#there's not many women because of my own complex relationship with gender

[not-poignant]

Hi, Pia.....Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Thanks if you want to answer...

Hi anon!

So... they change and tbh I'm going to forget a ton of characters I love and then scream in my head later like 'oh no but THAT character and THAT character and THAT character' but I'll do my best!

Kiriyama Rei from March Comes in Like a Lion - Probably my favourite character possibly of all time. Introverted, kind of ace-coded right up until the end of the manga when it changes (and since the anime never ended he stays ace-coded throughout that lmao), very human, extremely depressed, and I just think he's a very good depiction of like...what it's like to live with extremely repressive depression and post-trauma while not necessarily knowing you have those things.

Dazai Osamu from Bungou Stray Dogs - He's a brilliant intellect genius with too much ability to know so much about the world that he kind of ends up suicidal all the time due to his upbringing / some of the things he's done and also what he's experienced. I just enjoy him. (Notable runner up here is Nakahara Chuuya but dslkajf)

Felix Harrowgate from the Doctrine of Labyrinths trilogy - Angsty, PTSD, waspish, 'I'm going to hurt you because I was hurt and then hate myself and do very self-destructive things about it but keep that part a secret so I just look like a constant dickhead,' brilliant, very good at magic. Love this dude. Would walk hundreds of miles for this dude, like the song. Would definitely write a long-ass fanfic about him.

Daeshik from Love So Pure - I love this guy SO much. He's a side-story / secondary pairing in the manhwa but I LOVE him because he's so against type. He's dorky but not in a very cute way, he's overbearing, he's SO neurodivergent coded it's painful and sometimes hilarious, he's determined and ambitious, he's not 'hot' in any typical kind of twink way, and I know he's split the fandom between 'god he's so annoying' and 'Daeshik is the BEST.' The whole webtoon is fucking amazing anyway, but Daeshik has my whole heart in his journey from 'dorky annoying overbearing friend' to 'oh I just realised I'm gay and now everything is Pride Pride Pride and I'm definitely crying next to a dildo I bought that was too big for me.'

Presenting Daeshik:

You'll never guess what he's sitting on sdlkjfas (he fails abjectly and then cries about it in a way that's kind of hilarious honestly).

Dana Scully from The X-Files - I didn't know it at the time, but this was very much my bisexual awakening. I mean I'm pretty heavily ace now, but I'm mostly not into cishet dudes, and I had pictures of Scully up on my wall like how did I not fucking know. Anyway, scientist, smart, 'so done with your shit' and just wry and witty and *clenches fist* so short and tiny and powerful. I love her. (And Gillian Anderson).

Loki from the MCU - Not necessarily every iteration, but I do love how Tom Hiddleston plays him, and I appreciate the queerer representation. Adore this guy. Look at him, what an absolute dickhead of a god. 10/10 would read him in hurt/comfort fics and PWPs again.

Hyunsoo Seo and Youngchan Baek from Perfect Buddy / XXX Buddy - Possibly my favourite manhwa of all time and I really hope that stays true because it's not finished yet. Idk how to describe these characters because they're both very complex as you get to know them better, but basically 'angry wet cat man with past trauma that he hides exceptionally well vs. Gwyn-dimensioned blond puppy dog who is just pretending to be a puppy dog because he knows exactly how threatening he is and is willing to be to protect the people he loves.'

Murderbot in the Murderbot novella series - I think all of us - or most of us - find Murderbot incredibly relatable and that's refreshing as fuck in any novel series tbh. (ART as runner-up though, love that fucker).

Sebastian Michaelis from Kuroshitsuji / Black Butler - Honestly there were a lot of kind of 'extremely powerful but kind of shitty fuckboys' I wanted to put in this category including Gojou Satoru from JJK, Reigen from MP100, and even Louis from Beastars, but Sebastian's gonna win out because I still don't know if he's going to eat Ciel at the end of that series and I very much love not knowing because he's such a devious fuckhead. Love that not-actually-a-man.

Yuurakutei Yakumo (Kikuhiku) from Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu - I just... *flails* Almost no one has seen this anime series and it kind of kills me because firstly the books were written by someone practiced in writing BL and even though this isn't BL you can still tell the vibes are there. Secondly, one of the most ace-coded characters ever. Gender-fuckery abounds, which is fun. Thirdly just, honestly, more folks should watch this?

There were a lot of characters I know I missed but I'm pretty satisfied with this list.

I've just given myself a bunch of stuff to rewatch and reread because of this anon! :D

[trans-androgyne]

Okay, you can say you’re respecting transmascs’ gender when you kick us out of or bar us from “women’s spaces” once we transition. But consider that in many cases there aren’t other spaces for transmascs. There don’t tend to be men’s spaces to talk about gendered oppression and sexual assault — the latter of which trans men experience at a higher rate than cis and trans women. I know because I have had to create new spaces for trans men myself, using my own time and money. And it’s not easy, and I shouldn’t have to do it. I’ve strained my mental health with it; I can’t expect other transmascs to do the same in their locality.

I want you to evaluate the purpose of these spaces. If your space is specifically about discussing womanhood, that’s its own thing, though I would still ask you to consider including people with a complex relationship with womanhood due to their gender experiences and want to discuss it. But if your reason for making it a “women’s” or “women’s and non-binary” space is to make it “safe” for discussing things like queerness, misogyny, and sexual violence? I am begging you to understand that without other resources you are shutting transmascs out in the cold. Our masculinity does not make us unsafe.

[mostly-mundane-atla]

Things Inupiaq culture doesn't traditionally have:

Kings/royalty (requiring tribute from the people you lead is seen as tyranical and tyrants are killed when possible)

A cash economy (dentallium shells were valued by many other cultures and sometimes were used as money in international trade, but not among fellow Inupiat)

Agriculture (we are traditionally a hunter-gatherer people seasonally following the herds, fish, and ripening greens and berries)

Corporal punishment (you aren't even supposed to yell at people or even scold children)

Slavery (you could argue this one since women were sometimes captured and taken as wives; but this is typically regarded as an ancient and morally questionable practice. The Inupiat didn't believe in owning people or their labor, only at best associating through marriage, blood relation, or wife-exchange)

Primogeniture as a hard-fast rule (Inupiat culture was traditionally patriarchal so a son may inherit his father's status as a family patriarch if he is already a father at this time, but material inheritence was not guaranteed to work that way)

A written language (historians were assigned to memorize records, family trees, and the like)

Human or animal sacrifices (would be considered cruel and wasteful)

Formal vs informal language (socio-economic class is mutable and does not affect language)

Gendered pronouns (our language uses pronouns to indicate tone of a sentence the way many languages use pronunciation, as well as relationship between subject and object in complex sentences and in all cases whether the subject is singular, dual, or plural and if the sentence is in first, second, or third person. An absolute fuckton of pronouns and none of them are gendered)

Raw meat taboo (except in the case of pregnancy; the arctic climate means the weather was not too far off from refrigerator or freezer temperatures, if not colder, and underground storage was often placed around frozen methane deposits known as permafrost)

Dog meat taboo (dogs were helpful as beasts of burden or sometimes hunting companions but when there's a famine you gotta eat what you can)

Many ceremonies taken for granted (for example, if a man and woman mutually agreed they were married, that was the only wedding required. We had big celebrations for survival, and women got incredible face tattoos for coming of age, but many lifestages were celebrated more low-key with little pomp and circumstance)

Shirts (you didn't wear anything underneath your atigi, and if it was too warm for it, you took it off. Yes, even women. Presbyterian missionaries thought we were godless sluts for our tits out ways)

Virginity marriage requirement (it was best if a woman hadn't had sex before but only because we lived in small communities and you have to keep track of bloodlines. Having sex didn't make girls unclean or impure and unwed mothers were taken care of by their families and weren't stigmatized)

Required monogomy (men could have multiple wives and women could have multiple husbands, wife exchange was a means of fostering allegiance, and the main problem with cheating is that it involved lying and prioritizing pleasure over duties like making sure your husband doesn't fall to his death while hunting. In stories about cheating and revenge, the cheater and retaliating jealous partner are both depicted as in the wrong)

There are more, but these i feel provide a pretty good basic idea of the culture. You can use these bits of info as Water Tribe worldbuilding inspo if you want, but i won't pester you into it. I just think my culture is neat and wanted to share ^-^

[genderkoolaid]

I don't know if you know blue eye Samurai, but I hate how people talk about the protagonist.

I'm a non binary Trans man, and I actually identify a lot with Mizu (the protagonist), but I go here on Tumblr and I see a lot of posts that say: "I know everyone can see Mizu however they like, but I want everyone to know that the right interpretation is that she is a woman pretending to be a man... but everyone can think whatever they want, not forgetting that she is a woman of course."

And it's a bit annoying because when I see explanations of why is "wrong" to see Mizu as a Trans man, I see people going "Why can't there be representation of gender non conforming women!?" And "she wouldn't pretend to be a man if it wasn't for the society she lives in!"

The last one makes me especially angry, because of how many Trans men get erased from history with that same argument.

I don't know, I think it makes me mad because that fandom feels like a micro cosmos of the anti Trans masculinity a lot of Trans men have to face.

And it's not like I think it's wrong to see Mizu as a woman, but when everyone goes "of course she is a woman, why would she want to be a man for anything other than necessity?" I don't know how to feel.

I'm gonna steal my own words from that post about jeanne d'arc:

And the best part is, we can say all of this and also see her as part of women's history! Because women's history, too, does not have to be exclusively about woman-born or woman-identified women. It can be about a larger cultural experience. And Jeanne d'Arc suffered because of transphobia which is always fundamentally misogynistic. I would argue it even makes sense to say her death involved transmisogyny in a very literal sense. The thing about transfeminism is that it can free us from the need to view personal identification with the role of "woman" as vital to feminism. Being a woman, in whatever sense, is certainly not unrelated to feminism, but one can be a feminist and have any kind of personal or communal relationship with womanhood. Anyone can be inspired by the story of Jeanne d'Arc and her bold defiance of both misogyny and transphobia, no matter how she may have personally understood her gender.

People have this idea where if a character or historical figure (or even currently living person) is anything but a woman, then any kind of Feminist Story falls apart. Especially when it comes to misogyny! People act like someone being a trans man means all their experiences with misogyny are like. gone? Or the story is now, essentially, about a cis man being mistaken for a woman, and thus women are Not Allowed to feel any connection at all.

All of this on top of the fun hypocrisy that is "we can't say this person/character is a trans man because they wouldn't have that concept, but we can say they are a cis woman because those are both the only options and ciswomanhood is a natural and universal concept we can apply regardless of any other context :)"

& with Mizu its like. you literally can see her as a GNC woman. people calling him a trans guy or transmasc or genderqueer or anything else are not taking away your experience of her as a GNC woman. Transmasculinity is not just Negative Womanhood, the idea that transmasculinity is something which saps away representation/power/dignity/identity/value from (cis) women is like ATM 101.

But the whole way people treat trans men and misogyny really annoys me, I guess because the assumption is that for women, having to dress as a man to get respect inspires anger at one's position in society, but trans men are incapable of having any complex feelings about that. Like trans men must fully enjoy not being able to have sex with others, or go to a doctor, and having to live in fear of being outed and facing the brunt of transphobia and misogyny, and trans men also couldn't possibly be angry about misogyny that they experienced, and also nonbinary people don't exist and no transmasculine person could possibly be anything but fully comfortable being seen as a cis man all the time. Sure, some trans men are perfectly happy passing as cis men, but like. there is more than one trans man. & ignoring all other transmasc experiences besides The One is a form of erasure, it just passes as something else because technically you are acknowledging A transmasc existence.

[luckyarchivist]

What do you think are the LI'S sexual orientations ??(from touchstarved)

I think the easy answer is "they're all bi/pan" because that's canon! Like, you as MC can be any gender and the LIs, ostensibly, either are or will be attracted to you.

Unfortunately, because I am bi/pan, that is also the answer I agree with most. I do this thing where if someone in fiction doesn't strike my gaydar a certain way, I just assume they're bi. Something something assuming others share my personal experience. And none of the LIs in TS strike me as being definitely gay or definitely straight, so...

I could (and did) elaborate more, but the ultimate answer is, yeah, I think they all like everybody! So feel free not to read below for my more yappy answer, which goes into my specific thoughts about each LI's sexual orientation.

Ais: Oh, yeah. This guy is bisexual in my head and I cannot imagine him being anything else. I think he probably very slightly leans towards a preference for men, but has definitely had partners of all genders.

Vere: Although I don't think Vere has a gender preference as far as a partner, I have this idea that he prefers people who present very strongly on one side of the spectrum or another: either very masculinely or very femininely. Maybe he wants to be the only androgynous-looking one in the relationship? I think that's a little selfish, but whatever.

Kuras: Asexual for me. He's done it, okay? He's danced the horizontal tango. He's been alive too long, and loved too many people, not to. But he doesn't feel attracted to people, sexually. As far as gender preferences for romance... I don't even think Kuras is working from the same page when it comes to human gender. Like, he's probably got some angel gender that got simplified by humans into "he/him" and he's just going with that.

Leander: Literally the king of the pansexuals. This man doesn't care what you identify as or what you look like, and different things on different people make them attractive to him. If you're hot in a way that strikes him right — a cute, crooked smile; a sturdy, sensual body; a keen, sharp mind; a naive, innocent outlook on the world that he can take advantage of — he'll like you, and he'll probably tell you, too.

Mhin: Demisexual and it's so important to me. They will not be impressed by your hotness; you will have to break past their chilly exterior first and only then will they want to bed you. As far as gender preferences, though, I think Mhin generally prefers women and nonbinary people to men.

And, of course, I can't forget my DLC love interests:

Sen: What's the sexuality where you just ignore whatever you're attracted to? Yeah. That's her. She's definitely feeling something! And while she's not a lesbian, it's definitely something that she feels around more women then men! But not only is she not going to act on it, she's not even going to think about it. Or, she's going to make an attempt, at least.

Elyon: I just feel like, as a brothel owner, this guy's gotta have a complex relationship with his sexuality. I'm not sure what the problem is, and I feel like if I try to explain it I'll sound like an idiot? But it has something to do with his position over all these hot people who are pawning sex for money, and his own warped interpretation of himself.

If you got all the way down here, anon, I hope that answered your question! And if not... I still hope I answered your question!!

[crooked-wasteland]

Something that always irked me a little was seeing fans say HB/HH have good queer rep. There’s been other adult/children animated shows that done it better. I think the reason fans say that it has good queer rep is it because they get to see the characters have sex, instead of characters having actual chemistry and good interactions.

No one in HB or HH had good chemistry. Charlie and Vaggie are just nonexistent or they should’ve been a slow burn from friends to lovers and blitz and stolas is the worst mlm ship because they don’t have anything they just have sex, they’re just meaning less sex that have to be a couple.

Husk is an asshole to Angel, he just shits on sex work and guilt trips Angel so he doesn’t take drugs but because Cherri is meant to be seen as the negative influence we’re suppose to take husk side and say no to drugs.

I don’t even consider fizz and Ozzie a relationship because they’re just sugaring, but fizz has a unhealthy codependency on Ozzie who kinda goes along because he gets to have sex with fizz and that too to me sounds like the spirit of lust. Doing immoral actions for you’re own selfish wants and desires. If fizz and Ozzie was rewritten and in the hands of a better writer this could’ve been a thrilling toxic story about a powerful prince of lust manipulating his insecure vulnerable lower class imp plaything and hundreds like him, in the spirit of lust

One of my unpopular opinions is that Elemental had the best examples of queer representation in Ember and Wade. And I am aware Ember and Wade are cis gendered and in a heterosexual dynamic. My point being that representation does not always have to be explicit to be profound or accurate. The movie gives Wade an unconventional form of masculinity that validates a nurturing expression that is stereotyped as inherently queer. Additionally, Ember's lack of identity due to the expectations of her family, father, and culture mirrors the existence of many queer individuals who fail to recognize they are bisexual or even gay due to the implicit pressure placed on them to fulfill the typical roles of their society.

Many people take the story in face value, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with seeing it as a story solely based on race, discrimination, the complexities of coexistence, and interracial love.

However, representation does not have to be explicit. There is absolutely plenty to be argued that by having an openly queer relationship moves to normalize the concept socially, but the unfortunate reality exists that (1) queerness is still inherently othering and you will not be able to normalize the existence of queer people just by shoving them front and centre. If anything, it is interpreted as a threat to the dominating social norm that causes people to reject the concept outright compared to subliminally connecting the ideas and experience of queerness to a more universal norm, building on tools and experiences to help others relate to our existence despite them never being able to truly live it.

And (2) movie-making and media is a business. A very expensive one. So risking hundreds of millions of dollars on explicit queerness that is still extremely fringe in most societies is, frankly, bad business.

The issues in representation for HH and HB comes down to what you said here: weak chemistry and toxic dynamics. These aren't good representations, not because they have these problems, but because these problems are overtly ignored or seen as not issues at all. There are a ton of harmful stereotypes that work in our society to keep queerness from being seen as normal or valid.

"Lesbians aren't real because how can two women ever love each other the way a man can love a woman and vice versa."

"Gay men just think about sex all the time. There is no love in their relationships."

"Bi/Pansexual will just have sex with anything."

"Sex is the highest form of romance and so any deviation from the strictly acceptable expressions of sexuality in society is a threat to love and relationships as a whole."

"Queer people are the result of brain damage through drug abuse."

"Queer people are the result of childhood trauma and/or sexual abuse."

"Who's the woman/wears the pants in the relationship?"

All of these statements are real social perceptions and stereotypes of the queer community which Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss directly contribute to. The narrative and characters adhere to every single one of these ideas at some point or another without ever challenging them and oftentimes reinforces them.

I understand and respect people who don't see Elemental as queer representation just because the characters do conform superficially to heteronormative standards. But just making a character gay doesn't make the story or series queer representation, and these shows definitely don't have good representation.

[maxdibert]

i want to know what do you think about Remus since you already talk about James and Sirius i really need to know :3

When someone puts a big topic on the table, in Spain we say: sujétame la cerveza lol So yeah, Lupin is one of THAT topics. Here we go:

Look, I can deal with Remus Lupin having literally zero self-esteem and a massive inferiority complex, and for that reason using Sirius and James as his safety net at Hogwarts, not stopping them when they were complete jerks because he was afraid they'd reject him and he’d end up alone. I can deal with that, I can excuse being an accomplice to bullying just like I can excuse Severus for getting involved with the Death Eaters because he saw himself as vulnerable. I forgive him, seriously. I can even forgive him for being an absolutely irresponsible adult and not taking his potion—Merlin knows why. I can let that slide too. But there are two things I can’t let slide.

The first, and less important one, is that he justified James’ actions to Harry. I mean, it's the least important because I can understand not wanting to tarnish the kid’s image of his father, but when the same kid is telling you that his father and his friends (including you) were assholes, maybe you should admit that you were a total jerk. Or that at least your friends were, and you did nothing. I get why Sirius denied his guilt because, well, Sirius Black. Like, what are you going to expect from him? To him, there was nothing wrong with it. But Remus was aware that it was wrong, and as an adult, he can admit it. You don’t have to make up some story about Snape envying James over Quidditch (lolololol like Severus Snape would remotely care about that gym-bro crap). But anyway, I see this as almost the least serious thing.

What I will never, ever forgive him for in my entire fucking life is that at 36/37 years old, with gray hair already down there, HE WAS ALMOST FORTY YEARS OLD, PEOPLE, he got a woman in her twenties pregnant, had an existential crisis, and was considering leaving her WHILE SHE WAS PREGNANT WITH HIS CHILD. WHAT IS HE DOING?? Like, I don’t even know how to express this in English because my language is Spanish, and I swear I have a ton of adjectives in that language to insult this man, but in English, it’s harder—but hello?? He was ALMOST FORTY YEARS OLD, HIS WIFE WAS TWENTY-FIVE, HE SLEPT WITH HER, GOT HER PREGNANT, AND LEFT??? HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE, REMUS LUPIN?? WHAT’S IN YOUR HEAD?? Like, if he was so terrified of passing on lycanthropy to the child, why didn’t he use a condom?? Or, I don’t know, the magical equivalent—HAVE YOU HEARD OF A VASECTOMY?? And if he really, truly felt so bad about impregnating A WOMAN IN HER TWENTIES—LIKE SERIOUSLY, LET'S PUT THIS IN PERSPECTIVE: SOMEONE THIRTEEN YEARS YOUNGER THAN HIM. THIRTEEN. DAMN. YEARS. Why didn’t he just NOT DO IT? Like, as the adult in the relationship, he could’ve genuinely said no. No, this is unacceptable. No. No, sorry. So many years of gender studies and feminist readings for this. SCREW THE NICE GUYS. Like, his whole “woe is me, I’m poor, I’m old, I’m ugly, I’m dangerous” schtick? Well, you should have gone off to Timbuktu then, but don’t get her pregnant only to then abandon her. A TEENAGER HAD TO GO. A TEEN-AGER had to tell him he was being a piece of shit. This is why I say Rowling doesn’t respect her female characters because if she really did, she would have had Tonks dump him and raise the child on her own because, seriously, what was she thinking?

Just talking about this makes me genuinely angry. It's just that Lupin is THAT KIND OF GUY, you know? The one who acts all nice and soft and like he’s never broken a plate in his life, and he’s all poor me, and I’m super nice and super sweet, but then he turns out to be a huge jerk, like a giant piece of work. He’s the textbook nice guy, and one of the worst, the kind who goes after young women. Look, I’m just saying that if Harry Potter were written today and the topic of Lupin came up, and Rowling didn’t condemn him to the stake in her books, she would have been canceled a long time ago. Seriously. There’s no way that in today’s fiction a man nearly 40 years old gets a twenty-something pregnant and threatens to leave her, and that this guy is seen positively by the narrative. Simply no. Canceled. I’m canceling you, Remus Lupin, not for myself, but for feminism. Thanks.

[licncourt]

hi!!! i'm new to tvc and your blog so im not sure if this has been done yet but :'D i just wanted to ask your thoughts on akasha, even generally speaking? thanks!

Welcome!!! I have lots of thoughts on Akasha, but mainly I think her existence tells us a lot about the author and provides a lot of context for how AR approaches female characters in the series overall. I think Akasha, Claudia, and Gabrielle are a very succinct look at how Anne viewed women and the archetypes she felt existed within womanhood. Akasha is really the final boss of anti-feminist strawmen, written to be the ultimate evil and Bad Woman, but she just kind of ends up being an almost-compelling female character instead.

I think Gabrielle has strong elements of that, but the fact that she was so heavily inspired by AR's mother softens the narrative to her some despite the bitterness there. Akasha is something else though, and the narrative on a meta level does not seem to feel sympathy for her.

AR obviously had a very complicated relationship with her own womanhood and a virtually unshakable "not like other girls" mentality her entire life. It was some truly breathtaking internalized misogyny or maybe even a case of gender dysphoria that turned toxic. I doubt we'll ever know for sure, but that loathing she seemed to feel towards womanhood is very much on display in QotD.

Looking at the book as a female reader, I can't help but feel sorry for Akasha on some fundamental level despite the absolute evil she also commits. She was a queen, but doomed to be subservient to her husband on the basis of gender. Then, through some incredible accident, she's suddenly the most powerful human being there's even been, only to then be tortured and spend thousands of years internally conscious but unable to move, speak, or do anything at all.

It's almost an Eve story, a woman who is designed to be a man's inferior who instead seized knowledge and power (and the narrative), gained autonomy from and influence over her male counterpart, and then was punished for it by the larger forces at play. In some ways she reminds me of Claudia too, driven insane by her circumstances and unable to comprehend her own monstrosity, but she's also more evil than Claudia was ever capable of being due to her age (torturing and ordering the rape of of Maharet and Mekare, forcibly turning Khayman, etc).

If Anne had left it at that and changed her goals to be less grandiose, I think her character would have read better and been a more complex and convincing villain in the evil-but-a-victim-of-circumstance way that so many VC vampires are. That's one of my favorite things about the original VC vampires that was present in Akasha but not executed with quite enough finesse. Instead, I think Anne takes it way too far into cartoonish hatred for feminist stereotypes.

For most authors I wouldn't feel confident saying that was the intention but AR, if nothing else, aggressively involves her personal feelings and beliefs in her work, often to the detriment of the story. VC is just the fictionalized inside of her head and we know that. Combined with her other female characters and her own public statements, it's hard not to eye roll at the climax of QotD when Akasha decides she's going to kill 90% of human men and turn the Earth into a new Eden with her as the goddess for the human women (and male human chattel).

In that sense of her character, it seems like foreshadowing to Blood Canticle Lestat reprimanding the audience directly, just Anne finding something to be irrationally angry about and writing it into her book. I've said before that QotD is a step below IWTV and TVL because the cracks in her writing really start to drag the book down like they would for the rest of the series to a rather extreme degree. Knowing this was her last book with an editor, I'm curious how much of the overall readability of the book can be attributed to that/how far gone Anne already was at this point.

In spite of all that, it is kind of fun to go balls to the wall and take a Hell Yeah Get Them mentality when Akasha goes scorched earth because despite it all, it's sort of cathartic to watch a overpowered female vampire go on the warpath and scream all the deepest frustrations with patriarchy that many women struggle with. At the same time, it's hard to fully enjoy it knowing authorial intent (and reading it all within the context of the sexual violence Akasha perpetrated with Anne's usual lack of nuance). That's kind of par for the course though, most things in VC are Almost Good and that's what keeps us on the hook.

[ghostedfiles]

Imogen is such a lovely character idc what other ppl say?? Genuinely she's such a primary example of how heteronormativity affects women for a longer period of time then men because of the patriarchal expectation of women to be attracted to men??

She could've had what Charlie and Nick have with someone if she wasn't a woman, and here's my proof: 1) She doesn't have any other female friends, constantly hanging around Harry and the other boys. Which takes away her female friendships experience and excludes her from a non-performative safe space which women can more often provide over men. (The same way Nick is expected to feel toward women and fit into a stereotype) An example of this is when Nick and Charlie go to talk to her after she blows up at ben in paris. 2) Because of that loss she's constantly put in a context where it's expected of her to be in a relationship (with a man). First with Nick in season 1 and then Ben in season 2. No one even notices how she reacts to Sahar saying "I'm literally bisexual" past seeing her romantic interest in Sahar rather than seeing her react to another woman confidently say her sexuality is something else than to one specific gender. Kind of like Nick reacted to seeing Tara and Darcy kiss in season 1 at Harry's party. 3) She's preceived as annoying or too much for trying to work out complex situations without having all the information. Such as Ben acting weird toward Charlie/Nick. Women often expected to handle situations where they don't have all the information for the convenience of others at the cost of their own mental and sometimes physical health.

Imogen is a complex character who deserves more recognition for being brave enough to call Ben out and tell him to his face all the shit he did, and trying to figure herself out without a supportive friendgroup and i will never shut up about it.

There are so many women who grow up like Imogen, stuck around a dominantly male friendgroup where the patriarchal expectation is for them to be attracted to one of the friends (or even several of the friends). Only later in life when the friendgroup falls apart or people grow apart does that women realize how affected she is by the unhealthy performances she uncounsciously put on throughout her life. So anyway Stan Imogen Heaney.

[eddiediazismyhusband]

Sorry if this has been asked before but thoughts on ace and/or aro spec Eddie? Because it is near and dear to my heart. Especially with everything we’ve gotten both on screen and in interviews from Ryan.

I have not gotten this question before!

I would like to preface this by saying that I am not aro/ace so I am speaking in what my understanding of the asexuality spectrum is from my ace friends, so i apologize if I misspeak or say something that is not entirely accurate to the experience of ace/aro people.

Obviously, everyone is entitled to their own interpretations of fictional characters, and I am never going to tell someone they are right or wrong for their interpretation of a character’s actions. However, I personally don’t view Eddie as aromantic, and if I were to place him on the asexuality scale, I would place him more towards demi-sexual than completely asexual. We know Eddie enjoys sex, but he still has a very complicated relationship with it when it comes to the women he has been with, and that could be for a myriad of reasons.

Of course one of these reasons could be that Eddie simply thinks he enjoys sex bc he grew up in a repressive religious environment where he was probably to scared to feel any other way, meaning he could very well be asexual and his seeming enjoyment of sex could be an act he puts on to ignore the part of him that he is repressing.

As a gay eddie truther, I believe this idea partly bc I believe he is trying to convince himself he is into women because that’s what he grew up to be taught that men should be attracted to women. However, I could see this being a pathway for Eddie to be introduced as somewhere on the asexuality spectrum, my personal belief being that he would lie more towards the demi end.

As far as him being aromantic, i personally don’t see this. I think we have seen plenty of times from Eddie that he craves that connection with someone but he actively sacrifices his own desires because he thinks he has some obligation to finding a mother for chris. I feel like what Kim said to Eddie in 7x9 about Eddie having too much love to give is true because he so badly wants to be in love with someone for himself, but he has convinced himself he can’t gave that because he views Christopher needing a mother figure as the more important quality in his romantic partners.

All of this to say, these are just my own thoughts and observations. I am obviously biased as a gay person who relates deeply to eddie for many reasons, and so my interpretation of his actions/words are through that lense. It’s hard for me to really see him as anything else, but just because that is my interpretation does not mean it is the only interpretation or even the right or wrong one. Until we get some form of confirmation from canon that Eddie is queer (which i think is very very very likely to happen this season) all we can do is speculate and theorize based on our own personal interpretations of him as a character— and i think that goes along with Ryan’s quote about how much he loves that such a wide range of people can see themselves in Eddie; and i think that no matter what, he is such a powerful and complex character that no matter what sexuality he ends up being confirmed as in canon so many fans of different sexualities and gender identities will still be able to find that deep connection with him and that is so beautiful to me.

I hope this answered your question! I love getting to have these kind of deep talks that dive into the complexities of human sexuality and all the nuances that come along with it (which is why i almost love the idea of them making Eddie unlabeled even though I personally perceive him as gay!)

I hope you have a lovely morning, afternoon, or evening wherever you are! and thank you again for the ask 💕💕

(again, apologies if anything i said misrepresents/misunderstands the aro/ace spectrum, it is not my intention to say anything that is incorrect, but I am not well-versed in the aro/ace spectrum aside from my ace friends)

[redjadethewriter]

My take on Blank The Series:

Age Gaps, GL, and Trauma

To make a slow-burn romance interesting to watch, especially with age gaps, regarding WLW relationships, we need many elements.

First, we need a decent cast pair. Second, we need believable performances from the actors who play these complex emotional characters. Third, we need drama. We need a reason behind each action and dialogue exchange between the characters. This is where the story becomes important. We have the characters' story and the plot of the major stuff going down. The back story of the two main characters is the most important to flesh out more than the side or supporting characters.

I'm just going to say it: I'm impressed by the performance of the two actresses who gave life to these characters.

Lately, I've had several coronaries because Thai GL has turned me into a Junkie for their content more than my own countries' versions of sapphic relationships. And they are making age-gap relationships so much more compelling to watch.

The premise is as basic as it comes in terms of story arcs. Actually, I agree with some people that "Blank" and "Gap the Series" were gender-swapped stories. Usually, a wealthy older man falls in love with a young girl. So, now we have an older prominent woman falling in love with the young girl instead, but they made it more tender and somewhat light-hearted. I understand this is an adaptation of a naughty novel, which is fantastic. I write naughty, too. But the series is more tasteful. It focuses more on the crucial aspects versus the naughty.

By the way, I enjoyed the playfulness in both the shows. It's nice to have playful flirting involved versus extreme seduction right out of the gate. Both shows remind me how a romantic relationship or even pursuing a special someone can have a silly, playful approach. It doesn't have to always be serious and get to the sexy stuff. As an older Lesbian, I have a similar playful nature when I'm allowed to express it. Thus, I feel for the older characters willing to become playful with their much younger romantic partners.

However, there's one thing I can relate to since I'm in my late 30s. Is the extreme insecurity of being romantically involved with someone younger than you? In Blank the Series, the age gap difference is 16 years. I'm glad they raised the age bar because it would've caused a lot of issues.

It's funny because I was the girl in my early 20s who hooked up and dated older women in their 30s. The age gap was not 16, but 13 years between me and the older women I had short-term relationships with. So, watching the interaction between Khun Nueng and Anueng, oh my gosh, right way, I thought Khun Nueng was in trouble in so many ways.

Now that my position in life has switched and I'm a similar age to the women I used to date, I understand the complexities they went through. You just only know once you experience it for yourself. Insecurities around age are an enormous factor in reality and in this story. More than the woman loving women aspect or even the drama of others accepting the relationship. Really, the destruction comes from the older woman who can't deal with falling in love with someone younger than them. When you sprinkle trauma on top, with a side of keeping a facade or reputation, it can get chaotic super fast.

Not only did Khun Nueng become attracted to Anueng quickly, but she couldn't resist turning Anueng away, no matter what. The actress performed those rigid responses really well because, in reality, I would have to visit a chiropractor to break my body. The tension alone of repressing my desires would turn me into a ball of knots. Especially if I had no willpower to turn away the person. Ugh... I don't even wanna think about that. Because knowing my karma, something would put me in that position in life. I even resist dating any women in their early 30s. In the late 20s, I will say to the sky, "F***...Why me?" I'm like that anyway each time I fall for a woman. "Oh, f***...Why me?"

I have to sprinkle some satire on this topic because I can already see that the root of every decision and action Khun Nueng makes is based on that insecurity. Internally, she doesn't want to believe Anueng when she constantly says she only wants to be with her and loves her. It doesn't matter how often it's said; it is something that Khun Nueng must overcome regarding age-gap insecurities.

In the ending scene of episode 6, I reacted, "You totally just wanna keep piling on the torment, don't yah?" It's clear throughout the six episodes that she's in love with the girl. She can't even admit that she gets jealous. And oh my gosh, older adults' actions regarding jealousy are more diabolical than younger people. Actually, the older you get, the more sinister it gets. The passive aggressiveness turns up. Believe me... The sky is the limit on tactfulness and mind-f***ing when women get vengeful. Oh, my gosh... I still love women, regardless. LOL! Sweet as poison.

Khun Nueng's stoic demeanor is just a mask. She represses her emotions and vulnerability. Khun Nueng abides by stoicism, which rarely benefits emotional growth. We witness this when she refrains from showing anyone her weakness, so she doesn't cry in front of people, even at her grandmother's wake. When she finally ends up alone and breaks down, Anueng shows up, and Khun Nueng feels safe enough to break down in front of her. Which is hard to do that. I also have a stoic facade, so I recognize that bullshit a mile away, and I know exactly how hard it is to repress grief. Once it erupts, it hurts like hell, but I knew Khun Nueng was fully F*** because there's really no turning back with that kind of intimate exchange they had.

I can't wait for season 2 to see how that bites her in the behind.

Obviously, I don't want Khun Nueng to suffer anymore, but through her mistakes and emotional and mental anguish, she will learn what or who is truly important to her because she's dumb. Just because we are in our 30s or late 30s doesn't mean we are free from stupidity. She definitely needs to make better choices and stop playing so many mind games to protect her ego. She needs to learn to be more upfront about her feelings and wants.

Hopefully, we get that.

I have faith they will.

[giuliettacapuleti]

No but the way Júlia and Tybalt (In Rómeó és Júlia especially but in every adaption actually) perfectly mirror each other in the way they are being stifled by the role they play due to their gender and how it fucks them up, as well as the way they completely reject their roles (specifically in Rómeó és Júlia)? We have Tybalt, who was forced to be as violent and protective of his family as possible despite the heavy implication that he was a sensitive and dreamy child, not to mention the way his views of sex and love were shaped by social conventions (and specifically his father).

I’m going by the Italian Renaissance societal mores here, even though resj presumably takes place in a quasi-dystopian or post-dystopian future/Alternate Universe. During the Italian Renaissance, male children spent very little time with a nurse because that was considered ‘feminine’, and were sent off to school at a very young age. Although family was still considered the most important thing, actual familial relationships were hard to cultivate presuming that child was away at school. Now, it could be that I’m looking way too much into this and no one even thought about Tybalt’s childhood regarding him going away to school or being taught by a tutor at home, so I could be way off, BUT my point is that the emotions regarding family were strictly based on the masculine ‘protector and provider’ aspect rather than tenderness and actually spending time with family.

You can even see this in modern western society! It is only within the past few decades that men started to spend more time with their children, and do traditionally ‘feminine’ things for their kids like changing diapers, feeding etc. The idea of a Father being a provider rather than a caregiver has even carried over to society today - men are still praised for running errands with their children and doing activities with them without the mother present. These men are just seen as being ‘babysitters’ ‘helping out mom’ when they should simply be seen as parents doing their job as parents. It’s unnecessary to go into the negative impact this has had on both men and women, but my point is that this ‘nuture vs provide and protect’ view is still prevalent today, and was 100x worse in the Itaian Renaissance Era (and presumably society in resj).

So Tybalt is burdened with the duty to protect his family, but we see he, unlike his father, actually wants to be close emotionally to his family. The best evidence for this is his relationships to women in his family. I’ve made another post about this, but basically Tybalt’s father has taught him that women are literally ‘objects’, and the goal is to sleep with as many women as possible with absolutely no emotional attachment or respect for the women they sleep with. Tybalt, per his own admission in Ez A Kéz Utolér, mentions sleeping with many women indiscriminately, and not being emotionally attached to any of them. But as the song goes on we realize that he doesn’t want that. He is in love with Júlia, and clearly does not see her as an object. He doesn’t believe any man is good enough for her (least of all him).

Now, I’ve seen it argued that he doesn’t actually see Júlia as her own person, only the ideal of her, and even has the whole ‘Madonna/Whore Complex’ going on, which is certainly a valid argument, but I’m not sure I agree with it.

I think he sees himself in Júlia - the sensitive and loving child he never got to be. It’s possible a part of him does not want to see Júlia lose her innocence (not necessarily in a creepy way), and become like him.

Don’t get me wrong, his love for Júlia is definitely creepy and a good amount of his rage comes from romantic (and presumably sexual) jealousy. He mentions that he never loved any of the women he slept with, and has only ever loved Júlia. According to his father, love is just a weakness and women are just for sex, but clearly Tybalt doesn’t agree.

Possibly the ONLY healthy relationship he has (err, had) in his life is with the Nurse - he is seen holding her hand at the ball and she embraces his body after he dies, and has to be pulled away by a servant. I believe this is possibly a nod to when the Nurse calls him the “best friend she had” in Shakespeare (another reason I love resj is the Shakespearen nods while doing its own thing).

Lady Capulet obviously loves Tybalt (judging by her reaction to his death), though his uncomfortable attraction does not seem to be reciprocated. The inclusion of his attraction to her could be another nod to Shakespeare - though it is not actually in the text, a fairly popular theory is that Tybalt and Lady Capulet were lovers (it’s possibly worth noting that Lady Capulet was likely closer in age to Tybalt than Lord Capulet). Personally I don’t think there was any inappropriate relationship in Shakespeare, but in a way it works specifically for the Capulets in resj - the relationships they have are not healthy at all: they lack boundaries, can’t communicate, and can’t express their (familial) love until it’s too late.

Obviously, Tybalt doesn’t have a healthy relationship with his aunt and has some kind of weird attraction to her, possibly as a result of only caring (in general) about the Capulets. Yet he seems to listen to Lady Capulet in a way he doesn’t to Lord Capulet - Lady Capulet orders him to find Rómeó, and later presumably to kill him (when she talks to him in his room).

So, my point is that Tybalt, despite claiming that women are just objects, has the most important (and possibly only important) relationships with women.

Anyway Tybalt is messed up and complex and the Capulets are even more dysfunctional than in romeó et juliette send tweet.

[valyrfia]

RE: this ask

Sorry about to go off on one, gender studies and online fan culture from an academic standpoint is a special interest of mine because being film and literature student wasn't annoying enough (participatory culture studies my beloved) 

From a general standpoint, I think the reason M/M ships in fiction have always been more popular is because male characters are historically more developed and complex. I think it’s only in recent years have their been an influx of popular F/F ships, with the added development of women on screen (e.g Clarke and Lexa, Kara and Lena, Regina and Emma, Nancy and Robin) - I think there is also a point to be made this has coincided with gender expression, genderqueerness and more general knowledge of being outside the typical gender spectrum. 

I can’t explicitly say that being in M/M fandom spaces encouraged my personal discovery of being transmasc but it certainly helped to have an avenue where I could project onto these “male” characters and see myself in them. I was so uncomfortable in my own body and what I didn’t know at the time as dysphoria, I can see why I didn’t go for F/F ships. 

There are of course a lot of “fandom elders” but young (early to late teens) afab people do make up a large bulk of it and I get why  it may be easier for them to fixate on M/M ships as a, sort of method of exploring their own sexuality and gender expression. F/F ships may hit too close to home and F/M ships are what they are trying to escape from so it leaves M/M ships to project onto. Which, unfortunately then can become warped by the persons own comphet and/or binary ideas about gender. 

A male character may have more stereotypically “feminine” traits (in terms of interests or emotional reactions) and I can see why people who also have those traits would project there own insecurities onto them, reinforcing the feminisation of the male character but not being comfortable enough in your own gender expression to genderbend the character or write them as trans. 

It’s the same reason I think mafia romance, dark romance etc etc is so popular with cishet women because they can read about a fantasy where instead of the very real every day misogyny and violence they face leading to abuse, assault and death, it brings “positives” ; protected, loved, a happy relationship. 

Which, side note. I think this has A Lot to do with y/n, self insert fics becoming “cringe”. Because, I think a lot of people just want to fuck/date a character and feel like they can’t write a self insert anymore, so just project massively onto one character, leading to a lot of these issues. I don’t think Tony Stark/Peter Parker would be as popular as it is if people just let young women write their self insert fic about being Tony Stark’s sugar baby and then we wouldn’t have the wildly mischaracterised version of Peter Parker that we do! 

But, all this being said. I’m talking about fiction. Dean Winchester isn’t actually affected if people online only talk about him in a stereotypically “female” way. 

RPF is a different kettle of fish (and I’m not going in RPF ethics that’s different - I have no issues with rpf creators/consumers to be clear, I am one) because a real person does become affected. Even if you are keeping your fan works and discussions to private spaces, it can leach over into how you speak about the actual person. That’s where it becomes so incredibly important to remember that your RPF version of celebrities are just as fictional as Dean Winchester is. 

sorry I used mr. supernatural as an example, 13 year old me is still alive and kicking in my head somewhere. 

I love to hear your perspective on it with a trans worldview (and academic credentials), and I do agree that that might be a big driver of some young people only wanting to engage with MLM fic and feeling uncomfortable with WLW fic. You've brought up so many great points so I'll try and address them all.

I can add the perspective of a lesbian who was closeted for the first two decades of my life, came out less than five years ago, and still struggles on and off with comphet now. MLM fics in my teens were a way to consume queer content and relationships without having to think about the implications of enjoying consuming WLW content, and I think that's true for a lot of young closeted teens so it's no surprise that some comphet/hetnorm/cisnorm stuff bleeds through there because it's a framework the authors haven't managed to detach themselves from yet.

But yeah, I agree the issue lies with people wanting characters to be self-inserts partially so that they can experience sex, sexuality, and romance without any of the hang ups of thinking about patriarchy. And I agree with your solution: make y/n fics cool again! The ability we have to hallucinate while we read is magic! You can put YOURSELF in as a character's love interest, how cool is that?

Ultimately, yeah. There's nothing wrong with RPF as long as it isn't actually affecting the person that the RPF is based off, but I've seen a lot of takes escaping containment so to say (ie. leaving this website) with takes about the actual racers so obviously picked up through RPF. The main culprits are Charles, Lando, Max in my experience.

[khaire-traveler]

Tbh I mostly sent that ask bc I'm listening to someone review an ARC of Crown of Starlight which is supposed to be a retelling of how Ariadne and Dionysus met, but sci-fi and its just so many things pissing me off.

Like the Moirai are a cult????? Who are obsessed with like, purity culture????? Like the Christian kind???

And the author boasts that she's writing the first ever androgynous Dionysus when DIONYSUS HIMSELF IS ANDROGYNOUS AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN!! HE HAS AN EPITHET LITERALLY FOR HOW ANDROGYNOUS HE IS!!! HIS MYTHS FUCK WITH GENDER A LOT!! YOU DIDN'T INVENT SHIT!!!!

Ariadne is just a "I'm not like other girls" trope in such a stereotypical way and I HATTTTTEEE it. Like you can gave a girl not fit in and have it be interesting and not simultaneously shit on other women its not that hard. Like in Circe she showed interest in what Daedalus was doing and was curious about his inventions, and it made her more of her own character and also set her apart from the other women in her family. Not saying its the most perfect example but it's better than making her a fucking Pick Me girl who's pretending to not be a Pick Me.

Sorry just omg I could go on, I'm so glad this book will never be published.

Long rant incoming lol. Be warned.

Listen, I've come to accept that retellings will never be perfect to my standards because I'm a worshipper, and most of these authors are not. I've come to understand that it's ok for pieces to just stand on their own and exist without me interacting with them; I'm not being forced to engage with something I don't actually like. But this? What the hell even is this? There's a difference between creating your own retelling for the sake of artistic liberty with a story that means a lot to you and claiming to have created something that the thousands of years old culture you're basing your story on ALREADY created. See, there is a RIGHT and WRONG way to do retellings. The right way is more of a loose definition at times, but the wrong way sticks out like a sore thumb because it's typically extremely obvious.

This person has an interesting concept that fell right into their lap, then completely disregarded the original culture the story stemmed from. I don't want to ever discourage someone from writing again or trying to create an interesting story, since I understand how personal writing can be, but this is fucking ridiculous, and there is no excuse for being so blatantly incorrect about the source you're pulling your information directly from. "I'm the first writer to make Dionysus androgynous!" Read a book about Dionysus that isn't a retelling, and get back to me on that, jackass, because he's actually always been that way, and it's shitty of you to spread misinformation for the sake of boasting about your book.

People representing the gods negatively is no surprise to me, especially the Moirai - many authors seem to have a complex relationship with fate itself, in that way - but I really feel like they're being limited in a cult. It sounds so humanizingly plain, and I wouldn't enjoy that artistic liberty, personally, since to me, fate is inherently inhuman; I think it exists outside the bounds of human comprehension. It feels kind of boring and unnecessary to make them into a cult. There's so many other things you could do with them: make them into indifferent Eldritch horror space beings, depict them as strange yet slightly sinister sisters who live in the middle of nowhere and seem to have something just a little unsettling about them, or, hell, even depict them as animals who show up throughout the book as motifs of fate. Like, come on, a cult? I don't know; I guess it's just not for me. And making Ariadne a Pick Me? Ariadne? Really? There's so many things wrong with that interpretation of her, especially the fact that in the original myth, she was abandoned by Theseus on an island, essentially left to die, and was found by Dionysus who fell in love with her. It's not as if she was going out of her way to get picked up by him or something; she just happened to be there when he ran into her, from my understanding. She has gone through this incredibly traumatic experience and still persevered, and all this author can think of is "Lol she's such a Pick Me." Like???? Why???? Why do you think this???? You befuddle me. I am bemused. This reminds me of how people make Patroclus into a cute little UwU man who can't live without Achilles and can't really do much to defend himself, even though, in The Iliad, it took two soldiers and a GOD to finally kill him because he was so fierce in battle. I feel like a chihuahua barking at a wall about this, though, so I'll move on.

I'm not sure what book this is, but as a worshipper, and even just a fan of history, it's so frustrating to hear about. Like, if someone wrote a genuinely interesting book about this with the sci-fi elements, I'd find it extremely interesting, even if the gods weren't always depicted in the best light. Even ancient myths didn't always depict them in the best light, and that's ok, actually. Is it extremely annoying and upsetting when people lean too hard into it? Yes, absolutely. Is it an automatic reason to despise a piece of media? I'd say no because then you're going to miss out on a lot of really cool things that are out there. But there is still a wrong way to go about these representations, and this is one of the biggest ones: blatant misinformation for selfish gain. Another would be demonizing a god without giving them any redeemable qualities, since oftentimes, in myth, they are still rather complex, despite the wild things they do or that happen. It sounds to me like they've done this with the Moirai somewhat, though I don't fully know that.

These are just my thoughts on the matter, but yeah, this is wild. Thank you for taking me on this hectic ride lol. I'm always more than happy to hear about new weird things I've never heard of before, so feel free to share other things if you ever stumbled upon them. Also, I would love to know the name of this book if you remember it. I'm so glad I've never heard of this before, tbh. Take care, Nonny. 🧡

[wyrmzier]

1, 2 for as many as you want, and bonus 6 and 18 if you're up for it :))

1. What's your oc's gender identity? What's their relationship to their gender?

Ceall would be considered a trans man. He identifies simply in canon as a man. Ceall, I think, has a complex relationship with gender and a bit of internalized misogyny. In his world, women have more rights and are more respected. However, Ceall is the product of the old ways of thinking about women. His own strenuous relationship with his mother strained his view on womanhood, especially as he was raised mostly by his grandfather and uncle to be a warrior.

I think Ceall was also afraid of what happened to his mother happening to him. I'm not implying in anyway that Ceall's internal conflict with womanhood is what made him trans. I think no matter what he'd figure out he was a boy. He just has an honest fear, and been looked down upon by adults in his life when he was a "woman" which pushed him to transition earlier. No matter what womanhood never felt right.

Ceall I imagine was a little shit head about this until he became a soldier surprisingly and the death of his grandfather. Ceall I think learns to respect women as he gets into his 20s and interacts with them more and with his grandfather not whispering in his ear, but moreso I think he just doesn't respect himself. His views and ideas get challenged a lot with his daughter Fiadh and his sisters. Ceall also needs to examine his view of manhood too but I digress.

2. What's your oc's orientation? (Romantic/sexual/platonic alterous ect) Do they have opinions about it?

I'll go with Ceall again :3. Ceall I think in modern terms would be considered bisexual. In text he speaks often of the women he's slept with, there's an old soldier he supposedly has history with, and his love interest is a prince. Ceall often feels like he HAS to marry a woman (in his world same sex marriage doesn't exist), so he's avoided it for a long time especially as he can't actually have children which is another thing he's expected to have, but being in the Otherworld now he can marry who he wants (but still with the expectation to have children).

Ceall has no real opinions on his sexuality. He's not even the hugest fan of sex. Ceall usually has sex so he can feel in control, especially as his life feels out of control. So to him, it doesn't matter who he sleeps with. Ceall has not "dated" anyone because that would imply he may wish to marry them, up until Ódhran.

(Sketch of Ceall by @rennybu )

6. How does your oc feel about labels? Theirs, or in general?

I'm gonna go with Karma for this one. Karma identities as aroace. She LOVES being aroace and has no shame in it. Karma generally is a person that exists without shame. Karma grew up with a loving found family of sex workers and was very educated and at 18 was allowed to even work at the clubs as a waiter. Karma has seen it all and not one thing has sparked her interest. Which in Karma's mind means she's free forever! Her parents had a very unhappy marriage, and marriage felt very forced on her too. But Karma is happy by herself with her beloved cat and her found family.

For labels in general I feel like Karma is watching her friends have existential crisis about their sexuality and she's playing beyblade in the corner

18. Do you prefer to give your ocs specific labels, or keep it unspecified? Why? If applicable, do you change their labels depending on circumstance?

Hm! I think a bit of both. Usually I know what my ocs label would be in a modern setting in my head, but I usually don't apply them in canon since most of my ocs wouldn't have those words or labels. Like I usually have Zipporah in canon describe himself as a man born in the wrong body, or if he were to speak in his mother tongue of Hebrew he may refer to himself as a *zachar* or *androgynos*.

For the "why", why do I give specific labels in my head? I literally can't not do that, my brain doesn't allow any "unknowns" especially if it can easily be known. Zipporah doesn't identity with his birth gender so in a modern setting he'd be considered trans. Why deny the label if you just already know it?

For changing labels, sure, if the need arises, they change irl all the time.

[undergiants]

I want to explore the issues that I had growing up as a non-monosexual queer woman because I know they have effected the relationship I have with my own gender identity greatly; yet for how many multisexual women there are in the queer community and have been in queer history there is so little that explores our relationships to gender (whether that be identity, expression or roles).

There plays this idea that if you are a masculine queer women then you are likely just a butch lesbian or if you are in a relationship with a man then you must secretly be more feminine, or will eventually overtime conform to become more feminine for your male partner. That it means you will play a passive and receiving role with that partner whether in gender or sexual roles simply because you are a woman and they are a man. Regardless of the queer relationship you have with your sexuality and by extension gender.

The amount of times I've seen only feminine women headcanoned as bi/pansexual and only masculine woman as lesbian in any and all media. Or canonically masculine multisexual female characters headcanoned or re-interpreted as solely lesbian because of course a bi/pansexual woman couldn't be this masculine or have a complex and very queer relationship with their gender and the roles they wish to embody.

On a much more personal note, for so long I felt like I had to either be a butch lesbian oy queer trans man if I was to ever be respected in my more masculine gender and sexual expression by both my own partners and the greater queer community. Pigeon holing myself into one or the other because my own identity and personhood is constantly erased, suppressed, mocked, and completely forgotten.

We need more queer theory and culture around what being bi/pansexual can actually mean and how it genuinely isn't just "gay-light" "50/50 gay and straight", that it is and always has been it's own unique queer identity. A different way of viewing yourself, your relationships, and your role in the greater world.

I can't speak for the bi/pansexual men but I know they also have their own relationships to this that I would also love to hear, share, and celebrate. <3

*this is also inclusion to any and all trans folk, while I ID more as a women nowadays I also consider myself on the enby spectrum and definitely very gnc, I know what gender expression and roles greatly effect anyone and everyone