#those tragic little gay women

[youknowitslove]

my perception of fanfic lengths is so funny to me because a 50k word fic that took me a week to read will be remembered as if it was 200k but a 150k word fic that i read in a night feels like 20k to me

[x-itzzzzzz-x]

i’m literally Nana Komatsu

no one understands her the way i do , i don’t think i’ve ever related to a character more

[hauntingcryptids]

I really want to start writing Good Omens fanfics! But I have so much to finish first! Ugh!!!

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Madhubala (Mughal-e-Azam, Barsaat Ki Raat, Mr. & Mrs. '55)—The Venus of India; heart-throb of all who saw her; responsible for the sexual awakening of every single desi lesbian I know (including me!) And my god, she is breathtakingly beautiful. Look at the subtle grace with which she moves, and that smile - the kind of radiant smile that can make you laugh with sheer delight, or cry because of its hidden pain. Those wild curls! That Cupid's bow! The way she tilts back her head and smiles at you with mischief dancing in her eyes! She has a way of looking at the camera that makes you feel she's sharing a private joke just with you; it's something about that quizzical twist of the lips and eyebrows. As an actress, she is inimitable; she seems to effortlessly inhabit roles ranging from a heart-broken courtesan to a laughter-loving socialite. Fun fact : she's had quite the fan following in Greece! Stelios Kazantidis even wrote a song as a tribute to her.

Linda Darnell (Hangover Square, Unfaithfully Yours, A Letter to Three Wives)— Her dick is ENORMOUS. She was Fox’s resident bad girl for a while, and she was goddamn sexy during it. She could also play sweeter, and she was still beautiful when she wasn’t crushing men beneath her heels, but also she sometimes crushed men beneath her heels and it was really hot

This is round 4 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Madhubala:

An icon of Bollywood, who was well known for her beauty and has continued to inspire performances and songs into the 21st century. She was at times described as "the number one beauty of the Indian screen" and "the biggest star in the world".

SHE IS EVERYTHING AHHH. JUST LOOK AT HER SMILE-

She's been nicknamed the Marilyn Monroe of India and was one of the highest paid actresses in the Hindi film industry (the term Bollywood did not exist yet) during the 1950s. Also an extremely talented dancer and singer

SHE'S JUST SO STUNNING, like seeing her eyes IMMEDIATELY CAPTIVATES YOU, THE DANCING, THE BEAUTY!!!!!!!!! She worked in Bollywood for over 20 years and passed away at a sad early age of 36, BUT THE IMPACT SHE HAD WAS UNMATCHED!!!!!

That sassy sideways glance she does always has me WEAK AT THE KNEES. And when she's making silly faces at the camera to mimic someone ahhhh my gay little heart <3

Linda Darnell:

LOOK AT THOSE EYES. She redefines sultry and dreamy.

ok i have a lot of feelings about linda darnell. she was so complex and messy and talented and just such a tragic figure and deserved so much better. her mom basically ignored the rest of her kids in favor of pushing linda into hollywood, which led to her missing out on a lot of childhood experiences, prevented her from enrolling in college, and caused some mental health issues later in life. it’s especially heartbreaking that she met such a preventable end so early in life, and i always wonder what might’ve happened if she had been able to make more movies. she also disliked the hollywood social scene, which i think is totally valid of her. anyway, i loved her in a letter to three women and unfaithfully yours, and especially in no way out, which i think is one of her better roles, really showcasing her acting ability. and the fact that she never really got recognition keeps me up at night,, in my heart she has all the oscars

[novelconcepts]

Staunch hater of men but travis is just my skrunkly little guy. Love how sad he is. Love how tragic he is. He’s just one of the girls and he loves it.

Travis is so good, largely because, if this show had been made in the 90s, he WOULD have been a girl. He and Javi both would have been the lone girls in a sea of boy soccer players. Travis is the love interest; Javi would have been the archetypical annoying little sister. And because YJ likes to play with gender dynamics and flip the scripts, they both still play out as you’d expect the Sole Girls in a male-dominated story to do. Travis’ whole arc is about learning to navigate outside of what society tells him to be—and, other than that, he’s there to be Nat’s love interest. Even as an adult, in Natalie’s memory sequences, he gets the Dead Wife lighting and soft framing in bed. He even gets, as a friend pointed out, fridged to further her story. When the girls get progressively more violent, Travis is the victim, or he’s told to take Javi out of the room. He starts off as a shitty boy, as is befitting of 1996 culture, and he gets to unlearn that which does not serve the hive. He is tragic. He is doomed from the start. He is learning to be soft in a situation where softness gets you killed. He is the representative of sibling dynamics in the wild, and now he’s the answer to the question: are you still a big brother when your younger brother is gone? He’s fucking devastating.

I just really love that the only three men in the wilderness are the gay coach, the complicated love interest, and the sacrificial lamb. Those are all positions usually reserved for women, and I love YJ for flipping it around.

[chuckduckling]

I know it feels natural to compare Shen Jiu and Shen Yuan, since they both end up occupying the same body, but comparing SJ and Luo Binghe (Bingge) makes so much more sense to me.

SJ has baggage that directly parallels LBG’s baggage: they both had abusive childhoods, they both hate themselves and feel unloved, and they use their trauma as an excuse to lash out.

SY, on the other hand, comes from wealth and modern comforts. His baggage is that he’s a transmigrator dealing with knowledge of the original book (also The System) (also a big case of the not-gays).

It’s why I can’t get behind the idea that SJ was born a monster while LBG gets acknowledged as a monster created from abuse. Saying that all of the original LBH’s crimes here were just SJ’s fault...it feels as dismissive as saying LBH’s abuse was Qiu Jianluo’s fault, you know?

(SY can be an unreliable narrator, but remembering details about PIDW is consistently one of his strengths. Projecting those details onto Bingmei, on the other hand...)

More ramblings and quotes under the cut…

(edited to replace MTL analysis with the official translation)

This little excerpt from the 100 Questions extra makes the parallels between SJ and LBG even more interesting, since SJ is rumored to be a lecher (with doubts thrown on those rumors as we learn more about him) while LBG is confirmed here to have assaulted multiple women.

SJ is the villain, so his lechery is a signal to readers of his depravity. LBG is the stallion protagonist, so his lechery is just him fulfilling his role as the male readers’ power fantasy. Doesn't this feel like commentary on stallion novels…? Just me?

Anyways, it seems like SJ gets the vice of child abuser, while LBG gets the vice of serial rapist. Both SJ and LBG share a killer bodycount for their own reasons, though LBG’s is probably much higher.

I sorta wonder if it can be easier for fandom to overlook because:

some of what we learn about LBG is from the untranslated extras

the people who suffer are nameless nobodies

his protagonist halo protects him from all consequences (for example, nobody whose family was killed during one of LBG’s massacres gets to throw Ning Yingying’s bloody ribbons in front of LBG's face and laugh about it while torturing him to death) (just typing that out upset me Yingying baby I’m so sorry!!!)

Even SY comments here on how the Bingge from PIDW feels more alien to him after experiencing the world of Scum Villain and learning to understand Bingmei as his own person.

However, even with his flaws and crimes and whatnot, LBG is still complex, tormented, and sympathetic. He has traumatic reasons for growing up into someone who has done bad things, and he has more to him than just those bad things.

Which is also exactly what SQH says about SJ.

SJ and LBH are both influenced by self-hatred, which acts as another parallel between them. But that self-hatred, that belief that they were born inherently unlovable, doesn’t make them better people. In fact, if anything, it makes them worse.

Self-hatred is not ennobling in the Scum Villain universe. It is self-destructive, and it destroys everything that surrounds it as well.

Thus, I’d argue that these two have both truly earned the title of “poor little meow meow”.

In contrast, I feel like the Huan Hua Palace Master is the one who earns the actual “scum villain” title for SVSSS? He crosses off pretty much everything on the list:

a righteous cultivator who turns out to be a two-faced asshole

a lecher who lusts after his female disciple

has no tragic backstory to explain anything about him, nor any redeeming qualities nor relationships

gets turned into a human stick

dies horribly and painfully for the catharsis of the audience

Of course, this means that there’s a universe out there where someone’s gonna transmigrate into the HHPM and—okay okay I’ll stop.

As always, I'm curious to know other peoples' thoughts...

[marley-manson]

Finally watched the Xena finale, thanks to the fanon episode order treating it as a midseason soft finale that gets fixed by When Fates Collide lol.

And man, it really was a hot mess. I could barely follow the plot, and many aspects were very arbitrary and like, revealed off-screen. The most hilarious of course being Xena suddenly announcing, like a minute before the end of the episode, that oh actually apparently she has to stay dead, sorry Gab, xoxo

It is VERY Xena though to have a plotline where Xena anticlimactically dies in the pre-credits scene at the beginning of part 2 and both you and the characters assume for the rest of the episode that she's going to come back to life like usual until the tragic twist lol.

Akemi was... resoundingly mediocre as one of Xena's exes. Her only personality traits were 'proto-Gabrielle' and 'wants to kill her dad.' Also like... was there incest subtext there? Like it was implied that the little creepy afterlife she was in was like, her dad's ghosts' personal brothel or something? But like I said, the plot was very hard to follow.

The themes were also a mess of course, it's been said many times but yeah ignoring the central theme of the show (atonement is pointless if you're doing good now) in favour of redemption thru death was dumb, the set up was dumb (we're blaming Xena for 40k deaths because she set a couple dudes on fire in self defense? Man at least give me an actual deliberate atrocity here), and choosing death over Gabrielle was like a dumb reverse Ides of March. Also Gabrielle just going like, 'damn okay I guess, bye forever,' was unbelievable. Even if Xena wants to backslide, I'm pretty sure Gabrielle would force her to come back to life anyway, fuck those souls. Like, it's not even clear how Xena's death helps them? Killing Akemi's evil dad again freed them from torment or whatever, who cares if they don't get avenged? What is a state of grace? How will they be lost, if she comes back to life? People go unavenged all the time, deal with it.

That said, I'd been under the impression that somehow Xena's death here contradicts the whole reincarnation thing, but I didn't get that at all? Idt there's any stipulation that she has to stay in the Japanese afterlife, just that she has to be killed and stay dead, and it does make sense since in their next lives Xena is a lot older than Gabrielle, so she should logically die a few decades earlier.

On the more positive side of things, it was very fun to see Gabrielle shining as ~the new Xena~ Love to see her kicking that one dude's ass twice, and the moment she catches the chakram is super cool. The non-Xena chakram-catch has always been framed as an 'oh shit, this woman's gonna be hardcore as hell' moment in the show so I love that they use it to show how far Gab's come.

And of course, gay gay gay homosexual gay. Like, season 6 is the point where I would say it is textual if only the show didn't go out of its way to scream "IT'S STILL AMBIGUOUS" a couple times lol (reporter's question in You Are There, fans in Soul Possession saying "yay Xena and Gabrielle are finally together" when they hear Harry and Mattie are married, eg.) "If I only had thirty seconds to live, this is how I'd want to spend them: looking into your eyes. I love you, Gabrielle." Like goddamn. I appreciate this cast and crew so much. Plus the incredibly thinly veiled makeout scene <3

Finally, while I think her chatting with Xena at the very end was meant to be more metaphorical or symbolic rather than literally Gabrielle talking to herself, it was an unfortunately funny image and a pretty terrible final scene imo. I do like the 'I hear they're in need of a girl with a chakram' reprise though, I gotta admit. Go kick some ass babe <3

And despite very much not liking that Xena dies in the finale, I would still read/watch the shit out of Gabrielle's now-single adventures as a just-as-invincible gay hero, kicking ass, fucking women without ever settling down with anyone, telling stories about Xena and becoming even more famous herself.

[spidermanifested]

❤️💙💖🏳️‍🌈 for FMA. Lay those unpopular opinions on me

oh im feasting today thank you so much

❤: Which character do you think is the most egregiously mischaracterized by the fandom?

see. just by VOLUME id say probably mustang? because he has so MUCH fan content out there and so much of it makes him either a suave cool seductive sexyman or a tragic wet beast whos never done anything wrong. so percentagewise i think itd be hard to compete

However. if we're going in terms of whose personality ive seen get just absolutely mangled to the worst degree. and i think thats whats being asked here. Pppppprobably hohenheim or scar. scar because of racism. and hohenheim because nobody knows how to be normal about a well intentioned fuckup of a parent so instead he has to be literally the devil i guess

oh ling also gets done super dirty as well. people forget that his Airheaded Entitled Royalty act is in fact an act, BUT at the end of the day hes still fifteen years old so he can still be a little dumb and reckless despite being great at strategizing. these layers are apparently incomprehensible to those who want to flatten him into "goofy fun sunshine boy" or "thats basically a grown man right"

id mention the way the women and girls of the series get treated but honestly they either seem to get ignored, Hashtag Girlboss Queen'd and THEN ignored, or made into romantic set dressing for the guys. which is unfortunately too par for the course as far as fandoms go for me to have any kind of novel commentary on it. Sucks Out Here

wiat theres another one but i dont know if im allowed to say it. im scared

💙: Which character is not as hot as everyone else seems to think?

mustang again

💖: What is your biggest unpopular opinion about the series?

HONESTLY???? just going off how my posts on the subject were received im going to have to say its "maes hughes was really conservative and kind of sucked". people did not like that one

🏳️‍🌈: Which character who is commonly headcanoned as queer doesn't seem queer to you?

hmmmmmmmmmmm. trying to rack my brain thinking of one. honestly there isnt really any character im immediately compelled to point at and go CISHET even if i dont like them because im a big enough person to admit that my fellow lgbts can be pieces of shit too. i am not a fan of olivier armstrong but shes definitely a lesbian and roy mustang is bi and deep in the closet and him and hughes had Something going on in boot camp #diversitywin #loveloses

maybe jean havoc. i know some people ship him with mustang, i have nothing against this demographic, however my personal read on havoc is just a larry butz type individual who at most tried to "go gay" out of desperation one time but found out it doesnt really work like that

[aprillikesthings]

Elsewhere Online I'm in a group for women who realized they were lesbians later than most

(I'm in a minority in the group for having been out as bisexual for years before changing my label; the majority of members thought they were straight)

And in between all the heartbreaking posts of people trying to decide whether to get divorced, are the stories of women finally dating/kissing/having sex with other women for the first time.

And some of those stories are SO SWEET if a little tragic

Like, "Oh, this is what attraction actually feels like"

"This is what I've been missing"

"This is what kissing/sex/romance is supposed to feel like and I never knew, how did I live this long without knowing that"

"I was so nervous to have sex with another woman because what if I'm not gay after all, but then I did, and OH GOD. I'M SO GAY"

There was a genuinely charming story posted recently--at an icebreaker thing at an event for lesbians, a woman confessed she still hadn't had her first kiss with a woman, and another woman there was like "oh hell yeah I'll kiss you, if you want" and said kiss was amazing (as bystanders cheered them on lol) and they proceeded to make out off and on all night

Another said she was on some app or another and her profile included the fact that she hadn't actually had sex with another woman yet, and someone messaged her like "...I can fix that for you lol" and they had a one-night thing. I was like "some lesbian across town saw the 'I'm a gay virgin' bat signal and said 'this is a job for ME'" and OP laughed and said, "yeah basically!" and they both went into it knowing it was a one-time thing but they both apparently had a great time.

Recently there was a post of "...I didn't know women were that soft???" and the whole comment section was people going "I KNOW RIGHT???" and talking about how their first time with another woman they couldn't stop just touching/petting her.

Anyway. Re: Divorce. Y'know how there's still that cultural idea that women don't really like sex? That men are always hornier than we are, want sex more than we do, "men are the gas and women are the brakes" and all of that bullshit?

One of the ways that fucks things up REAL BAD is the number of women who are actually gay and have no idea, because their marriages to men are fine other than the sex, and they just think that's normal. For years. Like some of these women are clearly married to men who are good people! They genuinely care about and love these men! They just...have always been ambivalent-at-best about sex with said men. And now they have to decide whether to end otherwise-happy marriages (and decide on custody of their kids, in a ton of cases) and all of that, just for the chance at getting a genuine romantic/sexual connection with a woman. Some of them are so clearly torn and I cannot blame them: "How can I do this to him? To my kids? What if turns out I'm not gay?"

(Me and other people often point out: your husband also deserves the chance to be with someone who is actually attracted to him, though.)

Like, bi/pan women do not usually have this problem? Or at least, it's way less common. Even if they don't realize they're sapphic until after they're married to a man, they're usually at least attracted to their husband, or were at some point.

It's specifically a problem for lesbians who don't/can't realize it until years later, because their sex lives with men are just Meh, and they so often think "well that's what being in a relationship is like, I guess; everyone knows men want sex more than women do, right?" ;_;

[leastdatablebracket]

QUARTERFINALS, MATCH 4

Propaganda under the cut!

Joseph Christiansen

Propaganda

So many reasons. He's already married, he's a jerk to his wife, he's already slept with at least one of the other romance options. That romance option goes to you before a date with Jospeh and damn near begs you not to be stupid and go with him. The worst part? You put up with all this and he leaves you to "work things out with his wife". She deserves so much better than him! One of the writers even said he's a sociopath. 

Married and a youth minister.

Cheater, cringe man, father of creepy children, possibly evil cultist, left a guy feeling used which said guy also became friends with Joseph's wife who appears to be an alcoholic likely as a coping mechanism since she's married to Joseph

He cheats on his wife, has done so before, lies to you by claiming that he's going to leave his wife when he clearly never intends to (and, in one ending, will even cheerfully suggest that you two continue having an affair in an extremely sleazy way), and judging by the fact that the other guy we know he cheated on his wife with, Robert, hates Joseph and is now very close friends with his wife, it seems clear to me that this whole "purposefully mislead someone into sleeping with you and then later drop the bomb that it was an affair" thing is repeat behavior with him. Also, I just find much of his behavior to be very manipulative and controlling; there are many situations where it seems to me that he's actively trying to paint others in a negative light while still coming off as saintly himself, such as an early scene where he subtly implies his wife is a shitty mom because she *checks notes* let their toddler out of her sight... during a neighborhood barbecue in a fenced-in yard surrounded by trusted adults and other kids. Also notice how in this scene he pushes *her* to go look for their son, rather than just looking himself, all while keeping up his "long-suffering husband" act. (and in other scenes can be found letting his other young children wander off into the woods with sharp implements and visibly not caring, but whatever). He does this with Robert, too -- the other guy he had an affair with. Almost everything he says about or to Robert is a subtle jab about his personality or his alcoholism. Classy, Joseph. Meanwhile, the fact that you can't actually end up with him in the end (because he was never going to leave his wife for you) started some of the most volatile discourse in the fandom and had people calling the devs homophobic and claiming they were spreading a message about "gay men needing to stay in loveless abusive marriages to women" (just ignore the fact that there are several other divorced gay dads in this game who all have great relationships with their kids and are not demonized in the slightest). HOWEVER, if you see people claiming he's a cultist or demon or something, that's untrue and was just going to be a non-canon spooky alternate ending that ended up getting cut. So I empathize with him a little bit for getting literally demonized by some fans for that cut alt ending. But he loses all those points by cheating on his wife multiple times and showing clear intent to continue doing so.

He's still married when you start dating him. He's also got like 5 kids that are some "children of the corn" kinda shit, and all their names have "Christ" in them

You don't even get to date him he's still married to his wife who he doesn't get along with. Tragic really

Cullen Rutherford

Propaganda

stupid racist cop creep whose fans cry about how hes "changed" and "you can't judge him he was addicted to magic drugs" nah he still chose to be a racist cop and abuse his power over innocent people and i hate him. the writers making him romanceable in da:i after how blatantly horrible he was in da:o and da:2 is baffling but i guess they had to appeal to the part of their audience who watch those "mafia boyfriend" videos on tiktok or whatever

He's creepy in origins, though still 100% willing to kill the female mage pc he's crushing on, as well as all the other mages trapped in the circle with him. He's the second-in-command in an even worse circle in 2, listening to and defending the increasingly obviously insane meredith until literally the end. He's one of the people still pushing for the circle system by inquisition, and yes he's going through withdrawals and working through the traumas of previous games. And to be brutally honest his was the first romance i took and while i don't remember much from it, its not worth all the girls going absolutely nuts over knockoff terrible alistair.

He's basically a cop who thinks being born a certain way can revoke personhood and by Inquisition still thinks mages are monsters to be controlled, not people. He gets a fairy tale cutesy romance that focuses on his personal struggles with addiction while showing absolutely no regard to the atrocities he committed and still thinks were justified. He can be romanced BY A MAGE and his actions and beliefs are just glossed over. He believes mages are 'not people like you (Hawke) and me', but if the Warden was a female mage he canonically had a crush on her and would deliberately hang around her despite the fact that he was her *jailer*. If that Warden romanced Leliana, there is war table dialogue in which he pesters Leliana for news of his 'former' crush despite her repeated statement that she doesn't want to talk to him about her. All this shitty behavior and lack of introspection gets swept under the rug by the game, not even giving the PC the chance to really challenge his beliefs. Like damn even Fenris could apologize when he lashed out due to past trauma with mages, and if anyone has a reason to hate mages it's Fenris. If you want an ex Templar hottie Alistair is RIGHT THERE. Tbh I know Cullen is a popular romance and I'm not here to tell anyone what they can or can't do or like in a video game, I'm just saying I think he is deeply undateable

Spends the first two games as an antagonist, fervently devoted to the cause of subjugating mages, then a bunch of "character development" happens off screen and the games treat him like he's completely reformed. However he's actions make it clear he still sees mages as dangerous and lesser. Not to mention if you romance him with an elf he doesn't pay your culture more than lip service respect like most of the devout characters 

He was a total villain in the first two games who was violently prejudiced against mages and uses one single bad experience as an excuse for it (a bad experience that is pretty much exactly what he in his job subjected graduating apprentices to, mind you, but this is never brought up). Now he says he's changed, but his words and actions say otherwise. He still distrusts mages, sympathises with the rebel Templars trying to kill them, and he never owns up to the terrible stuff he did and helped others do in the past two games. He totally knew what Meredith was doing and says he doesn't, and he still tries to defend her intentions. And you have no option to call him out on it. If you romance him as a mage, he angsts about how he might have seen you as subhuman in the past but NOW you're one of the good ones, and when you ask him if he'll kill you if you get possessed, he dodges the question. And the PC is written as being almost sad that she's a mage? Like 'can you love me despite what I am??' Also if Leliana romanced a female mage PC in the first game who is still alive, he asks her creepy questions about their relationship. Fitting considering his original purpose was to be creepy to the female mage Warden. 

I hate him and want to cause chaos. Plus his VA is an asshole.

Cop

I think you covered almost everything but don't forget that beautiful moment in DA2 - Act 2 where you find out some templars had a petition to lobotomize all mages and Meredith, THE HARDCORE TEMPLAR LEADER, rejects it, but Cullen says they got a point. Despite the fact that we just found out that those templars were using lobotomy (or the threat of) to rape people and get away with it. And then Cullen in DA:I is whining that anything that happened it's not his fault because Meredith kept the worse away form him so he didn't know, but also that anyway Meredith had a point and did what she had to do. Meredith does not go mad until Act 3, before she was of sound mind and Culllen was her second in command BECAUSE he hated mages as much as (or even more) than her. What the FUCK did she even hide from you, Cullen. Oh, but he changed! Because the writers make A VICTIM OF THE TEMPLARS say so. And anyway he only says so BECAUSE HE READS MINDS not because Cullen did anything to show it. Also the narrative wants to sympathise with Cullen for his drug problems while Cullen is openly attacking the only other character with the same problem for...having the same problem. And he's the antagonist, so there were OTHER things Cullen could be mad about. But he is mad about the drug problem. Also I'm not an expert on writing characters with addictions but he is an addict only when it's time to have a cut scene where you pity him. Otherwise it has zero impacts on everything else.

[thenanamisimp]

Danmei and MXTX novels

Would you look at that, another post that's not about anime? WILD. It is about MXTX novels though so the hyperfixations continue. I'm actually in the process of planning a very lengthy analysis of all three of her series but this is a warning, don't expect too much. I was never good at those in school plus it's been almost 7 years since I've last written something like that but I feel so passionate about her works that I really wanna try to share what I thought about the novels. Nevertheless, this isn't actually those analysis posts since those are gonna be separate and will probably be written after I re-read each series. However, since I'm actually finally fully done reading all her series - including the extra side chapters - I wanted to quickly share some of my opinions and how I feel after finishing all 18 of the books.

This goes without saying but just in case - SPOILER WARNING for Heaven Official's Blessing, The grandmaster of demonic cultivation and The scum villain's self saving system novels.

First off, if you haven't read any of MXTX's work before, prepare for trauma and tragedy. Most of her characters are either deeply traumatised already or in the process of. I will always encourage people to read content warnings before reading her books.

Starting off with my favourite - TGCF or Tian Guan Ci Fu (aka Heaven Official's Blessing). This story means a lot to me. I got introduced to TGCF through the donghua before I even knew it was queer fiction and even with censorship, the closet is made of fucking GLASS so I had to look for the source material. Honestly it took me a while to commit to reading the whole series as I've been struggling to pick up books for years now but TGCF actually got me back into reading (I think in total it took me about 8 days to read all 8 volumes). More than just the story telling being good, I got so incredibly attached to every single character (except Jun Wu, he can eat shit - tho the fact I'm even saying this speaks volumes about how well MXTX can write characters. It takes a lot for me to hate a character this much).

Taking place in a beautiful fantasy world, we follow Xie Lian and Hua Cheng through tragic traumatic past and present and we learn of the horrible truths about the lives of immortal beings. We also see two idiots in love take their sweet ass time to confess. I love me a good slow burn full of longing and pining. I eat that shit UP every time and MXTX gave it to me with every single one of her series.

TGCF for me was a journey full of kicking my feet at fluff, second hand embarrassment (because xl I stg, what do you MEAN you were taught how to resist the advances of women but not how to resist hot men you gay lil shit the closet is made of glass) and honestly, lots of crying. The hundred stabs incident, ruoye's creation and hcg's last death made me sob and scream (no exaggeration, I was stomping around my room, crying and yelling GIVE HIM BACK RIGHT NOW).

Also, in a not so unpopular opinion (I think?), Pei Ming is my fave because 1) he's the no.1 Hualian shipper - check the whole Mt Tunglu adventure for proof and also 2) he's just a lil slut with a big heart. I could seriously talk about him forever because I went from hating him after he tried to throw the blame for the Banyue Pass incident on Xie Lian, to loving him after I realised that everything he does, he does because he is truly just a kind man who loves a good fight. He's so silly! Just a lil guy! Go Pei Ming go!

Fuck you Jun Wu. Again. (I hate him just as much as I hate Mahito. Maybe a little less. I really hate Mahito).

Moving on to my second favourite (but honestly it's such a close one), MDZS or Mo Dao Zu Shi (The grandmaster of demonic cultivation). Take a wild guess about how I got introduced to it... Fandom of course, because very few people talk about TGCF online without mentioning MDZS so I just had to give it a chance.

The great grandmaster of demonic cultivation has been dead for a while but when he gets gifted a new body through a not so well known demonic ritual, he runs into an old acquaintance. We learn about Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji's past and current world of cultivation and hear stories about messy betrayals and conspiracies. Aaaand we find out about some more trauma and tragedy because is it really an MXTX novel without it?

And talk about a rollercoaster because (and please don't hate me for this) I found Wei Wuxian annoying initially.... But it's okay now because I kin him so go figure. Tho I actually kin only his adult self, I was a very introverted and rule abiding teenager, a lil more like Lan Wangji. In any case, wwx is the same stupid chaotic bisexual that I am and he is babygurl. Yeah and what if he murdered 3000 people? It was self defense. THEY ATTACKED FIRST. Your honour, he did nothing wrong and he does not deserve to be punished!

On a serious note, MDZS explores so many themes that are personally important to me, my favourite being the power dynamics of the world. It’s truly moving that even with all the pain Wei Wuxian went through, how far in his cultivation and how powerful he got, he still couldn't protect those he loved (until Lan Wangji of course because Wangxian is perfect together and they always protect and defend each other. Wangxian my beloved). While it might be a stretch for some, it really reminded me of how powerless we are in the world. People aim to educate themselves and go on to do whatever they can to better the world in their own way and yet, it really feels like nothing’s improving sometimes. I could talk about this for hours but maybe I’ll leave that for another time and another analysis post since this is supposed to be a shorter one (lmao)

Last but not least, RZFZX or Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong (honestly this one I use the english name for because I can’t pronounce the chinese as much as I try - The scum villain's self saving system or Svsss). This one I actually kinda struggled with - first of all because WHY BUGS MXTX. Not much bothers me in fiction but BUGS? Too far. Heads with spider legs? Raw flesh with maggots? Blood mites? I was out (for about half an hour and then I kept reading). Please note that it's not the raw flesh that bothered me, it was the fucking maggots. I can read about graphic murder, creepy hauntings, torture and many more but as soon as there are bugs? Nope! I’m done. People have phobias and that’s mine I guess. Enough ranting about bugs!

The story follows Shen Qingqiu, the scum villain of the hit web novel Proud Immortal Demon's Way (or PIDW for short, as it's referred to in Svsss) who is actually one of the original readers - and haters - of PIDW, who transmigrates into the book in order to fix the plot holes left by the original author. With his guide “the system” he does his best to lead the male lead of PIDW, Luo Binghe, down a better path than in the original story.

Svsss employs a comedic way of storytelling, with our protagonist being omniscient, it allows for the narration to be sarcastic and poke fun at a lot of moments that are cliche or badly written, as interpreted by sqq. Honestly, this is just a personal preference but I favour the more serious storytelling way of MDZS and TGCF (give me hurt until the very end when the main characters get together and then give me comfort).

To me, Svsss is a lot harder to analyse as a lot of its themes are unfamiliar to me, especially considering I’m the furthest from having any sort of humanitarian education (I have 2 engineering degrees). Using a story within a story, MXTX is able to deliver two main overarching themes; one about abuse and its results through Luo Binghe as well as one about the relationship of author and their readers, the feeling of being trapped by the readers' opinions and wanting your story to be liked through Shang Qinghua (to be honest, I hadn’t really picked up on this one until I saw discussion about this in the fandom).

If I'm being completely honest, I don't think I grasped this series as well as the other ones and I'm finding it hard to digest lbg and sqq's relationship. I'm unsure as to what it is that's holding me back from loving them as much as Hualian and Wangxian. I do tend to prefer tropes like theirs more than the whole "had to convince him to date me" thing which is what Bingqiu's relationship seemed like to me up until the end of volume 3. It’s also why I'm glad I actually followed through and finished the extras in volume 4 (I was really tempted to stop reading once I finished volume 3 not gonna lie). I believe those to be integral to understanding sqq's feelings towards lbh and while I understand that sqq did actually love lbh from the beginning (denial is a river in egypt and the gloset is made of glass - what the fuck is with MXTX's bottoms and the damn glass closet), I struggled to see the tipping point of where he actually understood his own feelings and what was going on in his head and that he was actually in love with lbh. Which is why I think to really understand Svsss, I would seriously need to reread it.

I also would love to eventually talk about queerness in MXTX's work because in each book, sexuality and queerness is explored and examined in so many different ways. As a queer person myself, it fascinates me as I can relate to so much of it. To be honest, I think I could write a short thesis on just this.

Honestly, while I'm very passionate about my favourite pieces of media (if you've heard me talk about any of my top 5 anime you'll understand what I mean), there hasn't been a lot of things outside JJK and MXTX's novels that have made me wanna dive deep into analysing every single detail. It genuinely makes me feel like I'm gonna implode sometimes. These 3 series have seriously reignited my love for reading. I was shown that a good book - in my opinion of course - doesn't need to avoid difficult topics. It simply needs to use them well as a means of delivering a message and a story, rather than them being included just to be included. They also reminded me that I love queer fiction and I need to read more.

I actually would really like to read Erha (or 2ha or The husky and his white cat shizun) but I've read the content warnings and I'm ~~apprehensive~~. While not a lot of things bother me, I'm not sure I want to read about that stuff (please look at the content warnings of this book, or any piece of media in that matter, especially if you have topics that easily bother or trigger you). Remember, it's our responsibility as readers/consumers to look out for ourselves first!

Please recommend any good danmei (other than MXTX) and possibly include links where they can be read! I would also highly appreciate recommendations for some good wlw fantasy fiction as I really would love to read some wlw novels - or even anime/movies/webtoons/manga. Just in desperate need of quality wlw content.

Also while I said I'd keep it short, it seems I ended up writing over 2000 words…

PS. I proofread this about 5 times and during one of them my file crashed, so if there's any mistakes or if I’m not making sense somewhere, blame my deep-fried brain, thanks

Thanks for reading my novel ramble! Enjoy reading :)

theNanamiSimp

[all-pacas]

being unfamiliar w house md i at least know of most main characters except for 13, mind explaining what their deal is to an outsider?

MY GIRL

So first of all let's just make it clear for the record. Tumblr loves her because 13 is a) played by Olivia Wilde so she's super pretty and b) a Canon Gay (bisexual). For a show like Hatecrimes MD, she's actually pretty fairly portrayed -- it's fetishized a little and joked about a lot, but she's shown in relationships with men and women, there's no bi erasure involved, when she does play into the All Bis Are Slutty trope, it's because she's having an elaborate mental breakdown and sleeping around to cope. Hilariously she's like the third person on the show to do this, so it doesn't even come off as "those slutty gays!"

(I mean. Arguably they're all slutty gays. But you know.)

AS FOR WHAT HER DEAL IS.

In s3 House fires/loses the original team of Foreman, Cameron, and Chase, and eventually (after as much stalling as he can get away with) hires a new team:

TAUB, sleezy little guy plastic surgeon, just here to have fun

KUTNER, Kal Penn playing an enthusiastic nerd here to have fun,

and 13, real name Remy Hadley.

To fuck with Cuddy, House originally hires 40-odd doctors -- anyone who sent him a resume -- and then began whittling them down one by one. To keep track, he'd given them all marathon placards. 13's number was, you guessed it, 13. Her whole gimmick was that she was "mysterious" -- House found her hard to read and she was good at not giving him any hints, and she played into it by refusing to talk about herself and continuing to go by "Thirteen" even once everyone else was introduced. Her name was later revealed, after she made the final team, but House keeps calling her 13, and he often jokes that people who call her Hadley don't know who she is. It sticks around as a nickname at work. Her personal friends/girlfriend/boyfriend tend to call her Remy, but her coworkers stick to the nickname.

It's kind of interesting to note that reception for her was actually kind of negative when the show started. She gets a LOT of character focus, far more than Kutner and Taub, and this was soon enough after losing the first team (Chase and Cameron in particular barely existed on the show for a while, Chase only becoming a major character again two and a half years later) that folks resented her "stealing the spotlight" or having main character syndrome. In retrospect, I don't think it's that bad, although it is definitely true she's favored over other characters.

Anyway.

Part of 13's secretiveness is because of the House Obligatory Tragic Backstory. 13's mother had Huntington's, a genetic disease that is fatal and super degenerative. So did her older brother. 13 knew she had a high chance of having it as well, but refused to get tested out of fear. She eventually does -- and oops, she has it as well. This means she's got about 10 years left to live, and fewer without symptoms. This causes her Existential Sex Bender and a general pattern of risk taking: it's a hard thing to cope with.

Meanwhile, she's on House's team. She's really good: creative and unflappable, if maybe not as devoted to diagnostics and the team as a "lifer" like Foreman or Chase are. She and House also grow close; refreshingly (COUGH Cameron) it's never treated as a shipping thing. He just... sees her becoming self destructive and cares enough to stop her; he cares about her.

13 is still notoriously secretive, and she literally vanishes in s7. Tells everyone she's going on vacation and cuts her phone lines. It turns out she goes to prison for over-prescribing meds... to her brother. She euthanized him, as he was suffering badly from Huntington's. Made it look like an accident, that he did it. This sort of destroys her: she feels like it was the right thing to do, it's what he wanted, but she still killed him. 13 tells House, and House offers to do the same to her when her Huntington's gets bad enough.

She doesn't stick around the team for long after getting out of prison. She meets a woman named Amy, and they fall in love; she and Amy go off to some Greek island to try and enjoy the 8-ish years 13 has left. (In episodic terms: she's on the team for s4+5 and most of 6; vanishes for almost all of s7 because she's in jail, and has only guest roles in s8.)

She briefly dates Foreman and it was just really weird. No chemistry. No idea what they saw in one another. The show is so bad at romance.

Most compellingly to me specifically, she and my boy Chase end up being really good friends. They had some Ship Tease for a while, the show might have been trying to set them up, but Olivia Wilde's career was taking off and she stopped being a regular on the show. This was, as far as Chase/13 is concerned, a good thing. Because the show is bad at romance. So instead they just become good friends. Chase also murdered a dude one time, and 13 ends up telling him about her brother. In the same episode, she calls him late at night for help and he just... shows up, no questions asked. They have a lot of shared issues: sick/dead mothers and complicated feelings about them, murder, Existential Sex Benders when they're depressed, and a dislike about talking about personal issues. They also are uniquely close to and good at reading House, and the show even goes so far as to refer to them as the "prodigal daughter/son" in relation to him. So fandom has sort of latched onto the idea of them as "like brother and sister," "best friends," which isn't super supported in canon (they ARE good friends, but no more), but... the venn diagram of these two is a circle.

Crucially, both 13 and Chase, despite putting on good fronts, are very lonely people. So is House. So it's nice to think they can have their own sad little found family, especially once House "dies" and might not bother letting his prettiest employees know.

[thrilling-oneway]

I'd give you 5$ if you post that draft

you didn't even need to bribe. it's not actually in the drafts of this blog so i'll write a better version

i've said it a billion times before: tsukasa is the comedic relief weirdguy, the devs basically will do anything with him so long as it's funny.

so starting with that valentine's day vlive in 2021. during the MC part of that he gets jealous that rui has been getting chocolates and tries to brag that he got lots of chocolates too but then immediately reveals that he got friendzoned by multiple girls. his voiceline that year is something about how he catches everyone's attention on vday and year round bc he's a star or something like that but anyway that whole interaction there seems to suggest he's straight lol.

however.

he's REALLY oblivious. played for comedy ofc but i see a lot of people interpret this as him being somewhere on the aro spectrum (probably not what the writers intended but fair instance of accidentally coding a character as smth). examples include: not understanding why Akito doesn't want to be seen at PXL alone with Toya in an Akito's initial 3* (second story), literally says "thank you" when Asahi basically confesses to him and completely misses the point (he actually did seem to nearly get this one for a second), and he doesn't understand why Rui's friends are impressed that he's friends the incredibly attractive Shizuku (Tsukasa is the only not-gay-coded male character who isn't attracted to Shizuku, probably because they're childhood friends. or if you want to view him as being aspec, then that works too). also when he mentions that he's friends with guys in his class who are cool and popular and good with women, Hibiki says that he was in a class with one of those guys in 1st year and is amazed that tsukasa is in that crowd now, emphasis on the "tsukasa's friends are good with women part". tsukasa's just confused about that because of course they talk to girls a lot they're in the same class.

also he usually rewrites a lot of romance plays to remove the romance. he rewrote R&J to just make it focused on the action (which is probably because he likes playing action heroes more than anything else), and he got rid of the romance plot in little mermaid because he didn't felt it was needed (this one is justified in-universe as they do fun shows for small children and don't really need the tragic romance, and also from production standpoint like you don't do that because fandom). so yeah that could again be read as him being aspec if you want but i don't think the writers intended it to be read that way, especially the R&J one that was purely for comedy.

all that said, this is an idol game, which generally run on the rule of thumb that every character is some flavour of queer, even if it's just for fanservice (i don't play enstars but from what i do know of it it falls a bit on that last point). anyway you can probably tell where this is going but he gets ship tease with rui sometimes. vast majority of this is from Rui's side but there are things like Oki ni Mesu mama

Tsukasa: Waiting for the "1, 2…" signal, holding hands with you is an act of courage for me

or that one part in pandemonium where he drops his persona for a brief second when he's impressed by rui's plan that was very much put there on purpose, or that Tsukasa and Airi's cheerful carnival team name from that event is "swayed by their partners (相方, aikata)" and when you consider that Shizuku and Airi are heavily implied to like each other, and have canonically been on a "date", that was also a Choice.

idk whether to count KING because justified by them being actors and the fang motif in the song... vampires kinda homoerotic it makes sense that the dance routine was that. also i'm not sure if the connect lives are even canon, especially the wxs one since tokishun broke character and the 4th wall.

yeah i dunno. the writers kinda just do whatever they want with him. interpret any of this how you will i'm just recounting shit from the game.

oh hey it's longer than 300 words now

[livvyofthelake]

hi beth do you have anything to say about thalia i loved her and annabeth's relationship and i think she was a lesbian ☺️

well i have only the vaguest of memories of thalia due to i have not touched most of those books since 2015. but i mean. of course she was a lesbian that’s not even a question is it let’s be serious…. i really do hope the show doesn’t get cancelled because i’d love to see the titan’s curse on my tv that book was my favorite in the series at the time… also in that vein rip bianca </3 not much to say about bianca though. me when i’m rick riordan and i need to make this gay little boy i decided to write about super sad and tragic so i kill his sister after not writing her as a strong character in the first place because i don’t care that much about women…. sorry! well rick and i aren’t exactly best friends let’s just leave that at that.

sidenote if i were to rank the books back in the day i’d say 1) titan’s curse 2) battle of the labyrinth 3) lightning thief 4) last olympian 5) sea of monsters. but if i were to rank them NOW looking back and really considering how fond i was of each book without lying to myself for some reason. 1) last olympian 2) titan’s curse 3) lightning thief 4) sea of monsters 5) battle of the labyrinth. it’s complicated. in many ways this is the book series that taught me about Fandom. which i can now only view as a valuable learning opportunity and one of the dumbest things that ever happened to me. but if i could go back in time i probably wouldn’t stop that from happening because being introduced to large scale Internet Fandom via anything else i liked at the time would have made me a supervillain i think.

anyway it’s crazy how annabeth has such an insane backstory with thalia and luke but we never even really got into it in a big way because percy is the main character. another win for misogyny in many ways but i’m not about to act as though rick riordan is anywhere close to the biggest offender of the patriarchy so i’m not gonna be too critical i’m just kinda saying. like they were children fighting off monsters in the streets together… also if thalia wasn’t gay her and luke could have served the craziest teenage divorce arc once she finds out he betrayed annabeth… in many ways the fact that she WASN’T giving divorce with luke IS the confirmation of her lesbianism. think about it!

[gentaroukisaragi]

im 24 eps deep into house so here are thoughts

i like it a lot. it's formulaic, its problem of the week focused, it's wide range cast of characters who have their depths...now that i'm thinking about it, it's probably the same reason i enjoyed scrubs a lot? what can i say medical dramas. when you have cynics making cruel jokes on your show, im hooked.

that being said its so 2000s. and house is a lot more cruel than your average asshole with a heart of gold, especially in the earlier eps. but it is literally 20 years old so

not as gay/queer baity as i thought it would be at the start. im very in love with robert sean leonards face and ive been desperate to see him; feels like the eps are very contained with their scenes, throwing me a Wilson scene or a Cuddy scene only every so often (but they dont usually have anything to do with the problem of the week so i get it. the fact that house and wilson are supposed to vaguely be holmes and watson expies made me think they would spend more time with each other. and im pretty sure they do in later seasons, but im very impatient)

literally every other episode has an actor i recognize. usually im not good with that, but there have been a ridiculous amount of child actors whos faces i know and older actors who stuff ive enjoyed. also so many of the young men patients of the week on this show have such pretty eyelashes. its so 2000s with the mascara and the lashes. i cant properly explain it.

fave characters are Wilson (for his face and his niceboy nature) and Foreman. Despite his conservative politics, I like the respect he commands from House whenever the latter is willing to admit it, and ive spoiled myself on the fact that he becomes dean of the hospital towards the end, which just validates me on thinking hes the best of the first round of underlings. (i may have spoiled myself on a couple of things but im just not gonna think about it until they come to pass.) Foreman can be very kind and thoughtful, despite how wrong he can be sometimes and he's so very skilled.

this show is so white. but its the 2000s so i should be grateful two women are even major cast members at all (even if Cameron is so misogynized (<- not a real word but i hope you get what i mean)) and speaking of misogyny. Cuddy is so fucking hot, im so glad they keep making her wear low cut shirts all the time.

its so nice how slowburn it is, compared to shows these days. They got a full 22 episode first season, and they didn't have a major villain arc until towards the end of the first season and they didn't even bother to reveal house's tragic backstory until the penultimate episode of the first season. they could afford to be a lot slower 20 years ago and those first few episodes (my disgust with house's casual misogyny and racism aside) are very good and compelling (though i am grateful they veered away from the colouring or whatever of the pilot. just a little too dramatic for my tastes) we've only barely touched on character backstories but everyone has gotten a decent few focus episodes which is lovely. (except Cuddy but i know she gets a focus ep later and also there are literally 8 seasons of this show i have time)

anyways looking forward to this show unfolding and expanding some more while trying to save people.

also could not believe the first death of the show (that i could remember) was the mixed race lesbian couple's baby. what a 2000s move.

[my-past-disgusts-me]

Your turn to be asked ship edition

Yttd: what is your opinion on Naosara, Q-Kai, Ransara, KeijiAlice and Naoshin?

Ace attorney: what do you think about Wrightworth, Franmaya, Phoenix and Iris, Godot and Mia?

Great ace attorney: you already asked me nearly all major ships, so I want to ask about the same thus Asoryuu, Susahao, Susagina and Homumiko. (Also maybe Hosonaga and cure from whatever allergy he has, guy should stop coughing up blood)

Alright! Starting with YTTD ships we have

Q-Kai: I love these guys together. This is one of those ships where as I was watching a playthrough I thought “oh. Oh they are in love I think. Oh these bitches gay.” Q-taro’s actions in ch. 2 are so tragic yaoi it’s amazing, how do you do it man. I think, in a non-death game universe, they would have a very compelling slowburn romance where they grow to respect each other unconditionally and that, I think, is romance. Idk I’m aro.

Naosara: GUH. TRAGEDY. SORROW. Two girls supporting each other through their trauma. I think Sara would become a muse for Nao. I think they’d have a tumultuous but ultimately healthy relationship. I think these two deserve each other’s support. I think they should kiss and cuddle and watch shitty movies together. 10/10.

KeijiAlice: I don’t have strong feelings either way. I think they could make each other happy. Good for them.

Naoshin: it’s cute but I think they’re better as besties.

Ransara: This one I dislike. It feels weird to me. It’s compelling in a “depths of human depravity” kind of way but also it’s far too real to me. Not a fan but I see why people like it.

Now for Ace Attorney!

Franmaya: I love wlw so much tbh. I want them to be happy. No thoughts only girls in love

Wrightworth: what can I say on this that hasn’t already been said? Nothing. Moving on!

Godot/Mia: I haven’t played/watched the later games so I don’t know much but what I have seen of them is cute and I think they make a nice family tbh. No complaints here, Godot makes a pretty good big brother for Maya

Phoenix/Iris: another idk moment. Also Feeny is annoying sorry. I’m not a fan but also they really seemed to love each other which I respect. On Iris’s part. I can’t respect Feeny I’m sorry he’s such a little bitch /affectionate

And now for DGS :]

Okay so mayyyybe I just like dgs ships a lot. Maybe it’s maybelline.

Susahao: childhood friends to lovers 100K slowburn Susato transitions and Haori loves her the whole time. We love a failgirl who is tripping over herself because her friend looks so good in drag. We love a competent girl getting her girlfriend out of jail. We love women in general tbh. I think they are so cute and also Susato deserves all the girlfriends.

Susagina: Speaking of Susato deserving all the girlfriends, I really like Susagina. Neither of them are afraid to get their hands dirty, both of them are stubbornly supportive of their friends, both of them want justice and truth, they’d be great. Power couple honestly. They deserve the world. Love em to death

Asoryuu: these fuckers got me writing nonsexual omegaverse fanfiction wtf is wrong with them (me) anyways

Homumiko: I haven’t finished the games so I don’t know their whole history but I love me some middle aged man yaoi. Also Iris deserves extra dads since her first one. Y’know. Died or whatever. Also Sholmes needs someone reasonable to keep him from going off the rails and it can’t be Ryuu because he’s barely holding on himself. Classic Ace Attorney defense lawyer behavior.

And that’s all! Thanks for asking bestie (and also for telling me my asks weren’t open OOPS anyways)