#trans. who is so obviously Adored by the protagonist. and you would rather say all her trans coding is actually there to pay respect to-

[spectral-central]

The fact that so many people are less willing to believe spiderverse gwen stacy is trans and more willing to believe that her peter, who got so bullied it ended up killing him, was is. Like it's not bad i guess but it's. It's something alright

[escarlatafox]

whispers for the 'send you a series' meme, i'm tempted to just be Unoriginal and say kung fu panda, but if you'd rather something else, i'm seeing a lot of steven universe around here jfjfiea

Masha ily. You know that, right? :D

Kung Fu Panda:

Favourite character: Who else but Shifu? XD

Second favourite character: It might actually be Po

Least favourite character: Hard to think of a least favourite character. If we ONLY count the main cast + the villains in the movies and exclude any other minor characters, then I’d say Kai maybe? Just wasn’t as impactful to me as the other characters/villains. Or if we include minor characters I might say the hugging panda from the third movie because the gag and his character didn’t really add much. Also, I’ve already spoken about this in the past, possibly more than once, but back when I was a child upon watching the first movie, my answer to this question would actually be Ping. Suffice it to say, my opinion on him changed a LOT. XD

The character I’m most like: Maybe I am like Po in some ways. At my core, I’m a fangirl lol. And I like food :O

Favourite pairing: Don’t really have any ships. Crane and the girl from that one short tho. Like idk if I’d want them to get together, maybe not now that I think about it. But it would be nice to see them interact more.

Least favourite pairing: HAH. Let’s just say I really hate what Legends of Awesomeness decided to do with Shifu in the shipping realm and leave it at that. :P

Favourite moment: YOU’RE GONNA MAKE ME CHOOSE? There’s no way. I could only list off notable ones. Okay, if we narrow it down to non-Shifu moments, off the top of my head, you obviously have the iconic cannonball scene at the end of kung fu panda 2, and in the THIRD movie I love love love how when Po is in the spirit realm and he says “turns out... I’m all of them” and the music swells and the framing and the scenery is just. so gorgeous . I love. So much. If I sat here thinking too long I’d probably start recapping all the movies SO since I’ve thrown those two out there I’ll cut myself off before I get too out of hand. XD

Rating out of 10: First movie is just 10/10 for me. It’s my favourite movie, not just in the franchise but like, probably ever among movies in general, and just about every moment and scene feels like home when I watch it. The trio of movies I’d then put at probably around 9/10.

Steven Universe:

Favourite character: I can now say with confidence that it is Steven Universe.

The people who liked Steven “before it was cool” certainly have bragging rights, because I was one of those people who failed to find myself among them, as I lacked the foresight, or... future vision for it. :P. At first, in the very early days, I didn’t really care for Steven. It’s often very easy to gloss over a protagonist, and, in my case, not truly appreciate what’s great in a character like early-days Steven, or even Po. Now, Steven and Po are, naturally, quite distinct characters in their distinct franchises but there are certainly parallels that can be drawn, not only in their character but how I initially felt towards them. By asking for both fandoms in the one ask, I feel like you’ve given me the opportunity to speak about this, which has been idly on my mind every so often. XDBoth Steven and Po are the protagonist of the franchise they’re in. They’re both fond of food, they both start out needing training and then develop incredible skills along the way until they become one of, if not the most powerful in the cast. They’re both generally very easygoing, excitable, enthusiastic, FRIENDLY, and generally kind. At the start of their journeys, there’s a lot of focus on how much they’re lacking in skills and abilities, how difficult it is for them to accomplish even the basics. They both gotta Save The World, whether it be more in the sense of the universe as a whole or China.And the thing is I had the same issue with Po as I did with early-days Steven; I didn’t realise how great Po is. I was just a little too dismissive. With time, (and I’m talking around the point where I actually entered the fandom after the second movie was out, so it was mostly kid me who is guilty of not recognising Po’s greatness) I grew to realise just how cool Po is, to truly appreciate his genuine enthusiasm and excitement and also utmost reverence and admiration of kung fu. I simply Expected Po’s character to be less than it was, which is what caused the oversight. But Po is honestly so fantastic and deserves every last bit of love the fandom has to offer him. Also, seeing his potential and him reaching his potential is so damn epic. See: his “turns out, I’m all of them” quote/scene I mentioned earlier.So to bring things back to Steven, whose character arc nonetheless has its VERY stark differences from Po’s, it was around when Steven managed to calm down and stop the cluster that it fully registered in my mind how fantastic and amazing he is and how much I appreciate his character. In fact, it was a little earlier than that. Pretty sure I hadn’t actually started watching the show yet when Sadie’s Song aired, but I was getting all the deets secondhand on my dashboard and I loved what I heard and saw in gifs/pics. A boy who just wants to perform and dance around on stage in heels and a gorgeous outfit to boot (I really liked the thought of trans girl Steven at the time tbh, which was being thrown about on my dashboard back then, though of course that’s not the path the show decided to go down, so he/him it is...!). He had my full support. And THEN when he calmed the cluster down like that... (and I think I was probably watching the show at that point?) I just, loved his incredible talent to reach out to others and HELP them, I loved his magical gem abilities and how he always seemed to be triumphing against the odds, and as the show progressed his feats only started getting more and more impressive. I absolutely noticed how much responsibilities he’d started forcing onto himself, how he was trying to manage everyone and be an adult to all the adults in his life, I was kind of intrigued by how much he was shouldering, and it struck me that he had developed an Atlas Personality long, long before he was ever listed as an example of it on the wikipedia page. I simply adored Steven and his placement in the show and everything.He’s also completely ACING things as usual in the movie too.And then Steven Universe Future hit, and oh boy, that’s a whole other story. Steven truly emerged as the forefront seeing as the focus was now unrelentingly on him and his issues. What initially got me really hooked as well, was the inherent shock and intrigue of seeing a character who would usually always do the right thing, who always seemed to know what was best for everyone, who always seemed to be able to read a situation and understand who needed help and then reaching out and offering them help... not only completely failing to recognise that HE was the source of a given problem (see: the pink dome rapidly closing in), but to actively dig himself deeper by being convinced SOMEONE ELSE was at fault, and whirling around and trying to pin it all on them. Before Steven whirled around to point at Lars, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that he was about to be like “guys, you know what? I think I’m causing this - I think I have some stuff going on” LOL NOPE. And that was only the tip of the ice berg. Steven had nowhere else to go but down, and boy, down did he go until he hit rock bottom, pulled out a shovel and started digging.

Second favourite character: Hard to say. I do know that I am crazy about the zircons (I mean c’mon - lawyers!). I was crazy about Blue Pearl when we first saw her too. My answer might’ve been Aquamarine or even Eyeball if it wasn’t for Steven Universe Future. Seeing more of them just kinda made me go “ok you know what, yeah this isn’t really what I expected and they’re not actually really my thing after all.” I reeeeally don’t know. Steven Universe has such a stellar cast of great characters. Steven Universe Future also kinda threw me off Spinel, but obviously Spinel is A+ as well.

Least favourite character: I don’t really care about Lapis. She just kind of lost appeal as a character to me and I never really understood her I guess. I was also never fond of the diamonds... because you know, discourse, and like, the discourse kind of has a point. But after Steven Universe Future I might invest more in trying to understand their positioning in the show a little more, now with the confirmation that Steven never did actually forgive them. I completely wrote-off White Diamond’s seemingly quick turnaround for the longest time and honestly never bought it and felt it was WAY too easy and rushed/forced. But I came to an internal understanding quite recently and I THINK I finally get what the show meant there so I think I can buy it now and find it believable at last, which is nice. So don’t quote me and don’t crucify me, but I might warm up to the diamonds a Little.

The character I’m most like: omg. There’s so many characters idk who is most like me hahaha

Favourite pairing: Connverse. Connie kissing Steven on the cheek in the movie made me SO pleased, and I can say this is my favourite pairing if only because the prospect of it not working out and instead going up in flames and not actually having a good resolution - which is a threat that felt so very real during Steven Universe Future - was deeply, DEEPLY upsetting to me. Like I didn’t care because I’d been taking it for GRANTED, but the moment anyone suggested, with alarming plausibility that they may split up or whatever, I was immediately on edge like “NO NO NO NO NO”.

Least favourite pairing: Stevinel. Stevidot. Just, any ship with Steven and any of the gems is an instant no from me. D:

Favourite moment: omggg. Again, there are simply way too many, so no answer I give here can or will be definitive. So I’ll simply state my love for when Steven is singing Change and Spinel yeets him in the sky and there’s the stellar animation where he goes “You can make it different... You can make it right! You can make it better! We don’t have to fight!”

Rating out of 10: I’d probably give it a 9/10, if only because, look. There are a LOT of shows out there. There are a lot of pieces of media I’m into and have watched. And Steven Universe is just. It’s good. Even when I like another piece of media MORE than Steven Universe, I can still more than readily acknowledge when/if SU has vastly superior writing. And it usually does. The only thing stopping me from giving it a 10/10 is because for the vast majority of SU’s existence I was mainly only ever a passive watcher/fan and/or got secondhand knowledge (closer to the start of it airing), so it lacks that fundamental closeness to my heart that something like Kung Fu Panda has. (Though I got way more close to it during SUF, as my reblogs can attest to LOL). The other thing stopping it from hitting that 10/10 is there are things I still take issue with, like how the Rose=Pink reveal undermines Pearl’s character (the “rebellion” aspect) and casts an EXTREMELY uncomfortable light on Pearl being in love with Rose. Yes, the show already showed us that Pearl’s obsession with Rose is unhealthy and problematised it. But regardless of how problematised it already was, I’m just not comfortable with a former slave being shown as being in love with their former master at all. What does that add, realistically? There are other valid criticisms that have been pointed out, namely how aspects of the show such as Sugilite’s role in Coach Steven do fail its Black audience. That undercurrent is there and it’s unfortunate.

[magicrobins]

You seem to be a forerunner here on the whole Jaal issue so I hope you don't mind if I dump a whole bunch of asks on you (sorry in advance :c) While I'm very happy for him to be bi, it doesn't seem as simple to solve as 'swap dialogue pronouns and sara with scott'. It just feels like his romance so obviously caters to straight women and I want guys who romance Jaal to have a more fulfilling experience. (...)

Long answer - most under the cut!

Well thank you for asking! I’ve been with the #MakeJaalBi tag since it began so I’ve been trying to keep everyone up to date on it as much as I can. I actually was using the tag before we started to use it to get the devs and company’s attention, but it was this person’s idea for all of us to join together using the tag.

I hope I can answer your questions to the best of my ability and if anything still needs to be clarified please let me know. I’ve been really busy and tired lately so if I don’t make sense at some point, please let me know and I’ll try to word that part better or clarify what I meant. c: Also hope you don’t mind, I’m answering parts of your question as I read it. I’m reading your question as I type, hope that’s okay. Also, if any of the links in this don’t work, please let me know as that means I need to edit the links. ^^

Firstly, there is actual dialogue from Scott’s VA that was recorded for the romance, and we can assume he recorded enough for the whole romance ‘cause he seemed to assume that Jaal would be a bi romance. However, I don’t know if Jaal’s VA recorded anything that is specifically for a Scott Ryder romance because I haven’t seen any lines found or released. Now if some lines have been found, anyone who knows about them, please add the links to them to this post as I’d love to have that info.

I admittedly have not watched all of Jaal’s romance, I’ve just seen gifsets from it because it’s a bit painful for me to watch his romance right now because of everything that’s happened. However I wouldn’t be surprised if his romance is catered toward straight women - I believe we can argue that Peebee’s romance, or at least the sex scene, could be catered toward men because of how the Sara side of the romance is like a copycat of Scott’s side.

I don’t think swapping Sara for Scott in the mlm side of Jaal’s bi romance would solve the problem because the problem, itself, is the overall constant bi-erasure on Bioware’s part - I’ve known that Cullen was supposed to be a bi romance and I’ve heard the same about Solas and Sebastian though someone else would have to confirm those two as I’m not 100% sure, but that’s the Dragon Age team. What I’ve been told about the Mass Effect team is that Kaidan is believed to have almost been a bi romance in the first game (in the game’s code, itself, there are romance dialogue lines by male Shepard’s VA), and I’ve been informed that both Tali and Thane were going to be bi romances at one point. The problem is that whenever bi romances are cut, the romances are always made into straight romances rather than gay romances, giving off the feeling that Bioware caters toward its straight fans, whether or not this is true, this is how it comes off.

Now, I myself am bi (biromantic is part of my identity), however it’s necessary to remember that not all bi people are the same. ^^ You also have to remember that the romance lines we’re hearing for Jaal right now, we can easily say they’re meant for Sara. We have no clue if there’s a difference in the dialogue lines for Scott because so far, if these lines exist, they are unavailable for us. I would have to watch and compare other bi romances such as Peebee and Vetra’s, comparing what they say to Scott vs. Sara to see if there’s much of a difference. Sometimes in bi romances there are, and other times they’re not.

Most of the time when wanting a bi romance, I’ve seen that people don’t want the “gay” (using quotation marks because just because people of the same sex are dating doesn’t automatically make the relationship gay because the people in the relationship may not identify as gay, if that makes sense? Sorry if I didn’t explain that the best) half of the romance to be much, if any, different from the “straight” half. It’s often a complaint, looking at the Dragon Age team, that in Dragon Age 2, when romancing Anders, Anders tells a male Hawke about his romantic history with Karl, a man, but he doesn’t mention it to a female Hawke at all. I’ve seen that many fans of Anders’ romance wish he would tell a female Hawke that as well.

Most of the time, when I’ve seen differences between male protags and female protags romancing a bi character, it’s been in small, little bits such as compliments or ways the character refers to the protagonist. Let’s look at the Dragon Age team again for this (I’ve played more Dragon Age romances than I have Mass Effect so I apologize if majority of my examples are for Dragon Age). With Zevran’s romance, when Morrigan asks him in a party banter his reasoning for staying with them, Zevran says “ We all have our reasons for doing what we do.” however the following line depends on the sex of his protagonist (I’m using “sex” instead of “gender” because a lot of fans headcanon their protagonists with nonbinary gender identities, as I do). When romancing a female Warden, Zevran says “Mine happen to come with a set of lovely eyes.” while when romancing a male Warden, he says “Mine happen to come with a set of strong hands.” Often times, from what I’ve seen, any dialogue changes are something simple like that.

I think, when romancing Jaal, it’d be up to LGBTQ+ men (I’m using “LGBTQ+” instead of generalizing to “queer” because I know there are people in the community who do not like that word and I don’t want to offend anyone

A lot of them in fact aren’t happy with how Gil’s romance feels so much centered around gay men not being able to have babies (which ignores the existence of trans gay men) and they don’t like how often Gil talks about Jill and how she comes off as pressuring him to have a child. Now Gil’s romance didn’t come off that way to me when I first watched it, but again, I’m not a LGBTQ+ man, I don’t get to decide what’s good representation for them or not.

At this point though, let me point out that not all LGBTQ+ men have to agree on whether or not something is good representation for them. If you’re a LGBTQ+ man and you’re happy with Gil and/or Reyes and their romances, your feelings and opinions are still 100% valid just like those who are not happy.

Most of the frustration at Reyes’ romance, from what I’ve gathered, comes down to the fact that he is considered a fling (and Gil is not a squadmate and thus has less romance cutscenes than squadmate romances and less material and both Gil and Reyes’ cutscenes fade to black and you never get a sex scene like Cora or Peebee, though Liam and Vetra don’t have a sex scene from what I’ve heard either). However since the differences in how Reyes dances with Sara vs. Scott have been pointed out, many are upset about that as well. Reyes’ romance very much feels catered toward straight women.

I would honestly love for Jaal’s writer to come out and say if she/he/they (idk who wrote Jaal) wrote him as bi or not, but due to contracts, I doubt that will happen. There is coding in the game that very much suggests Jaal was meant to be bi and considering Bioware’s history with bi-erasure, it’s easy to believe that.

Now when it comes to Jaal flirting with other women on the crew, bisexuals can have preferences. Looking at Dragon Age, Zevran states his preference for women, but he still loves and adores a male Warden as much as he does a female Warden. A male Warden flirting with him doesn’t stop him playfully flirting with women in the party (see comments he has toward Wynne, which are jokingly of course. He seems to enjoy getting on Wynne’s nerves. I love Zevran so much lol). Jaal can very well have a preference for women (he has dated women in the past, I’ve heard) and still be 100% bi. Having a preference and/or having a history with only one sex doesn’t make someone any less bi (don’t worry, I don’t think you were implying it made someone less bi

It’s very possible that Jaal could act differently to a male Ryder. Every bi person is different. Some act differently when with someone of the same sex or opposite sex, some don’t. If anyone knows if Peebee or Vetra act different depending on Ryder’s sex, please let me know because I haven’t watched their romances yet. I definitely do think LGBTQ+ men would enjoy the romantic and sappy parts of the romance because it’d be different from mlm relationships being sexualized and fetishized. From what I’ve been seeing in the #MakeJaalBi, majority of people in the tag want Scott to be able to have that romantic, sappy romance.

Typically with bi romances, scenes are the same regardless of the protagonist’s sex, though there are small dialogue differences sometimes, like I talked about above. However the changes to cutscenes usually just include taking into consideration the differences between male and female bodies in the game - such as height differences and body shapes. For the most part, I’ve seen that the cutscenes themselves stay the same. Let’s look at Josephine’s romance in Dragon Age Inquisition. *SPOILERS FOR JOSEPHINE’S ROMANCE:* in the scene where you’re about to duel for Josephine, when she jumps into the Inquisitor’s arm, the Inquisitor lifts her up regardless of sex. I’ve seen this cutscene for both male and female Inquisitors and see no real differences.

However I’d like to point out, I’m not an expert on making games, this is all just my assumptions and what I’ve observed. I don’t know anything about making actual games and cutscenes.

People are allowed to ship who they want (I’m not saying you’re saying they’re not allowed to, don’t worry

When it comes to the code, if Jaal wasn’t originally bi, I don’t see why that code should be there - if the code is real. Let me point out that no one from Bioware or the Mass Effect team have authenticated the code. If the code is real, I don’t understand why it would be in the game if they never planned on Jaal being bi at all. That would just confuse me and if that’s the case and the code is real, I’d like to ask the devs why that code is in the game when they never planned on making Jaal bi. However if the code is real, chances are at one point they did plan on making Jaal bi.

I WOULD HAVE LOVED A GAY MALE TURIAN. Like holy shit yes please.

However the main issue with this whole Jaal thing is that we went from Mass Effect 3 who had Kaidan, a squadmate, as a romance available to male Shepards to no male squadmates available for a male Ryder. And from what I’ve heard - and I could be wrong - Jaal plays a big part in the game’s plot? Or one of the big plots? Overall though it feels like to the fans that Andromeda has taken a step back when it comes to mlm representation because they went from having a squadmate (Kaidan) and a crewmate (Steve) in Mass Effect 3 to a crewmate (Gil) and a fling (Reyes). I believe I pointed out earlier that non-squadmate romances get way less content than squadmate romances, but let me get some examples, okay? c:

Gil’s whole romance (uploaded by DanaDuchy) is 19:13 in length, Reyes’ whole romance (also uploaded by DanaDuchy) is 17:58, and let’s compare them to Cora’s. Cora’s whole romance (uploaded by Gamer’s Little Playground) is 27:17 (Peebeee’s romance is even longer). Now the time difference may not seem like much, but majority of squadmate romances are as long as Cora’s, if not longer. If they’re less than Cora’s, it’s usually not by much. (Again, if I’m wrong, please correct me. This is what I’ve been hearing for a long time now, though, that non-squadmate romances always have less content than squadmate romance).

I agree that this is a big mess. I think if Jaal was originally going to be bi and then cut and made straight, Bioware should have seen this whole thing coming because this isn’t their first time erasing the mlm half of a bi male romance. The queerbaiting they did also adds to the fans being upset - In my opinion this post here really helps explain it. That post also really helps to show that it looks like Scott’s VA really did think we’d have a male squadmate romanceable by a male Ryder. That post also goes into talking about the code.

I do think that a patch to make Jaal’s romance bi would be a bandage, but at this point I think that bandage is very much needed. Bioware and the Mass Effect team are going to lose fans without that bandage - whether or not anyone thinks it’s right for them to lose fans over this, we can’t deny that it will happen and is happening (especially if you read some of the #MakeJaalBi tweets). This bandage though if what we want. You have to cover up the wound, you have to apply some pressure to get it to stop bleeding. Bioware and the Mass Effect team need to bandage our wounds, in a metaphorical sense, before they can work on healing these wounds.

Healing these actual wounds, I would suggest should happen in the next game. They need to make a bi!Jaal patch for Andromeda as a bandage and then continue to work toward better LGBTQ+, specifically mlm, representation in their games. If they bring back the Andromeda crew in the next game, add way more to Gil’s romance. Don’t have Gil’s romance fade to black after just a little bit of kissing on a bed because that really pissed people off, especially after they saw how explicit Cora and Peebee’s romances can get (also Jaal’s romance gets explicit, and mlm fans feel that if Jaal was originally going to be bi, the one explicit mlm romance was cut and that’s understandably upsetting). I would also say that add more to Reyes’ romance. They can keep Reyes on his planet, but make his romance more official than a fling and also make sure that intimate moments with Scott aren’t stiff when compared to Sara’s.

Also in future games, add more mlm romance options in general, and don’t make them all human. LGBTQ+ men in the fandom want to romance hot male aliens like everyone else gets to romance the hot aliens. A gay male Turian or Quarian I think the fans would love that.

Making Jaal bi would certainly come off as damage control, and that’s what it would be, but it would also be a sign that the devs and Bioware listen to their LGBTQ+ and mlm fans and actually give two shits about these fans feeling hurt and betrayed once again.

Let’s also look at the Angara real quick. Gay marriage is a thing for the Angara. Yet all Angaran romance options (I believe there is a female Angaran romance that’s considered a fling) are heterosexual. This doesn’t add up to the fans, including myself.

But anyways, making Jaal bi would be, in a sense, damage control that Bioware and their devs desperately need in my opinion. If they make Jaal bi, the devs will get shit, I know for sure, from homophobic/biphobic fans about “giving in” and they’ll say we bullied or harassed them into getting what we want (when in fact we’ve been making sure the tag is used positively and that no one is bullying the devs ‘cause we are taking the possibility that they can’t say anything due to contracts seriously. If anyone is using the tag negatively, we don’t support them and how they’re using the tag).

Don’t worry, I didn’t take this as a “vehement stance against bi!Jaal.” ^^ You were very kind and I’d rather people be like you and just ask/talk this out than attack the tag (someone on Twitter literally said whoever started #MakeJaalBi should kill themselves :| I’d link to the tweet, but I’ve blocked and reported that person so I can’t get to that tweet).

I really hoped this helped, and if you have any more questions or anything else, I’m always free to talk (well free-ish. Currently in the process of moving, so I’ll get back to anyone as soon as I can. I do have some comments on another #MakeJaalBi post that I need to eventually reply to. >