#WE NEED MORE QUEER PEOPLE IN STRAIGHT PASSING RELATIONSHIP REP

[roodles03]

HOLY SHIT HUNTER WAS JUST CONFIRMED TO BE BI AND WILLOW WAS CONFIRMED TO BE PAN.

BY DANA.

OH MY GOD I'M SO HAPPY I WAS RIGHTTT

[miraculousdeservesbetter2024]

My preference headcanons for every MLB character! (🌈 Happy Pride Month 🌈)

Note: These are MY personal preference headcanons for the characters. Take it with a grain of salt. Our opinions are allowed to differ, but please respect mine and I’ll respect yours.

-

Marinette: Bi, Female Leaning. I see her going both ways, but the reason why I see her female leaning is:

I personally just like that idea! ❤️

It seems that she’s more comfortable with girls than boys (I know that doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s attracted to girls, but eh. Still like the idea).

Her crush on Adrien seems comphet to me (yes, that can happen to Bi people too).

She can be that “preppy queer” archetype.

Adrien: Pan. I was THIS close to making Adrien Bi (female leaning), but I settled with him being Pan. Why? For the sole reason that I see Chat Noir as Pan (and Adrien IS Chat Noir lol). It makes sense 😄 I’m also starting to see him as Gender-fluid.

Alya: Bi, Female Leaning. Listen, I ALWAYS saw Alya into girls, even before her and Nino got together in Animan to be honest with you. But according to canon, it seems like she’s even Straight or Bi, since she’s shown attraction to boys. I mean, she COULD be a comphet Lesbian, but meh. I don’t want to erase the possibility of her being Bi because of her attraction to boys too. We need more Bi rep. 😜 So basically, I now see her as Bi, but female leaning. She prefers girls, but Nino is a sweetie pie 😊

Nino: Bi, female leaning. Nino prefers girls more, but he doesn’t mind dudes either 😉 I actually ship him and Adrien together. If it wasn’t for the love square and DJWifi, I think Nindrien would’ve been more popular.

Chloe: Closest Bi, comphet. Some people might see her as token Straight or a closest Lesbian, but I’ve finally decided that she likes both genders equally. Similar with Marinette, I just see her crush on Adrien as heteronormativity/comphet and also because she’s confusing her plantonic love for him with romantic.

Zoe: Queer. Tbh, I don't know right now. We don't know if she's gay, Bi or anything else, but we DO know that she's queer. She hasn’t shown any interest in boys in canon yet, but I don’t want to throw out the possibility of her being Bi/Pan yet either. 

Sabrina: Closest Pan. Sabrina is the type who thought that she was just an Straight Ally who doesn’t care who’s with who when it came to other peoples’s happiness. Love is love after all. Eventually she finds out that SHE HERSELF doesn’t care either when it comes to HER preferences lol 😂

Luka: Bi, simple but obvious 😌

Kagami: Pan & Demi. Use to see her as Bi (female leaning), but she doesn’t care as long as she can have a strong connection with them. I also see her as a Polyamorous Demi. She’s fine with being in a relationship with more than one person, but only if she has a strong connection with them. When you think about it, I guess that kind of makes Mari and Adrien Polyamorous too since Adrigaminette is my OTP3 huh? 😅

Rose: Pan. Rose loves everybody and anybody. She doesn’t care who it is 😊

Jeluka: Lesbian. I don’t really see Jeluka with any males and I don’t think that I ever did. She’s my little goth Lesbean! 😊

Kim: Bi. He’s perfectly fine with both, as long as he’s having fun 😄

Max: Biromantic Ace, Male Leaning, use to see him as Pan, but I see him more as male leaning now. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t mind girls though. Ones who are kind, sweet or/and match his intellect 😊

Ordine: Straight. Meh, I don’t really see her with females 🤷🏾‍♀️ Ordine ships like Kagami, Alix and Aurore etc. don’t interest me. Might change in the future, but I don’t know.

Mylene: Bi & Demi (male leaning). Her and Ivan together are pretty cute, and I don’t put it pass her to be interested in other boys too. But she is queer.

Ivan: Straight. Ivan was the first character in MLB that I saw as Straight lol

Nathaniel: Bi. I don’t ship him with anyone anymore, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a bi-bean to me 😛 I’m pretty sure he’ll find someone one day.

Marc: Gay, Trans, and Gender-fluid. I don’t really see Marc with girls anymore, so he’s gay now 😛 Also, I know he’s already Androgynous, but I also see him as Trans & Gender-fluid.

Alix: Aromatic Lesbian & Bigender. Like with Max (Ace), Alix was confirmed Aromatic, but I still do see her as a Lesbian. I don’t really imagine Alix being in an long term relationship, but she is interested in females. I did headcanon her Bi in the past, but I don’t really see her interested in any boys anymore tbh

Lila: Pan. She doesn’t care who it is, as long as she can manipulate them to her advantage…🤷‍♀️ Don’t get me wrong though, I do imagine Lila being capable of love and falling for someone, but not immediately.

Aurore: Lesbian (Comphet). I don’t ship her with any boys at all, and all my ships with her are with girls.

Mirelle: Bi (Comphet). Similar with Aurore. Also, I also ship them on the same level as Julrose.

Gabriel: Straight, but I don’t like the idea of him being the stereotypical homophobic parent. He’s a shitty person and parent, but it’s not because he’s homophobic. I did see him as bicurious in the past tho lol

Emillie: Bi. Meh, she gives off that kind of energy, even if she’s been in a coma 😜

Natalie: Bi. I like the headcanon that she’s a Bi woman who had feelings for Emillie too, as well as Gabriel (formally). I don’t know how true that is now, but meh. Still my headcanon.

Ms Mendeleiev: Lesbian. I see her being into women solely for the reason that I shipped her with Bustier lol 😅

Miss Bustier: Bi, but now just Queer. Similar with Zoe, we don't know if she's gay, Bi or anything else, but we DO know that she's queer/sapphic. 

Socqueline: Queer/Sapphic. We most certainly know she’s into girls, especially cute preppy ones that so happen to attend the same school that she use to attend, sees her as a role model to the point where she adapted her hairstyle, is into fashion, works at her parents bakery and unfortunately tends to have crushes on boys who are dum-dums instead of also acknowledging her obvious attraction to girls! 😤

..Wait wha-?

Fei: Lesbian. Plain and simple. Makes sense.

Felix: Like Zoe, I’m not absolutely sure yet. But I do see him being part of the Ace Spectrum.

The other characters I don’t really care about enough to have preference headcanons for. So if you want to know my preference headcanon about them, ask me.

[aphantpoet]

Queer rep is not a vacuum

There is so much debate over what is and is not queer rep and it seems to change with each new show. For this I’m going to explore four series that I’m personally a fan of and break down their rep individually ;LOK, SPOP, TOH and Arcane. I will do it this way because Queer rep is not a vacuum.

It is first important to understand the perspective I’m coming at from this: so Yaama, if you don’t know me I’m a queer [Enby and Demi sexual lesbian]and indigenous [Australian] writer; I mainly write about queer people for queer people. I also want to say that I am not bashing any of these series, I love them all.

1. Korrasami

Korra and Asami have a slightly rocky relationship when they first meet but they become fast friends. Both characters are confirmed Bisexual and their relationship is far more obvious from a  queer perspective. They are far less explicit than other shows on this list but that is due to studio censorship.

The ship itself is really sweet. Both women are close and support each other with Korra writing to only Asami at one of the roughest times of her life.

This ship, being the first queer rep in Avatar, followed by Kya being confirmed as a lesbian, gets a lot of flack for being too subtle and not built up enough. As much as I do not like Some writers on the Avatar team, I do genuinely believe they were trying their best here.

The ship itself isn’t problematic and came at a time when there was little rep in mainstream media, let alone kids media. While it has it’s issues, it is some of the first rep kids in my generation saw. Sue me, I’ve got nostalgia.

2.SPOP

This is a contentious one but it cannot be denied that SPOP was full of Queer rep. Spinetossa, catradora, None of the princesses were straight and Double Trouble.

SPOP is unashamed of it’s queer rep and as world where no one is straight, no one is homophobic. This provides escapism that we as queer people sometimes need.

While Catradora has it’s criticisms, it’s a beautiful ship that underpins the narrative  and drives the plot. to call it “toxic” or “abusive” ignores the nuance of the story.

Spinetossa is a solid relationship that provides fluff and comedic relief in the darker episodes. they’re background characters but the nature of their relationship is clear from the start. they’re always together, they wear chokers with each other's colours . From the get go, before we even hear the cute nicknames we know they are a unit. 

Double Trouble , while  stemming from a problematic trope, is a solid character with complexities and comedy gold to spare. While the trope of making nonbinary characters non human is dodgy at best in a show where cis characters are also not human they don’t stand out too much so they can have a pass.

3. TOH

TOH is also unashamedly queer, Eda, Raine, Willow’s dads, Lumity, Edric.I’ve also seen commendations on the Neurodivergent rep  but that’s not my place.

Disney was obviously trying to censor things earlier on but around late season two A Dana stopped giving a shit and good for her. We got Edric having a partner, to quote his sister Emira “ After he accidentally sent  a love poem to THEIR mum”. Love that for him. The first Lumity kiss and them getting together and everything after it.

Willows dads’, minor and cliched as they may be do not come of a tokenistic, a nice change from other shows there the Mc’s best friend’s queer parents is often some of the only rep.

And Raine, a nonbinary person, who while not quite human isn’t an alien/robot/demon/spirit. They’re also a prominent character and their relationship with Eda is just a delight.

Cool Aunt Lilith, AroAce queen and all the flags in season three and it’s only the first episode.

there are some issues with Luz dating her friends ex bully but they address it and smooth it over.

4.Arcane

The biggest thing to come out of Arcane was CatVi/Violyn. I’ve seen some people ship Caitlyn and Jayce but that’s a small group.

Both character’s are confirmed as lesbians.While I love Luz I do find that lesbians do often get left behind in representation or claimed as Bi when they aren’t.

there’s not much else in terms of queer rep for Arcane but it’s very clearly a world where homophobia isn’t an issue.

The CatVi relationship is also important to the story and builds up over the first season. the show isn’t concerned with it but it’s nice to see.

All this to say, Queer rep isn’t a vacum, just because one series shows wholesome queer people and another shows messy,complicated queer love does not make either superior to the other. To put wholesome queer relationships over messy ones perpetuates respectability politics. Both can be good queer rep, both can be bad queer rep.

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

I loved Good Omens, but how people see it as amazing queer representation is so frustrating. I see why people like the codinf and could see themself in the text, but the fact they treat it like the end all be all of representation and put it on the same level as explicit rep is frustrating. It's frustrating because Neil gets to have his cake and eat it, too. He got something half his audience will never realize is queer (i know this because half the people i watched it with didnt realize), but he gets the praise for being a queer icon and great representation or whatever. I'm fine if he didn't want to make it explicitly queer, especially because it's a big change that and he didn't want to change too much from the source material since his co-author passed. But he did make changes and added the queer subtext that was less present in the book. And in the show, there's this je ne sais quoi to it that is missing, something in the vibes that is just missing. Something a queer author would've been able to get. The closest I can get to describing it is like by the end, here's still a gap of unresolved feelings between the lines. Or like, touch isn't that big of a deal between them. I feel like if their were worse actors in it, or actors less on board with the queer subtext, the show would just be baiting. That's how thin the line is for me with Good Omens. Also, I hate to say it, but it was clearly not written with ace people in mind. Neil just heard ace people feeling represented and nodded along in agreement. If you seee the phrase "their love is above physical intimacy" it's not ace positivity, it's someone being sleeved out by gay sex. The angels are mentioned being sexless in the book, amd fans put more thought into the angels gender or lackthereof than the show does, except for the one non-binary actor that plays Poison and i think ine of the angels. The leads are essentially written as and meant to be seen as cis male by audience members, not nonbinary characters that pass as cis male. And I'm sorry, but Crowley in a dress was a man-in-dress joke, and Neil just nodded when people praised it. There is better ace rep out there, stories with better queer subtext, and better stories with better representation. Can people please stop praising protecting the straight man with a good show with mediocre rep from the mean queers. Why is there this narrative that we have to love all media remotely queer and see it as good rep inherently and that it will "divide the community" and "helping the enemy" if we don't?

ok so my memory of gomens is VERY hazy but i think the je ne sais quoi that you’re saying is missing is how the show essentially builds an entire story arc with crowley and and aziraphale’s relationship, with an inciting incident and a rising action and then… it skips the climax and goes straight to the resolution.

like, they build up this relationship in the show so much more than they do in the books. and because of the nature of “opposite sides of a war” thing, there’s a lot of tension that comes with that. they care about each other but their friendship is forbidden and they’re conflicted about it so they hide their feelings and they reject each other despite how they constantly hang out with each other and when one of them is in danger they go crazy. and a story arc like that needs a Big Conversation, an “all cards on the table emotional vulnerability hashing it out” kinda scene. it needs a confession, basically.

and the thing is that this confession doesn’t have to be explicitly romantic for it to work in the show. it can literally sum up to “you’re my best friend and i would do anything for you, i don’t care what the rest of the world says” and that would be a good climax for that story arc. but it needs to be a lot more dramatic than the few short scenes that we did get in the show where they actually talked about their feelings for each other.

anyway i’m with you for all the criticisms you have of this show and the fandom and also neil himself. good omens is a very good show that gets a lot of undue praise from queer fans who can’t separate their personal connection with the characters and the story from being able to actually identify groundbreaking queer representation. like you can just enjoy the show, not every story with queer rep has to be a Diversity Win

i feel like that narrative of “we have to love all queer media or else you’re dividing the community” comes primarily from fans who think gomens is groundbreaking and who take criticism of their favorite show way too personally. so like, when you say “good omens isn’t amazing queer representation” they think of that as a criticism—bc to them it is amazing queer representation—and not as just… a statement of fact. bc like, not every show needs to be incredible queer representation??? imo? so THEN they think you’re insulting the show and bc they love the show so much it feels like a personal attack on them. that part specifically is very common in general lol, people take criticisms of their favorite show VERY personally

[timemachineyeah]

Huh…that’s a good rlly point! Each group really has something for everyone,and Hasunosora really is for the people who straight up wanted a more blatant Love Live yuri cndjdj I’ve seen those cards / scenes spread around some and it’s a little surprising how they seem to be GOING for it more than usual (also like I said it still wouldn’t be surprising if they just have two of the girls kiss or say that they’re dating at this point bc CMON)

Oh yeah, they’re making marketing decisions every time, but I think the results have largely worked (with maybe Liella being the closest to an exception- I get the feeling they’d really love for it to break into a younger more Disney channel type audience and it’s doing fine with core fans but not breaking into new audiences as much as they hoped. This is PURE speculation on my part. Just a vibe I get.)

I would be surprised if characters actually kissed or admitted to dating, but pleasantly so.

I feel like Hasunosora is tapping into that very uniquely Japanese history of yuri rep that is like…

It’s like how no one ever says it directly in a Victorian romance? Like there’s all kinds of mannered society stuff at play so everything needs to be allusion only. I mentioned from the very first whiff of Hasunosora that it gave me Maria-sama ga Miteru vibes just based on the pairing of upperclassmen with younger students and taking place in a girls boarding school

But now they’ve confirmed that Hasunosora also has a long-standing mentor/mentee tradition (though far less codified than in MariMite, it seems) and I’m absolutely certain that this is one of their big influences. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if that was basically the prompt they gave the writer (who is a writer of yuri light novels), “Do a Love Live story that’s been passed through a filter of MariMite.”

(I mean the series was hugely influential to yuri for years, a huge evolution point for the genre, so it makes sense).

But while it feels wrong to say the relationships in MariMite were only ever implied, because the romance between girls is the whole story, it is also true that the tradition and codification and “purity” and other themes served to keep them from ever using the words. This feels less like queerbaiting in the modern sense and more like… a genre choice? With its own rules and appeal? Especially given the era.

Like they weren’t hinting characters are gay without canonizing it. They were saying, “these characters are gay even if they never say so and you’re not imagining it (here let us put more lilies everywhere, the Japanese manga equivalent of flying a lesbian flag in the background every time the characters talk).”

On the surface for the era it just provides plausible deniability to the audience who want to be able to be seen in public reading it - no one looking over your shoulder is ever going to be scandalized no matter how homophobic they are. Queer coding that is so explicit that it’s not so much code as plain representation, but still just subtle enough that you wouldn’t be sure at a glance.

But like I said, I also feel like it plays into really classic old school romance. Romance that is 100% about romantic tension and not so much sexual tension. Lots of het romances also aren’t explicitly stated, but we still accept that they are romances, because what else would it be for these two people to be like this around each other? It’s not like het characters have to stand up and say “I am heterosexual! And this is my boyfriend! Let us kiss on screen!” before we accept the veracity of their relationships.

And yuri has a strong history of taking that kind of storyline and the strictures of gender or aristocratic social mores and replacing them with similar quiet rules that keep our characters talking around the subject and engaging in unlabeled intimacy. Religiosity, tradition, etc.

That being said if you wanna have a discussion about about the difference between making that choice in an original manga in the late 1990s versus making that choice as a massive money printing franchise in the 2020s - I think pointing out the difference in circumstances is warranted. Is it homage or is it a cop out? Is it queerbaiting or leaving things open ended?

After all, what Love Live! sells, above all else, what it has always sold, is the characters. They are supposed to belong to you. They’re dolls for your brain to play with. You have always been meant to get attached, to have the option but not the obligation to insert yourself. Relationships are left open ended because that’s up to you. They only want to give you a prompt, not a script. Love Live on its premise sets up a series of cozy compelling ideas and leaves them a little unfinished. The fun is very much designed to be in filling in those blanks yourself.

And you are supposed to love them. After all, it’s only a parasocial relationship if the person on the other end is real. Otherwise that’s an imaginary friend or a brain toy. Love Live! have made a very well oiled Singing Blorbo factory.

This isn’t a criticism by the way, it’s impressive as hell. Like yes capitalism bad etc etc but boy do they have a system and know what they’re doing.

But because of that I don’t expect the Hasunosora girls are gonna officially date. A kiss of some kind is slightly more likely imo, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for that either. I do fully expect art that looks like they’re just about to.

I do hope they get an anime in either case though because I love the character designs and art style

And the Hasunosora music is my favorite to come from the franchise in a while

[morepopcornplease]

I'm Aro Ace and... Pride month tires me. As much as EVERYONE needs more rep - I'm not denying that - it feels like Aros and Aces are kind of the "Also Rans". The "You can tag along too, I guess" the "Here are all my head canons!" with them tucked away, forgotten, or given to unpopular characters. How rainbows contrast with our, much quieter, flags. How Pride is all "Celebrate with your SO! Let's be PROUD of our love! That includes self love for Trans people!" and then you have the spectrum of Aros and Aces going "Broadly speaking, this love is love doesn't really apply to me." About how Love/sex is how you show non human creatures discovering humanity. How QPR's have been taken as a, like, romance lite relationship instead of our own things. How since it's an absence every character who shows aro or ace qualities gets revealed as a different surprise queer person later and we lose someone. Aloy from Horizon being the most recent. I'm happy for the lesbians but... she was aro and ace and then she wasn't. How I say my aro and ace headcanons that "break up" popular non canon ships and people block me over it as they declare how everything must be queer. I'm... tired. I don't wish ill on anyone, but I'm tired of being left behind. Of feeling like Pride doesn't apply to me. How I can "pass" as straight but that won't change the fact that society is built around having a partner and how my family and friends are going to leave me, someday, to be with others they love. How my best friend is straight and I think she's hiding when/if she dates for fear of hurting me and I worry about when she will leave too. I make so few friends, I can't lose her too. I'm just... so so tired. This month with everyone being loud and proud... it doesn't apply to me. to us. Love is Love doesn't apply to us. All we got are a few jokes about cake that people use in a "See, we care too!" way and shows aimed at little kids.

Oh gosh nonnie, I’m so sorry

I totally get the feeling of being left behind…

forgotten queer communities 🤝 side b

The inner dynamics of the LGBTQA+ community is such that everyone needs to actively carve out their space…

With that said, I’ve got an axe and a chainsaw and cute lil woodcarving tools, and a butch willingness to help.

So, how can I carve out a space for you today?

Because there’s a place for you here, too.

🧡💛🤍🩵💙

[itsclydebitches]

I keep seeing people calling Good Omens queer bating and a I can't help but ask why? I read the Aziraphale/Crowley relationship threw an Ace lens and they are clearly as close to married as they are probably going to get without stepping on holy ground.... and they love each other... why is it considered queer bating?

Personally, I think it's mostly young queer fans turning legitimate grievances on the wrong target. A case of getting so fed up with queerbaiting in media as a whole that they're instinctually lashing out at anything that seems to resembles it on the surface, without taking the time to consider whether this is, in fact, the thing they're mad at. Good Omens is a scapegoat, if you will. The equivalent of snapping at your partner after a long day. Your friend was an asshole, your boss was an asshole, the guy in traffic was an asshole, and then you come home to your partner who says something teasing and you take it as another asshole comment because you've just been surrounded by assholeness all day, to the point where your brain is primed to see an attack. Your partner wasn't actually an asshole, but by this point you're (understandably) too on guard to realize that. Unless someone sits you down and kindly reminds you of the difference between playful teasing and a legitimate insult - the nuance, if you will - your hackles are just gonna stay up and you'll leave the room, off to phone a different friend to tell them all about how your partner was definitely an asshole to you.

Only in this case, that "friend" is a fan on social media doing think pieces on the supposed queerbaiting of Good Omens, spreading that idea to a) people who aren't familiar with the show themselves and b) those who, like that original fan, have come to expect queerbaiting and thus aren't inclined to question the latest story with that mark leveled against it. Because on the surface Good Omens can look a lot like queerbaiting. Here are two queer coded characters who clearly love each other, but don't say "I love you," don't kiss, don't "prove" that love in a particular way. So Gaiman is just leading everyone on, right?

Well... no. This is where the nuance comes in, the thing that many fans aren't interested in grappling with (because, like it or not, media is not made up of black and white categories; queerbaited and not-queerbaited. Supernatural's finale is proof enough of that...) I won't delve into the most detailed explanation here, but suffice to say:

Gaiman has straight up said it's a love story. He's just not giving them concrete labels like "gay" or "bi" or "asexual," etc. because they are literally not human. Gaiman has subscribed to an inclusive viewpoint in an era where fans are desperate for unambiguous rep that homophobes cannot possibly deny. The freedom to prioritize any interpretation - yes, including a "just friends" interpretation - now, in 2021, feels like a cop-out. However, in this case it's an act of world building (they are an angel and a demon, not bound by human understanding of identity) meeting a genuine desire to make these characters relatable to the entire queer community, not just particular subsets. Gaiman has said they can be whatever we want because the gender, sexuality, and romantic attraction of an angel and a demon is totally up for debate! However, some fans have interpreted that as a dismissal of canonical queerness; the idea that fans can pretend they're whatever they want... but it's definitely not canon. It is though. Them being queer is 100% canon, it's just up to us to decide what kind of queer they are. This isn't Gaiman stringing audiences along, it's him opening the relationship up to all queer possibilities.

We know he's not stringing us along (queerbaiting) because up until just a few days ago season two didn't exist. Queerbaiting is a deliberate strategy to maintain an audience. A miniseries does not need to maintain its audience. You binge it in one go and you're done, no coming back next year required. The announcement for season two doesn't erase that context for season one. No one knew there would be more content and thus the idea that they would implement a strategy designed to keep viewers hooked due to the hope for a queer relationship (with no intent to follow through) is... silly.

In addition, this interpretive, queer relationship between Crowley and Aziraphale existed in the book thirty years ago. Many fans are not considering the difference between creating a totally new story in 2019 and faithfully adapting a story from 1990 in 2019. Good Omens as representation meant something very different back then and that absolutely impacts how we see its adaptation onto the small screen. To put this into perspective, Rowling made HUGE waves when she revealed that she "thought of" Dumbledore as gay in an interview... in 2007. Compare that to the intense coding 17 years before. Gaiman was - and still is - pushing boundaries.

Which includes being an established ally, particularly in his comics. Queerbaiting isn't just the act of a single work, but the way an author approaches their work. Gaiman does not (to my knowledge) have that mark against him and even if he did, he's done enough other work to offset that.

Finally, we've got other, practical issues like: how do you represent asexuality on the screen? How do you show an absence of something? Yeah, one or both of them could claim that label in the show, outright saying, "I'm asexual," but again, Gaimain isn't looking to box his mythological figures into a single identity. So if we want that rep... we have to grapple with the fact that this is one option for what it looks like.

Even if he did want to narrow the representation down to just a few identities for the show, should Gaiman really be making those major changes when he's only one half of the author team? Pratchett has, sadly, passed on and thus obviously has no say in whether his characters undergo such revisions. Even if fans hate every other argument, they should understand that, out of respect, Good Omens is going to largely remain the same story it was 30 years ago.

And those 6,000 years are just the beginning! Again, this was meant to be a miniseries of a single novel, a novel that, crucially, covered only Crowley and Aziraphale's triumph in being able to love one another freely. That's a part of their personal journey. Yeah, they've been together in one sense for 6,000 years, but that was always with hell and heaven on their backs, to say nothing of the slow-burn approach towards acknowledging that love, for Aziraphale in particular. We end the story at the start of their new relationship, one that is more free and open than it ever was before. They can be anything to one another now! The fact that we don't see that isn't a deliberate attempt on the author's part to deny us that representation, but only a result of the story ending.

So yeah, there's a lot to consider and, frankly, I don't think those fans are considering it. Which on a purely emotional level I can understand. I'm pissed about queerbaiting too and the knee-jerk desire to reject anything that doesn't meet a specific standard is understandable. But understandable doesn't mean we don't have to work against that instinct because doing otherwise is harmful in the long run. We need to consider when stories were published and what representation meant back then. We need to consider how we adapt those stories for a modern audience. We need to acknowledge that if we want the inclusivity that "queer" provides us, that includes getting characters whose identity is not strictly defined by the author as well as characters with overtly canonical labels. We need both. We likewise need to be careful about when having higher standards ends up hurting the wrong authors - who are our imperfect allies vs. those straight up unwilling to embrace our community at all? And most importantly, we have to think about how we're using the terms we've developed to discuss these issues. Queerbaiting means something specific and applying it to Good Omens not only does Good Omens a disservice, but it undermines the intended meaning of "queerbaiting," making it harder to use correctly in the future. Good Omens is not queerbaiting and trying to claim it is only hurts the community those fans are speaking up for.

[desidarling123]

FACT CHECK: Did JKR sue people for writing Wolfstar fanfiction? [FALSE] [with sources]

So, if you're at all active in the HP fandom, and ESPECIALLY if you're on TikTok, you've likely come across a post or video claiming the following:

JKR LITERALLY SUED PEOPLE OVER WOLFSTAR FANFICTION! AND THAT'S ALSO WHY SHE MADE REMADORA CANON -- TO SPITE THE SHIPPERS!

I'm not sure who first started this claim or how its various permutations grew, but it spread at the speed of light across social media. This widely-circulated meme summarizes it:

For the LONGEST time, I didn't know what to make of it. The claims were vague enough that they seemed like they could be true -- after all, JKR is a megacunt and a renowned TERF. You don't need to fact-check either of those things.

But then -- for the first time ever -- I came across a video on TikTok claiming that what was being said was NOT true, and that it was being used SPECIFICALLY to stir up drama. Which was... crazy, to say least.

And that led me, well, to do my own research & fact-check. I've taken the original video's structure and added some exposition as well.

So here's the truth:

That 2003 case the above meme refers to? Not even REMOTELY what the situation was about. Hell, not even CLOSE.

In 2003, JKR sent a cease-and-desist letter to an explicit adult HP fan fiction website, called "Restricted Section". Here's the letter:

As the above letter states, the site was sent a notice because of overarching concerns that minors would accidentally stumble onto the sexually explicit content the site hosted after searching up 'Harry Potter'.

The hand-wringing over minor safety probably seems dated now, but it was, in fact, standard practice in the early 2000s - sexually explicit fan content was being removed across the internet for those exact concerns. In fact, just the year before, in 2002, fanfiction.net was purged of NC-17 content (which would happen one more time, in 2012).

I feel ridiculous stating it, but just to be clear -- in the above letter and all my subsequent research, there's NO evidence she went after Wolfstar -- or any ship, for that matter -- directly.

In fact, the letter goes an extra mile to declare that "our clients (JKR) make no complaint about innocent fan fiction written by genuine Harry Potter fans", but that, "there is plainly a very real risk that impressionable children... will be directed... to your sexually explicit website".

But that leads in nicely to the next point -- the website DIDN'T shut down, as per the letter's request. Instead, they added password protection to ensure only members older than 17 were accessing it.

OK, but why did JKR and Warner Bros go after this site in the first place? Most believe it was because of a widely-publicized article in THE SCOTSMAN that talked about the website. But, once again, this article doesn't go after Wolfstar in particular -- it only goes after Harry x Draco and Harry x Snape. The inclusion of latter was arguably what generated the biggest controversy -- the pairing of Harry, a fictional minor, with an adult character, in slash stories largely written by adult heterosexual women, was not one that could be cast in a good light to the general public. It's hardly a surprise JKR's lawyers sought to do something before the controversy got out of hand and worried parents started to make calls.

What I said before still goes, though. The legal core of the issue was ALWAYS to do NOT with the ships, but the EXPLICIT NATURE of the work -- and the (very real) concerns that the series' then-mostly-under-18 readership could find said works with very little as far as guardrails were concerned. (I know, because I was one of those kids)

TLDR; JKR did NOT sue people over Wolfstar fanfiction, she sent a cease-and-desist notice to a website that was not taking adequate precautions to prevent minors from accessing the explicit adult content on the site.

To be clear -- this is not meant to be a statement on what to ENJOY in your fandom ships. You can ship Wolfstar, Remadora, both, neither -- it really doesn't matter. I think the fandom is critical enough of the author to have reclaimed her work on our own terms, and people should be allowed to just, idk enjoy things.

But propagating straight-up falsehoods is dangerous, especially when it comes at the expense of 1) a safe fandom environment (see: the current fandom ship wars between Remadora and Wolfstar, which are difficult to watch) and 2) serves as a distraction from the ACTUAL garbage JKR engages in (of which there is plenty -- no need to make it up lol).

Also, truth be told -- inter-fandom ship wars don't generally add anything productive to the necessary conversations that need to be had about her works. The thought that dashing fan ships was a key motivator in her writing rather than, I don't know, plot concerns, is ludicrous on face, and gives fans a level of control over the original writer that just... doesn't exist IRL? And certainly didn't back then?

And again -- the books would have been VERY different series, plot-wise, if Sirius Black HAD lived. Him being in a relationship with Remus, confirmed or implied, has no relation to that decision.

If we have talk Harry Potter, I'd rather talk about just about anything else -- the racism, the misogyny, the lack of any sort of organic queer rep and JKR's inability to just own up to the problems in her works. But the minutiae of ship wars -- and the inevitable stream of disinformation that comes with it, sans any kind of concrete evidence -- is one I'd prefer to pass on.

SOURCES:

Cease-and-Desist Letter Copy: http://archive.is/HTLsq

THE SCOTSMAN Article: http://archive.is/VdEaY

Restricted Section Updates Page:

https://web.archive.org/web/20030815233612/http://www.restrictedsection.org/news.php

BONUS: The original TikTok video I came across whose structure and sources I shamelessly stole to read and build out my argument. I copied a lot of their wording because it explained it better than I could, you just get some bonus snarky commentary from yours truly

[adhduck]

feeling really protective of bi+ people today, especially re: those attracted to men. so let me make some things clear:

(note that I’m using “different/same gender” here bc I unfortunately don’t have the time or room to get into the complexities of gender right here, and because a lot of the biphobia I’m about to mention revolves around that concept of different/same gender attraction)

• bi people’s attraction to a different gender are just as queer as their attraction to the same gender, and any attraction they have is just as queer as non bi people’s attractions. their experience of their attraction and relationship is also just as queer even when a partner is not queer

• relayed to ^, bi people are queer not because they’re attracted to the “same” gender, but because they’re outside society’s expectations of how we should view ourselves and our connections with other people. this is true no matter how “straight-passing” they or any partner looks, if they’re out, what people they date, whatever. (remember: aspec people exist! trans people exist!)

• (this is especially re: bi women, but applies everywhere) being attracted to men is not bad or worse or less desirable than attraction to non-men. it is a good feeling to be attracted to men, and it is not a burden

• it’s not bi people’s fault that comphet exists or when non-bi people struggle to figure out they’re not bi. basically no bi people perpetuate the idea that you have to be attracted to multiple genders (or, with respect to lesbians who can be attracted to multiple genders, attraction to men)

• when y’all keep pushing the idea that anyone being attracted to men is gross or undesirable when what you mean is You aren’t attracted to men, you literally make it harder for non-bi people to realize they’re not bi because you blur the line between those experiences so badly people think attraction to men naturally feels worse. (also, obviously, there’s at Least a lot of biphobia inherent to that concept)

• just. saying “men are not inherently bad and being attracted to men is good” doesn’t negate the bad things men do, the privilege some of them have, or the negative effects of things like comphet and lack of sapphic rep have on lesbians

• bi people are not overall less oppressed or more privileged than non-bi people (obviously intersectionalities and specific circumstances change things, but I’m talking about Big General Picture). even if they were, that wouldn’t make them less queer, just change the way they would need to approach queer spaces and advocacy and such. but again: not less oppressed as a group

• bi as a term has always been trans inclusive

Anyway, I love you, bi+ folks. I love you, bi+ men, and I’m sorry we don’t talk about you enough. I love you, bi+ women, and I’m sorry you’ve been made to feel that part of your identity is undesirable or bad. I love you, nonbinary bi+ people, and I’m sorry you’re often left out of these conversations entirely (especially when trying to discuss biphobia in the simplest possible terms, as I’ve had to do here).

And to non-bi+ people: please keep unlearning. Keep advocating. Keep supporting us everywhere (online, financially, in your local communities, etc).

[firelxdykatara]

I’m just really confused as to where this idea that Zuko is gaycoded came from. Like people are allowed to have that headcanon but I don’t understand where people are coming from when they try and claim that he was undisputedly gaycoded and trying to deny it is homophobic when he’s only ever shown romantic interest in women.

I made a pretty long post on the topic a while back, but the ultimate gist of it is this: there are a lot of elements of Zuko's status as an abuse victim and trauma survivor that resonate with queer folks. This is understandable and completely fine! However, there are some parts of the fandom who have taken that to the other extreme and will now insist that those elements are uniquely queer, and that they can only be read as some sort of veiled gay/coming out narrative, even though that doesn't make much sense since there is no part of Zuko's narrative which is unique to any sort of queer experience.

I think the problem really does stem from two things being conflated--Zuko's history of abuse and trauma, and trauma&abuse being something a lot of queer people have experienced. I suspect it goes something like 'I see a lot of myself in Zuko, and I was abused for being gay, therefore Zuko must be gay too in order to have had similar experiences.' This can then lead to feeling dismissed or invalidated when other people point out that those experiences are not unique to being queer--but on the flip side, abuse victims and trauma survivors whose abuse&trauma do not stem from queerness (even if they are queer themselves) can feel invalidated and dismissed by the implication that their trauma must be connected to their queerness or it isn't valid.

This is also where the 'people don't actually know what gay coded means' part comes in, and I realize now that I didn't actually get into what gay coding (and queer coding in general) actually means, since I was so hung up on pointing out how Zuko doesn't really fit the mold. (And the few elements that exist which could be said to count are because of the 'villains historically get queer coded bc Hays Code era' thing and mostly occur in Book 1, not because of how he acts as an abuse&trauma survivor.)

Under a cut because I kind of go on a tangent about gay/queer coding, but I swear I get back to the point eventually.

Queer coding (and it is notable that, with respect to Zuko, it is almost always framed as 'he couldn't possibly be attracted to girls', rather than 'he could be attracted to boys as well as girls' in these discussions, for... no real discernible reason, but I'll get into that in a bit) is the practice of giving characters 'stereotypically queer' traits and characteristics to 'slide them under the radar' in an era where having explicitly queer characters on screen was not allowed, unless they were evil or otherwise narratively punished for their queerness. (See: the extant history of villains being queer-coded, because if they were Evil then it was ok to make them 'look gay', since the story wasn't going to be rewarding their queerness and making audiences think it was in any way OK.) This is thanks to the Motion Picture Production Code (colloquially and more popularly known as the Hays Code), which was a set of guidelines which movies coming out of any major studio had to adhere to in order to be slated for public release and lasted from the early 1930s until it was finally abandoned in the late 60s.

The Hays Code essentially existed to ensure that the content of major motion pictures would not 'lower the moral standards' of the viewing public. It didn't just have to do with queerness--cursing was heavily monitored, sex outside of marriage was not allowed to be seen as desirable or tittilating, miscegenation was not allowed (most specifically interracial relationships between black and white people), criminals had to be punished lest the audience think that it was ok to be gay and do crime, etc. Since same-sex relations fell under 'sexual perversion', they could not be shown unless the 'perversion' were punished in some way. (This is also the origin of the Bury Your Gays trope, another term that is widely misunderstood and misapplied today.) To get around this, queer coding became the practice by which movies and television could depict queer people but not really, and it also became customary to give villains this coding even more overtly, since they would get punished by the end of the film or series anyway and there was nothing to lose by making them flamboyant and racy/overly sexual/promiscuous.

Over time, this practice of making villains flamboyant, sexually aggressive, &etc became somewhat separated from its origins in queer coding, by which I mean that these traits and tropes became the go-to for villains even when the creator had no real intention of making them seem queer. This is how you generally get unintentional queer-coding--because these traits that have been given to villains for decades have roots in coding, but people tend to go right to them when it comes to creating their villains without considering where they came from.

Even after the Hays Code was abandoned, the sentiments and practices remained. Having queer characters who weren't punished by the narrative for being queer was exceptionally rare, and it really isn't until the last fifteen or so years that we've seen any pushback against that. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is famous for being one of the first shows on primetime television to feature an explicitly gay relationship on-screen, and that relationship ended in one of the most painful instances of Bury Your Gays that I have ever personally witnessed. (Something that, fourteen years later, The 100 would visually and textually reference with Lexa's death. Getting hit by a bullet intended for someone else after a night of finally getting to be happy and have sex with her s/o? It wasn't remotely subtle. I don't even like Clexa, but that was incredibly rough to witness.)

However, bringing this back to Zuko, he really doesn't fit the criteria for queer coding for a number of reasons. First of all, no one behind the scenes (mostly a bunch of cishet men) was at all intending to include queer rep in the show. This wasn't a case where they were like 'well, we really wanted to make Zuko gay, but we couldn't get that past the censors, so here are a few winks and a nudge', because it just wasn't on their radar at all. Which makes sense--it wasn't on most radars in that era of children's programming. This isn't really an indictment, it's just a fact of the time--in the mid/late 00s, no one was really thinking about putting queer characters in children's cartoons. People were barely beginning to include them in more teen- and adult-oriented television and movies. It just wasn't something that a couple of straight men, who were creating a fantasy series aimed at young kids, were going to think about.

What few instances you can point to from the series where Zuko might be considered to exhibit coding largely happen in Book 1, when he was a villain, because the writers were drawing from typically villainous traits that had historically come from queer coding villains and had since passed into common usage as villainous traits. But they weren't done with any intention of making it seem like Zuko might be attracted to boys.

And, again, what people actually point to as 'evidence' of Zuko being queer-coded--his awkwardness on his date with Jin and his confrontation with Ozai being the big ones I can think of off the top of my head--are actually just... traits that come from his history of trauma and abuse.

As I said in that old post:

making [zuko’s confrontation of ozai] about zuko being gay and rejecting ozai’s homophobia, rather than zuko learning fundamental truths about the world and about his home and about how there was something deeply wrong with his nation that needed to be fixed in order for the world to heal (and, no, ‘homophobia’ is not the answer to ‘what is wrong with the fire nation’, i’m still fucking pissed at bryke about that), misses the entire point of his character arc. this is the culmination of zuko realizing that he should never have had to earn his father’s love, because that should have been unconditional from the start. this is zuko realizing that he was not at fault for his father’s abuse--that speaking out of turn in a war meeting in no way justified fighting a duel with a child.

is that first realization (that a parent’s love should be unconditional, and if it isn’t, then that is the parent’s fault and not the child’s) something that queer kids in homophobic households/families can relate to? of course it is. but it’s also something that every other abused kid, straight kids and even queer kids who were abused for other reasons before they even knew they were anything other than cishet, can relate to as well. in that respect, it is not a uniquely queer experience, nor is it a uniquely queer story, and zuko not being attracted to girls (which is what a lot of it seems to boil down to, at the end of the day--cutting down zuko’s potential ships so that only zukka and a few far more niche ships are left standing) is not necessary to his character arc. nor does it particularly make sense.

And, regarding his date with Jin:

(and before anyone brings up his date with jin--a) he enjoyed it when she kissed him, and b) he was a traumatized, abused child going out on a first date. of course he was fucking awkward. have you ever met a teenage boy????)

Zuko is socially awkward and maladjusted because he was abused by his father as a child and has trouble relating to people as a result. He was heavily traumatized and brutally physically injured as a teenager, and it took him years to begin to truly recover from the scars that left on his psyche (and it's highly likely, despite the strides he made in canon, that he has a long way to go, post series; it's such a pity that we never got any continuation comics >.>). He was not abused for being gay or queer--he was abused because his father believed he was weak, and part of Zuko's journey was realizing that his father's perception of strength was flawed at its core. That his entire nation had rotted from the inside out, and the regime needed to be changed in order for the world--including his people--to begin to heal.

That could be commingled with a coming out narrative, which is completely fine for headcanons (although I personally prefer not to, because, again, we have more than enough queer trauma already), but it simply doesn't exist in canon. Zuko was not abused or traumatized for being queer, and his confrontation with Ozai was not about him coming out or realizing any fundamental truth about himself--it was about realizing something fundamental about his father and his nation, and making the choice to leave them behind so that he could help the Avatar grow stronger and force things to change when he got back.

TL;DR: at the end of the day, none of the traits, scenes, or behavior Zuko exhibits which shippers tend to use to claim he was gay-coded are actually evidence of coding--they aren't uniquely queer experiences, as they stem from abuse that was not related in any way to his sexuality, and they are experiences that any kid who suffered similar abuse or trauma could recognize and resonate with. (Including straight kids, and queer kids who were abused for any reason other than their identity.) And, finally, Zuko can be queer without erasing or invalidating his canon attraction to girls, and it's endlessly frustrating that the 'Zuko is gay-coded' crowd refuses to acknowledge that.

[scriptlgbt]

I'm wondering about bad tropes/stereotypes when writing an LGBTQ+ character being married to a non LGBTQ+ character?

Helpful term: Lavender Marriage

A lavender marriage is a [usually] male–female mixed-orientation marriage, undertaken as a marriage of convenience to conceal the socially stigmatized sexual orientation of one or both partners.

(Definition edited from Wikipedia)

Do you mean like a beard relationship (eg. a lesbian marrying a straight man for social appearances) or something else (like a bi woman marrying a straight man for love, or a trans person marrying a cis hetero person)?

Those aren't the only options either, this could be a peach fuzz relationship (where a QPR is referred to as a romantic relationship for social appearances).

Each of these things kind of come with slightly different implications. If you send an ask about more specifics, we can hone in on that better.

If I'm making a list of my Biggest Beefs with rep for this stuff in general, here's some no-nos:

allocishet characters using a partner's identity as a bargaining chip for something/otherwise weaponizing it against them. This can ofc be done if you want to make an easy villain, but it's wildly over-represented in media. I even see it depicted in relationships between two LGBTQ+ characters way too often. "Are you ashamed of me or something? People should know" is just so... Done. It's toxic. And usually closeted folks in relationships find ways to live as their true selves separately from people they want to be closeted to, at least if they have any privacy from those folks. This may be my own biases as someone whose parents aren't a part of my life anyway, but it doesn't actually seem like, at least in my experience, we deal with the same "meeting the parents" social obligation, at least overall. It might be important to a given individual and that's totally fine and normal and valid, but domestic tenderness and family is different for me.

referring to bi women in relationships with men as having "straight passing privilege" I know this is controversial for a lot of people: but this is just biphobia. (This is not up for debate here.) Hypervisibility and erasure are both shitty things with a lot of drawbacks. Even if there are situations where one acts as a variable in a good way, it's not the same as real privilege, because that variable will snap back into oppression in a different circumstance. For example, domestic violence rates against bi women are astronomically higher than both lesbians and straight women. I'm not saying this in order to say that there's any kind of WLW that has privilege over a different kind of WLW. I'm just saying that it's ignorant to call one group privileged over another just because of their relationships. We are oppressed for who we are on a fundamental level, for our desires, wants, needs, for our identities. A lesbian who never dates is still a lesbian. We don't gain privilege when we become single. It just doesn't work that way.

chasers and other fetishizers of LGBTQ+ people being treated as a good thing, or in any way condusive to a healthy relationship. [a chaser is a term for someone who fetishizes trans people. The term is sometimes heard as "tr*nny chaser" -- but I rec avoiding that version of the term unless you're reclaiming the t-slur for yourself and are qualified to do so.] It's okay to be attracted to trans people, but fetishization is subhumanizing. I wrote this article in 2016 a few years after a relationship with a chaser, covering red flags that indicate when a partner is fetishizing you. I haven't read the article over in a few years, so take it with a grain of salt, but I remember it as having some good examples of that. If you want to depict this kind of relationship as a problem, there are ways to write it responsibly. But I would strongly rec a sensitivity reader who has experienced this kind of thing, since it's easy to fuck up.

There's also just a Lot of complicated stuff around trans people in relationships with allocishet people. For even the most well-meaning, there's stuff to learn.

There's also just something different about the ways that being connected to queer culture impacts the way our relationships are carried out. I've heard a lot of bi cis + binary people talk about how their relationships with other bi people feel different on a fundamental level to relationships with straight cis binary people. (I've never dated a straight person so I can't speak to comparison, but if anybody wants to add on their own experiences, please feel encouraged to do so!)

- mod nat

[sleepingfancies]

This is the ice cold take I am SO tired of hearing and more than anything that's the true tragedy of everything that happened on the Loki show.

The fuck do you mean "actual" queer rep? Bisexual only counts as queer if you're not in a m/f relationship? If you're "straight passing" (which by itself is a fucked up, awful phrase you all need to stop using immediately imo) then you don't count as queer? Why are you referring to liking women as a "part" of bisexuality like you're building ikea furniture and not like bisexuality is whole and encompasses attraction to multiple genders of varying degrees. What's not okay about a bisexual person being attracted to someone of the opposite gender? So what if that's the consistent relationship they fall into? Does that make them less bisexual? No, it fucking doesn't.

Beyond anything else, it drives me absolutely nuts that this Loki finale business brought these kinds of Biphobia Lite takes out of the woodwork all across tumblr. It is so frustrating and upsetting to see y'all say shit like this and realize for all your positivity posts and inclusion PSAs and cutsey banners, y'all STILL think bisexuals are the "one foot in the door, one foot outside" confused cousins of the LGBT+ community, and not, you know, part of the founding acronym. And it's not like this is new. Y'all said the same shit But Opposite about Jesper hooking up with a man in Shadow and Bone; that it isn't "good" bisexual rep unless we see him flirt/hook up with a woman next. That people are going to just call him "gay" otherwise, and he isn't gay, so we need to see him Be Bisexual In Action!

Fucking stop. Actual, living, breathing bisexuals don't owe you proof of our sexuality. Personally, I'm sick of y'all acting like the characters who represent me need to submit a fucking certificate of bisexuality and testify in court just to count as bi rep, to say nothing of whether it's good rep or not. There is no such this as a bisexual person being or not being "queer enough." There is no set relationship or gender attraction equality that determines when bisexuality is "good" representation in media. And if you're not bi, you don't get to decide what is or isn't good bi rep on principle.

You're mad bc Loki didn't get with the person you wanted him to get with? Fine, grand, I don't really care. I'm not emotionally invested in ships. Haven't been since I was 16. You're mad bc his sexuality was an offhand-mentioned freebie in a 5 second clip? Fantastic, I'll be the first to agree that Disney is allergic to LGBT+ representation and they're doing the barest of the minimum (god even knows how hard the crew had to fight just to get that 5 second scene greenlit, btw). You're mad because you think Loki having a romantic subplot with Himself Adjacent is weird and gross? Epic, I think it's weird and gross too.

But to drag actual fucking bisexuality through the mud like this to make some stupid point about why your ship is better or why Loki's character was done a disservice etc etc and - knowingly or not - spout biphobic bullshit in the process? That is not only perpetuating harmful narratives WAY more than a fictional bi man kissing a woman ever will, but is an incredible, amazing, horrifically bold spit in the face to Kate Herron, the director of the show, who is a bisexual woman.

You wanna be mad about how the finale went, or how Loki was depicted in the show, be my guest. But keep bisexuality's name out of your mouth unless you know how to talk about it without insulting very real bisexual people, including the woman who gave you this show to begin with.

[kitkatopinions]

honestly in my personal opinion, the weirdness around crwby's handling of queer characters comes back to their core sentiment of "queer people have to earn their rep," which was said by monty iirc. which is just an incredibly outdated & homophobic opinion anyways because like you pointed out in your ask, the heteronormative relationships didn't have to earn their existence. characters are assumed cishet by default, they're seen as the Standard & therefore don't have to earn their place.

queer characters & queer romances go against that heteronormative standard & have to be "earned" in the eyes of mostly cishet creators. kiersi is queer but well, she's not a point in the right direction for mkek considering her writing of nonbinary & asexual people.

it's even more disappointing to see this parroted by queer people in the fndm, that mkek are right, that we have to wait when ... why? cishets didn't have to wait for three separate heteronormative relationships in tandem.

Hey, sorry this has taken me so long to answer. My blood has been boiling over 'queer people have to earn their rep.' What a homophobic sentiment... and honestly, that really makes me think that Bumbleby was not planned from the beginning. Which of course isn't to say that MK was wrong to go with BB, but it's certainly annoying that people involved in the project are claiming it's been planned when the creator of the show was of the belief that 'queer rep has to be earned.'

Like... How? Someone please tell me how LGBTQ+ people can earn representation in media when I can't think of very many pieces of media (especially popular media) that doesn't display at least one opposite-sex relationship. I just looked through the collection of movies myself and my sisters have on our shelves, and outside of a couple of movies I don't know, every movie on our shelf but two depict opposite sex relationships (the two that don't btw are Bolt and Kung Fu Panda 1, which both include single parents, but no depiction of romantic relationships at all iirc.) I defy anyone to list one cartoon Disney movie that doesn't include a straight ship (even if it's just married parents.) How are queer people supposed to earn their fucking representation? Why are queer people thrown scraps and then told to shut up and stop complaining?

There's explicit bias in company's even like RT, who depict same-sex people, but always do it in comfortable ways or always in only small ways or always in hints. It's still homophobia, especially when it's very clear that their lack of inclusion isn't about the media just not being about any sort of romance (like Bolt or Kung Fu Panda 1 could say,) because they have relationships featured, just never LGBTQ+ relationships. RT has no problems forcing a love triangle between Jaune, Weiss, and Neptune despite none of that being believable or developed. RT has no problem introducing Sun with romantic theming for him and Blake, having them go on an explicit date, having Pyrrha in love with Jaune for who knows what reason and kissing him right before a tense fight scene to further the plot and freaking dying. RT has no problem with having 'boyfriend meets girlfriend's over protective and unnecessarily rude dad' esque jokes shoehorned into volumes 4 and 5 when it comes to Sun and Blake, or having Nora and Ren kiss in the middle of a high-stakes political rally right before a bunch of murders happen. RT has no problems making Ironwood flirt with Glynda in his first introduction, making Qrow talk about "the size of the waitress's skirt length" in like, his third scene, making Roman flirt with Cinder, making even characters like Penny and Ruby who have story plots that have nothing to do with romance or relationships talk about 'cute boys' at least once. Straight people get rep at every single turn, and yet gay people have to earn even an acknowledgement, even a passing comment.

What it is to me, really, is 'queer people have to prove we can get a profit out of their rep.' That's all I'm hearing. 'We're not ever going to do this because it's the right thing to do, we'll only do it if the pros of the money we can squeeze out of you outweigh the marketing risk of alienating homophobes who will turn off our show.' 'We'll only depict what we know is still comfortable to the casually homophobic viewers who are fine with a dash of gay here and there to appease people without 'forcing it down their throats,' or who are comfortable with seeing gay girls since that's been fetishized for straight men, but wouldn't be comfortable seeing gay men because they consider it a threat to their masculinity.' That's what I'm hearing.

It makes it even more annoying when I see fans talking about 'we should be grateful for the beautiful rep RT has given us.' NO THANKS. I'm not going to be grateful for the fact that MKEK are trying to queerbait me and other LGBTQ+ people into shutting up about the 'bmblb' song and Clover's death by trying to make us buy their fucking jackets and convincing us that Blake and Yang are already confirmed. I'm so sorry to get so heated over this. XD I'd thought I was calm, but this 'earn your rep' thing has gotten me so steamed. When have straight people ever been asked for the same? There are content creators fighting tooth and nail to be able to depict same sex relationships in their shows on bigger networks, and it really seems so very brazen of MKEK to still be holding back on confirming Blake and Yang and trying to convince us they're still champions of the LGBTQ+ community and our friends, and are selling pride merch with our favorite *non-confirmed* girls on it.

Adding onto that, the only rep we've officially gotten is girls. Ilia, Saffron and Terra, and May. And then heavily hinted Blake and Yang. The closest we've gotten for representation for men is Clover (a wink, a couple lingering looks, tweets suggesting he and Qrow will be together, only for him to be murdered,) and this picture.

This freaking nothing picture of two nameless guys with a heart shaped plant in the background of one shot in Mistral. Like, don't get me wrong, I'd like to know more about this unfashionable couple, and I'd like to know if one of them has a semblance that lets them control plants or if the heart-plant is decorative and was a gift from Sandy Hair over there... But my point is, no one should have to latch onto two rando background nameless punks and their fucking plant to be able to see themselves in media. This isn't representation for men in the LGBTQ+ community. It's honestly just tiring. I don't think I'm asking for too much to say that if companies are going to advertise 'pride,' that they commit to actually representing queer people and not just through the lens of what's comfortable to their homophobic or heteronormative audience members. May was a step in the right direction and I know that there are a lot of trans people who felt really validated seeing her in action and as a more important character during this last arc, and that the way that MKEK handled the in-universe confirmation of her being trans was respectful and well done. That's great. But it's 2021, if they're going to post 'pride merch' and claim to be for us and that they're trying to be inclusive, they need to stop queerbaiting Blake and Yang, and they also need to step out of the comfort zone of only portraying women on the LGBTQ+ spectrum. Male LGBTQ+ and non-binary and genderfluid people ought to be able to get representation too.

[bluesclves]

Are you referring to Mackie stating he’s trying to portray men sensitive side and calling out people who associate two men hanging out as being gay? People are calling him homophobic....how?! People have to understand they are not the only people who have something needing to be represented. I’m laughing at people, not you who called Mackie homophobic because they mad Sam and buck aren’t a couple. Mackie has play gay characters to the fullest extent so why would someone who’s “homophobic” do that? Sorry to rant on your blog love, I was in his hashtag and saw hate and then of course there’s racism among the mix.

Okay, so I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume you just want an actual explanation for why I personally (and I'm sure a lot of other people too) am upset by the interview.

Here's the Twitter thread with links to the article in question for reference:

https://twitter.com/Variety/status/1405601621732577280?s=19

I'm gonna start by saying I don't think Anthony Mackie is Homophobic. I haven't called him that, and I won't, because I don't believe that he is. I do think he should have just left his answer at "I don't get involved in the Fandom stuff", and not tried to explain any further than that, because he really dug himself a hole and kept digging throughout that whole speech.

I also don't really think he's an ally. I think he wanted to come off as an ally, and either he's just really confused, or has no idea/does not care what the lgbt community wants in terms of representation.

(And before anyone calls me a racist, I am absolutely still mad at Chris Pratt and Chris Evans and Jenson Ackles for saying things like this and worse. I wasn't really the type to make posts or participate in conversations in Fandom back when they each said their shit, but I remember it, and I'm bringing it up now because they absolutely deserve to be remembered. They built up this foundation of Actors discussing slash fiction/fanart and being shitty to their queer audience about it, and having no repercussions for it. They shouldn't get a pass, especially real homophobes like Chris Pratt.)

(Anthony Mackie wouldn't think it's fine/normal to say this stuff if the white men before him had been held accountable for their statements, and that's all I'm gonna say as far as race goes.)

The problem I have with what Mackie said is that he's very dismissive of the problem that is lacking Gay Representation. He uses an excuse that homophobes have long been using against Gay Representation, saying that "It used to be guys can be friends, we can hang out, and it was cool...You can't do that anymore, because something as pure and beautiful as homosexuality has been exploited by people who are trying to rationalize themselves,” (Anthony Mackie via Variety Magazine 2021).

The problem with this is that is frames the desire for gay representation as encroaching on straight men's right to have platonic friendships. Which, it doesn't. Slash fiction/fanart exists because of a lack of gay representation in media. Fan creations lean far more towards queer/non-heteronormative-conforming relationships because we don't see ourselves represented in the media we consume. So, at a lack for representation in media, we create our own representation.

So if the gay representation doesn't exist in mainstream media (or is only baited *cough*destiel*cough*) how can it possibly be encroaching on heteronormative relationships?

The answer is it's not. But homophobes want to use that excuse to call queer creators "gross" and "oppressive" when we see the potential for gay rep in (yet another) 'just close bros' male friendship. They don't want the gays 'contaminating' their cishet masculinity.

And again, I'm not calling Anthony Mackie a homophobe. I think he means well, especially given the rest of his interview. I also think he's parroting back homophobic rhetoric that he's heard from actual homophobes, not realizing how demeaning and harmful it can be. It's hard to tell sometimes-- homophobes have gotten really good at phrasing their rhetoric in a way that doesn't seem so blatantly bad as it is. Everyone makes mistakes, and I'm more than willing to give Mackie the benefit of the doubt here. I don't think he's homophobic, just... misguided.

That doesn't mean he shouldn't be called out on it. (And I think we all enjoy poking fun at the dumb shit people say, it sure helps take the edge off the crushing disappointment I feel every time I see this rhetoric pops up.)

So, yeah. That's my two cents on this.

TL;DR: I'm mad about the Variety Interview, but I'm willing to forgive Mackie on this if he realizes why what he said was a bad take, and corrects himself/apologizes. I'm certainly a whole lot more willing to forgive Mackie than I am Crisp Ratt (known homophobe and all around terrible person) or even Jensen Ackles (dude literally treated destiel fans like freaks for years).

[mircallablue]

So, in the wake of BeauJesters seeming passing, I’m going to take a moment to be more than a little self-indulgent and explain why I love these characters and their unique dynamic so goddamn much, as well as why I’m so disheartened by the way the show seems to be taking them. Warning: essay ahead lol. This is just a rambly rant that I’m writing because it’s cathartic to vent a little bit of frustration, and I love these characters so much. (and I love the entire cast, every goddamn one, and every other character in the show too. This is about love, not hate). 

So, for a few brief and wonderful episodes in this campaign, I actually believed that I was being told a love story about falling in love with your best friend, and figuring out your sexuality, while also unlearning all of the untrue lessons that the world taught you about love while you were growing up, and in so doing, finding value in yourself. Which, for me personally, is just super relatable. Like, that ticks every damn box I have lol, which partly explains why I love BeauJester so much, and I know a lot of B/J shippers feel the same. I’ve shipped B/J from super early on, but I never in a million years really believed it would happen, for a lot of reasons. Mostly homophobia, biphobia and heteronormativity. But I enjoyed their dynamic nonetheless, even though I thought (and was often TOLD by other shippers) that it didn’t stand a chance in hell of happening. 

So you can imagine how VALIDATING it was when Marisha, both in character and out of game, confirmed that Beau had very significant romantic feelings for Jester. All of the crumbs we’d collected over the course of the campaign were finally coming together and all of the gaslighters who told us we were delusional suddenly had to acknowledge that there was something there. And once it had been acknowledged, it was OBVIOUS. Omg it was so obvious and I loved every second of it. It was so undeniable for the next few episodes, and in hindsight, that there was something building there between them, there was potential. There was definitely a connection between these two characters. And for a few weeks, it was great. 

Then Liam - out of character - mentions that Caleb is in love with Jester. And it is immediately, fandom wide, treated with more respect than Marisha and Beau. 

I know a lot of people get very very angry when this is brought up, but it is just the ugly, unfortunate reality that a lot of people in this fandom treat Jester like a manic pixie dream girl. Even the people who do not consciously believe her to be that (and I don’t think there are many that genuinely believe it), are perfectly fine /treating her/ like one, as long as it serves one of the straight men that they love so much, usually Caleb. And this is where the heteronormativity comes in. Because even though it was an out-of-game confession with no bearing on canon, Calebs feelings immediately took precedence over Beaus in terms of the fandom narrative. 

I personally have never liked the way Liam handles romance in game. He did pretty much the exact same thing in campaign 1 as well, where his sad boy pines after the happy girl from afar until he’s uncontrollably in love with her, and then with no warning he drops it like a bomb. He just happened to drop it out of game this time. The main reason I don’t like this style of romance is because of how (unintentionally) manipulative it is. You see it in bad romcoms all the time. The guy makes a public declaration of love that pressures the girl into reciprocating or looking like the bad guy. But the main reason I don’t like /this particular/ declaration is the timing. 

Liam - who has always said he likes things to come out in game - inexplicably decides out of game reveal something as major as Caleb being in love with Jester, right after Marisha IN GAME took steps towards Beau and Jester being together. And it completely changed the narrative. Suddenly it was “top table top table”, and that's if Beaus feelings ever got mentioned at all. It was not at all helped by the fact that a lot of cast members (sam) still pushed Fjorester HARD, even with Jester telling Nott to stop, which must have sucked for Marisha/Beau. But even as recently as episode 99, Beau was still flirting with Jester, and there were definite hints at Jester maybe having unacknowledged feelings for Beau.

Then the hiatus happened. When we return, Beau is throwing herself at Yasha, and there’s not even a song for Jester on her playlist.  And then Travis reveals (also out of game, like Liam) that Fjord has feelings for Jester (in a playlist heavily curated by known fjorester, Dani Carr). And even /that/ is treated with more weight by some fans than Beaus in canon confession. And Yasha is having all of these super convenient dreams where Zuala tells her its ok to move on, and Beau and Jester are barely speaking. And now Beau is calling Yasha her GIRLFRIEND? WHAT??? Did I miss 20 secret episodes that aired during hiatus or something???? Beau and Yasha have still, in 107 episodes, only had ONE meaningful conversation and yet their relationship is being treated as deep and inevitable. Sure, you can read into their other interactions if you want. But as a queer person, I am sick to death of my love needing to be represented as subtext.

And so it has become pretty clear that the cast has decided out of game to go in a different direction. And of course they are well within their right to do that. But I just can’t help feeling incredibly disheartened, and again, more than a little bit gas-lighted. It really does seem as if Beaus' feelings for Jester have just been scrubbed from canon - as if they never even happened. All, seemingly, to make way for a typical happy-girl-sad-guy relationship with either Fjord or Caleb, and a typical pair-the-spares barely-any-depth relationship between the two out lesbians because its easy.

For the entirety of campaign 2, BeauJester has been treated as one thing - inconvenient. Inconvenient by the fans, who prefer other ships and have treated BeauJesters terribly, and now it seems, inconvenient by the cast, who have seemingly discarded it and scrubbed it from canon. 

And one thing that really upsets me is the amount of genuine viciousness and vitriol coming from (some) BeauYasha shippers. I really wish BeauYasha was something I could get on board with, I do. And a lot of people who are sending me hate seem to assume I don’t want them to end up together. But I would be fine with that. But as it stands, they’ve literally only had one real conversation in 107 episodes, and they’re calling each other girlfriend? While literally having not spoken about anything like that? While one of those characters is supposed to have canon romantic feelings for another woman? Imagine that situation with any other characters and it would be comical.

I swear, the queer ladies in this fandom have been done dirty. All of us. Imagine if, in campaign one, Grog and Keyleth, in episode 107, started calling each other boyfriend/girlfriend in the middle of a battle. (I picked those two because they probably had the fewest moments together of any VM pairing). That’s pretty much what happened here, and we’re supposed to like it - be grateful, even - because it’s wlw rep? And I swear, the number of times I’ve been called lesbophobic in the last month is absurd - all because I’m not comfortable with a canon lesbians canon feelings being swept under the rug. All because I want wlw relationships to be allowed to have the same depth and growth as the straight ones. Yes, even if that relationship is B/Y. We should not settle for less. Imagine if they had done this with any other character's canon feelings for another. People would be angry.

And I know there are going to be a lot of people saying “It’s their game, they can do what they like”. 

True. I never said otherwise. But it is also a show. It is a product. They sell merch. It is something that they have taken the time and the steps to make sure that we care about. And this is what that looks like. 

I know what happened here isn’t technically queerbaiting, but damn if it doesn’t cut the same.

[astral-crab]

my thoughts on loki and bi erasure [contains spoilers!]

i have some thoughts and feelings about lgbt/queer erasure in the mcu and bi erasure in the current discussion around the latest episode of loki. it’s a little spoilery, so here is your SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS warning for loki episode 4, don’t read this if you don’t want any spoilers, etc.

disclaimer, i am not bi (i’m lesbian), so i’m not speaking from that lived experience. that said, the possibility of sylvie x loki that came up in episode 4 clearly feels disappointing to a lot of lgbtq mcu/loki fans. but i think it’s not because bi characters in an m/f pairing makes them any less bi. or at least, it shouldn’t be. because sylvie and loki are bi, no matter who they’re in a romantic/sexual pairing with. calling sylvie x loki straight is bi erasure and it’s not okay.

but i think i understand where a lot of the upset/disappointment is coming from (aside from the fact that sylvie x loki seems pretty incestuous to a lot of people, but that’s a separate issue). like all queer people/relationships, bi people in same-sex or visibly queer relationships are depicted less often in media than straight or straight-passing relationships. straight and straight-passing are NOT the same, but i think it’s important to acknowledge that passing privilege does exist. a bisexual person currently in an m/f relationship experiences the world differently than a bisexual person currently in a visibly queer/non-passing relationship. (but! neither experiences the world as a cishet person or straight couple would! because they are not straight!)

additionally, the mcu has historically been extremely NO HOMO with its characters (cap/bucky and carol/maria, anyone?), going out of its way to make sure we know these characters are definitely not queer or gay in any way they are 100% straight what are you talking about, despite a lottttttttt of queer coding (whether the queer coding was intentional or not doesn’t really matter). like, it wasn’t enough for marvel to just leave well enough alone and let things be even a little ambiguous. they had to go out of their way to let us know there was nothing gay about some of these main characters’ relationships. that’s shitty and homophobic.

and when the mcu has depicted non-straight people, it’s felt very performative (i’m mainly thinking of the support group scene from endgame where one nameless background man mentions going on a date with another man), rather than genuine. it’s just a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it token of representation. (and then we get some queer rep in some of the tv shows, like runaways, but those aren’t considered canon anymore afaik, and those characters never appear in the movies, so a lot of fans feel like it doesn’t count.) so lgbtq marvel fans are really, really lacking in decent rep right now, particularly those of us who want to see better/more rep of non-passing characters and relationships.

bisexual characters in straight-passing relationships already have more representation in media than bisexual characters in non-passing relationships, and i think we can all agree that only representing part of the bi experience, and completely ignoring the wide spectrum that it actually is, is another form of erasure. and i think that’s what feels disappointing/upsetting to so many loki fans. there was the potential to see a historically ignored/erased part of the bi experience portrayed in one of the largest franchises out there, and if they end up doing sylvie x loki, we won’t get that.

however, in conclusion, we really need to be mindful of how we talk about this. loki and sylvie are canonically bi. who they’re in a romantic/sexual pairing with does not change that. i think we can be hungry for more/better representation of the entire, vast range of queer experiences and also not erase loki’s and sylvie’s bisexuality. and if we do get sylvie x loki, we still have queer rep in the mcu that we didn’t have before! and that is always worth celebrating. 💗💜💙