grffgts shipper (censored so this doesn't show up in the tag LOLLLLL) precludes being shitty about Casca. I think tumblr's demographics, and those demographics' typical shipping preferences, mean that grffgts is naturally going to dominate. By simple statistics, most of the people whose opinions I hate are going to be grffgts shippers. Same with most of the people's opinions I like on tumblr tbh. I do, however, think it's prudent to point out old school fandom misogyny, and how I personally feel it's showing up in the fandom, and also point out that it pisses me off that Casca dying during the eclipse is at all presented as the least misogynistic outcome.

I'm also going to say now that this is firmly being kept in the realm of fiction. In real life, there are horrific discussions about how being a victim of rape defiles you for life, and that it's better to die without the "shame" of being raped than live with it. While I have to be blunt it's difficult for me to separate some of the discussion of Casca dying during the eclipse from that anti-survivor bias I see in real life just because ~we live in a society~, I in general think this sentiment is coming from a place of simply analyzing, narratively, which outcome is less misogynistic given how the rape in canon is portrayed.

Would it narratively have been better for Casca to have died? What about the impact of her death versus her current storyline?

First, I think I need to outline my interpretation of the eclipse rape. I don't think that the decision to have Griffith rape Casca was Miura simply being a misogynistic cishet dude who threw in rape for the hell of it. I also don't think it's OOC. Again, there's much to critique in how it's drawn, but not in the fact that it happened. Griffith, in his moments of feeling out of control and powerless, uses sexual advances to reassert his control over the situation - see Charlotte, or the wagon scene with Casca. A distaste for sexual violence committed by his enemies doesn't mean Griffith is incapable of wielding sexual violence as a weapon himself. In real life, there's a paradox where rape committed by political or social enemies is seen as the worst crime one could ever commit, while the mundane rape committed as a consequence of patriarchy is excusable and the victims should be blamed and shamed. Did Miura have the gender studies acumen to think about that when writing? I dunno, but neither does anyone who thinks he didn't.

I also think it's supposed to establish his actions during the eclipse as fully over the moral event horizon. Without it, it's easy to ask if ultimately, Griffith's decision to sacrifice his followers to a cruel death is justified to create a perfect utopia. With it, it establishes Griffith as acting fully on cruel, malicious impulse in moments of emotional turmoil, which puts his future utopia in jeopardy. I can't be the only one who sees Falconia as a ticking time bomb. Of course, this doesn't mean he needed to rape Casca, but simply that I think it was necessary to his character to do something that crossed that moral line. He could have raped Guts I suppose. Killerbambi has entered the chat.

While I think this might sound strange, I actually think it's immensely validating to have a character who is a victim not just of rape, but of rape committed by someone she already knew. That's genuinely unique in media on the whole, which plays into that paradox I mentioned earlier - in real life, the vast majority of assaults are committed by someone the victim knew. Having the story surround the continual, horrific trauma of betrayal, of having to watch the person who hurt you move on while trauma keeps you in horrible stasis is almost so realistic it's... uncomfortable. Painful. Hard to read.

There's no greater purpose to what happened to Casca. She didn't grow from it, instead she regressed.

Her general lack of agency post-eclipse is much critiqued in the fandom and like. Fucking yeah fair LOLLLLLL BUT ALSO... But also. Fandom on the whole can be so cruel about traumatized female characters, like there's no way they can do trauma "right." In Casca's case, her lack of agency is turned into a reason she should simply have been killed off instead, as though there aren't so many survivors who, while not as literally as she does, retreat into a shell of themselves and are frozen with trauma as the world begins to pass them by. Of course, the critique would be that she's not a real person, she's a female character written in a misogynistic way by a man, but I personally think this overstates Miura's issues with his portrayal of rape. To me, it presents what they think are his biases as justification for their own biases.

Time and time again, I see survivors discuss feeling validated by Casca's trauma response after being assaulted. Even the parts of the rape scene that I vehemently dislike, such as the hyper-focus on Casca's body and the physical reactions she's having, I've seen more than one person say they felt validated because they too had an unwanted arousal response during an assault. I'll still critique the scene, but regardless of if this was Miura's intention, its impact is clear.

I'll again plug this article by Jackson P. Brown, How Berserk’s Casca challenges the myth of the “Strong Black Woman.” Just to show a quote from it:

All of the action of the story after Conviction Arc is in service of restoring Casca's mind. During Conviction Arc and after, Casca has groups of women who love and protect her, with women as her source of safety. Guts is single mindedly focused on bringing her back, putting his body on the line again and again to protect her and restore her. I wondered about including Guts here because I'm sure I'll get some anon about the Beast of Darkness, which again fair LOL. I have complicated feelings on that, but mostly I think the importance the narrative puts on her mind and her protection is touching, and I think this outweighs how the negative things apparently mean that she should have died.

Her story and trauma, despite its flaws, is shockingly realistic and validating to so many people. She's also a key narrative component post-eclipse, and not just ~for Guts' manpain~ or as a helpless plot device, her story is her own. I've written about Elaine as a character and what she represents, but in brief, Casca doesn't disappear after the eclipse. Miura wrote Elaine with these moments where Casca comes to the surface, and while I wish we had more of her POV I think you can look at how she's coping from how Elaine reacts to the world around her.

I also think it's necessary to have Casca at the Hill of Swords. There's Guts, who Griffith torments in the way only a bitter ex can, and Rickert, who doesn't know what happened the day of the eclipse, but I think Casca is the key component in that scene that cuts through all of Griffith's posturing and Guts' anger. She is there, making the real, human cost of what Griffith did during the eclipse unignorable in a way that no other character could. It's one thing for Guts to be furious with him and Rickert ignorant, it's another to have someone who loved him so innocently and dearly trembling just at the sight of him. Let's not pretend that the depth of betrayal in this scene would be the same if you swapped her for, say, Judeau.

It's funny, Miura is quoted as saying that his initial reason for keeping Casca alive was to provide Guts an ever-burning flame of vengeance, an eternal reminder of everything that he lost during the eclipse. What's wound up happening, on a meta level, is that Casca provides the reader a constant reminder of what happened during the eclipse. As more and more focus is given to her PTSD with her revival, the cruelty with which Griffith acted (and continues to act) becomes harder and harder to ignore. It becomes more difficult to push it aside as just bad, misogynistic writing.

And also, quite simply, I like narratives about trauma recovery, and therefore I'll always find Casca's story worth telling despite my frustration with a lot of it. It's absolutely wild to me that for how often I see the fandom complain about her being "fridged" they think it would have been better to see her ACTUALLY fridged, no chance of coming back at all, just dead to fuel Guts' revenge arc. Would it really be better to have her be just another dead girlfriend? Really?

That's really what it comes down to. I like Casca as a character, and I want her to have lived. The people who wish she had died, many of them simply don't like her as a character. Not all, particularly in that first group I mentioned at the start, but many. Everyone has their preferences of course, but I don't think I need to respect when someone thinks a character has so little influence on the narrative that they should have just died, especially if that character is Casca.

If Casca had died during the eclipse, it would not have been a good death. It would not have been brave, or triumphant, or worth anything for her as a character. Judeau died to protect Casca, but even his death was not brave, it was just sad. That's the whole point of the eclipse.

To have Casca die that way would be a disservice to her as a character, far moreso than to have her struggle on as a traumatized victim of sexual violence. That's genuinely what I believe.

[northern-passage]

i've been thinking a lot about the word "representation" and what it means and how it's changed over the last few years, particularly when it comes to the writing/publishing landscape but also in movies and tv shows… and i really don't like it anymore. to be clear, of course i think it's important to have diversity in your work, i'm not saying i hate the concept of representation. but i do really dislike the way it's used now, and i really just hate the word itself

in a broader sense it's just become a marketing tool. i'm not impressed by any publisher or author who just describes their book by listing all of the minorities/identities the characters represent as if that should be enough. it feels very gross, very exploitative and disingenuous. it also really bothers me because it's always marginalized identities- which i understand Why, but it feels very othering to me (and again. Very exploitative as an advertisement). you would never list out "cishet able-bodied white man" as a character description to pat yourself on the back over. so why do it to everyone else? why insinuate that one is the "default" and the other one is "special"? (and when i say this i'm mainly talking about advertisements/marketing. i understand why people would specify about characters in descriptions with the plot, but i don't like to see an ad that's just "this book has gay people!" with nothing else)

which then leads me to my other point, which is that a lot of people treat "representation" as if it's "too hard." like "oh i don't know enough to write about that, i don't have that experience, etc" which is a fair way to feel! however… it's weird that people only say this about writing trans characters or characters of color. i'm writing a story right now with a character who is really into motorcycles. i personally do not know that much about motorcycles, so i researched what parts are what & what different kinds of models there are & what basic bike care looks like. i guarantee Most people will have to google something at some point in their writing process. so what's the problem? it also, again, feels very othering when authors treat certain groups of people as "impossible" to write, "too hard" to understand. they are just.. people. you write them as a person. and then you figure out the rest later.

and i think part of the refusal or fear to write something outside of your experience is because of the way representation is treated as So Special. these characters are So Special that they aren't allowed to be anything other than "representation." they're Not allowed to be characters with complex emotions and interesting motivations, they have to just be Trans or Gay or Disabled or whatever. they're not allowed to be people. which means, at the end of the day, we loop right back around to where we were at the start….

there is bad representation. there are depictions of certain marginalized people that are harmful and that are damaging, i'm not trying to minimize that or argue against it at all, in fact we should all be mindful of that while writing and reading. but i also think it's possible to swing too far in the opposite direction as well and put certain groups of people on a pedestal and not allow them to do anything at all but be Perfect Representation, if that makes sense.

[gayalienwilde]

For this last day of celebration of Velvet Goldmine's 25th anniversary, I wanted to talk about why Velvet Goldmine is such an important movie to me. Nowadays shows and movies have gotten much better with their representation of marginalized groups, it's not always perfect, but it's definitely better than even just a decade ago. Growing up and seeing queer characters in mainstream media that, unless created to be a punchline or demonized, were sterilized and surrounded by a cast of cishet people with no connection to other queer people (maybe a partner but that's it), can give the wrong ideas to queer kids. Making it seem like queer people aren't a community but just a couple of random individuals in an otherwise heterosexual world, it's not only unrealistic but it creates a sense of isolation, forever the ugly duckling that never meets other swans. The lack of good representation is harmful to queer kids that might feel like they're never gonna find other people like them, this is the reason that token representation in media is not enough, it means nothing when a character's whole purpose is to show that queer people exist as a monolithic mass of sassy side-characters. For this reason, media about queer people made by queer people is extremely important because it shows different queer realities. In Velvet Goldmine's case, not only is the movie itself representation, but the story it tells is also about representation as seen from a young queer fan's perspective and how it affects him.

Seeing Brian and Curt be openly queer gives Arthur much more confidence in his own identity, this is shown when he imagines himself coming out to his parents through Brian's interview and when he goes out dressed like he wants and searches for the other glam kids. Even if both times he stops himself, in the first case because of his parents judgemental stares directed at Brian, and in the second case he's probably intimidated by the other kids that have been comfortable in their identities for much longer than him (which is kind of taken from Todd Haynes' own experience, in this interview he says that the older glitter girls were intimidating to him in middle school). This serves to show how representation can help the people that can't immediately be out and proud, because even if Arthur can't come out or make other queer friends he can find solace in Brian and Curt's music and general media presence, which is not only openly queer but sexual too. Later in the movie we will also see Arthur finally being able to be his true self and find his community in London, so it's not a surprise then seeing Arthur become a journalist when it was the interviews, magazines and newspapers that he'd read in his youth that helped him gain confidence in himself.

But for the viewer Arthur is he himself representation, his struggles and journey a mirror of the experiences of many young queer fans. For me personally the scene where Arthur tells his parents that he's going out and then sneakily takes off his jacket and goes out dressed like he wanted to be has always been the most relatable, him being happy walking in the crowd with his head held high reminds me of my first pride, even if I was too scared to approach anyone simply being surrounded by queer people and being able to be myself put me at ease, and later trying not to cry on the train back home while I took off anything that had rainbows on it and lying to my parents about where I had been, it's probably one of the biggest reasons I am so attached to Velvet Goldmine, I saw myself in it in a way I'd never seen in any other media before. Even 25 years after it's creation Velvet Goldmine's representation is still better than that of some recent media, because it doesn't shy away from showing the sad, the sexual and, most importantly, the happy parts of queer life. In the end, seeing Arthur go through a lot of different difficult situations both in his youth and in his adulthood and still manage to push through it all and find some connections with other queer people, first in London and then in the 80s when he's reunited with Curt, that gives me hope that no matter what we're all going through, we will keep making it, and most importantly it's a reminder that, to quote a Bowie song, you're not alone.

[damnfandomproblems]

766348704849559552

I'm a prime example of this.

A bored anti accused me of transphobia, transmisogyny, misogyny, all sorts of pleasantries, just because I headcanon a character who is *very* commonly interpreted as cishet as... cishet. And because I headcanon that male character, being cishet, as not being turned on by someone masculine presenting, or someone with a dick. He is only attracted to feminine features. That's it. That's the offense. Ironically, they slapped me with a transphobia accusation even though I strived to include both cis and trans people, like me, in who he's attracted to by deliberately using language like "masculine/feminine presenting" and just keeping things simple. But let's be real, that was never going to be enough for this person, or people like them.

Despite the stupidity of their accusations, a good 50+ equally ignorant people, most of whom were barely out of their teens (if that), insta-shared the post and spread it without even bothering to fact check. I also got some bizarre insults in my inbox. Not one person came up to me and asked about anything (neither did the original anti), and the vitriol of it all really messed me up for months, gave me imposter syndrome, and made me wonder if I was a horrible person, or somehow blind to some kind of phobic language I was using, and it got so bad that I went to the hospital. I simply couldn't switch off the paranoia that these people were right somehow. I was already dealing with poor mental health which was the cherry on top of the cake.

When the harassment first started, I went through the post and, like anyone would recommend because it's common sense, I blocked every single person who had spread it. When I went back to block more people, one of the people I'd blocked had commented that I "already blocked them wow lol", and that it "must have been because they have a gay ship lol". Setting aside the "lols", which already shows they're not taking this stuff seriously... Jesus, Mary and Joseph, you'd think these numpties would at least have a *shred* of a clue and understand that I blocked them because they were harassing me for unsubstantiated claims, rather than the fact they had a gay ship, especially when one of my favorite ships is gay and I have dozens more where that came from. It's like they took the unsubstantiated claims and used it to build an entire new case with, when, hello, Occam's razor, anyone?

The whole thing made me out to be this massive bigot. Despite receiving reassurance from other mutuals and people I trusted, I spent a *lot* of time with intrusive thoughts telling me I was a bad person because of how bad the slander was; my brain just kept going, well, if it blew up this much, it must be you, not them. I kept trying to comfort myself but I didn't even believe my reassurances or others', despite rationalizing stuff over and over again. It took over a year to unpack all of it.

Compared to what I've seen other people go through, I got off *easy*. I didn't have other accounts tied to my main account. I never posted pictures of myself. I didn't use my real name or get doxxed. No, I just built up a rendition of a character for over ten years and had my credibility stolen in an instant. I suppose on the bright side, most people with a brain didn't participate and they still understand that I'm not a bad person. But there were a few people within that dogpile that I had seen plenty of times before, and I thought they were safe people. Now they think I'm a bigot and there's nothing I can do about that. I know their opinion isn't worth anything. They can't properly detect disinformation, they are reactive and bad at critical thinking. But it still hurts and it doesn't matter who they are because ultimately it still affected me profoundly for a year.

Moral of the story... Don't accuse people of stuff unless you know exactly what you're doing. Actually investigate, actually speak to them and others, and don't go out guns blazing with some kind of confrontational, stone-the-person, massive dogpile festival which, let's be honest, 99.9% of these people only participate in because they're bored and want to scratch an itch without any consideration for the consequences. Don't make people doubt their entire freaking existence and MO over stuff like this, it's beyond rank.

Posting as a response to a previous ask.

[my-toh-theories-2]

Ik people talk a lot bout Caleb being doomed by the narrative but I don't think we talk enough bout Belos being doomed by the narrative. He's someone who wanted to be the main character so badly that he became the villian. In a story and another realm that couldn't give less of a shit about all of that lol.

TOH is a fantasy story that breaks both the fantasy and the fantasy genre. Playing with what you'd expect of it. Of what you'd expect from a fantasy story n world. It's pretty realistic too and not in a dumb grim dark way it's like, genuinely realistic. Sometimes the heroes loose. Sometimes shitty people get off scot free. Sometimes things change, permanently, for both the worse, neutral and better. And again not in a grim dark way there's still beauty to behold here. There's still love to be found.

So where does that put Belos? Someone who wants and demands that kind of story for himself in a world that couldn't give less of a shit about it giving that to him? He gets angry, bitter and spiteful. He blames the world for not meeting his entitled demands. He holds such a strong conviction in his beliefs and values as well and is so goddamn arrogant that he's immune to change. All of his problems become entirely self made. Made worse by his guilty conscience and with each choice he makes it spirals, getting worse and worse. A bit of a "I'm in too deep" attitude going on here if you get what I mean.

Look. He knows, deep, deep down that what he's doing is wrong.

"Go on. Go be a hero." -Belos Young Blood: Old Souls

But he'll never admit to that. Because admitting to that guilt means taking a long, very long uncomfortable hard look into the mirror. It means acknowledging everything.

There's a reason he started wearing gloves after killing Caleb..

He is his own worse problem. He keeps making worse and worse decisions for himself. Spiraling further and further down due to his own worse vices, guilt, fear and entitlement. He is doomed by a narrative that doesn't care about giving it's characters that kind of fantasy and narrative. His fantasy. And in any other fantasy story, let's be honest, he would be the main character. But not here. Luz, a bi Latina neurodivergent gnc girl is the main character, not him. And the Demon Realm isn't going to give him any special treatment cuz he's a cishet white human man. It's not gonna give him special treatment at all lol. In fact him not having a bile sack puts him lower on the totem pole and you know that irks him SO MUCH (lol suffer harder Bitchlos)

He's also doomed by a narrative about love, acceptance, family, friendship, community, growth, compassion, change, moving on, etc. etc. He's a looser, loner, incel, hero wannabe Christo-fascist dictator who's last person in his life that genuinely loved him, died; 300 years ago by his own hateful hands.

I have many other thoughts n feelings bout this but idk I just wanna get this out there. I have Many Thoughts bout this show that I only let ruminate in my head cjsjsks. Figured I should get them out there so yeah. Lemme know your thoughts lol