#and actors who are uncomfortable with their characters being read as queer or portrayed as such in fan works need to 1. self-reflect and

[betty-bourgeoisie]

Oooh my god 1776 was such a good play

- I really wasn't expecting to be so affected by the casting, but seeing the founding fathers portrayed entirely as women and nonbinary people really got me. Especially the fact that most of the women actors were dressed in more butch (for the time period) clothing and were talking about loving their wives so casually on stage. It just really gave me a moment of "oh my god they're like me!" that I almost never feel, even with queer media.

- On that note, the playbill had a whole section just talking about gender and gender expression and explaining they/them pronouns to the audience. It just felt so amazing looking at the playbill and having it be directly confirmed right there that the space was for me. I didn't realize how much I needed that.

- There was one dance number where all of the actors lined up in just the right way for their coats to make a rainbow and it was beautiful

- The blue angels flew over just before the beginning of Mama Look Sharp (ouch) and then the choir of women singing the mothers' response together just broke me. I started crying in the theater thinking about all the young people the U.S has sent to war over its history and how many mothers never got to see their babies again because the rich and powerful decide to go to war.

- The montage of different protests and civil unrest throughout U.S. history at the end of The Egg was such a powerful moment.

- The lines "liberty and justice for all" in the declaration being read while Thomas Jefferson's character stood in the middle of the stage and had her coat put on and brushed by another character that was heavily implied to be a slave sent absolute shivers down my spine.

-The actress who sang Molasses to Rum to Slaves was phenomenal. She really made it exactly as uncomfortable as it needed to be.

-The ending with the unexpected reprise of Is Anybody There was truly the perfect ending. So so good.

I'm so glad I was able to go in person. It was just a totally different experience from the movie and I enjoyed it so much.

[nerves-nebula]

"the actors don't like the ship it makes them uncomfortable!" yeah that does not and never has mattered. they're actors. they act as characters. they are not the characters themselves, they do not have a say in how you think of or portray the characters they act as. this is not real person fanfiction. Alex is just a homophobic creep.

anyway after talking to my friend i've decided to just tell you guys. the series i hate is The Mandela Catalogue. it's so shit. absolute garbage. Plays into every ableist trope in the book.

If you try to analyze the way characters are coded to be scary or creepy or "inhuman" it's 99% of the time just them being disabled or neurodivergent or some other marginalized identity.

the fascist undertones of the series are incredibly evident, from the stranger-danger propaganda being given at face value with no commentary on how fucked up it is to just say it's reasonable for you to shoot someone you think is an alternate/looks weird (are white people not aware of all the poc and disabled people who get shot and attacked cuz their existence is seen as threatening?)

the public announcement shit is literally fear mongering except it's in universe proven to be correct because the universe alex has created is an inherently fascist one where innocent white Christians and their innocent white children are under attack from Real Demons (where have i heard that one before)

the THINK principles are akin to a cults guideline. how is the scary thing here that there are weird looking people out there that will Say Scary Shit to you (the idea of an Unknowable Truth as it's alluded to in tmc is bullshit and one of the dumbest Monster powers I've ever heard of) instead of the fact that society is gonna collapse because this shit will make people paranoid as hell, and start shooting their neighbors. But no, that would make it a GOOD series with something INTERESTING to say.

OH and the fact that the enemies in the series are somehow supposed to Look Just Like You (they could be anyone!!) but also look biologically impossible (so many of the alternates + The intruder just look like disabled or disfigured people put through a scary filter)

and hey, while we're here, can we think of any other examples of tropes in media in which all of these apply to The Enemy?

looks very similar to REAL humans, so much so that they could fool you into thinking they ARE one! and yet are also somehow inherently biologically different in a way you are capable of figuring out just by looking at them.

has dark beady eyes and a hooked/big/prominent nose (thinking of the intruder specifically here)

Kidnaps your children for their own nefarious means (blood libel)

Kidnaps/corrupts your children by controlling the media/technology/TV screens.

Desire world domination/is part of some big conspiracy stretching far into the past

Guilty for the death (or in this instance possibly the replacement of) Jesus Christ

depicted as literal demons

Hint! it's antisemitism! it's always fucking antisemitism!!! Coming from a man who's main source of inspiration is his Christianity & mental health issues (though he doesn't seem to mind demonizing the symptoms of mental illnesses he hasn't had personal experience with) i'm not surprised! Though I am disappointed, because he supposedly wants to be a writer, and he doesn't seem very aware of any of the tropes he's propagating. like c'mon man, i thought you liked literature.

I could make another list exactly like that one but for ableism, but if i committed that hard then we'd be here all day.

Alex has even started using words like Degenerate/Degeneration in promotional material too (which if you know anything about fascist rhetoric is a bad sign) not to mention his weird behavior around queer headcanons/shipping and his tendency to mock people who read queer subtext into his work.

The only good things that come from the mandela catalogue are from the fandom but even the fandom can't stop talking about how SUBVERSIVE and UNIQUE it is when it's literally just regurgitated reactionary talking points. The fandom also loves reinforcing Alex's weird ass "no gay shipping" mandate.

like, he clearly doesn't mind the inclusion of romances. Adam had a girlfriend. what he says he minds is "sexualization" which just so happens to include every instance of two male characters looking at each other or holding hands (because being gay is inherently sexual to him, which is homophobic btw. not a "boundary")

i could write essays about how every little single aspect of this series is, thematically speaking, dogshit garbage which appeals to the majority and barely admits the rest of us exist (which i wouldnt even care about so much if people didn't act like this series was at all unique or subversive)

I've talked for fucking hours about how every time i think it can't get any worse it somehow does. i've barely touched on the ableism here, haven't even mentioned the racism OR how all the female characters are defined by their relations to the male characters.

ALL THIS. ALL THIS!!! And all you see about it is praise praise PRAISE. but guys. it's just BAD.

side note: if this post makes you feel the need to tell me why it's actually good: don't! i really dont care if you like it, good for you i guess. as far as i'm concerned the fans of it are the best part of the whole damn series (to be clear the fandom has its own problem but even then. it's generally fine) but it is NOT good source material.

[stranger-rants]

I've been seeing people being upset at the sexualization of Harringrove quite often. I personally was sexualized heavily from a young age (around how old Billy was in season 2) so I don't think it's "weird" if someone gets uncomfortable at the idea of 17 year olds being seen as hot, or wanting to be seen in a sexual situation. Obviously Billy and Steve were played by adults, but most content is about Billy and Steve, not their actors (I am in no way saying ship real people). In my opinion it is a bit odd to view someone's performance as a child/minor as attractive. I'm 35 now, so I can definitely understand adults wanting to be apart of fandom. There are still things that people may view as strange. That's just my two cents, not trying to sound rude at all. Feel free to tell me more.

I don't know who's upset about this, because it's no one I know...

I don't think it's weird at all to explore sexuality in fictional ships, and I don't think exploring that with fictional characters who are teenagers portrayed by adults is comparable to sexualizing children. It's okay if people don't like that, but sex and sexuality is a common theme in teen dramas outside of fandom. Always has been. It's canon that these characters have sex and enjoy it, and talking about that aspect of them is pretty normal.

I am personally tired of having this conversation. If it's uncomfortable to you or to anyone else, that's fine. However, I don't think people who assume the worst about adults talking about queer sex and sexuality especially have good intentions and it just reads to me that people are fearmongering over something that doesn't actually endanger real children, or encourage people to sexualize real teenagers.

I've been preyed on a few times, and as such there are things I'm personally uncomfortable with as well but I don't think fans enjoying sexual content are in any way similar to predators when sex and sexuality are a normal part of many people's experiences in their teen years and developmentally appropriate to begin exploring. Why are we even looking at fans with such a critical eye for consuming it when the show is literally selling sex and sexuality to fans...

Can we do me a favor and just stop bringing up this topic to me. I have my own thoughts and opinions, and there are things I'm uncomfortable with but I'm not ashamed of consuming works that contain sex nor am I interested in even hinting that queer fans who enjoy this content are somehow weird or strange or predatory for something that is actually completely normal.

[thephantomcasebook]

Asking respectully, why are you insulting the HotD actors for THEIR interpretation of the characters they portray, going as far as calling them dumb, while your entire blog is about opinions YOU as a reader got from the books?

That's simple enough to answer.

Cause HOTD isn't made up whole-cloth from nothing. There is source material, there is an author who knows every characters motivation and backstory. There is very - very - little room for major interpretations of what a character's backstory is but for micro-details from an actor's prospective. Therefore to make up major motivations of established pathos is nonsensical.

If you're referring to the incident with Olivia Cooke, I won't apologize for it.

Her takes on Alicent are purposefully ignorant and disrespectful and is meant to be inflammatory and irreverent in order to poke at and even make fun of the fanbase and the franchise. Her takes are bad - borderline mentally challenged - and all of it for nothing but a good a laugh with D'arcy at the expense of that "Nerd Shit" that Spotchnik promised would get them awards.

I'm sorry, Nonny, I've been a geek too long not to know intimately when I or something I like is being made fun of or treated with disrespect. Especially by immature, nihilistic, smug, arrogant, London trash.

There is source material, there is notes, and conversations with GRRM about Alicent ... and Cooke did not do any research, did not read the source material, she decided that HER interpretation of Alicent based on Spotchnik's bullshit premise and her own imagination was not only what she'll do but will fight for even when she's been told by GRRM, Taylor, and Condal, that her creepy ideas of Alicent sexual experimenting with Lesbianism as a young girl and Rhaenyra being her first love have never been and will never be canon. Even Emily Carey has said that Cooke's takes on Alicent make her uncomfortable and are totally opposite of what she was told was Alicent's motivations.

And I'd like to point out that Emily Carey is a member of the queer community and Olivia Cooke is not. And when both Carey and Alcock have come out and said that people - D'arcy and Cooke included - sexualizing young Alicent and Rhaenyra's relationship is gross and not cool, I whole heartedly agree.

So, the question, Nonny, remains that if the author and creator, current showrunners, and the young actresses, have all said that her take is bullshit ... why should I respect it? And further more, what is her point for continuing to push her narrative?

The Answer: Cause she prejudice against the character she's portraying.

Because, Olivia Cooke is not a mother, does not believe in anything beyond getting shit-faced and partying, and has all the lame, paint-by-number, luxury politics, of the normal white female upper-class Londoner, she can't get into Alicent's head space nor understand the character's motivations - cause she most likely looks down on women who think and believe the way that Alicent does in real life.

Like all white liberal women, her feminism and activism only extends to the women who think and act like her ... the rest don't exist and aren't considered women in their mind.

Therefore, she has come up with some weird, extra creepy, headcanon that reflects her world view and her values in order to play a woman that Cooke can't get over her own ego and brainwashed world view to understand or research, to walk a mile in her shoes. Cause, that is asking too much of someone who is here only for awards and to make fun of the nerds with D'arcy.

Look, Nonny, I've always thought that Cooke is a great actress. She's got great emotional instincts. She is both pure talent and uniquely beautiful. But I've known plenty of vapid narcissists in London and Los Angeles who are both ... and I've learned long ago to separate the art from the artist.

Alicent is a character I adore and have grown incredibly attached too. Olivia Cooke's talent and pathos as an actress is a huge reason for that. But that doesn't mean that I can't or won't be critical of someone who I have diametrically opposed view of the world and whose intentions are not only purely mercenary but are borderline purposefully malicious toward not just the material but the fans.

It's a paradox, but one that is very human, and most people live with everyday.

[clairenatural]

hi! i shouldn’t have made this post! i did it thinking it was a joke without thinking about the implications, full context and the hate spreading i was contributing to! it was ignorant and i don’t want to delete for accountability but pls stop reblogging it it’s Not A Good Post

[rosiegeee]

List of LGBTQ+ Character’s in Disney Films

This is a reposting of a previous post from last December with updated information. Disney has a very long history of making queer coded characters, mostly villains, and despite there being several opportunities in the past two decades to make characters that have actual speaking lines LGBT, there are next to none. Here are, to my knowledge, the only confirmed LGBT characters/couples in Disney movies.

Lefou and his dance partner. 2017 Beauty and the Beast.

Lefou is in a good portion of the movie, and he clearly has something for Gaston, but when Gaston point blank asks Lefou why he isn’t with any girl, Lefou doesn’t have a gay panic moment where he tries to hide anything, or says he’s gay/bi. He gives a genuine answer that women just don’t like him, which implies that he truly wants to be with a woman. In the last five minutes of the movie Lefou is dancing with a woman and is smiling and having fun, than his partner leaves and is replaced with a man, and Lefou’s face turns to confusion and not a look of attraction, although the man seems interested in him. What I’m saying is that Disney said how proud they were of making Lefou gay, but had no true set up, had the character genuinely says they like women, than when he has his gay moment he looks uncomfortable, and not in a questioning-my-sexuality kind of way. Lefou is a last minute gay.

Officer Specter. Onward

This character is far better than Lefou, but still falls in the one second gay category. She’s not in a good portion of the movie, but she does have speaking lines, and one of them is she mentions her girlfriend and her girlfriend’s daughter. She is probably the second best character on this list, and that is sad because she’s in less than ten minutes of the movie and although we don’t need to, it would have been nice to see said family, even just a picture would suffice. Still she is only one of four characters on this list who makes it specifically clear that they are LGBT, while the others had to be confirmed outside the film by the film makers.

Bucky and Pronk. Zootopia/Zootropolis

They are introduced as Judy’s loud next door neighbors and were confirmed nine months after the films release that they were a married couple and not brothers. The actor for these two had to confirm it, and in five years Disney has not debunked it so its Canon, but could be debunked by disney if they feel like it. If they are a couple than that makes them the first LGBT couple in disney, and how were they portrayed, yelling and arguing at each other in every scene they are in except the nudist shot. They fall into the retroactively gay category, and In my eyes the disappointing category.

Bobby. Avengers: Endgame.

Do you know how long it took me to find the name of this character. Five minutes, when all it should take is typing in “Gay grieving man in Endgame” into Google, but he was such a small character that I had to go through 3 different MCU wikia pages to find his name. He is one of the four confirmed for sure onscreen LGBT characters. He’s talking to Steve Rogers five year after the snap in group therapy about his date with a male character, and how he misses his previous boyfriend. For years this is all the MCU has, as Valkyrie has yet to be confirmed onscreen. I classify him a one minute gay. (Side note Bobby here is taking to the man that risked his life multiple times to save the life of Bucky just so they an stay platonically together without Bucky asking him too, where as Peggy, the woman Cap marries at the end of this movie, begged Steve to get off the ship and we know there were parachutes, not that he needs them, and that once he changed the course of the plane he probably could have jumped ship to be with her, but instead choose suicide[He also thought Bucky was dead at this point.] So read into that as much as you want and think about how much sense the final scene of Endgame made.)

Commander Larma D'Acy and Lieutenant Wrobie Tyce. Star Wars: the Rise of Skywalker.

Bet you also didn’t know the name of the woman D’Acy was kissing in this scene, did you? D’Acy was a minor character who was in all three sequel Star Wars movies and I honestly liked her even before I knew she was gay, but considering how much hype and teasing by ALL the actors that FinnPoe would become canon, this felt like a punch in the gut. In fact all they had to do was make the obviously gay Poe canonoticly gay but still single and I would have settled for that, but instead D’Acy, who was barely in the films and hadn’t mentioned her wife at all in 3 movies or are seen together before this point on screen, was the one to be confirmed on screen to be gay. These two fall under the last minute gays category.

Lesbian couple in Finding Dory and Lesbian Moms in Toy Story 4.

If these two couples have names, I couldn’t find them. The first two should because I think one has a speaking role and therefore should be credited, but I couldn’t find it, if you know write a comment. The Finding Dory couple could literally just be friends and we would never know if Disney hadn’t been all like “Look at the gay characters we gave you, we’re so proud.” The mom’s in Toy Story 4 are more obviously a couple, especially in there second appearance in the end, but they are so far in the background that you could easily mistake the black mother for the Caucasian mom’s husband if Disney hadn’t again advertised these characters as there glorious representation. These two couple fall under the background/ confirmed off-screen one second gays category.

Artie: Cruella

Dude is very obviously gay, the first out of all of the above, but Disney went from so obviously not gay that they have to off screen tell you that’s what they are to all the gay man stereotypes rolled into one, he’s in a small little portion of the movie but he is important to the plot, but still had to be confirmed off-screen. So Although I don’t like his portrayal I can say that this is by far the best lgbt character Disney has made up until May 2021 in there films. He has set the bar, and lets hope every lgbt character after him is better.

McGregor Houghton: Jungle Cruise

I haven’t watched this movie yet so I can’t fully speak for it, but someone in the comments says “he had this whole monologue of how his family was completely against his 'preferences'”. And google confirms he is gay, so he joins the list. I can’t fully rank him though yet.

Phastos and Ben: Eternals.

God almighty how I waited for a character like Phastos. An actually openly gay character who being gay is only one aspect of there character. That alone would have been enough, but what makes me fall in love even more is he has a husband named Ben, and a Son named Jack. I REPEAT, HE HAS AN ON-SCREEN HUSBAND AND A CHILD. They also share a kiss which is a first in the mcu films. He is important to the plot, has more then ten minutes of screen time and lines, and is actually gay on-screen plus is a pretty good character. I hope this is not the last good lgbt disney film character for another decade.

Before I conclude there are some honorable mentions that are technically lgbt but didn’t qualify for this list. Amilyn Holdo from the last jedi is bi, but was only confirmed in a novelization whose canonality can change at anytime. Lando Calrissian was confirmed pansexual off screen in 2018, however in both Solo and TROS he was not portrayed as such. Valkyrie was confirmed bi off-screen, but had her two lgbt scenes cut so there is no film proof of this on screen. Finally Loki was confirmed genderfluid and bisexual (but used solely he/him pronouns and fell in love with his genderbent self because they wouldn’t dare have him actually be seen flirting with anyone but a woman) however this was an mcu tv show and I am not sure yet if I consider it canon just yet.

So in total, counting mentioned partners that never were on screen, the number of confirmed LGBT people in all of Disney films is 19. After reading this I hope it becomes blaringly obvious why Disney needs more prominent LGBT representation. If this were done with racial representation Disney would probably not be in business still. There is progress being made, but only slightly. There is still plenty room to grow, such as first trans/non-binary character, or lgbt character under 18. So if you want a serious queer Disney fix, your going to have to stick to Tv, books, and shorts for now.

[queermediastudies]

Little Effort for LGBTQ Representation in a “Maximum Effort” Superhero Movie

In comic books, one of my favorite characters is and has always been Deadpool. He is “popularly known to be pansexual and isn't particularly choosy about the gender of his partner, much like he has no particular affinity to anything. While this wasn't reflected in the 2016 film starring Ryan Reynolds, both Reynolds and director Tim Miller have hinted that this might come up in the sequel” (Vijaykumar, 2016). After watching it, I feel that the movie succeeds on some marks for giving out adequate LGBTQ representation, but not for the character one might expect. The movie Deadpool 2centers around Wade Wilson’s “one or two moments” that make him an (anti)hero. After losing his love Vanessa from the first movie, Wade finds himself attempting to create the X-Force in order to protect Russell, a mutant teenager from Cable, an experienced and genetically enhanced time-traveling soldier on a quest for revenge. Most of the movie focuses on the drama that ensues after Deadpool’s vain attempt to die is foiled by his own mutant abilities, his grudging acceptance of life and a sense of responsibility for Russell only to then (spoiler alert!) die. Except he doesn’t. Yet, in all of the CGI fights and snarky comments and constant breaking of the fourth wall, the movie does actually manage to discuss some elements of LGBTQ identities and representation. There are two main topics surrounding LGBTQ issues that the movie Deadpool 2 focuses on: the alleged hypersexuality of bi/pansexual people and alternatively, the de-sexualization of queer couples already in a relationship. Deadpool’s‘R’ rating and the characters’ own desire to “Fuck Wolverine” by getting better ratings in the second film took away from the potential of better, full-fledged LGBTQ representation stemming from the titular character, however, the film manages to cover up some of its pitfalls by succeeding in portraying a healthy lesbian relationship between one of the already established characters in the franchise and threading subtleties that condemn conversion therapy and argue for acceptance of others.

           At the start of the film, Deadpool makes a valiant, but luckily, unsuccessful attempt at suicide with the first two words being “Fuck Wolverine.” This merges directly into his habit of breaking the fourth wall and speaking directly to the audience and promising that he’ll be dying in this film too. Deadpool, played by Ryan Reynolds then goes on to explain what led up to this moment which can be quickly summed up as the love of his life, Vanessa, was killed and he feels responsible for her death. The fact that Deadpool only begins to show more signs of a queer sexuality after Vanessa (his love from the entire first movie dies) indicates that being queer means exhausting every other opportunity of expressing yourself. Without the director and actor Ryan Reynolds discussing it in interviews, the average viewer would have been largely unaware of Deadpool’s canon queer identity in the comics. GLAAD actually gave the first movie some flack for its “veiled references” to Deadpool’s sexuality, however, the second film does not seem to take the subject much further (Romano, 2018). It is easy to view Deadpool’s flirtatious manner with Colossus as simply a moment of weakness and used as a joke, rather than an affirmation of his queer identity and sexuality.

           The other, more direct aspect of LGBTQ identity that is given in the movie is between Negasonic Teenage Warhead and her girlfriend, Yukio. The following scene occurs just prior to Deadpool’s confrontation with Colossus.

           “The power-couple proves groundbreaking, proving to be the first truly open, explicitly LGBT couple in superhero cinema” (Armstrong, n.d.). Despite this being the first out relationship in a Hollywood movie, the moment isn’t treated like a groundbreaking moment. In some ways, this could be seen as negative, because it isn’t treated like a big deal, but Armstrong argues that it could also be a way of trying to prevent alienating viewers by “mak[ing] any LGBT representation too visible [then] make certain audiences uncomfortable” (n.d.).

           In the article from Scott, Darieck & Fawaz, the authors explore queerness using the X-Men as an example (2018). The queerness in X-Men characters is even more pronounced for certain individuals, such as Iceman who are actually labeled as gay/bi/pansexual, alongside of Deadpool. There is a scene in the second X-Men movie in which Iceman “comes out” to his parents, except rather than dealing with sexuality, it is about his mutant status (Puchko, 2018).

           Exchange the word “gifted/mutant” for “gay” in the previous clip, and the movie would have passed for solid LGBTQ representation. This movie was filmed before “the character Iceman realizes that he has been in the closet after his younger self confronts his older self in Uncanny X-Men (in a messy time-travelling episode)” (Vijaykumar, 2016), but the franchise as a whole still works to entice LGBTQ viewers for the marginalization that mutants feel in society that mirrors the lack of acceptance for LGBTQ individuals. Going back to the film, although Deadpool 2fails at giving enough exposure and time to focus on Deadpool’s pansexuality, it still adopts many of the themes from previous X-Men movies that argue for acceptance alongside of Negasonic’s relationship with Yukio. The movie provides its own anxious teen serving as a symbol for queer youth and their fight against with bigoted condemnation through flame-throwing Russell Collins” (Puchko, 2018). Russell, or “Firefist” lashes out in violence because of the torture suffered at the hands of Essex House’s mutant-hating headmaster whose techniques are similar to real-life “pray away the gay” conversion therapy (2018). Given that Russell is seen purely as a victim, regardless of the violence he instigated and the reckless choices he made that led to Cable searching for revenge against him in the first place show how damaging the lack of acceptance is for people in marginalized communities. Russell was persecuted because of his mutant status, and despite the film not exploring the canon texts of queer visibility in the comics in any nuanced way, it still provides some representation what is still a hilarious movie.

           I only just recalled the Celine Dion music video that came out before the movie that Deadpool did a music video to and is the song for the very Bond-esque opening credits for this movie. Check it below, both the music video and the opening credits.

Music video: 

Opening credits to Deadpool 2: 

Given that I’ve read the Deadpoolcomics, I saw the moments where Wade is flirting with Colossus as an affirmation of his sexuality in the most “Deadpool way,” that is, ridden with crude humor and sexual overtones. However, it is understandable to me where audiences would downplay those moments because the movie does not return to them or make them “a big deal,” when it needs to be in order to provide a critical and engaged LGBTQ character. Additionally, Deadpool’s character is very much an anti-hero. Although we see him have a couple heroic moments in this movie, he is still a mercenary who has a murder tally in the hundreds for the movies and thousands in comic books, which doesn’t bode well for overall positive LGBTQ representation. Also, given that the network Fox was subsequently bought out by Disney just prior to this movie’s release makes me concerned for the future of Deadpool and the X-Force as a whole because of Disney’s now long-running trick of the presenting their “first” LGBTQ character appearing in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene in recent movies (Beauty and the Beast, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Onward). Personally, I identify as pansexual, so seeing a superhero movie where it was at least alluded to more directly, alongside an explicit lesbian couple appearing on-screen simply gives me great joy although I definitely want to see Hollywood go further in how it portrays queer characters. My biggest issue with the movie was actually that the character Yukio has already been portrayed in X-Men films and is actually at one point, dating Wolverine. Therefore, her relationship with Negasonic does not make any sense if one follows the movies and comics very closely, however, it is a sin I was willing to forgive because other than Yukio’s rather small presence in other movies, she shines in Deadpool 2.

References:

Armstrong, B. (n.d.). Deadpool 2 is Groundbreaking, But Still Lukewarm LGBT Representation. Retrieved October 2020, from Metzia.com <https://metiza.com/culture/lifestyle/deadpool-2-is-groundbreaking-but-still-lukewarm-lgbt-representation/>

Puchko, K. (2018). ‘Deadpool 2’ is the gayest superhero movie yet. That’s not saying much. Retrieved October 2020, from Mashable. <https://mashable.com/2018/05/20/deadpool-2-queer-representation/>

Romano, N. (2018). What Deadpool 2 gets right and wrong about Hollywood’s first LGBTQ Marvel heroes. Retrieved October 2020, fro, Entertainment Weekly. <https://ew.com/movies/2018/05/18/deadpool-2-lgbtq-superheroes/>

Scott, Darieck & Fawaz, R. (2018). “Queer About Comics.” American Literature 90(2), 197-219.

Vijaykumar, N. (2016). Wonder Woman and other LGBT characters in comics universe. Retrieved October 2020, from The Week. <https://www.theweek.in/webworld/features/society/lgbt-comic-characters-wonder-woman-deadpool.html>

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[conduitandconjurer]

Hi there! I’ve lurked for a little while and just recently followed. You have a really interesting take on Klaus and I’d like to ask: what kind of things do you do to get into character so to speak? Are there any important things about his character you like to keep in mind when you write him? And as someone who has written for many years but is considering rp, any advice for a first-timer? Thanks and hope you have a wonderful day/night!

First of all you should know that I’ve been rping on various platforms for over 15 years at this point, and messages like this still MAKE MY WHOLE WORLD BETTER <33333  Thank you SO much for your gracious and generous kind words.  You took a second to extend a hello and compliment my hard work and it means so so much.

So Klaus and I are NOTHING alike, which is exactly why I choose to write muses like him.  It provides me an outlet of escape from my own life (which has its ups and downs) and it’s a creative and intellectual challenge to understand what makes a person so behaviorally different from myself tick. Most writers like to write characters who are like them.  And I do that too, but for me, I just need some single trait in a character that I resonate with. For Klaus, it’s his innate sweetness and vulnerability (which he tries and fails to conceal) and his need (and failure) to establish boundaries (with family and with ghosts), and finally it’s his fear of being insufficient as a person his family can rely upon (which he copes with by creating artificial emotional distance, and abusing substances, whereas I the mun marinate in guilt and try to overcompensate lmao).  While we’re still not alike, I can BEGIN to understand WHY he behaves the way he does, and I can build my portrayal off of that. 

Put another way, most of my muses are queer nonbinary he/him/they pronoun users, often neurodivergent, who are undergoing a moral struggle, usually somewhere in the antihero category, or even villains. I on the other hand am a queer cis disabled woman with PTSD who is a Lawful Good......and I think that, having a point for relating to but still not being exactly like my muses,  I almost begin to see myself as these characters’ mother or advocate of some kind.  I want to see them GROW and THRIVE.  From that urge, I derive the compassion that every writer needs to have for their character to (try to) portray them authentically.  

And that also means that the character is not going to remain within the bounds of their canonical portrayal. The way I write them will always START and be BASED ON that.  But the character will grow far afield of it.  Take Klaus, for instance. I sense you call my portrayal “interesting” (correct me if I’m wrong) because I choose to write Klaus as almost always post-season 2 AND sober.  He’s more at peace with himself than he was during the first season, he’s begun to properly process his grief for Dave Katz, he’s getting clean and staying clean, he’s becoming more emotionally reliable.  But he still makes mistakes, he still has the most severe, frustrating and painful (for him) case of ADHD I have ever seen, people still don’t “take him seriously” (his own words) and he has to grow a thick skin about their dismissive behavior.  

The fandom, even a number of Klaus rpers, like to keep Klaus in this depressing stasis chamber where he’s constantly nihilistic, selfish, and strung out, and a lot of people see Klaus’s addictions as the brunt of jokes, and while that’s cool for them, and I’d never ask them to censor their portrayal, that makes me uncomfortable. As a person who’s worked with, still works with, at-risk youth at the college level, I just can’t jive with it.  Addiction is an illness and it’s not funny, and there are underlying reasons for Klaus’s addictions.  And what I want to do is excavate those underlying reasons, and watch him get the support he needs. He is still a snarky, sartorial, chaotic, quirkily sweet goofball when he’s sober.  He’s still Klaus.  

Things I do to get in the headspace:

--Listen to playlists that I make for the character or mood. Music is crucial.  --Watch videos of Robert Sheehan talking. Doesn’t have to be as Klaus, but sometimes is.  If you can’t hear the character in the dialogue (not only word choose but little mannerisms and speech patterns), rewrite it. Don’t settle until you can hear the actor’s voice.   --Scream to my friends on Discord about how much I love specific elements of the character, to get psyched up. I’m so sorry, @apocalypsejumped, you are the main person I do this to with Klaus, lmfao.  

--Never EVER look at my follower count, because it’s gonna either depress or intimidate me. 

--Look at pictures of the character. I’m incredibly visual. Just looking at my own screenshots makes me want to dissect him more. 

For advice? Oh lordy!   Uhhhh..... 

Write a lot. Practice a lot. I have a PhD and have written book manuscripts exceeding 600 pages, but you don’t have to go that far, lmao. That drabble in your head at 3 am? Get up and write it down. That passing bit of funny dialogue you think your muse would say? Write it down. I used to carry around a physical journal. Now I use my laptop. 

Write fast and only edit minimally because this is for fun, avocational, and you don’t want to spoil it with too much plotting and refinement.

Drop threads that aren’t working for you. Again, this is not a job, and when it feels like one, scale back.

Resist the urge to over-format.  If your posts cease to be easily legible, the aesthetic will only impede the flow of your prose.   It’s okay to vary your writing voice character by character. My syntax, vocab/word choice, sentence length and structure, vary from one muse to the other, bc the standard rp pov is third person singular, present-tense, meaning your muse is narrating it all from their specific pov.  Klaus and say, a very serious, formal character, would not have the same internal monologue, or even exposition. 

Beware of writing partners who are passive aggressive or possessive, who get jealous of your writing with others, and guilt you for spending your time elsewhere than catering to their needs.  I spent eight years in one of these writing partnerships and only escaped last March, and I am still recovering emotionally. Writing partners can absolutely be abusive, so make sure to enforce healthy boundaries and when they are violated repeatedly, run.

Pick a blog theme that is clearly organized and accessible. 

Don’t pick “main” or heaven forbid “exclusive” writing partners until you have experimented with your chemistry with a number of “versions” of their character (especially canons).  Take your time and see who you gel with. Sometimes you can have a great friendship with someone and your writing together still doesn’t click. It all depends on chemistry.  

Pick a small group of like minded friends and write with them. Do not worry about “exposure” or “popularity,” they are over rated.  Fandoms are genuinely crazy.  Just sit in your sandbox with your trusted buddies. <3 

Anyone else reading this, chime in with some writing advice for nonnie! <3 They’re an experienced writer but new to rp! 

[immaculate-benediction-batch]

Sorry this is so long......How TV Creators Are Handling Subtext And Shipping

TV series creators have a hard time not tailoring content towards a strictly heteronormative audience, refusing to lean in to queer context, no matter howlarge an LGBTQ following a show may have.

Once a fictional character is put out for public consumption, it ceases to be the one thing it’s described as on paper. This is especially the case with TV and film, where said character goes through so many hands before hitting the screen and becoming public property.

There are three kinds of creators when it comes to queer content on TV. The first (and sadly, most typical) is the creator who will deny any intention of creating queer content, and who will also refuse to acknowledge a queer audience’s interpretation., This often results in an instant backlash, as the Supergirlcast and creators experienced after an embarrassing interview with MTV last summer. When prompted to recap the latest season, the cast broke into a cringeworthy song that mocked fans’ interest in the Supergirl/Lena Luthor pairing, with Jeremy Jordan repeatedly exclaiming that the two will never get together. It continued despite Katie McGrath’s attempt to save the interview saying, “The great thing about what we do is, like any art, anyone can read into it what they want.” Chris Wood then chimed in with “Sexuality is all about others’ perception of yours, right?”

Supergirl is a show with a large female following that from the beginning has gravitated toward the female relationships it portrays, with emphasis on those relationships with strong queer energy. At first, there was a group of internet fans that were drawn to the chemistry between Melissa Benoist and Calista Flockhart, which was maximized due to the characters’ intense mentor/mentee relationship, and that was fine, and for the most part went unacknowledged by the show.

However, upon Flockhart’s exit, Lena Luthor was introduced, played by Katie McGrath. Kara Danvers and Lena Luthor became fast friends, and fans’ fascination with Supergirl’s queer vibes grew strong enough for the the cast to take notice. One would think that by having Alex Danvers and Maggie Sawyer, two queer characters already in their orbit, fan speculation about others wouldn’t be such an inconvenience that it would have to be addressed by aggressively singing “They’re only friends!” over and over, as if the pairing were unfathomable.

But Supergirl hasn’t been the only show to outright reject queer interpretations. In fact, a few years back, the long-running series Supernatural was called out by its fans for purposefully inserting homoerotic subtext within storylines pertaining to male characters Dean and Castiel, and for rather indirectly addressing said subtext in interviews. In one of them, Misha Collins (Castiel) stated that in certain scenes with Jensen Ackles (Dean) he was directed to portray his character as a “jilted lover.”

During a Toronto Con panel in 2013, it was revealed that a line was changed by Ackles — who last year specifically requested no questions about the popular pairing be allowed during the Q portion of a panel for the show at New Jersey Con–from “I love you” to “We’re family. I need you” because the Actor didn’t think it suited his character. Despite fandom’s interest in the pairing, it hasn’t been enough for Supernaturalto follow through with an actual queer storyline, aside from the one recurring lesbian character, Charlie, who was ultimately killed off. It turns out our tolerance for queerbaiting does have its limits.

Another show that failed to address the sapphic energy between its leads, in effect rejecting a great opportunity to add a bonus layer to an already complex relationship between two women, was Damages. The thriller starred Glenn Close as powerhouse prosecutor Patty Hewes, and Rose Byrne as her protégée, Ellen Parsons. The series went on for five seasons and throughout, though it benefitted from incredible writing, its highlight was clearly the tension and undecipherable relationship between Patty and Ellen.

While there was never any doubt that their connection was what kept the the show’s palpable tension dial at a 10, anytime the subject was brought up to either cast or creators it was denied or waved off as “wishful thinking,” as Glenn Close put it. When pressed further, she added, “I think there’s something seductive about Patty and she just seduces people and she’ll lead people on. I think that can come across as pure seduction.”

With Person of Interest, Sameen Shaw (Sarah Shahi) and Root (Amy Acker) first connected under very unique, very dark circumstances in which one was holding the other against their will in a life threatening situation. But there was a sizzle there that the audience immediately responded to, and while both cast and writers admitted that was not their intention, something amazing happenedthey took that audience reaction and ran with it. In the end, Shaw and Root’s romance became one of the show’s more compelling storylines.

Jane the Virgin did the same. When a character, Petra, who wasn’t intentionally written as queer read queer to LGBTQ viewers, the writers saw no problem taking the interpretation and adopting it as canon. After years of keeping Petra as a sort of peripheral player within Jane/Rafael storylines, the character of Jane Ramos was introduced as Petra’s defense attorney and eventual love interest.

The third type of creator is everyone’s favorite. This is the one that takes whatever gay subtext or context there is, embraces it, and expands upon it, recognizing that it’s there from the beginning. In the Flesh and Killing Eve are true representatives of queer entertainment that isn’t trying to steer its characters toward a path they weren’t organically wanting to go.

In the Flesh, a BAFTA-award winning series from BBC 3, was easily one of the best shows that no one watched; a zombie show with depth, which isn’t easy to accomplish. The story takes place years after a virus epidemic that turned the infected into flesh-eating monsters is cured, and the rehabilitated are returning home. Its main character is Luke, one of the former infected, suffering from memories of the terrible things he did while sick, and tortured by his own suicide, which was prompted by the loss of love interest, Rick.

The series ran for only two seasons, with a total of nine episodes. It was inventive and creative and stands as one of the greats right next to shows like Hannibal and The Exorcist, which was unfortunately canceled by Fox this year after only two seasons of sacrilege, beautiful cinematography, Alfonso Herrera (Sense8) and a bisexual Father Marcus, played by Ben Daniels.

Killing Eve is a female-led thriller that proves that the secret to making great TV is treating characters like human beings with the capacity to change. Eve, who, when we meet her, is living a life that doesn’t seem particularly terrible, whose marriage appears to be solid, her job secure, is lured into potentially life threatening situations for the sake of following her inexplicable attraction to a female assassin. As if beneath the surface there is a dormant unrest that is awakened with the arrival of Villanelle in her life, and though she does not stop to examine exactly what she expects to get from it, she craves and wants more of these moments that have stirred her awake. She’s both excited and frightened by Villanelle’s audaciousness, by the intrusion into her life,

both figuratively and literally.

The season’s got a few episodes left, yet the most compelling, and most attentively queer moment is part of the fifth episode, in which the two women finally come face to face in Eve’s home. Eve is sopping wet in a gorgeous dress Villanelle’s purchased for her, she’s cold and visibly uncomfortable, therefore Villanelle suggests Eve should change, before proceeding to peel the dress off her herself. It is a scene that doesn’t downplay the very real danger Eve is in by having Villanelle in her home. However there is also an erotic aspect to it that is very purposeful, and as series creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge points out, the attraction is definitely mutual, “I knew that the first moment they see each other. I labeled that moment as ‘love at first sight.’ But I didn’t want it to be constrained to romance, or to lust, or anything like that. There’s something waking in Eve every day that she spends imagining what this woman is doing.”

This type of storytelling allows characters to evolve the way that they want to evolve as opposed to forcing them into a first page description. There is loyalty to the authenticity of the story, which comes from meticulous attention paid to the writing, which Waller-Green explains is all about going against cliché: “The moment something feels predictable, there’s a roar in me to just go to the most surprising place. I don’t want to bore myself.”

Often times, when female queer characters are introduced, it is done in order to titillate, and their storylines are the product of a male gaze fantasy. Killing Eve manages to avoid all of that with Villanelle, a character who seems to have no specific preference when it comes to sexual partners, and yet doesn’t feel the need to use her sexuality to get what she wants. In addition to that and the meaty tension between the two leads (Villanelle and the titular Eve, played by Sandra Oh), the attention paid to the very queer theme of the show is evident in backstories of characters that would normally go without one, like that of Eve’s former boss and best friend Bill, an older man in a heterosexual relationship who casually reveals he’s loved “hundreds” of men, much to Eve’s surprise, and further reveals he is in an open relationship, and happily so.

The series proves not only that queer characters are marketablethe BBC series was renewed for a second season before the first even airedbut that straight creators are capable of writing queer content that isn’t offensive or over-sexualized. Phoebe Waller-Bridge credits the authenticity of the series to a collaborative effort, stating, “Because it’s all about the characters, the little details that link the two worlds, everyone’s really made it a psychological piece rather than just an artistic painting of two different people’s worlds,” but it really just goes to show that that negative aspects of queer representation that include the dreaded male gaze perspective can be avoided as long as the bar is set high enough by the showrunner.

It only takes a little bit of creativity and imagination, and a willingness to challenge the idea that heterosexual-based television makes for the best and most successful stories.

Alex Velazquez is a writer, photographer, and queer Mexican living in Los Angeles, CA.

[mimzy-writing-online]

What annoys you about the way LGBTQA+ is portrayed in books, films, and other media? Is there a stereotype people generally have that really upsets you? Please forgive me if I'm asking a sensitive topic. You do not have to answer this if it hurts your feelings or makes you uncomfortable.

Hi anon! Thank you for asking :)

This is definitely not a sensitive subject, but it might come across as a little ranting. I think talking about sensitivity issues is a brilliant thing and benefits everyone.

Bi-phobia, I hate bi-phobia.

I like when bisexual characters have a healthy relationship with sex and date whoever catches their fancy. Perf. 

I hate when media takes a bisexual female character and either objectifies her for it or slut shames her as a joke or includes some line about “but aren’t you worried about her wanting to date girls again?”

Or a character shows interest in men and women, or is coded as bisexual, and they’re either straight-washed or gay-washed. This can happen from both writers/producers and from fandom.

Epithets in writing same sex couples:

This happens so much in fanfiction (because good book editors edit them out of books before they’re published) and I hate it.

In same sex couples, pronouns can get a little tricky because is she being used for girl 1 or girl 2? So writers start doing this:

The brunet/the blond or the brunette/the blonde (there are different spellings for gender, I found this out the not fun way of grammar editing an entire book)

Character A looked at the brunette with longing and said, “I love you.” Character B kissed the blonde. 

And both the writer and the reader totally know the names of these characters they’ve seen for seven chapters so far but we’re still using epithets.

The younger man/the older man or woman, and suddenly you get gross sentences like.

Character A pushed the younger man into the kitchen. Character B offered the younger man a cup of tea and some biscuits.

Look, I know there’s only a two year age difference between these characters, but now I feel like one of them is at least a decade older and age gaps are hard for me to stomach as it is. And then, I see it with characters who are like, 18 and 20 and I just... why???

The (title/occupation/species) epithets. You know, if your wizard is dating a knight, and suddenly you have sentences like-

Character A led the wizard (who he has been dating for six months and totally knows the name of) towards the river. Character B touched the knight’s cheek and smiled at him.

Character A smiled at the young teacher and kissed her cheek. Character B blushed under the singer’s lips.

No. Thank. You.

You could find a good editor to fix those problems, ooooor, you could do the smart thing and learn to not do them.

Binding with ace bandages. Dangerous, terrible. 

Years ago I watched a short film about a teenager realizing he’s trans and in the film he binds with ace bandages. I watched this before I knew I was gender fluid, and I’m very lucky that I read enough about binding from posts passing down my tumblr dashboard that I learned to never ever do that. I got myself a proper binder and then when I saw a different short film with a clip of the character binding with ace bandages, I almost lost my shit.

The person bullying the queer character was queer as well and possibly hiding their crush for them? Hate it. So. Much.

Would not date a single one of my school bullies, no matter what. I don’t care why they made fun of me. Not. Ever. 

On the note of bullying, the thing I hated most about Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda was Martin. Martin never got punished and Simon was outed in a horrible and humiliating way and didn’t get to deal with the emotional aspect of that.

(Note, I love the book and consider it one of my favorites, but oh boy will I shred it when it comes to this topic)

Martin should have been punished for outing Simon. There should have been consequences. Martin was the obvious villain from the beginning and should have been treated as such. But he is repeatedly minimized in Simon’s narrative as so goofy you can’t hate him too much, and mostly harmless, and could almost be friends with if the blackmailing wasn’t happening. Simon tries to pretend he’s not that bad while Martin is blackmailing Simon to set him up with Simon’s friend Abby.

And I read Leah on the Off-Beat, which takes place a little over a year after the events of SvTHSA, and Leah says that she and Abby and Bram all hate and despise Martin, but Leah doesn’t get why Simon tries to be friendly with him when he was the one getting blackmailed for two months.

Love, Simon did it even worse, somehow??

In the book at least Simon had his friends by his side when he got outed. And when Abby found out why Martin was blackmailing Simon, and that Simon had helped set up hang-out time between her and Martin, she was upset. Rightfully so. She thought it was a terrible thing to do, but she recognized that Simon was a victim and she accepts his apology. She still takes time to acknowledge how that made her feel and she knows that Simon regrets what he did.

In the movie tho? Simon’s friends abandon him. I only watched the movie once for this reason, so I’m a little shaky on the details, but... Leah had a crush on Simon, which Simon misinterpreted as being a crush on Nick. He wanted Leah to be happy and suggested Nick ask Leah to the homecoming dance. He also set up Wafflehouse hangouts with Martin and Abby. And after Simon got outed, they talked and realized what had been happening. Sort of.

Because they got angry about what happened to them, but completely ignored that Simon had been blackmailed for two months. And stood there doing nothing, NOTHING, when he was being bullied and humiliated in front of the entire school. They just sat and watched it happen.

(So for that reason, I struggle to watch the movie, even if I adore Nick Robinson and Keiynan Lonsdale’s performances in the movie. The other actors were great. It’s just a writing issue with the script)

Wait, how did I forget how awful the outing post was??! The language in the post Martin made to out Simon was awful, cruel, and humiliating. What Martin said “as Simon” in the post that outed Simon as gay was horrible. And the book never let Simon acknowledge how awful the language felt. On top of being outed, it’s done in the most humiliating way possible, with horrible language and on the site where Simon first met Blue.

The book and the movie should have given Simon the chance to process all the horrible things Martin had done, how it made him feel, and let him heal from that.

I’m gonna end my rant there. I get heated every time I talk about this book.

Deadnaming a character, ever, for any reason

“My name wasn’t always Emma, it used to be [deadname].”

I can’t take credit for that example, because that example gets brought up A LOT in the community. It’s extremely disrespectful to call someone by their dead name, especially when you know better. Calling a character by their dead name is just as disrespectful.

Examples I’ve seen that work far better are, “My name wasn’t always Emma.” End sentence. No dead name given.

“I got [redacted] a present.” If this is someone who regularly deadnames the character, than hiding the name is best.

[redacted] is still kind of uncomfortable, because it just reminds me that there are still people in my life who dead name me as well.

For every trans or non-binary character I’ve ever written, I never give them a dead name. By this, I mean, I never take the time to figure out what their dead name would have been. I met my characters after they realized they were trans and settled on a name and pronouns. I never met them before that, so I have no business asking what it was before.

This is not exhaustive and I probably could go on for hours longer, but I’ll leave it here for now. Thank you for asking!

[velvyy]

Hey, Rad... Alex... Alexlememe? I know that's the name you used to go by and I know you've kinda disconnected yourself from Viv's fanbase after ZP ended, and I remember your memes and such but I kinda just wanted to get your take on the Hazbin drama since you reblogged the headcanon blog's post on the subject. More or less regarding the issue of her being uncharitable to fans and non-fans alike, plus that one callout post on twitter?

So this is weird. I wasn’t expecting to get asks on the subject since like you said, I’ve generally been disconnected from the fanbase aside from the few reblogs here and there retaining to Hazbin and its more recent developments. But yeah I guess I could give my take on this since I mean.. old fans still follow me. Idk why, but they do!So, really. In regards to that callout post (which is now deleted) I really, really don’t care that much. For one thing, Initially I did because I really hated to see someone be slandered so viciously with inaccurate and uncharitable attacks, but I kinda just stopped because even when I linked the addresses from both Viv, and the Ken dude regarding all the drama mentioned, it was either ignored and resulting in me being called a “pedo sympathizer” or “It wasn’t even an apologyyyyy weh” and like, whatever. I stopped giving a shit.

Terms of the traced animation thing... Lol, ok. I mean homages do exist, and her animation thingy was based on a meme so whatevs.

Anyways,I knew from the very start that the whole “tracing” and “stealing designs” stuff was nonsense since there was an entire like, tumblr drama arc on the issue, and albeit Viv’s post is gone, there’s evidence of legal contracts regarding Jiji and that whole nonsense that was years ago. In regards to her drawing pictures of Blaire White and Shoe… Eh. I mean, yeah, fuck em, but she’s made it clear that she doesn’t support those views anymore, and she wasn’t even really aware of the other things they’d done at that point, and I see no real reason not to believe her because what does lying about that gain her? Yeah her comment on the “blackface” thing if you wanna call it that was dumb as shit, but considering 2016 was a rough year for her in terms of trying to find where she fell in the political sphere, I can relate because I was in the same boat. A lot of sjw cringe comps, shaming feminists, and purposely misgendering transpeople… Not a good time for me either! Course I’ve changed. I went from being a reactionary alt-centrist to an anarchist so. Whether that’s an improvement is up to you.

As for the whole pedo/zoo shit, I really don’t see it. I mean like, look, obviously porn art portraying people fucking feral animals is disgusting right. Not saying it isn’t problematic or anything, but to be fair, she did draw this shit like 8 years ago. I’ve seen worse from even more well-established artists and I don’t see people trying to cancel them? Also, the art was suggestive for one thing and not necessarily 100% porn. I mean it’s still creepy and gross, and I’d understand scolding them if they continued to do so but a lot worse, but I haven’t seen anything like that from Viv past those 2 drawings. As for the pedo shit… The relationship between a 17 year old and a 19 year old is… hardly creepy and reminiscent of pedo shit. So yeah no fuck that. Now with the drawing of Mirage and Kestrel and the tag that said something jokingly like “Mirage and her pedo tendencies” or whatever… Yeah idk, I can’t defend that lmfao. Again, Viv said she disapproves of those drawings and doesn’t care to think about them, but that one piece of artwork definitely had some baggage to it that made me feel uncomfortable after reading the tags.Only issue I took in terms of her addressing that, is that she was very adamant about it being an inside joke… Which if that’s true, you must’ve had some fucked up friends like damn.

I would also like to state that cub art is legitimately disgusting and I am of the belief that it can cause harm depending on the context since I assume the consumption of cub art can reinforce the urge for pedophiles to act on their desires instead of finding healthy coping mechanisms for it through therapy. There have been stories from younger users on the internet that older people have tried to groom them and have the notion of pedos preying on them be normalized by sending them art depicting kids in sexual acts with adults. Of course in isolation cub art isn’t as harmful as the actual act of raping a child, and I would argue that people have their priorities kind of messed up since the illustration being acknowledged should be part of combating pedophiles preying on children. However, people, typically twitter wokescolds tend to focus on the art solely and I don’t know why. There’s a lot of MAPS trying to find their way into LGBT spaces and it’s fucking gross.

Now with Hazbin itself… It’s meh. Initially I watched it with rose-tinted glasses and loved it. After watching it for like… the 3rd, 4th, 5th time? It’s alright. I don’t hate it, but it’s far from perfect. Now ofc I know it’s a pilot but a very lengthy pilot I’ll say. My biggest gripe with the pilot is that the editing is really fucking weird. Like the editing where Angel tells Alastor “I can suck yah dick!” and the scene that followed was really off. It seemed like too many cuts were made in that instance and seemed very cluttered. It also feels that way during Charlie singing “Inside Every Demon is a Rainbow” and how many little animated bits were like almost wiped off the screen by how fast it came by, and ntm there was just so much happening all at once on screen as well. I had to pause at points just to process everything that was happening. The palette is also very, very, verrrry red. There’s so much red going on and like… I get it, it’s in hell. But lemme rest my eyes on something else besides red, please. The palette they use needs to be better diversified, and the same goes for the characters too. Every character seems to have red on them. Whenever Baxter shows up later he’s gonna look really out of place. Some of the jokes were ok, and others seemed non-clever. I didn’t think Angel’s joke about sucking Al’s dick was funny. I did like the joke with Pentious and Angel though. “SON??” Some of it could’ve been written better too.

Regarding the drama with the show itself… Personally I don’t get it. Like, I don’t feel as if Angel is homophobic as a character since his queerness isn’t at the face of the jokes he makes? He just happens to be sex worker which… sex workers are fine? Support sex workers y’all, seriously. There’s also nothing intrinsically wrong with being sexually active either? As long as it’s within reason and you’re being trustworthy.The issue lies in the fact that people viewed the things I just mentioned as negative, and associate it with gay people as said negatively portrayed thing to push the sentiment of “Gay man do sex a lot therefore the gays bad” or that sort of thing. Also there’s a bit where it shows there’s more emotional depth to him and I’m hoping they’ll expand on that later. Honestly though, the criticisms in regards to that have been pretty uncharitable. Same with the criticisms for Vaggie. Apparently Vaggie is racist because… she’s loud and angry? Again, this is a case where people assume those traits are negative, and because it’s assumed to be negative, the negatively portrayed thing pushes the sentiment of “Being a loud fiery woman made, and latina women are that, therefore latina women bad” or some shit.  There are stereotypes that are bad no matter what the context is like sambo-esque caricatures of black people. Then there are tropes that are applied to certain demographics that have the capability to be written well into characters without it being offensive or disrespectful. Vaggie is literally angry because she’s protective of her gf. Like. C’mon.

So, I think that settles what I think about that? It honestly seems like superficial shit to me tbh, and I’m saying this as an sjw-y beta cuck anarchist.

The only REAL gripe I have, is with what the mod from @zpheadcanons posted. Because I know this is probably true as much as it hurts me to say it. Faust def has a history of being pretty petty and bully-like to people she deems undesirable, and Viv harbors it by not criticizing it, and if anyone else within their friend group does it then you’re scolded vehemently and treated like garbage. Her attitude also stretches to harboring an audience full of white knights that I personally don’t approve of.

There’s also this

Faust has hurt distant people I personally know and… yeah. Maybe I’m biased but I can’t vibe with that. Sorry. If you don’t make an effort to criticize abusive behavior within your own friend circles then that makes you just as bad, because then you’re just a bystander to things you could have prevented.

This isn’t to say Viv herself hasn’t dealt with bad faith actors, or people who had the intention to hurt her, or very uncharitable criticism. Particularly from the badwebcomics forums which is honestly 4chan like in how they operate. It’s vicious as hell, and a lot of their criticisms boil down to insults and personal attacks, which serve to be nonconstructive. That’s not to say Viv has been kind to even the more charitable criticism though. I know because when I happened to send an ask to the zoophobia criticism blog (where did it go???) regarding something relatively minor and superficial, she blocked me from her blog. I’m still blocked lmfao. I’m not blocked on twitter though! (not yet anyways). Faust has me blocked there though, and I have no idea why. She’s had me blocked for years even though I haven’t spoken out against her till recently. So, there’s that.

As for her apology itself, I feel like it was fine. I think it could’ve been worded better? The take I disagree with in terms of that is like… If I made a mistake in the past, and I make it clear that I don’t care for what I did, I don’t feel as if me explaining why I felt compelled to do certain things negate me from still not caring for my past actions? That’s just me providing context. That’s a really weird take, but I guess that could be viewed as an excuse idk. Personally I think people are holding the bar super high to a state of irrationality.

*sigh* So yeah there’s that. I miss the old days where honestly I could be ignorant about this, but at the same time I look at my old obsessive posts and I kinda just… cringe. I was such an irrational stan I almost hate myself for it. Fuck XD

Edit: I’d also like to point out that I’m not saying Viv or Faust are totally awful or totally good people, and I know they’re capable of being better. It’s a matter of whether or not they wanna be better.

[migleefulmoments]

Anonymous said: "But in those early interviews Darren was asked if he was bothered by having to kiss another man. Nobody asked Chris if he was bothered to kiss a straight man." This is splitting hairs. I'm not sure what you want to argue here. The issue under discussion was not if Darren was asked what's like to kiss a man, but whether he was asked about his sexuality - and he was from the start. As a matter of fact, out-gay actors in straight roles are also asked what's like to kiss a woman on screen.

Anonymous said: "Darren was asked a lot about how he felt playing a gay character…how he felt kissing a man." --There was nothing novel about that. It's a typical question many actors before him who had played gay roles (esp. if somewhat prominent) on screen or TV were asked. Even Chris got asked one time if Darren was gay (I think it was at the Time 100), and he said "No, I don't think so. I've met his GF." I'm not sure what being good looking has to do with being asked if he was gay if he played gay.

Anonymous said: "yes the actors were comfortable. The reporters weren’t." Not accurate. The entertainment press has routinely asked straight and presumed straight actors in a gay role what's like to kiss a man and makes a point to mention the actors' sexuality - see e.g. Matt Damon in the Liberace movie. It's been reported that this is often encouraged by the actors' reps. But whatever the case, it is a self-perpetuating reflex of the entertainment press, which has come under rightful criticism only recently.

I already addressed my analogy with Chris kissing a woman in another post and I concur it wasn’t a good analogy.

I went on an deep dive of the press Darren did in his early days of Glee last year after Abby kept repeating the cc trope that his interviews are always “no homo” because his “team” writes the article, dictates what is said, controls the interview questions or stands off camera threatening him to repeated the scripted answer. I went on another more shallow dive this evening after I got these Asks and I still stand by earlier statements that America was still quite homophobic in Glee’s early days-it still is in many places- and people were shocked to see a straight actor comfortably playing a gay character.

My point was never that Darren was the only actor who was ever asked these questions -in fact it was the complete opposite. My point was -and is -that in 2009, being gay was still something that made a lot of people squeamish and a good looking, young, actor playing a gay teenager on a tv show was something people didn’t quite understand. Whether it made the reporter, the team, the actor or society uncomfortable isn’t important-someone was uncomfortable. The fact that the questions were routinely asked tells me that a lot of someones were uncomfortable.   

Matt Damon and Tom Hanks were in big screen movies. For many years, Hollywood has rewarded straight actors for their portrayal of LGBTQ characters by giving them Oscars and Emmys. But Darren was playing a gay teenage character on Network TV- a gay character who was rumored to be a romantic partner for Kurt, this was a very new idea 2010. 

Tonight I looked for the interviews where Darren was asked about kissing and I couldn’t find them and frankly I wasted enough time. However, I did find a bunch of early Glee interviews-well before he played Hedwig or Andrew Cunanan-that addressed his sexuality with questions that  I cannot imagine being asked today:

Darren Criss on Glee | Time Out May 31, 2011 Did anyone in your life express concern about you as a straight guy playing a very visible gay character? No, that’s actually never even occurred to me. I don’t think that’s how myself or my team—I don’t think any of us are wired that way. You see a good character, and that’s it. But maybe that is a very naive way to look at things.

Bliss Magazine October 2011 (Imogene Press)

The actor is comfortable with playing an openly gay character on the show, despite being straight in real life, although he still isn’t used to wearing guy-liner on set.

8 Reasons We Admire Darren Criss -Starpulse.com 2014

6. He isn’t afraid to play gay. As one-half of everyone’s favorite TV couple, Darren’s portrayal of teenage dreamboat Blaine Anderson has both guys and girls swooning. His onscreen romance with Chris Colfer’s Kurt Hummel has often drawn fire from anti-gay organizations but Darren has kept his cool and admits to being comfortable enough with his own sexuality to kiss other boys.

San Fransisco: : He Only Plays Gay on TV.  July 1, 2013

Which brings us to the bombshell of this story—Darren Criss is not gay. And this isn’t the first time that he has had to make that clear (he says that he also had to come out of the straight closet as a teen in A.C.T.’s Young Conservatory). “I’m the opposite from what people pin me as,” he says, referring to both his sexual preferences and his career choices. “I’ve kind of made it a habit where if you expect me to do something, I am usually immediately averse to that idea, and I try to do something else.”

Norwegian TOPP  December 21, 2013 (Translated so maybe take this with a grain of salt?)

What kind of response have you gotten from other, about playing the role of a gay character? - Only positive feedback! It’s really fun playing Blaine, and I don’t have any problems with him being gay.

Asking about an actor’s sexuality -both gay and straight -is absolutely “a self-perpetuating reflex of the entertainment press”. But the questions have changed and the tone has evolved. The tone and the questions Darren was asked in 2010-2013 were about society’s confusion that a straight man would be comfortable playing a gay man or *gasp* kissing a gay man. Questions about whether his parents were concerned about the visibility of his gay character convey society’s view that being gay was something to be ashamed of. In 2018 during his ACS press tour, he was asked

“You’ve also played a lot of gay and queer characters. Has playing these parts informed how you think about your sexuality or gender?” (X) (His answer is super long, click the link if you want to read it)

and the NYTs said:

His early introduction to gay culture helped prepare him for a career in which his best-known roles and a good chunk of his fan base are gay, though Mr. Criss himself is straight. (His longtime girlfriend is Mia Swier, a TV director and producer.) He’s a rare breed: theater geek filtered through California bro, which made an ideal combination for the pop dorkiness of “Glee.”  (X)

A much more respectful line of questioning with a more accepting tone. The tone no longer convey’s the tone that his sexuality matters in his ability to play the role or that it is something to be ashamed of.  

If you have more to say on this topic I would beg you to come off anon. At first I was going to call this topic closed because it is impossible to have a conversation when you are on anon. I have no way to notify you that I answered your ask and you are limited to 500 characters-both hindering actual communication. But mostly because this is a complex topic with nuances. There are misconstrued ideas and poorly written analogies and no effective way for us to clarify and frankly it ends up feeling like a beatdown. But I wrote a lot and that didn’t seem fair to have the last world since these are just my opinions and I’m always learning.  If you have more to say, PLEASE come off anon and submit a post- that way we can actually chat and you can share more than 500 characters worth of thought.  

I already addressed my analogy with Chris kissing a woman in another post and I concur it wasn’t a good analogy.  

I went on an exploration of the press Darren did in his early days of Glee last year when Abby kept bringing up the cc trope that his interviews are always “no homo” because his “team” writes the article, dictates what is said, controls the interview questions or stands off camera and threatens him to give the scripted answer. I went on another dive this evening after I got these anons and I still stand by earlier statements that America was still quite homophobic in Glee’s early days-it still is in many places- and people were surprised to see a straight actor comfortably playing a gay character.

My point was never that Darren was the only actor who was ever asked these questions -in fact it was the complete opposite. My point was -and is -that in 2009, being gay was still something that made a lot of people squeamish and a good looking actor playing a gay man on a tv show was something people didn’t quite understand. Whether it made the reporter, the team, the actor or society uncomfortable isn’t important-someone was uncomfortable. The fact that the questions were routinely asked tells me that a lot of someones were uncomfortable.  

What I see as the difference between Matt Damon and Tom Hanks is that they were staring in movies. For many years, Hollywood has handed out Oscars and Emmy’s to straight actors for portraying LGBTQ characters. But Darren was playing a gay character on Network TV- a gay character who was rumored to be a romantic partner for Kurt.

I went looking for the interviews where Darren was asked about kissing and I couldn’t find them and frankly I wasted enough time. However, I did find a bunch of early Glee interviews that address his sexuality with questions that I cannot imagine being asked today. Of course, these are all before Darren played Hedwig or Andrew Cunanan.

Darren Criss on Glee | Time Out May 31, 2011 Did anyone in your life express concern about you as a straight guy playing a very visible gay character? No, that’s actually never even occurred to me. I don’t think that’s how myself or my team—I don’t think any of us are wired that way. You see a good character, and that’s it. But maybe that is a very naive way to look at things.

Bliss Magazine October 2011 (Imogene Press)

The actor is comfortable with playing an openly gay character on the show, despite being straight in real life, although he still isn’t used to wearing guy-liner on set.

8 Reasons We Admire Darren Criss -Starpulse.com 2014

6. He isn’t afraid to play gay. As one-half of everyone’s favorite TV couple, Darren’s portrayal of teenage dreamboat Blaine Anderson has both guys and girls swooning. His onscreen romance with Chris Colfer’s Kurt Hummel has often drawn fire from anti-gay organizations but Darren has kept his cool and admits to being comfortable enough with his own sexuality to kiss other boys.

San Fransisco: : He Only Plays Gay on TV.  July 1, 2013

Which brings us to the bombshell of this story—Darren Criss is not gay. And this isn’t the first time that he has had to make that clear (he says that he also had to come out of the straight closet as a teen in A.C.T.’s Young Conservatory). “I’m the opposite from what people pin me as,” he says, referring to both his sexual preferences and his career choices. “I’ve kind of made it a habit where if you expect me to do something, I am usually immediately averse to that idea, and I try to do something else.”

Norwegian TOPP  December 21, 2013 (Translated so maybe take this with a grain of salt?)

What kind of response have you gotten from other, about playing the role of a gay character? - Only positive feedback! It’s really fun playing Blaine, and I don’t have any problems with him being gay.

Asking about an actor’s sexuality -both gay and straight -is absolutely “a self-perpetuating reflex of the entertainment press”. But the questions have changed and the tone has evolved. The tone and the questions Darren was asked in 2009-2013 were about society’s confusion that a straight man would be comfortable playing a gay man or *gasp* kissing a gay man. Questions about whether people were concerned about the visibility of his gay character indicate the shame that was still part of society’s view of being gay. In 2018 during his ACS press tour, he was asked

“You’ve also played a lot of gay and queer characters. Has playing these parts informed how you think about your sexuality or gender?” (X)

and the NYTs said:

His early introduction to gay culture helped prepare him for a career in which his best-known roles and a good chunk of his fan base are gay, though Mr. Criss himself is straight. (His longtime girlfriend is Mia Swier, a TV director and producer.) He’s a rare breed: theater geek filtered through California bro, which made an ideal combination for the pop dorkiness of “Glee.”  (X)

A much more respectful line of questioning with a much more accepting tone.  

If you have more to say on this topic I would beg you to come off anon. At first I was going to call this topic closed because this isn’t a conversation when you are on anon. I have no way to notify you that I answered your ask and you are limited to 500 characters-both hindering actual communication. But mostly because this is a complex topic with nuances. There are misconstrued ideas and poorly written analogies and no effective way for us to clarify and frankly it ends up feeling like a beatdown. If you have more to say, PLEASE come off anon and submit a post- that way we can actually chat and you can share more than 500 characters worth of thought.  

I moved this to a text so I could add tags and find it later.  

[biromantic-nerd]

a way too long review of the gay shows i've been watching until my brain can read words again

Manner of Death

do i rec? yes!

Kept seeing this and gave it a shot. Love it

Since when do gay dramas understand how to portray relationships with healthy understandings of consent?? What a glow up the gay drama world has had!! i am living for this (and this is why i started binging a bunch of gay dramas; i was hoping that they all had better consent than like two years ago when i first found out that gay dramas exist. Some did! Some... didn't)

Pro: 1. enemies to friends to lovers trope AND there was only one bed trope. 2. healthy depiction of consent. 3. murder mystery. 4. great acting. seriously great job. going to the next shows felt kinda disappointing afterwards bc the two main actors are Great here imo. 5. They are adults and not high schoolers. (although actually i forgot that the secondary ship is teenager/teenager - but no age gap there so Nice) 6. no sexuality crises! very fun to just watch a show with characters who are confident in their sexualities and have crises about other things instead lol 7. one of the main characters says the most tender things i've ever seen in my whole life and i'm a little too bi to watch that! my heart??

Con: 1. uh HEAVY trigger warnings plotwise. did not realize that beforehand lol whoops so check those before you watch. obvious murder mystery warnings but like there's another plot and That one is heavier. 2. heavy makeout scenes (probably a pro for some of y'all) but i don't skip them since sometimes there's soft things like forehead smooches. 3. releases occassionally which risks the chance of you forgetting to keep up with it. 4. Bun's expressions are amazing - but in the beginning I wasn't familair with them so I personally misread his "i'm gay" look as slightly uncomfortable at first. But on a rewatch after knowing him better, it's easy to see that tose are his very gay (and sometimes flirty?? how did i mistake it so badly??) expressions

HIStory 3: Trapped

do i rec? yes

Came recommended to me after watching Manner of Death. Really enjoyed it.

Pro: 1. Adults again! 2. starts off with a cool introduction to the plot that has likeable main characters right off the bat. 3. enemies to friends to lovers Again Baby 4. the whole season is finished, so you can binge the whole thing! 5. very actiony and hurt/comfort

Con: 1. a little cheesy at parts. 2. one scene tw attempted sexual assualt (of a major character) 3. not the greatest depiction of consent. idk how to explain like not Terrible but not great - very on par with the average straight tv romance consent so like 😐. example: a character is kinda pressured into dating someone/kissing. and i'm supposed to think this is cute? no ty 4. more makeout scenes (again though depends on your cup of tea) 5. the second secondary pairing (lol i guess the third?) was so boring to me. It was probably bc i dislike age gaps bc i just didn't enjoy them. She could have been a cooler character had it not been for this romance arc and I think she deserved a way better storyline 6. there's a couple makeouts

HIStory 2 uhhh idk the name but this one will have spoilers lol - okay it's HIStory 3: Make Our Days Count

do i rec? No!!! 😡

did not enjoy it! i actually hated every romance plot in it and only stuck around bc i enjoyed the depiction of a group of teenage boys being tender idiotic friends ☺️ like Yeah they really felt like high schoolers like Soft and Stupid ones

Pro: 1. after the "bullying" thing (which is cultural so not my place to speak) the group of friends was the Literal reason i watched this show. i really enjoyed watching them be goofy and tender. 2. it could have been such a cool queer mentor arc but like,,,, because he ends up dating a teenager 😡 their interactions all felt gross - so not actually a pro? 3. the group of friends secretly read a gay comic in order to understand their gay friend lol i Love these stupidly supportive idiots and like i said the friendship of these teenage boys is the only things that kept me watching. 4. the actors were decent, so i Will give them that. it's not their fault i didn't like it. Particularly the two main actors were good.

Con: 1. uhh the whole thing? lol? 2. Personally I don't enjoy romances where the one who gets bullied dates their bully! But even besides that, I just didn't enjoy it. 3. top beef here!!! a grown ass man dates a teenager??? 😡 WHAT?? who allowed this?? gross. 4. even excluding the adult/child relationship: still had bad consent. didn't like it. no outright sexual assault but like. bad consent. worse than average tv maybe. 5. it wasn't an ED but a character doesn't eat due to bejng poor but the onscreen effect is still not great for people who have/had EDs 6. makeout scenes (and a sex scene that was kid/adult) 7. a gay character gets outed by someone else. 8. homophobia exists and is a Theme. 9. uh apparently it's another bury your gays trope bc - and this is kudos to the good acting since i didn't care about any of the romances in this at all - the tragic ending made me Upset like who gave them the right to do that even though I hated this show??

We Best Love; No.1 For You

do i rec? yeah why not

(I don't actually know if there are more episodes than that! I stopped at 6! i don't remember why? I think I just got distracted and then was satsified with 1-6 enough to not seek out more)

pro: 1. the main character (after ep1) is likeable 2. the cinematic shot of the lights turning into hearts bc we were seeing through Gao Shide's pov? I cannot get over it. That frame lives rent free in my mind, it is a cinematic masterpiece. 3. it's a fairly lighthearted show with not a lot of stress, so it's good for a distraction 4. i don't think there were any makeout scenes, just normal kiss scenes 5. the main friends were cute and i wish there was more of that dynamic in the show

con: 1. the first episode. I almost stopped watching. I had such bad secondhand embarrassment??? and i thought he was gonna end up bullying this dude while trying to "prank" him? 2. a main character blackmails another character. it's pretty lighthearted overall bc it ends up that the character was just trying to help but at the initial blackmail I was like Yikes. 3. a character secretly manipulates a situation to make it so that another character has to spend the night with him. which it's just a slumber party-esque vibe and not at all malicious but still. 4. OH YEAH lol i totally forgot until i just looked up the show to double check the name. There's sort of a secondary gay pairing and I thought they were so boring and didn't enjoy their characters at all. However, one of those guys was shot down in such a great way a the main character that I enjoyed. It really shot down the "you owe me bc i like you" trope that I've seen. Those two dudes? Con. That rejection? Pro.

Cherry Magic

do i rec? yes!!! absolutely! 💖

I'm actually rewatching it back to back after having Just finished it.

i know i said this in its own post but! things that i did not expect Cherry Magic to have but here we are:

• the best quality of consent I've ever seen in a romance show (seriously, i cannot get over how the comfort/discomfort levels of the characters Matter)

• an aromantic character potrayed positively!!! and with such warmth!!!

• a great depiction of someone neurodivergent that has anxiety + low self esteem

• the attention to detail! the crewmbers that did all this detailwork did such an outstanding job wow

• no onscreen sex and/or makeout scenes. Finally. a show that keeps all "fanservice" off screen. thank you so much, i was not expecting this from a show that starts out with talking about virginity

• speaking of: the concept of everyone taking their time (and consent) at their own pace is so refreshing.

Pro: 1. tender, soft, funny, loved it. 2. the plot starts out with a quirky premise, but it progresses really believably and you quickly forget the initial "what the heck is this??" and just enjoy it 3. lovable characters. seriously enjoyed the characterizations - and the amazing acting definitely helped. Incredible acting. the range of different emoting smiles for kurosawa is incredible. 4. I've said it in the above but wow the detailwork in this is insane. 5. love to see good aro rep! 6. the character dynamics - platonic and romantic - are all really interesting and progress nicely. like it starts off with characters that are likeable but builds up quickly instead beloved characters. 7. if adachi isn't autistic then what is the point of self projection? he's def autistic. love to see it. 8. neurodivergents with low self esteem getting love is what i live for. and this show does an amazing job representing people with self esteem issues + anxiety without ever blaming them for it or being condenscending

Con: 1. Didn't care for the secondary pairing! Even though they are both adults, I'm not a fan of age gaps. The especially baby-faced younger actor threw me off of the pairing completely. But even without my personal distaste, I just felt like it was boring and the rest of the show was so good that I always wanted to skip back to the main plot. (but didn't in fear that I wouldn't understand later on. which now i think that you can skip them and still understand) 2. The first episode I spent most of it dreading what was going to happen bc of how it starts off making a big deal that he's a virgin. I needn't have worried but at the time I hadn't known that! 3. tw for sexual assault. Now even though this is under con, I do think the show handled it really well. One instance of a character being catcalled. And a different scene where a character is groped and disturbed by that; two other characters imply that the character should have been happy to endure the situation. But the show definitely does the situation well and the audience knows that the character was not okay with being groped and - no matter what the two others said - that it was wrong of her to have groped him. So con because groping but it was well executed in combating victim shaming.

In conclusion:

• Queer shows have, in general over all, improved in consent quality in just a couple years; I can't wait to see how they continue to improve in the future. (please let them stop doing age gaps soon lol)

• Right now, Cherry Magic is my favorite hands down. Manner of Death is amazing too but way, way darker in plot.

[brilliantorinsane]

The Speckled Band (1931): a.k.a. Sherlock Wilde

Note: For this meta I tagged everyone who reblogged earlier posts in the series. However, as I certainly don’t want to shove my work at anyone who isn’t interested, from this point forward I will only only tag individuals who have shown continued interest by reblogging multiple posts, or who have specifically asked to be tagged. Thank you to anyone who has been or continues to be interested in any part of this series <3

Guys, I did it. I found the Gayest Holmes. Not the best Holmes, nor the best adaptation by any stretch of the imagination; but most definitely the gayest. Well, okay, the most stereotypically gay, and one of the most nearly confirmed as such in the explicit text of the film—a fact which has me reeling given that this film was released in 1931.

This is the third installment of my series on obscure Holmes adaptations and their depiction of our beloved duo both individually and in relation to each other. For the first two installments, see below:

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Stoll Pitures, 1921–1923)

The Speckled Band on Stage: Yep, Still Gay

Production and Reception:

[Spoilers ahead. But unless you want to avoid spoiling the ACD cannon story The Speckled Band or his play of the same name, I wouldn’t worry about it. There’s really nothing worth spoiling in this film]

This adaptation, released the year after Doyle’s death, is derived less from the cannon story of the same name than from a stage adaptation also written by Doyle. The play is wonderful, featuring a genuinely chilling villain, well-realized side characters, laugh-out-loud humor, the best Holmes and Watson, and allllll the gay subtext. You can read the script here, and my discussion of the play is linked above.

Unfortunately, the filmmakers’ 5 step adaptation plan appears to have been the following:

1. Keep the bare bones of the play, including some of the name changes, the emphasis on the Rylott household, etc.

2. Take the play’s uncomfortable undertone of Orientalism and make it the film’s prevailing atmosphere, then add casual pro-slavery rhetoric, just ‘cause.

3. Remove approximately 3/4s of what made Doyle’s script so good, then creatively undermine, dilute, and/or convolute the remaining 1/4.

4. Hire a promising actor to play Holmes, and then give him minimal interesting content.

5. Hire the actor who played Rylott in the stage play, because it can’t hurt to have one good thing.

Yeah … I’m exaggerating, but its not good. Which is disappointing on many levels, because it would have been fascinating to know how a flagrantly gay Holmes would have fared in the early 1930s. But as it is, this adaptation fails on so many levels that it seems impossible to theorize whether homophobia played a significant role in the fact that it made scarcely any impact in its day and has been entirely forgotten now. Sure, homophobia might have aided the process of erasure, but this film didn’t need any help sinking into oblivion.

Nevertheless, although the blaring racism makes it difficult to fully appreciate the filmmaker’s courage in not abandoning the play’s subtext, it is still worth being aware that filmmakers were paying attention to and actively portraying the ACD cannon subtext as early as 1931.

Raymond Massey as Sherlock Holmes

It really is a pity that this film didn’t give Raymond Massey the chance to show what he could have done with Sherlock Holmes. In his book Sherlock Holmes on Screen, Alan Barns argues that Massey might have created a Holmes to rival all his contemporaries, and whenever he appeared I paid close attention, always feeling as if he were about to get interesting. Unfortunately, he never quite did.

Massey’s Holmes spends the majority of the film in a deeply lethargic state. Depressive moods are as much a part of Sherlock’s character as his boundless curiosity, and I would have found it a rather interesting portrayal if he had ever woken up from his stupor. But although he has flashes of intensity, in the end he lounges about the crime scene as listlessly as he does 221B. Further, because we know too little about this Holmes to understand his lethargy, he never quite solidifies into a concrete or compelling individual.

In dearth of anything else, the most interesting thing about this Holmes is that he is definitely, definitively, flagrantly gay. To Massey’s credit, this is instantly apparent—my initial impression that, “wow, this Holmes is kinda a lazy dick,” was paralleled with a rather flabbergasted, “wait … is he playing him as gay???”

If I’d seen Massey’s Holmes without context, I may well have thought I was watching a film about Oscar Wilde—the stereotypical epitome of Victorian homosexuality. Even Barns, who has excellent things to say about Holmes adaptations but seems vaguely allergic to discussing the detective’s sexuality, describes Massey’s Holmes as an “aesthete” and speaks of his “almost Oscar Wilde approach” (266). And all of that registers before Holmes starts examining his fingernails, resting his hand on Watson’s leg a good few inches above his knee, and talking about marriage. But we will return to that last point shortly.

Athole Stewart as John Watson

Stewart as Watson in this film is … fine. Even good, comparatively speaking—Stewart’s Watson is hearty and kind and is not portrayed as an idiot, which really is an anomaly at this stage of Holmes adaptations. This is probably due in large part to his excellent role in Doyle’s stage play. Unfortunately, the film consistently sets up Watson’s strengths only to erase them.

Watson in the film is kind to Helen—that’s the one good quality that doesn’t get undermined. So, yay. But while in the play Watson stands up against Rylott’s tyrannical demands when he is summoned to examine the body of the first murdered sister, the film begins to replicate that scene only to have Watson give in after his initial protest. In both the play and film he initially appears to be a decidedly intelligent man who guesses exactly what is going on in the the Rylott household, but in the film this is undermined by his subsequent conversation with Holmes, in which it appears that he was entirely clueless and took everything at face value after all. The film makes an interesting but half-hearted attempt at introducing modern technology into 221B, and most of this has been installed by Watson; but Holmes finds it essentially useless for his work and relies on different tools entirely. In the play Watson himself kills the snake; in the film he … shines a light so Holmes can attack it.

In short, Stewart’s Watson goes through the motions of being a partner, but he is never quite allowed to do anything useful.

So … What About Johnlock?

Eh. I guess?

By all rights an adaptation with a gay Holmes ought to at least have one-sided unrequited Johnlock. But while its clear that Holmes is gay, it is not clear that he is in love with Watson.

Beyond the character’s aestheticism, mannerisms, and thigh grab, evidence of Holmes’s sexuality is blatantly but clumsily contained in two brief exchanges with Watson regarding Helen’s marriage to her fiancee. The first comes at the end of Holmes’s first scene, when he abruptly asks Watson to inform him when Helen becomes engaged, with an intensity which demonstrates some emotional investment in the event.

My initial (annoyed) assumption was that they were going to make Holmes out to be in love with Helen. But when Helen comes to Holmes for help two years later, it is clear that they have never met. Nor is there anything in Holmes’s treatment of her to imply some creepy at-a-distance infatuation. And yet we are definitely supposed to pay attention to his preoccupation with the wedding, because the final scene consists of Watson announcing Helen’s engagement to Glen Sternum, to which Holmes responds: “I was afraid that might happen.” Then when Watson, taking Holmes’s response for generalized cynicism, leaves the room with the amused assertion that “we all come to it [i.e. marriage],” Holmes waits until he is gone to respond with a melancholy, “not all, my dear Watson. Not all.” And that, apart from a final line about filing away the details of the case, is the end.

So what are we to make of Holmes’s sorrowful preoccupation with Helen’s marriage? Honestly, I’ve been unable to work it out. Is it is meant to refer to a generalized inability to attach a girl? But there’s no hint of that in the plot; and besides, why then would he be so concerned with this particular marriage? No, it makes more sense to suppose that Holmes’s queer-coded mannerisms are fully intentional, and he knows he will never marry because society will not allow him to marry a man. So was he afraid that Watson, a good friend of the family, might marry her? But then why is he still so sorry when she marries someone else? Is he secretly in love with the man she married (who, fun fact, is a slave-owner)??? Weirdly enough, that is my only theory which doesn’t directly contradict any of the facts, although it would make for incredibly vague and sloppy storytelling.

Just to complicate this further, Doyle’s play also contains a subplot about Holmes being sorrowful about a marriage (although the sorrow is a bit more subtextual)—but in the play it is Watson’s marriage. So basically … the filmmakers appear to have gotten the “Holmes is upset about Watson’s marriage because Holmes is in love with him but cannot marry a man because Homophobia” subtext, but—perhaps because showing Holmes being openly sorrowful over Watson’s marriage felt too obvious?—they clumsily redirected Holmes’s sorrow to a different marriage with which he textually has no connection.

As for Watson, there’s not much to say. There is an odd line in which Holmes asks Watson whether the housekeeper was good-looking and Watson answers “no” before pausing and, with an air of surprise, amending, “yes.” This could be seen as indicating that he is uninterested in the attractiveness of women. (This would make him out to be gay and not bi, which I suppose makes sense for the time). But it could just as easily be put down to the film’s sloppy writing, and if Watson is gay his cheery assurance that he and Holmes both will come round to marriage in the end indicates that he is entirely unaware of it, so … *shrugs.*

In conclusion: this film was probably made by people who Knew, at least about Holmes, but instead of creating Johnlock they gave us a Holmes who is almost definitely gay but only maybe in love with Watson; he could just as easily be in love with a slave-owner he never sees during the film or be sad about not being able to marry a man in general. Then they tossed in a narratively irrelevant Watson who might maybe possibly be gay but he definitely doesn’t know it.

It’s a mess.

Conclusion: Should You Watch It?

I mean … you could. A decent-ish recording is available on YouTube here. But while I feel like we ought to be aware of this first (as far I know) stumbling attempt at subtext, I’m not trying to talk anyone into watching it. If you’re interested in Raymond Massey’s portrayal of Holmes I suggest just skipping to his scenes, which add up to slightly over half of the 50min film. In particular I recommend his first scene, from 7.15–12.35, and the final scene, which begins at 47.30. And if you find a more coherent means of interpreting Holmes’s lines about marriage, please do let me know!

Well then. Yep. That is a thing. Which exists. 

The End

@devoursjohnlock @thespiritualmultinerd @ellinorosterberg @kajepan @spenglernot @materialofonebeing @possiblyimbiassed @oysters-and-gingernuts @sosukana @maniclemons @materialof1being @persnicketypea @cuttydarke @newshea @a-candle-for-sherlock @tjlcisthenewsexy @sarahthecoat @the-elephant-is-pink @bluebluenova @hewascharming @battledress @cumberlocked221 @victorianfantasywatson @sherlockisgayaf @alemizu @infodumpingground @believein-johnlock @disregardedletters @accuratebutunsystematic @artemisastarte @inevitably-johnlocked

[rosiegeee]

Background One Second Gays/Last Minute Gays in Disney Movies

Disney has a very long history of making queer coded characters, mostly villains, and despite there being several opportunities in the past two decades to make characters that have actual speaking lines LGBT, there are next to none. Here are, to my knowledge, the only confirmed LGBT characters/couples in Disney movies.

Lefou and his dance partner. 2017 Beauty and the Beast.

Lefou is in a good portion of the movie, and he clearly has something for Gaston, but when Gaston point blank asks Lefou why he isn’t with any girl, Lefou doesn’t have a gay panic moment where he tries to hide anything, or says he’s gay/bi. He gives a genuine answer that women just don’t like him, which implies that he truly wants to be with a woman. In the last five minutes of the movie Lefou is dancing with a woman and is smiling and having fun, than his partner leaves and is replaced with a man, and Lefou’s face turns to confusion and not a look of attraction, although the man seems interested in him. What I’m saying is that Disney said how proud they were of making Lefou gay, but had no true set up, had the character genuinely says they like women, than when he has his gay moment he looks uncomfortable, and not in a questioning-my-sexuality kind of way. Lefou is a last minute gay.

Officer Specter. Onward

This character is far better than Lefou, but still falls in the one second gay category. She’s not in a good portion of the movie, but she does have speaking lines, and one of them is she mentions her girlfriend and her girlfriend’s daughter. She is probably the best character on this list, and that is sad because she’s in less than ten minutes of the movie and although we don’t need to, it would have been nice to see said family, even just a picture would suffice. Still she is only one of three characters on this list who makes it specifically clear that they are LGBT, while the others had to be confirmed outside the film by the film makers.

Bucky and Pronk

They are introduced as Judy’s loud next door neighbors and were confirmed nine months after the films release that they were a married couple and not brothers, the actor for these two had to confirm it, and in four years Disney has not debunked it so its Canon, but could be debunked by disney if they feel like it. If they are a couple than that makes them the first LGBT couple in disney, and how were they portrayed, yelling and arguing at each other in every scene they are in except the nudist shot. They fall into the retroactively gay category, and In my eyes the disappointing category.

Bobby. Avengers: Endgame.

Do you know how long it took me to find the name of this character. Five minutes, when all it should take is typing in “Gay grieving man in Endgame” into Google, but he was such a small character that I had to go through 3 different MCU wikia pages to find his name. He is one of the three confirmed for sure onscreen LGBT characters. He’s talking to Steve Rogers five year after the snap in group therapy about his date with a male character, and how he misses his previous boyfriend. If Valkyrie never gets confirmed onscreen this is all the MCU has. I classify him a one minute gay. (Side note Bobby here is taking to the man that risked his life multiple times to save the life of Bucky just so they an stay platonically together without Bucky asking him too, where as Peggy, the woman Cap marries at the end of this movie, begged Steve to get off the ship and we know there were parachutes, not that he needs them, and that once he changed the course of the plane he probably could have jumped ship to be with her, but instead choose suicide[He also thought Bucky was dead at this point.] So read into that as much as you want and think about how much sense the final scene of Endgame made.)

Commander Larma D'Acy and Lieutenant Wrobie Tyce. Star Wars: the Rise of Skywalker.

Bet you also didn’t know the name of the woman D’Acy was kissing in this scene, did you? D’Acy was a minor character who was in all three sequel Star Wars movies and I honestly liked her even before I knew she was gay, but considering how much hype and teasing by ALL the actors that FinnPoe would become canon, this felt like a punch in the gut. In fact all they had to do was make the obviously gay Poe canonoticly gay but still single and I would have settled for that, but instead D’Acy, who was barely in the films and hadn’t mentioned her wife at all in 3 movies or are seen together before this point on screen, was the one to be confirmed on screen to be gay. These two fall under the last minute gays category. 

Lesbian couple in Finding Dory and Lesbian Moms in Toy Story 4.

If these two couple have names, I couldn’t find them. The first two should because I think one has a speaking role and therefore should be credited, but I couldn’t find it, if you know write a comment. The Finding Dory couple could literally just be friends and we would never know if Disney hadn’t been all like “Look at the gay characters we gave you, we’re so proud.” The mom’s in Toy Story 4 are more obviously a couple, especially in there second appearance in the end, but they are so far in the background that you could easily mistake the black mother for the Caucasian mom’s husband if Disney hadn’t again advertised these characters as there glorious representation. These two couple fall under the background/ confirmed off-screen one second gays category.

So in total, counting mentioned partners that never were on screen, the number of confirmed LGBT people in all of Disney is 15. After reading this I hope it becomes blaringly obvious why Disney needs more prominent LGBT representation. If this were done with racial representation Disney would not probably still be in business. Raya and Luca gives me hope, but only slightly, so if you want your Queer Disney fix, your going to have to stick to Tv, books, and shorts for now.

[cellarspider]

I like villains.

Liking villains is complicated. Sometimes I would in like to see them win, but not always. Sometimes I hate the villains and want to see them defeated. In some cases, I dislike other villain fans. I’ve clarified why for myself, in a way I can’t easily summarize to a short post. Some of these might be personal, though quite a lot of them might be broadly applicable.

Generally, I like sexless or queercoded villains, and those who are given BDSM aesthetics. These two categories often go together: both are and have been shunned by mainstream society and thus used as shorthand for moral degeneracy. There can also be a real, actual alliance between the BDSM and queer communities that provided some greater safety in solidarity (i.e. it’s sometimes easier to be queer in the BDSM community where everyone’s assumed to have some sort of non-normative sexuality). This can be seen in the design choices around the cenobites in Hellraiser, for example.

When put in contrast to most protagonists, who are generally portrayed as heterosexual, cisgender, masculine men or feminine women, villains are then given a certain resonance if you deviate from that. This can of course be compounded by how engaged the actors are in their respective roles: in my favorite cheesy example, one can compare the near non-presence of Dolph Lundgren as He-Man versus the utter fun Frank Langella has as Skeletor (one of his favorite roles), a character he interpreted as some flavor of queer (Langella himself is probably bisexual, though he’s not publicly said so). Even when both hero and villain are rote archetypes or more equally balanced characters, I’m still being presented with two sides. One side has usually been laid out as something very different than I am, and I share at least superficial similarity to the other.

A complication, however: I’m asexual. Queercoding often implies sexual desire of some variety. So why do I like villains with any sexual coding at all? Partly it’s due to what they aren’t. The Standard Model Heterosexual Romance Subplot is suffocatingly overdone, and contains a lot of elements that make me feel horribly uncomfortable. People have already discussed how you just know when there’s a male and female protagonist they will end up involved, and now much of a pleasant shock it can be when they don’t (see: Pacific Rim, Fury Road). The rote nature of the plot often compounds the issue because the actors end up so unenthused and utterly unconvincing in their supposed feelings for each other. Villains tend to escape that painfully unappealing plot.

A further aspect of asexuality for me is that humans can be incredibly awkward things to look at. Whatever part of the brain that’s responsible for nitpicking never turns off, essentially, even for actors I really like. Villains are more likely to have covered or scarred or inhuman faces, all of which significantly mitigate that issue. They’re less “easy on the eyes” and more “easy on the brain”, basically. I’m not sure how much this modulates my responses to characters compared to queer people who do experience sexual desire, though. My guess is that it’s variable, but how that distribution plays out is unclear to me.

But I did say there are some villains I don’t like. Which ones? The ones that side the most with regressive aspects of modern culture, first of all. Aesthetically I have no problem with a villain like Immortan Joe, but what he stands for is so repulsive that I’ve never liked him in the slightest. Dolores Umbridge is a go-to example for many, because she’s such an avatar of the kind of “civilized” cruelty of a repressive society we recognize.

Queercoded villains that are predatory or violently deny their sexuality also don’t do it for me. Hellraiser again makes for a good example. While both Frank and the Cenobites can be read as queercoded in some way or another (Frank as closeted and the Cenobites as, to quote Clive Barker, “magnificent superbutches”), once the Cenobites realize Kirsty isn’t interested in “explor[ing] in the further regions of experience”, they back off and she talks with Pinhead. They’re open about what they are, and they’re intriguing to me. Frank’s violent attempts to hide his true self from others are unsettling, and his behavior toward Kirsty is unpleasant to say the least.

I also said I find certain villain fans to be singularly unpleasant. Which ones, why, and why do I think I can classify myself as different from them? The most obvious groups of these are loud in certain portions of the internet. Certain fans of Heath Ledger’s Joker, Tyler Durden from Fight Club, and (sadly, in my opinion), Bane from Dark Knight Rises provide the typical examples.

Quite a lot of people can probably see where I’m going with this. The loudest fans of these characters are a certain subset of men who identify with these characters. I just spent a lot of time talking about how I identify with villains, so what gives? The problem with these fans isn’t simply that they identify with villainous characters, it’s that they ideologically identify with them. 

Outside of a very few exceptions, villains in mass media hold a worldview that is incompatible with a society where we strive to not hurt people as much as possible, whether in a directly physical sense or a more general behavioral sense. As mentioned, I like Bane in Dark Knight Rises, a movie that otherwise disappointed me. In fact, I like Bane more than I like other Tom Hardy characters. His mask makes him easy to look at, his weirdly jovial tone is a relief in such a glum series, and while it’s implied he loves Talia, it’s portrayed well enough that it doesn’t detract from the presentation for me.

Needless to say, I’m not a fan of his belief that the world needs to be set on fire every once in a while, because harming people is an extremely inefficient way to get society to stop harming people. Unfortunately, there are denizens of certain subreddits and image boards who really took to either his nihilistic mission or (even more bafflingly, and in greater numbers) his fake populist message he explicitly used to hide his destructive intentions. 

The usual way I attempted to express this is “I like [villain], but if they were a real person I’d hate them”: As a fictional character whose deviancy from the desired norms of society is embodied in certain harmless traits I find kinship with, I can identify with those aspects and find them highly engaging. Their malice can be cathartic. The end result of their ideologies, however, is not. 

That tl;dr is only a portion of why villains are often compelling to me, but I think I’ve figured out most of the rest now.

If more heroes were to become queercoded (especially asexual) or drop the standard het romance plot, might I start liking them more? Probably. Will I still have a place in my heart for a leathered-up trashfire of a character with dreams of world domination? Definitely.