#and also I`m happy to be a part of fandom that treats queer relationships as normal thing that really means a world to me

[not-poignant]

Hi, Pia! I am thinking of going the same route as you - free chapters on AO3, then Patreon - for my historical m/m romance projects. Could you share a little about your journey, and how did you manage to gain visibility within the originals section of AO3 (I know it's not easy)?

Hi hi!

We've talked a little over at Subscriptions for Authors I think! *waves* :D

Okay firstly, i don't know if any of this is going to be very helpful, because to tl;dr it - I didn't set out to be a professional author when I started this, and I wasn't even trying to be a professional when I started my Patreon (though I did approach it seriously, like I wanted to treat my readers well). I didn't believe I could be one, my impostor syndrome was so epic I literally started an entirely new AO3 account and kept it secret from my main account because I believed all the people being nice to me about my writing were somehow just lying to me because they felt sorry for me.

That's...

That's a whole lot of impostor syndrome insanity. But I've always been pretty honest about having mental illness so....

Re: my journey...

I started out in fanfiction. I started writing Rise of the Guardians fanfiction (a two part serial called From the Darkness We Rise & Into Shadows We Fall) and it went viral (I did not expect this) and I put in several original characters to flesh out the world, because I added a Seelie/Unseelie Court element that wasn't in the original movie or the books.

Two of those original characters had roles as semi-significant ensemble characters. One was a terrible villain who is defeated by the other, who is the Seelie King (also defeated by the main characters of the fic but *coughs* anyway).

I started getting people asking me what was going to happen to those two characters, especially once people found out they had a relationship history together prior to the events in the fanfic. I mostly put those people off - I fully intended to keep just writing fanfiction - until finally I decided to write some fic of those two characters. It was like...revenge hatefucking, lmao. I wrote three chapters of that, and then more, and then finally realised I couldn't give them the tragic ending I'd planned to, and that I'd have to actually figure out how the hell to save them from their own machinated doom.

And that became the first book in my original Fae Tales series - Game Theory.

It was my amazing readers who asked me to make this Tumblr, my amazing readers who asked me to write that original story, and they were the ones who asked me to make a Patreon (and then a Ko-Fi), and so in a way, they were the ones who let me know when I was ready to try making this work in a (slightly) more official capacity. They were the ones who believed in me enough to keep me doing this, and they still are. *waves to you all*

They were the ones who gave me visibility, I don't know that I did anything specific to make that happen, except writing the stories, turning up, and listening to them.

It's a very weird way of doing it and I don't know that anyone else has ever done it quite that way like this. I feel like a massive outlier in that sense. I don't relate to anyone who is starting out in professional subscription with no readers because I could never do that, my lack of confidence wouldn't let me. But there's aspects I think any author can replicate: I reply to all my commenters (except the trolls), because they're great and I want to support connection, community, and conversation. I embrace fandom and love all transformative works, and also, like 99% of my writing is free on AO3. (You don't have to make everything free, but it certainly doesn't hurt on AO3).

I mostly finish my serials and folks can trust my happy/hopeful endings and they can trust my hurt/comfort. And I'm pretty communicative! As you can tell by how much I'm rambling right now x.x I intentionally provide a safe space for queer people and neurodivergent people as much as possible, and write a lot of representation for us. I set out to make a space I would personally feel comfortable in. That might not work for everyone, but it works for those who stay.

From there though, I'd say a lot of visibility came from word of mouth, writing chapter by chapter over time (serials naturally pick up readers simply because they're often at or near the top of a tag or fandom category on AO3 - there is NO algorithm there), sometimes sorting by kudos, and me just posting about random stuff on Tumblr with good tags.

I still write fanfiction on another account (my impostor syndrome account) that has also had some people trying my original fiction. There's quite a few people who came directly from fanfiction to the original fiction because the themes were the same!

I didn't have the confidence to intentionally try and be a professional writer. When I started writing that fanfic I was writing it because I was depressed, sad, and I'd quit an unsatisfying job as a professional artist (I loved the art and my clients, I could never make the income part work). I didn't want to be a professional writer. I was writing as hooky, as escape from my real life, and as 'oh god I just need some hurt/comfort and I can't find what I want so I'll write it.'

To this day, I still write fanfiction as an escape, it's partly why it's now on a separate account to my original stuff (but even plenty of my original fic is indulgent and self-escapist in nature, which is maybe why other people find it escapist and cathartic as well).

In writing, financially, it makes more sense to publish books, or do serials-into-books, and develop a backlist of novels alongside the serials. I don't do that. I should, I plan on starting soon. I can point out a lot of the things that I either did wrong, or that I can see a way of doing better, because I didn't set out to be a professional writer, and I still put 'keeping it fun' and 'the readers' ahead of 'making money.' I'm not very mercenary and I make financially not great decisions in favour of 'but I enjoy it more this way.'

(That's partly because I am really very ill, and I can't afford to make myself sick through my work, and not enjoying it is the fastest way to do that).

What I do know is how to help create a community, though. And how to encourage and try and care for that community of people. How to respond to what they want and sometimes don't want, alongside what I want and don't want. How to have boundaries in that space. Well, I'm still figuring it out but I think I'm more comfortable with it than I used to be!

I also don't want to make it sound like I didn't know about writing before this. Long before doing serials for 10 years, I did creative writing and scriptwriting (among other things) at university. I wrote very technically correct short stories with sad little tragic endings that won awards and sometimes decent cash prizes. I hated it, and it put me off writing for years afterwards. I felt trapped in trying to write the 'correct' way. I am entirely unsurprised that to this day I reject standard formulas for novel lengths, and that in order to write, I kind of have to break a lot of the rules I was taught.

But I was taught how to write 'correctly' by Australian standards back in the early 00s (very spare, evocative prose). These days I follow a lot of scriptwriting / television drama beats in serials and have always really enjoyed doing it that way. :D

I'm meant to be talking about some of this in the Subscriptions for Authors podcast tomorrow and it's going to be a mess, as you can tell, lmao.

(There's something to be said about the lightning-in-a-bottle moment where I just wrote a fanfic I thought everyone would hate in a popular fandom and people were just ready for that story and it took off. I had no idea how to deal with it and it was very overwhelming and I had a bit of a breakdown a year and a half later over it. It's no coincidence that a year into the Patreon I paused it for 1.5 years and walked away because I couldn't handle it. But then I did some growing up and came back and figured it out.

But yeah I didn't do any of this the right way, or in a super intentional way. The only part I know I did well was supporting a community, and communicating with the people who turned up. And I did that for very selfish reasons - I wanted to be in a community, and I enjoyed meeting people who had things in common with me. I sometimes feel a little like a gremlin who just stumbled into a community and was like 'oh, um, I'm here, I guess.'

It's really everyone else who made it magical, but it did help that I think I am (in retrospect) pretty good at writing a hooky, addictive serial for the right kinds of readers. I cannot understate this enough -> learning how to write serials and exploring episodic television drama can be very helpful).

[spiritintheteapot]

Yuletide Letter 2022

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Thank you for offering a story in one of these awesome rare fandoms!

Some things I like (Gen):

Self-sufficiency and logistical planning. A character having a problem and taking initiative to solve it.

Stories that examine small, overlooked aspects of a world or a character. I like reading about strange ideas that don’t necessarily have top-selling tropes.

The mortifying ordeal of having to be in community (work, family, or elsewhere) with someone you just can’t stand. Petty drama and gossip!

Women chafing against the confines of their lives, and discovering healing friendships within and across gender lines, with people who also want women to be free.

Some things I like (shippy):

Established relationships, and the interpersonal dynamics that take time to arise between partners.

Partners supporting each other against outside conflicts.

Sex where partners switch between giving and receiving roles.

Sex with external vibrator use.

Verbal instructions during sex.

Stories that subvert stereotypes of butch women being dominant/aggressive/selfless in bed. (Bonus points when a butch woman puts on feminine clothing or underwear for an erotic context, when she won’t wear it for other occasions)

Global DNW:

Treats are welcome!

Any maturity level is A-okay for f/f ships.

DNW: content rated above G for other ships (e.g. m/f, m/m, poly ships)

DNW: sex scenes that feature anything phallic (e.g. a dildo), or any anal contact

DNW: non-con

DNW: significant torture, gore, body horror; I prefer you keep the work at a lighter level than the source material

DNW: “gross-out” humor

DNW: stories that don’t match a character’s canonical gender.

Elemental Logic - Laurie J. Marks 

I nominated this series because it is criminally underrated, while being among the best queer fiction in print. I can’t say enough about the delicacy and originality of the magic system. I love the complexity of our heroines, and the practical, steadfast way they work for a long-awaited peace. I love these books so much that I have been hosting a year-long fandom event for them (shaftal.tumblr.com is where to find that)

I’d like a story about Zanja and Karis helping each other with a difficult problem, which could be set any time after the end of Fire Logic. I didn’t request any other characters, but I also nominated Clement and Seth--if you have read Earth Logic and like them as much as I do, you are welcome to give them large supporting roles. I’m also happy to see Zanja and Karis’s whole family in small supporting roles. Maybe Zanja must represent the interests of some Border People to Shaftal, but their needs are very different from the Ashawala’i? Maybe Karis must resolve the situation with the Basdown cow dogs? Maybe Ocean’s successor makes herself known?

A League Of Their Own

Such a thoughtful show about women trying to realize their ambitions in a world full of closed doors. And all these queer heartbreakers, with so much shipping possibility! 

I’d like a story where Max and Lupe meet, and Carson is a catcher trying to mediate between two pitchers. There’s a ton of tension to explore in how she relates to each of them, and I’m interested in how they would see each other as well. I would be happy to see that tension turn intimate in any combination you’d enjoy writing (I ship all three pairings of these three), but deep platonic feelings are also great! If you want to write about all three of them in one relationship, I prefer that stories about poly triads emphasize the individual connections that make up the polycule, rather than reducing the triad to its macro view.

Everything Everywhere All At Once

What a movie! The immigration themes and the complex parent-child relationship are my favorite parts. For this fandom, I think the stranger and more abstract the fic, the better. Feel free to try out unusual writing styles and disjointed plots, go wild! I’m interested in seeing even more possibilities for what the relationships (of all kinds) in Evelyn’s life could be like, especially who Joy and Dierdre might be to her in other universes.

Suggested prompts: What if Evelyn and Dierdre’s divorces happen at the same time, and that is how they meet? What if Joy moves to a different country to pursue academic success? What if Evelyn worked for the IRS?

Star Trek: Lower Decks

Somehow Lower Decks managed to be the perfect Star Trek series, consistently funny and interesting and deep.

Suggested prompt: T’Lyn is transferred to the Cerritos. How does it go? Will Mariner recognize her for the elite Bad Girl she is?

Last Night at the Telegraph Club - Malinda Lo 

I nominated this book for its beautiful depiction of first love and erotic awakening, the loneliness of being multiply marginalized, and the power of collecting images and stories that reflect your queerness back at you in some way.

I’d find a post-canon story interesting--do Lily and Kath stay in love? Will they have a chance to build a home together like Tommy and Lana? Where are they when Kath gets her pilot’s license? Where are they during the moon landing? If they remain a couple, does Kath actually grow up to be butch, and does Lily like the femme role or is it uncomfortable for her? Does Lily try out a nonconforming gender expression of her own?

The Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon 

I nominated this book for its beautiful writing and empowered women. Ead’s outlook on life is just so good!

Suggested prompts: During their time apart, what do Ead and Sabran write to each other about? Leading up to the final battle, how does Ead approach training Tané, who is presumably her first student of magic? (Does Sabran help her plan lessons?) When Ead comes home to take up the mantle of Prioress, how is she received? (Does she need Sabran to comfort her when someone doesn’t accept her authority?)

[livingthedragonlife]

a very particular kind of discourse crossed my dash today and it’s literally the only internet discourse that has ever bothered me on such a personal level so im going to get my thoughts on paper to see if it helps me make sense of anything

the discourse was about how you (in the proverbial sense) shouldn’t be writing gay fanfic if you’re not a gay man (or mlm in general), and if you do, it’s fetishizing. really I rarely disagree with what these posts are saying because they’re not incorrect. It’s the same vein of “don’t tell our stories for us” which is also something I agree with—especially in its more common example of “white people, stop writing stories about racism.” Because, like, yeah, let’s face, there are going to be things that non-mlm people will never be able to understand about the experience of being a gay man, just like white people will never be able to experience the nuances of what it’s like to be black, or otherwise a person of color. it’s not our (white people’s) place to tell stories about racism when people of color can do that just fine on their own.

but I can say, for myself, that this is the only Online Discourse that has ever made me feel like a truly, genuinely terrible person, because I both read and write fanfiction, the majority of both is about queer men. For years, I would purposely avoid clicking fics on AO3 rated M or E, because if I read those, I would become a bad person. When I did start reading them, because a lot of the good fics that were always recommended in fandom spaces were long stories with M or E stuff in them, I quickly scrolled through it so I wouldn’t become a bad person. Eventually I worked my way up to skimming it, then reading it outright, and writing it. Every single step of this process has made me feel like the scum of the earth, because i thought I was a cis woman. A bisexual woman, nonetheless, but still a woman, and therefore this was bad and wrong of me. I almost disengaged with fanfiction altogether.

All of those discourse posts say, “think about why you want to read our stories so bad” and you know what? I did! For years, I wondered why I was like this. why I couldn’t just be happy reading other stuff. Why I was so drawn to these stories, about people who were nothing like me, and that it was wrong of me to consume. wlw stories didn’t hit the same, to write or to read (disregarding the fact that there’s less of them in general), even though I have multiple original stories with wlw leads—and one of them centers a wlw romance! I was disgusted with myself for the longest time because I couldn’t figure it out—why were these stories I wasn’t even supposed to read the only ones I wanted to read?

Recently, I figured out I’m not cis. I’m bigender. Which means I’m still a woman, incidentally, just that I’m also a man too. I read those stories because they embodied things I was never allowed to have. Things that I wanted, that I hadn’t realized were important to me, but I felt I would never be able to attain. Now that I know what it is, I feel it every day—that thing i was never able to have. And you know what? I still can’t have it.

I am not a gay man. I do not look like one. I’ve never been in a relationship with a man before. Considering I don’t want to medically transition, and how the queer community treats non-passing folks in certain circles, I’ll probably never be able to experience the mlm part of my identity for years if not decades. I cannot honestly say that I know what it’s like to be a gay man. But I’m genderqueer—so that magically makes everything fine with regards to fanfiction, according to this discourse. Right?

Well, no actually. Because fanfiction also helped me realize I was bisexual. When I was a woman, reading the things I “wasn’t supposed” to be reading, they helped me find myself much faster than if I’d had to work it out on my own. And yes, “woman” is what I will call myself. I don’t subscribe to the idea that I was always bigender for my whole life. I was a little girl, I grew up a girl, I’ve been a woman for years, and that doesn’t make me any less genderqueer. But by that logic, my reading and writing of gay fanfiction is bad again.

People say there’s more nuance than “woman bad” in this argument, but it really didn’t feel like that to my teenage self. It still doesn’t feel like that now that it’s too late and I’ve internalized it. it is genuinely very difficult for me to connect with the transmasc side of my identity because it feels like appropriation. I feel like I’m stealing, cheating, that I don’t count, and a not-insignificant amount of that feeling is because of this discourse. I’m fetishizing. I’m a bad person. I don’t belong here.

And like, yeah, maybe it isn’t awesome that gay porn was where I got the first example in my life of queer men. But growing up in Texas, literally where the hell else was I going to get it? certainly not at school, where I didn’t get a sex-ed class until 8th grade that never mentioned queer people at all. Certainly not in my family, where my parents insist I “agree to disagree” with my trump-voting grandparents. I had nothing else but the internet.

I genuinely believe that if I didn’t have fanfiction, i would have been miserable and confused for years before I figured myself out. I have a lot of queer friends now, and I can count the number of cis people I know on one hand. You wanna know what finally pushed me to start identifying a bigender? Getting gender envy from how people drew and wrote my favorite characters, who are men, and who are often headcanoned as queer and/or trans. Not the support of my community, not my friends, not my family. All of that helped, but it wasn’t enough.

And yeah, call it cringe. I’m certainly embarrassed to be admitting it, but it’s true. And the one thing that didn’t help was being told I was wrong for enjoying that content, especially when a lot of it is so obvious. Like, yeah, I don’t know what it’s like to be a gay man! I never will! but I know about love. And I want to write a love story about two men because it makes me happy. It’s the only way I will ever experience that, for a long fucking time. and it feels wrong. To this day It feels wrong, even if “the discourse” tells me it’s okay for me to do now, because I’ve passed the clearance check. It fucking sucks.

[jackoshadows]

Maria and Michael know each other from school.

From high school to present, Maria is one of the few positive human interactions Michael has had in his life. They have a fun barter system and dynamic where Michael does small repair and maintenance work for her and she gives him free drinks.  Michael enjoys the way Maria takes the piss out of him and Maria is entertained by his trouble making ways. They are both attracted to each other.

When we meet them, they have these fun interactions and both characters have lots of chemistry with each other. Then Maria is having a very bad day and Michael is there for her and comforts her and we see that something changes for him. He sees her when she’s vulnerable and sad and his protective instincts kick in. Then we get episode 9 where Michael and Maria give into their attraction and sleep together. Their feelings for each other start to change.

Then Alex drops the bombshell that Michael is his high school lover. Maria is shocked and distressed that she slept with Michael and that she is starting to feel something for this person important to Alex. She assures him that there is nothing between them. But we see here from Alex and Maria’s expressions that they both know she is lying. She then tries to avoid Michael when he pursues her.  

Michael is not having it. He tells Maria that it’s over between him and Alex and has been for a while. This is true. Alex dumped him in episode 3 – we are now in episode 10 and several months have passed. Maria is still like, yeah no, Alex is my friend. Then she gets roofied and Michael stays by her side and takes care of her – she feels loved and protected and falls for him all over again.

Maria feels conflicted about her feelings for Michael and her friendship with Alex. Liz then runs into her and Maria spills all the deets about the situation. Liz is like, you can’t help who you fall in love with. At the end, Michael wants to give his attempt at happiness a go with Maria and turns up looking all vulnerable and Maria gives into her feelings and attraction for him and kisses him.  

Some fans: Why is Michael/Maria even a thing? There is no build up at all to this relationship. Where’s the attraction? He just slept with her to make Alex jealous. I hope next season Michael is miserable with Maria, jealous of Alex and spends his time pining for Alex. Here’s all these fics where Michael cheats on Maria with Alex. Alex should never forgive these two until they break up and grovel in front of him and acknowledge his awesomeness. How can Carina replace a m/m relationship with m/f – where’s the queer rep?! 

Let’s spend this hiatus hating on Maria, Michael, invalidating their relationship and making fandom a miserable experience for Miluca shippers.

Show/Carina/Tyler: Alex has a new love interest next season!

The same fans: Yay! Let’s get info on the new guy. Wow, new guy/Alex is so hot and great. I don’t even know who this character is, which actor plays him, or what the story is about, but it makes total sense and I ship it! Here are all the fics with Alex/New guy.

I think this double standard is some of what the recent controversial podcast was talking about. You want Alex to be happy and in a happy, healthy relationship with another great guy? Good. Go for it. I hope Alex/New character have great scenes together, lots of chemistry and become a popular ship.  Ship them to your heart’s content, write all the fic, make all the art. But here’s the thing. Don’t Maria and Michael and their shippers deserve the same consideration? Don’t Maria and Michael as characters deserve happiness?

If you dislike Michael/Maria because it gets in the way of your fave ship Malex, then why all the exuberant shipping for Alex/new guy? Doesn’t that get in the way of Malex? So it’s only Michael/Maria that’s the issue? Why?

It’s pretty obvious and very clear that the ONLY canon ship that gets toxic hate in this fandom is the one for the only main black character on the show. I know that a lot of the hate is because Maria made the mistake of getting in the way of a popular m/m ship on the show. But there’s no denying that there’s also an insidious, underlying racism that denies Maria’s importance as a character in her own right and turns her into just an obstacle between Alex and Michael. She’s only important and good on the show insofar as her relationship with Alex. The racism that questions Michael’s attraction to Maria. The biphobia that denies that Michael can be attracted to and love a woman.

Michael should be jealous and pine for Alex next season? Fuck that shit.  I hope Michael is all over Maria next season and treats her as a sexy, attractive, amazing young black woman. I hope we get hot, make out scenes between them like we got for Liz/Max and Alex/Michael. I hope Maria is a central character with a story that’s about her next season. Anything else will make Michael a shitty person and Maria relegated to an obstacle. People really want Michael to cheat on Maria? WTF?  Give Maria a proper story before returning to everyone’s favorite Malex ship next season or whenever.

I will be looking at what you do next season Carina Adly Mackenzie. You already took a main white character from the original series (Maria was more important than even Michael in the original series), racebend her as black and then took away her OG romantic relationships, OG importance to the plot and narrative themes and turned her into a tertiary character less important than even Alex and Kyle. Part of the reason for Maria’s shitty treatment by fandom is because you gave the character very little with respect to story. You have promised to do better for the character in season 2. Do it.

[5sosbitchfest]

Reactions to Luke’s IG Story 6/14/2020

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I hate her as much as the next person but bi people in straight relationships are still bi

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I call bullshit on Messy being bi. Sorry, if she was bi, why didn't she come out earlier? Her 'haters'? Where? Also, Luke needs to learn the difference between supporting Pride and celebrating it while PR dating a fake ass 'bi' woman.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I also don’t think it’s fair to say Sierra has never been in a same sex relationship we really don’t know who she’s dated. This is a big problem in the LGBT community, when a bi woman is in a relationship with a man her bi identity gets erased. Halsey has actually talked about this a lot. While I agree that Lierra is not a queer couple, that does not erase Sierra’s identity as a queer woman, and pride is absolutely still for her to celebrate too 🌈

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: *i understand that it was Luke’s post but obviously she had input to post it.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Does Messy’s journey of her sexuality excuse her transphobia? Bc I don’t think so. She sure is selective about who and what she celebrates then. She posted that picture for attention, like everything else she does. It sounds harsh and if she wants to share her journey then great but let’s recognize and call it out for what it is. She doesn’t need to have Luke in a post to talk about her sexuality. Happy Pride Month to that person she purposely misgendered and attempted to invalidate.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: It’s not about disliking Sierra anon. She has only officially came out in a reply on twitter that she later deleted. That’s the only time it’s been mentioned. People struggle to come out and she tweeted and deleted it as if she actually wasn’t saying it. And now her boyfriend is the one essentially coming out for her? That’s what the issue is anon she has never openly said she was bisexual and now that it’s pride month she is? This is just the first time it’s being brought up& it wasn’t even her

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I don’t care that Luke posted good on him but him posting something for pride halfway through the month makes the other boys look inconsiderate for not posting anything

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I'm the anon that said the thing about "lets not make this into a mikey situation" I agree that it was a complete distraction tactic, and I also can not stand Sierra I was just trying saying that even with those two things in mind the post isnt harming anyone and so we shouldn't get mad at luke for making it.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I hate to admit it but I don't see Lierra ending anywhere near soon. Yes, couples don't last forever and still I don't think they will but let's be honest, he cares about her. Idk how things are in their life, and I hope he's happy, but I think she will stay around for this year and maybe a bit of 2021. 🙄

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Okey but was the "biracial" necessary? It made me cringe...

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I know luke can be cringy when it comes to Sierra but cmon haven’t we learn by now all the cringy stuff if from Sierra being on his account lol

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Sierra wrote that ... no caps, her grammar, fave chosen emojis etc totes her 10000000000% although glad acknowledging bisexual biracial but Angel? Angel by day and to stans but I thought she was the “late night devil”

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Something about Luke’s ig story doesn’t sit well with me... the fact that he felt the need to state that she’s biracial and bisexual just makes it look like he’s treating her like some kind of a trophy to show off, idk it just doesn’t feel right

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Why do L and S feel the need to make everything about S? This isn't about you, so shut up and actually get a job.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: “beautiful bisexual biracial angel” i’m gagging and laughing so hard yeah he 100% wrote and posted that himself /sarcasm

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I love luke and I'm happy if he's happy but the way Sierra clings to him in that photo is so gross. It really just feels like she's using him to do her dirty work. Like that post didnt feel genuine at all and it really seems like luke isnt even trying to convince us anymore he just does the bare minimum to make her happy. I dont blame him tho. Just feels icky.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: As a straight person, I hate straight couples and hope to never be cringe.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I'm sorry but that Instagram story that luke posted talking about his "beautiful bisexual biracial angel🥰🥺" does NOT (capitalize, underline and bold) sound like how luke would type something. The first part where he talks about how far we have to go sounds like him but not that that part.. not even close. Want to bet either sierra typed it, gave him the idea to say that OR did both cause we know she monitors him like crazy

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: "Bisexual biracial" is so unnecesarry. Luke, hon, shut up. People are out here fighting for their rights, and you feel the need and have the audacity to make it about your crazy ass girlfriend? Don't get me wrong, I love the boys, but making every fcking thing about your girlfriend-particularly luke- is not the point of these movements. So stfu Luke, stfu Sierra, stop making everything about S. That pisses me off, sorry I just needed to rant somewhere.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: is it just me or does the whole “beautiful bisexual biracial angel” not sound like him or something he’d say??? idk I’m kinda new to the fandom but it felt cringey reading that come from him

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Did you see what luke posted on his story? Seems him and Sierra are getting along great, smh. Also she's confirmed bi as well I guess. That's cool. Hope she doesnt use it as a weapon to defend criticism tho. Also did luke redo his hair cuz it seems very white again. Idk. Seems fishy. What are your thoughts? Do you think he was told to post that to distract from mike?

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: just when I was starting to forgive luke for his “response” to messy’s MESS, he goes and posts this... I’m TIRED

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: ok but as a lesbian it makes me sooo happy that Luke is celebrating pride and he's supportive of her sexuality 🥺 men never take bisexuality seriously and I love that he respects that. YET as someone who doesn't like s I'm like why....... like this week has been so frustrating and we were all like "they don't defend m bc they're in a sm break" and now he comes to post this and doesn't say anything? i just :(

allisonscarlett said to 5sosbitchfest: Honestly pride month came just in time cause I remember some stans saying that sierra is probably not bisexual and now there's luke insta story. I'm not trying to erase anyone's sexual orientation, I'm bisexual myself and I've found it weird that in the past years sierra didn't anything about her sexuality during pride month (and don't remember when she tweeted about being bi but I don't thing that it was in during pride month)

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: is anyone else getting"i can't be racist/homophobic because my gf is biracial and bisexual" vibes from lukes ig story or is it just me??? does he know he's digging a hole???

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: should we assume luke posted that in response to the insiders muke information? interesting timing on his part

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I honestly can't stand Luke rn. Angel? Angel???? ANGELLL????????????

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Okay but I don't think that counts as a "a straight couple thinking pride is theirs to celebrate". Just cause Sierra is in a straight relationship doesn't take away from the fact that she's bi, or mean she can't celebrate pride. And I think Luke wishing her and everyone a happy pride is actually a really supportive thing for him and again doesn't really count as a straight person thinking pride is theirs to celebrate, because he's focusing on her, not himself.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: “my beautiful biracial angel” i hate it here

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Gonna say something to MAYBE make some people happy. That picture was taken at a PROTEST. So they probably aren't together 😂😂 they were just together for the protest

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: The biracial part of his story post is feeding into him being a king for dating a mixed person

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: ok luke did look very cute tho

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Every single time there’s any drama in the fandom, a new “cute” picture pops up and some people really think that’s goals? Like in what world is now the time for that kind of post, if it isn’t a direct pr response to the twitter mess of the past few days? Smh they’re not even trying to be subtle anymore

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: i think it’s fine for straight couples to go to and celebrate pride when one of them or both of them aren’t straight.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I was reading this blog a few hours ago and I read a post where someone said that everyone basically assumed sierra was bi bc of a comment and now Luke comes out calling her "bisexual" as if he was confirming it...Idk felt weird lol

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest:  Bisexual biracial angel😭😭 who made him write that and thought people will take it seriously

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: have you seen luke’s story? “especially to my bisexual biracial girlfriend” i fucking CACKLED like is it how she’s supposed to be known for?

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: thank you luke for that ig post for it will keep messy ass kissers away from m mentions for a while

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Funny how you just brought up everyone saying that Sierra was bi just cause she said she loved men and woman and woopty do guess what luke put on his insta story. “My beautiful bisexual biracial gf” Luke I love you but 🤢

[dreamy-slytherin]

I loved Leah on the offbeat! I also read it some weeks ago and I'm just in love with Becky Albertallis writing style it's so fresh and easy to read and still holds a lot of emotions and humor 👏🏼 do you have other queer books to recommend? I don't care w/w m/m maybe trans stories?

What a fun ask to answer, anon. And YES I do have some recommendations

m/m

The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater: features a gay and a bi boy and a very cute and slow-burning m/m relationship. The story itself is super nerdy and fun to read, incredible characters and we are a big and nice fandom!

More happy than not by Adam Silvera: does not only talk about sexuality in a very respectful way but also about suicide, shame, self hatred and homophobia. Very emotional and raw book

Will Grayson Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan: read this book a long time ago and can barely remember what's it about. I think I've been a little disappointed by the whole story and plot

Simon vs. The homosapiens agenda by Becky Albertalli: light hearted, happy, cute and funny book. I mean, we all know it by now don't we? If you've only seen the movie go and get the book!! It's incredible and was a big fun to read without knowing the plot. Features not only gay but also bi boys and girls!

The Gentlemen's Guide to vise and vitue by Mackenzi Lee: hands down one of my absolute favourites here. Such a fun and interesting book, with well built and round characters. Features a bi man, a gay man and an ace girl (she even has her own book dedicated to her)

I'll give you the sun by Jandy Nelson: also an incredible book. It's actually one of the few books I've read more than once. Very emotional, well written, unexpected and the timeline makes it even more amazing.

Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe by Alire Sáenz: AMAZING BOOK, i can't even put into words how much this book hit home. About two gay boys and their journey of coming to terms with not only life but also their sexualities. 12/10 would recommend.

Carry on by Rainbow Rowell: in case you like Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy dynamic, magic, fantasy and vampires this is one for you! What I liked especially is the fact that the gay relationship isn't the plot of the story. It definitely gets it's deserved attention but they also act as an established couple for almost half of the book.

w/w

Leah on the offbeat by Becky Albertalli: sequel to Simon vs. The homosapiens agenda. Funny, easy to read book, featuring two bi girls and background same-sex couples.

You know me well by Nina LaCour and David Levithan: m/m and w/w. I just put it here because I found the girl part way more interesting. The story itself didn't really speak to me that much. I guess it's one of those books you can read on the train or when you're bored

All for the game by Nora Sakavic: gay, demi, bi and lesbian characters. All in all a very queer book. If you like sport-thrillers and dumbass kids who drink too much alcohol and smoke too many cigarettes and play a strange sport called exy: this is for you. Have fun (also we have a pretty lit fandom)

Traumtänzerin by Alicia Zett: a German book written by a German lesbian youtuber. Very cute and lovely story. It's actually her first book and i was impressed tbh. So, in case you're German, read this!

Trans

Sohn ihes Vaters by Tahar Ben Jelloun: a book I had to read at school and value a lot. I still don't know how to lable the person. They've been born a girl but raised a boy because of circumstances. Later on they start to question their gender, living as a man doesn't work for them neither does living as a woman. It's actually heartbreaking, confusing and quite hard to read.

The art of being normal by Lisa Williamson: this book and the way of handling the topic of a trans girl and trans boy just doesn't sit right with me. I hate how carelessly the author treats the characters, how much transphobia she added to the story. How she never ever addresses the trans girl as a GIRL. Yeah, i wouldn't recommend this one (maybe some of you have other opinions, let me know)

Two boys kissing by David Levithan: obviously features gay/bi/non-straight boys and same-sex relationships. But my favourite story was the story of a trans boy and his boyfriend. I found all the characters endearing and somehow relatable. Nice book, raw and kind of legendary

[hootpoop12]

Theory time

Alright, so we all know through the context of this being written in a fanfiction/a03 format that this is all a play about canon VS fanon. What is a little hard to decipher is what are the things that are plays off fanon and which qualities are the true aspects of the characters(canon)? ANYWAY here are just a few of the things I am ASSUMING are plays off fanon based on my years in the fandom and sheer obsession of consuming this shit (trigger warning for everything taken place in the epilogue FYI):

-Dave: I think some of the main aspects of fanon influencing his epilogue version is intertwined with “woobifying”, “Slow burn”, and even possibly even “sexuality”. 

        -Woobifying is a fandom concept of reducing a character to “a cinnamon roll too pure for this world” someone you wanna baby (often applied to trans guy characters whether canon or headcanoned). This one is a bit of reach I’ll admit because it DOES makes sense that after years of living with Karkat the dude would soften up but there were times in the epilogue even Dave admits he’s gotten softer and the dude just plain out was very passive. In my time I’ve seen tons of depictions of Dave as a lot more emotional than shown in the comic or a lot more woobified in fics (like in meteor fics where he often has very dramatic emotional outbursts) By the way this is NOT me shitting on you if you like viewing Dave in that way because a lot people with trauma relate to him and use him for “cathartic release”(me fucking too lol). It’s more a guess/observation of maybe why he’s developed in this way due to the comic now being a strange sponge absorbing all fanon, good and bad, into it weird ass grasp.

        -Slow burn is likely the trope that plays into why the hell it took so fucking long for him AND Karkat to admit their feelings. If you have literally ever consumed Davekat content I’m sorry but 99% of it is slow burn lmao every meteor fic is pining, every coffee shop AU is the budding of a lifelong partnership, and every Harry potter furry inflation pwp crossover WHATEVER fic is 10k words building of sexual tension like......To bring their other relationships in canon into this we can see that Dave was able to flirt with Jade and Terezi and entered a relationship with them at a pretty normal rate WHICH can totally be attributed to the fact he views them as girls and himself as heterosexual so was much more comfortable making a move- sure. Looking at Karkat, however, and you see the dude is a little shy about romance sure but he was still able to flirt with Terezi and make awkward moves on John so like......I can’t help but to feel like something outside (us?) was influencing them?

        -Sexuality is another sort of reach but I think it’s something to consider. In terms of the comic....when exactly DID canon end? You could argue at the end of act 7.......or the moment John used his retcon powers to create a new timeline. Fandom Dave (on the tumblr side at least) was usually consider queer and a lot people shipped Dave with another dude. Perhaps John going back and rewriting canon helped bring our influence over Dave’s sexuality into the comic? I remember finding out Davekat was canon and confirming my “Dave is bisexual” headcanon and just thinking in wonder how it felt like Hussie was plucking my desires straight from my head and incorporating them. Which made me HAPPY by the way. If this is anywhere even near truth it’s not like he didn’t do a fantastical and natural job of incorporating it into the comic which shows how “incorporated fanon” is not a totally horrendous thing. The comics always done it with fandom memes and such. 

-Rose Lalonde. Not too sure what fanon influenes were brought onto her to be honest? In candy she was almost like a creepy stepford wife which is. Bizarre to me. Rose is the most contrary and rebellious character so seeing her settle down like that (OR FUCKING DOING SOME GUYS LAUNDRY) is a little strange. In meat she insists that she is an individual despite being married but that could have EASILY been Dirk’s influence? Also her biggest fandom stereotypes off the top of my head is Know-it-all smug meddler, alcoholic, and elegant. Really none of that was applied so still need to consider her more. The most damning thing however is where is all the piss?? If you look at the amount of piss kink rose fanfiction one has to wonder......and I can’t even continue this joke.

-Jade Harley: Gonna keep it real with ya’ll. I feel like this epilogue gave Jade Harley way more character. She wasn’t given much in canon except for lonely silly girl so it makes sense to me why she’d grow up desperate for physical bonds and inserting herself into relationships. I liked her telling John that she wasn’t some princess in a tower anymore cause it shows she KNOWS how everyone has always viewed her and that’s a little sad. As for tropes around her character.....yep people pleaser, silly girl, hippie, shoved aside for literally any other character......Need to think about her more, too. 

-Jake fucking English. What even is there to say? He more than anyone was influenced by fanon and it doesn’t take too much thought to see how. In a lot of fandom jokes and in fanfiction he is basically treated as a stupid piece of meat. I genuinely don’t read much fanfiction about him except from a trust few fans who I know care about him and will write him in a full rounded way. In any case we see a single moment in which Jake has this oppressive narrative taken away from him and it was when he was talking to Dave and Karkat during their election conversation. If that wasn’t already hard enough to read we can look back at the implied rape that took place with him in the beginning of Jane’s relationship with him or over the course of it. John, the one person supposedly not influenced by fanon as he’s still tied to the comic via retcon powers, is even the one to tell people that Jake is basically being raped. So yeah. Good times. I’ll get to Dirk in terms of Jake in a moment L M A O. Imagine that being the saddest lmao you ever just read.

-Jane Crocker: Welp hope you weren't a Jane fan lmao. What can I say except it FEELS like all the subliminal messaging really got to her and she’s like......warped by the condesce? I think if in the comic they showed more of her political takes then maybe this wouldn’t have come as such a shock. Like, I flat out am disgusted by her character now? She’s a facist, abusive, rapist(that was hint, unfortunately)? WOW good take homestuck writting staff?? I mean I know one of you used to write like incest pedo rape porn but aight??????????? Anyways in fanon Jane is treated as the girl who gets in the way of dirkjake so kinda that early 2000s bitchy yaoi girl brand, boring person in the background, or the hottie. They obviously kept saying she was “easy on the eyes” so there’s the hottie trope but that’s about it.

-Roxy Lalonde: Out of ALL the Alphas they fucking escaped with their goddamn dignity PFFT. So in terms of tropes: trans Roxy, alcoholic, and flirty “boy obsessed”. 

        -So with trans Roxy this is like Dave’s sexuality thing I discussed where a widely celebrated headcanon influenced canon and that not necessarily a BAD thing. Like I said, this theory is that canon is just absorbing fanon for better and for worse. I saw people were bummed they weren’t a trans girl but I am actually down with this for two reasons. 1) being all those memes “what’s your gender?” “the void” and 2) a part being friends with someone who’s trans is.....not being used to seeing them as the gender they actually are but taking the time to learn these new unfamiliar pronouns- and get the fuck over it. It’s their choice and you just gotta accept it despite your feelings. 

        -alcoholic Roxy was not at all incorporated which is the biggest fanon about her (not as much in recent years thankfully) so honestly? Kinda diminishes my argument. It’s not like the writers were worried that tossing out their progress as person was bad writing lol look at Dirk.

        -Flirty Rox. In candy they were SUPER fast moving in their relationship with John and despite towards the end they said that Dirk dying made them wanna do something with their life I just....don’t buy it? Mainly because john who is uninfluenced by the fanon tropes even noticed how fast they were moving and how stepford agreeable wife she’d become. 

-Dirk Strider. Aight. So. Here we go. fandom tropes are controlling puppet master, abusive, and cold/uncaring.

        -Dirk is a naturally controlling man, yes. Every version of himself struggles with this, yes. Even if we work on issues does not mean old flaws will never leak out, yes. However, after in the comic itself we see conversations with some of his closest companions and the effort he was making and ready to continue making was completely obliterated. Dirk is someone who takes his projects a little too seriously so why would he toss out this one- the most important one in his life? ANYWAY........Dirk in canon is shown that he’s also not great at multi-tasking or really anything that he really makes himself out to be AMAZING at. Don’t get me wrong I actually view Dirk as a complement dude cause he did get all the alphas into the session in a smoothish fashion (yes hal is him so it still counts) but, like, even when Dirk sounds like an AWESOME engineer to Jake he even admits that he basically had the future’s technology to help and it wasn’t that impressive. So now he’s claiming he’s the BEST? Wack.

        -Abusive Dirk......The sheer amount of people in the fandom who still misconstrue his character as heartless and the sheer amount of fanfiction of sociopathic Dirk might’ve done something. If he is truly becoming his “ultimate self” and he is heart aspect.....all these fanfiction splinters are getting applied to him as well, ya’ll. INCLUDING one of the epilogues writers who literally used to write fanfiction depicting Dirk as a brutally abusive and manipulative version of himself. With the similarities between their big fic and the homestuck epilogue I can’t help but to wonder if they’re subtly trying to incorporate that? After all Alt Calliope goes into detail about how the writer/narrator is IMPORTANT and when one is someone who enjoys viewing dirk as such....well who’s to say pfft Everything about how Dirk treated Jake was some of the most shocking to me. How did you get the guy taking most of the blame for a relationship gone wrong to a man who in a very rapey way makes someone obsessed with him, stupid, and unable to ever receive respect? Horrifying stuff to read, lads. It makes much more sense to me if you look at this fandom’s perceptions on DirkJake. My god there are some bad takes and there’s a whole section of the fandom who was hellbent on making the ship out to be the most problematic ship to ever occur. So whereas in the comic you have Dave pointing out that both sides had issues and everyone was willing to talk things out you had half the fandom insist that it was all Dirk’s fault and he just COMPLETLY forced himself on an unwanting Jake. Yep, sound familiar?

        -cold uncaring. yep tons of depictions of Dirk being cruel to his friends and family and sorry but go reread Homestuck I don’t even know what to tell you if you actually believe that. There’s literally nothing here I could write to help you. As if the whole thing about his character isn’t about how the people around him helped prevent him becoming like that and he hasn’t said in a dozen different ways how much he loves them and wants to treat them better. Get out of here with that shit lmao 

I guess all can be said about Dirk at this point is either 1) the absorption of the vast amount of terrible Dirk depictions from ascending to his ult self has warped him 2) he’s playing a villain just because Homestuck being over means not existing which TERRIFIES him and existing is a higher priority than treating the people around him right or 3) caliborn influence

        1) For the ascending I’m pretty sure this is the theory that’s gonna be right

        2) playing the villain is probably not what it is because on twitter all of the writers are saying the transphobia is literally just him and they’re boosting a lot of theories say “this is a story about friends you love disappointing you and you moving on” So. Yeah. Take that depressing nugget of information. (I literally will be fucking dead inside if that really is where this story is taken. No joke I will probably quit this fandom lol don’t know if any of you really know how big that is for me to say

        3) Caliborn? eh maybe who the fuck knows after typing that last bullet point out I’m too bummed to continue this hah

[space-malex]

I try to keep it cool, but I have fears about Malex.

I have fears because I am so used to mlm/wlw ships being far less developed and less important than m/f ships.

I have fears because I am so used to mlm/wlw ships being destroyed for “story” or shown time and again that a happy ending simply isn’t acheivable for them.

I have fears because they spent three episodes developing this malex romance and then dropped it. Even if they have subtextually done things since then and even if we will get flashbacks, the idea that we are going to go basically from episode three to episode nine before we will actually get to see this OTP interact again gives me fears. Especially since by ep 9 Michael is hooking up with the 20 years of history partner Maria.

I have fears that they have been side-promoting another ship, which is a straight ship. Which also happened 20 fucking years ago. And has a shit load of history within the overall Roswell fandom and it’s terrifying to me when faced with this other new ship that is now my complete life.

I absolutely have fears that this will be yet another same gender romance that will be dropped for the “True OTP” straight couple.

Sometimes I just want to cry. Because no amount of people reassuring me is going to erase the pain I’ve been through with my lgbt couples in the past. And as an lgbt person can I just say? It sucks. It absolutely sucks to have your viewership and your investment wanted but to get no pay off from it. It sucks to be treated as a number without your feelings mattering. It sucks to have beautiful and obviously meant to be same gender couples thrown in your face all the time only to have them never become canon or become canon but not end up together because “STORY” aka straight couples are still better or more important.

I’ve had enough.

When is someone gonna actually say “fuck that, all the lgbt get happy and proper endings”??? At least on mainstream tv?

The fact that we had to wait until 2018 to see a mainstream movie show a teenage white guy fall in love with another guy is crazy. The fact that most of the gay stuff that still happens in film is independent is crazy. The fact that a lot of television gay stuff is used for queer viewers and then dropped is crazy.

I feel like Carina gets it, and I feel like she cares, but I’ve also felt that way before and been completely blindsided and hurt. I really want her to understand how important a ship like malex is. I know that she said she can’t guarantee a happy ending, but.... I really don’t care to see Alex happy with some random dude when he’s been shown to have an obvious soulmate out there in Michael. I don’t want to see Michael end up with some girl when the person he’s been canonically shown to be right for is a guy namely Alex. I don’t want to see yet another mlm relationship destroyed because people think a story will be more interesting with less than happy endings.

Especially when that shit only seems to happen with same gender relationships. Why don’t we see male/female relationships that are meant to be just not end up together because it makes a more interesting story? That shit just doesn’t happen. But it happens all the time with MLM/WLW relationships.

My heart can’t take anymore. I’m so tired of being put through the ringer. Me and other softe gays/bis/ pans need Carina to take it easy on us and understand that while most of us inject angst like you would a drug, we also crave the happy/comfort part of the equation. And we need the gay.

[agnesgoesadventuring-blog]

Honestly as a bi person the C/R fandom’s attitude towards bi people can be very frustrating. There was debate over whether Tary was gay or bi and the moment he was confirmed gay there were some mean spirited posts going “fuck you for thinking he was bi”. And Molly is confirmed bi/pan but I have yet to see him shipped with a woman and if he was I worry people might start sending anons like “wow you’re a homophobe for not shipping these other popular Molly ships.” Seen it happen in other fandoms.

(Part 2 of biphobia anon) Also, Yasha. While I absolutely agree with the collective fandom headcanon that Beau is a lesbian, this rush to claim Yasha as a lesbian and ignore any possibility of being bi rubs me the wrong way. In the first ep, obviously she and Beau had a bigger moment, but she and Fjord were kinda flirting. I mean, that shaving Caleb moment was potentially shippy, and yet I think people are afraid to ship her with anyone but other women, even though nothing is confirmed by Ashley(Biphobia anon, part 3) I realize all this might come off as “waaahhh but what about the het ships” but that’s my point that those ships wouldn’t be het. If people started h/cing Yasha as bi or pan and shipping her with dudes, there would 100% be comments saying they’re only doing it bc they don’t want to ship a gay ship or bc they have het goggles on to deny B/Y, never mind that Beau gets shipped with other women despite all the B/Y. And I love B/Y, but I worry about the possessive attitude.(Biphobia anon, last part hopefully) or Allura- she’s confirmed bi but I would be shocked if anyone accepted a crackship between her and a man even though they’d accept crackships of her and women. Because she’s in a big f/f ship, her bisexuality is ignored/erased by fandom. Keyleth & Vax never stopped anyone from shipping Vax with dudes, but popular gay ships w bi characters stops people from shipping the bi characters with other genders bc it somehow erases their sexuality (it really doesn’t).

It seems like there's been a sort of over correction, the pendulum swinging too far to the other side.

As I've said so many times before, the discussion about the heteronomative culture we live in leading to m/f ships in general being the most represented and m/f bi ships being less effective as queer representation in general is an important one that needs to be had. It's a problem that needs to be acknowledged and remembered.

But a lot of behavior toward bi characters and their ships ended up swinging way past that and into this area where bi characters in m/f ships, whether those ships are canon or fanon, are dismissed at best and blatantly attacked as "not good enough" or characterized as being bigoted or hateful at worst. It's led to this fandom culture where so many people (and I specify, not everyone, because clearly people flip out and try to misrepresent your words if you allow it to merely be implied) treat the only valid queer ships, or the only valid ships for queer characters, are same gender ships.

And that really ignores a lot of the nuance of the discussion around bisexual representation. Because while the over representation of m/f ships in general and the heteronormative culture making m/f ships less effective as queer representation less effective is something that needs to be recognized, it also needs to be recognized that there are a lot of problems in a great deal of the way m/f bisexual relationships are presented that lead to some negative and problematic cultural perceptions of bisexual people in relationships with a different gender. Things like a character being labeled as being bi, but then never actually demonstrating attraction to characters of the same gender when they're in a m/f relationship, or treating past relationships with people of the same gender as a phase and erasing their bisexuality. Among other things. That's something that needs to be acknowledged as well. And it needs to be recognized that positive portrayals of bisexual characters in m/f relationships that don't do the above things can be really important in that regard.

Thankfully, we live in a world where more than one thing can be important at a time. The importance of one thing doesn't remove the importance of another thing.

That's especially true when it comes to people identifying personally with characters and ships, being drawn to ships that represent what they most feel matches their experiences and identity and being happy to have something that represents that. It's possible to be disappointed that a certain kind of representation didn't happen without ignoring the fact that another kind of representation can be incredibly important to other people.

And that goes for people's headcanons and fanon ships as well. Wanting a character to be a certain sexuality, wanting them to have a certain kind of relationship, hoping for and feeling that it's important doesn't mean you have to dismiss and attempt to invalidate those things for another person. As long as they're not erasing the fact that a character is queer, they're perfectly valid in wanting those things that appeal to and connect to them personally. And shipping a bi character or a potentially bi character with a character of a different gender is not erasing their sexuality.

We're still at the point in season 2 where none of the characters' sexual identities have been definitively confirmed. We know that Beau is interested in women and that Molly enjoys sex with both men and women. Beyond that, nothing for any of the characters is confirmed. Beau could be gay, bi, pan, aromantic, demisexual, etc. Molly could be bi, pan, asexual, aromantic, etc. And most of the other characters could be pretty much anything at this point. There might be some people who have to reassess their ships, or the way they frame their ships, once definitive confirmation for these characters is provided. But right now, most of this stuff we just don't know. In general, people insisting that others adhere to what they think the characters are and how they think they should be shipped just isn't okay. That's especially true of treating people like they can't ship potentially bi character in m/f relationships, or acting like doing so is bigoted and hateful.

Acting like there is something inherently wrong with shipping bi characters in m/f relationships really is erasure. And gatekeeping. And just awful behavior overall.

In general, this fandom isn't great when it comes to non-monosexual identities. I've experienced first hand the way asexual people and people with aroace headcanons are treated, and I'm sure most people who follow me have seen it as well. So much ignorance about asexual and aromanticism, so much hostility toward ace/aro headcanons (that usually demonstrate ignorance as well). It's hard to find people who discuss the possibility of characters being pansexual, and really the same issue that exists with the treatment of bi characters, ships, and headcanons would exist there as well. Erasure, exclusion, and gatekeeping happens a great deal, and it's incredibly disappointing, especially considering how open and inclusive the cast of the show is. It's a shame that so many people don't follow their example.

[freedom-of-fanfic]

hey um just a request, but you seem to use dfab and dmab often in weird contexts when you could just say women and men. e.g.: "any mlm that is shipped by more dfab people than dmab people." as a nonbinary trans person, a sex assigned at birth is not relevant most of the time, so could you maybe use it less when it isn't necessary?

thanks for letting me know your thoughts, anon. I’m pretty sure that particular example comes from the ‘my objections to anti-shipping’ post, which is pretty old now (though I reblogged it from myself today). I remember re-reading that recently and thinking ‘ah, I don’t think this is the best use of these phrases’ but I forgot to edit the original post anyway (classic adhd move, tbh). But still, it’s not the only example of me using descriptors that are kinda ‘eh’. 

I’m sorry that my word choice here was inappropriate and may have made you feel uncomfortable.

my use of descriptors like afab, amab, intersex*, genderqueer, cis, nb, trans, male, female, woman, man, etc is constantly evolving as I try to be precise but also inclusive when I talk about experiences that are affected by gender (which, let’s be real, is a huge number of experiences).

under the cut I’ll go into more detail about why I think picking the right combination of gender descriptors is both really important to me and also difficult to get right without causing anyone harm.

(built in tw: descriptions of transphobia/transmisogyny and mentions of the harm it causes.)

because my blog deals almost entirely in fandom experiences and how they are influenced by negative outside factors, I believe it’s very important to address both personal gender identity and how gender identity is perceived/treated by others (especially bigots/ignorant people) both currently and over the course of their lives. but that gets very complicated, very fast.

For example, every gender experience will be different from one another even if they share aspects of their gender identity:

- even though all cis and trans women are women, cis women and trans women will have very different experiences of womanhood. 

- to dissect this down even further, a trans person who realizes they are trans very early in life and is able to live as their true gender will have a different gender experience from a trans person who doesn’t realize they are trans until later in life, or who realizes they are trans early in life but is forcibly misgendered by people around them, or a person who changes from a non-transgender identity to a transgender identity as an adult, etc etc.

Relatedly, a person’s life experiences are also deeply affected by what gender other people assign them regardless of their consent:

 - If someone of any gender is raised under the assumption they are a particular gender because of their agab, they will share certain experiences with other people who are assigned the same gender at birth. otoh, how it affects them will depend in part on what their actual gender is, or if their gender identity changes down the line.

- obviously, non-cis people have to contend with a variety of nastiness that cis people don’t have to deal with. I won’t go into detail b/c nobody needs that grossness, but suffice to say: TERFs, right-wing activist groups like FRC, and transphobes in general make non-cis lives particularly difficult, up to and including getting non-cis people killed. in particular transgender people (but this also affects other non-cis identities).

- other forms of misgendering also cause harm, whether deliberate or not. from outright bigotry to people who think there are only two genders out of ignorance to people who use misgendering as a weapon to accidental assumptions of the wrong gender, it’s shit, and everyone will have a different experience with these issues based on a shitton of variables.

- and if all of the above wasn’t enough, gender experiences are heavily influenced by cultural background, the political climate, racism, sexual orientation, and on and on and on.

(and regarding my * on intersex above the cut: i am not intersex, and while I have read/heard a variety of experiences from personal anecdotal accounts by intersex people I generally try to avoid commenting on it from lack of knowledge (particularly because some intersex people have expressed they do not view ‘intersex’ as a gender descriptor but rather as a medical state.))

These are all things I try to bear in mind when making a post on tumblr that references gender. here’s an example of the kind of internal debates that come up:

the Japanese word ‘fujoshi’ is gendered, referring specifically to women who enjoy/create BL & queer-eye fictional m/m relationships. It carries this gendered connotation both when referring to a particular fan experience* and when it’s used as an insult in English-speaking fandom. What gender descriptors do I use to refer to people who are affected by this?

(*in this case I’m referring to using ‘fujoshi’ to describe a specific fan experience in English-speaking fandom/primarily US experience. By virtue of being a different culture than Japan, the experience described by ‘fujoshi’ will necessarily be different.)

as a fan experience, I’d say ‘fujoshi’ can encompass the experiences of women and/or afab people (particularly afab people who were raised under the assumption they were a woman whether or not this was true) who choose to describe themselves as fujoshi.

women: encompassing trans and cis women. (trans women may or may not share the experience of being recognized as a woman/identifying as a woman while being raised, but they are still just as affected all their lives by messages aimed at women.)

and/or afab people, particularly if they were raised under the assumption of being a female whether they were or not: afab people who are raised as women are also affected all their lives by messages aimed at women, though that experience is likely quite different from gender identity to gender identity.

who choose to describe themselves as fujoshi: a person who was raised under the assumption they are a woman may share certain experiences with other afab people, but even if they experienced the same messages/similar experiences as other afab people who chose to identify as ‘fujoshi’, that doesn’t mean they fall under the descriptor of ‘fujoshi’. I’m particularly thinking of trans men and nb people here - unless any one individual says differently about themselves, I think calling a trans man or person off the gender binary a ‘fujoshi’ would be misgendering them - but there may be many examples of people who don’t relate to the gendered aspect of ‘fujoshi’ for many reasons.

as an insult, I’d say ‘fujoshi’ is almost always a mess of gender essentialism and misgendering. It refers to those that are perceived as women by the person slinging the insult. ‘Perceived women’ often include cis women and/or afab people of any gender, frequently including trans men, and occasionally encompasses trans women who the insulter sees as ‘passing’ as a cis woman.

perceived women: people that the insulter and/or ignorant portions of society would categorize as a woman without the person’s consent and regardless of accuracy.

cis women and/or afab people of any gender: a gender essentialist views gender as being synonymous with genitals (intersex people frequently either being categorized by the insulter separately or by whatever HRT/surgery was chosen for them). (in practice radfem ideology has the same effect, but they argue that gender doesn’t exist at all (only biological sex does).)

frequently including trans men: depending on how far the insulter is willing to go with their misgendering & often influenced by whether or not the insulter perceives a trans man as ‘passing’ as a cis man. (this may be affected by whether or not a trans man has undergone HRT/surgery depending on the opinion of the insulter.)

occasionally encompasses trans women who the insulter sees as ‘passing’ as a cis woman: because if they ‘pass’ they may be perceived as a ‘real woman’ (ugh ugh ugh). (this may also be affected by HRT/surgery depending on the opinion of the insulter.)

and now that I’ve settled on these descriptions, how do I condense them to something easy to read without distracting from the points I’m trying to make?

as an experience: “women and/or afab people”, maybe? perhaps “women and/or some afab people”?as an insult: “perceived women”, maybe?

(and I’m happy to take constructive criticism on this. I’d prefer it be sent not on anon so we can privately discuss it rather than doing it in posts on this blog (and if you don’t want to discuss your thoughts, just want to share and go, feel free to let me know - I won’t demand your time.))

in short: I think about a lot of stuff every time I pick gender descriptors on this blog. This doesn’t mean I always make the right choices - far from it - and there may not even be a truly ‘right’ choice. But I’m always seeking to be as inclusive and honest as I can be.

(PS: I don’t talk about my gender status here much other than to say ‘i’m afab’ because while I don’t presently identify as cis, I’m murky on it myself still & I don’t want my gender identity to affect whether or not ppl speak up about their opinions about my use of gender descriptors.)

[sometimes-life-gets-hard]

a public announcement on love

I need to ramble for a bit so bare with me here okay. I'm very disappointed in the way the "God's Own Country" fandom treats "Call Me By Your Name". I get that you can have different opinions on art and all but the 'hatred' from that side often seems to come from people that have not even seen the movie and are simply saying, in jealousy it seems, 'why is your movie getting more attention than ours, when we finally get a lgtb happy end and yours is just another sad story?!'. Let me tell you something. NO. PLease don't come on this side and spread such bullshit negativity about art okay, have an opionon and voice it if you have the need to but please have your god damn facts straight. Call Me By Your Name is not just any other 'gay movie' and believe me when I say that I get even upset at reporters who didn't bother to do their research right and just saw two men and thought they knew everything there is to know about this movie. Wether you agree that this love story is beautiful or not, if you haven't seen the movie let me tell you a few things about the story:

The "age thing" Yes Elio is 17 and Oliver is 24, which gives them an age gap of seven years, but really that's nothing unheard of in queer or straight cinema. Furthermore the age of consent in most of Europe (Italy being one of the country's) is 14 and with 18 you are fully accepted as an adult in society and by the law. And besides, it is not the case that Oliver is taken advantage of or abusing Elio in any shape or form. They are both roughly on the same level of expirience as the other, which is next to none. Even more so it sometimes seems like Oliver is more taken aback by the feelings he feels towards a man than Elio is. They are both very highly educated men and know what they are doing. (If you don't believe me please go and read the novel)

The "sad story thing" Yes, they are not officially in a relationship at the end of the movie and it even seems like Oliver will get married soon (bet you didn't know that huh) but the very last scene turns it around, while it is incredibly sad that these two people did not get their happy end (yet, let's wait for Luca's sequel(s)) the important part to understand here is that it is a love story, period. They had an awesome summer together and what matters is that they got to expierence that kind of love people search their wholes for and grew emotionally and as individuals, because they both opened themselves to another person like they never did before. The very last scene when Elio stares into the fire and the audience can just watch him process everything, it becomes clear, that yes he is sad that Oliver left, but he is also happy for his future, he is ready to become a man now like Luca (Guadanino, director) said in multiple interviews himself. So really it is up to the audience to be able to see the hope and love in Elio's face. So I guess not that devastatingly sad after all?!

Now if you have never seen the movie of course it would be hard for you to understand and see all that. But please take it literally when I tell you "don't judge a book by it's cover"! Call Me By Your Name is so much more than a 'tragic gay summer romance' and I will defend that in front of anyone.

And just FYI, yes I've seen cmbyn and have not seen God's Own Country yet but only because I could not find a cinema in my area that would show it. I was really looking forward to this movie and I will still watch it, if I have the possibility someday but I just wanted to let the people from the GOC fandom that have so many negative things to say about cmbyn know that it takes my excitment for the movie away when I go into the tumblr tag, eager to learn more and all I find is cmbyn criticism. Why don't you try to celebrate your movie more, being bad to others won't make people like you more.

There is so much more I could talk about this movie, I really am a big fan but this is already long enough. I hope you see my point. I was just so incredibly saddened to see that apparently we could not all celebrate love together as we should be.

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

So I have a lot of somewhat diverging, incoherent thoughts about things you and your anons've said said, and I'll try to whip them into shape. 1) I wonder if there is a some gap between rational acknowledge and subconscious - bias (or if we're being impolite, homophobia) when it comes to these things. Of course, that can be rationalized away to an extent, but what I'm mainly talking about is the subconscious bias that Louis "reads" as gay to a majority of people and Harry does not. 1/

To use external examples, one of my favs from kpop is Zhou Mi from Super Junior M, and it’s pretty much an open secret in his fan base that he’s gay. He got a lot of flack when he and another member late-joined the group which can be attributed to overzealous fans and xenophobia, but Zhou Mi, unlike the other new group member, reads as less straight even in a non-Western context and still to this day (9+ years) gets more hate/is less popular. 2/

OTOH we have someone like Matt Bomer who is publically out, but still has a lot of straight female fans who are outright thirsty for him. They campaigned for him to be Christian Grey, and recently I saw someone describe him as “Can look, can’t touch”. To me, Bomer - and Harry (and Ziam) - doesn’t necessarily read as “straight” but more as “not-NOT straight” (the new Hollywood soft action hero) whereas Louis doesn’t get that benefit. 3/

This has very little to do with their actual sexuality, but again just subconscious bias. Unless if we’re able to acknowledge and confront our bias, oftentimes that can turn into discomfort and hate/anger, which might explain some of the over-the-top reactions we’ve seen in the past against Louis (and Zayn too - his otherness, in more obvious ways). 2) In terms of the straight female fans/queer female fans/desiring - desirability/triangulation of desire conversation– 4/ 

I just want to make a couple of observations (1) Queer female fans who make up a large part of L’s fanbase also include women / NB individuals who ARE attracted to men, as well as women / NB individuals who aren’t attracted to ANYONE. It felt worth mentioning to be factual and objective that actual ability to desire is not always the issue. Of the ones I follow who identify as bi/pan/other queer, a majority seem to express similar aesthetic reverence towards H and L instead of sexual. 5/

(2) I’ve seen at least one lesbian-identifying blogger recently who recently got a lesbian-identifying anon who said they would be happy to do [explicit sexual things] to Louis despite the fact she was a WLW and Louis is a MLM and the blogger agreed. So there might be something else going on there– But in terms of general fan response, similarly, over many fan polls, Zhou Mi’s fans often cited that they’d rather be his friend than date him. So it might have to do with how Louis/ZM are “read” 6/

3) In terms of your “There’s nothing wrong with a woman fantasising about Harry fucking her.” comment – I might be misinterpretting or overreading your intention with that statement, but it makes me uncomfortable for a few reasons. I respect why you’ve come to feeling this way and for other bloggers “shaming” women, but I inherently disagree because there’s other factors at play. 7/ 

 I think we can readily agree that men vocalizing their violently objectifying and sexualizing comments towards women, especially women they don’t know, is problematic (e.g. Adam going “I’d fuck [Celebrity A]” while joking with his friends, Brad saying, “Her face don’t do it for me, but I’d take her bare on her hands and knees.”) I know that are ways in which the relationship is inversed with Harry because he is white, male, rich, privileged, in an industry where that is the peak of power 8/ 

That being said, you yourself pointed out that One Direction, and many boy bands, are treated the same way that females in the industry are treated – objectified, devalued for the actual talents they are selling while being told their most valuable feature is their desirability. ESPECIALLY for Harry, who has been given this role despite his vehement objections. For many larries, who are queer women, the violent objection against other [straight] women sexualizing Harry might be commiseration 9/

–as they themselves are often subjected to sexualization and unwanted advances despite their own sexuality or feelings, which is another level on top of just harassment. I want to point out that that commiseration is *empathy* with someone they perceive as a victim of systemic homophobia (also something else they experience) and not necessarily internalized misogyny against women and what they feel as a requirement for reciprocity in order to express desire for another party. 10/

I agree you can’t help who you’re attracted to, and if the fantasy is between you and yourself, then no harm done. However, in my experience on Tumblr, many straight fans of Harry do take it the next level equivalent with the Adam/Brad example I created above, in a way that treats Harry like an object for their fantasies rather than a person with autonomy, and a person who’s expressed discomfort in the past for being made into this object. 11/12

I understand if you disagree with me, but I wanted to offer another perspective that’s more nuanced than “women hate that women have desire because of internalized misogyny which is why they’re angry when women express desire”. Anyway if you read this… uh thanks!

**************

Hi Discluded - thanks so much for your asks.  I think they’re really interesting.  I think your idea of people being seen as not-NOT-straight is a really useful way of looking at some of the different ways celebrities are read.  I think your comments will be really interesting to people who have been part of this discussion.  I’m only going to respond tot he last bit, about Harry and het fans.

I’m not sure I agree that Harry has vehemently objected to being the object of desire at this point in his career.  He definitely objected to being seen as someone with a huge desire for women, but that’s not quite the same thing.  While he’s put some boundaries up (including literally with his wardrobe), his album gave heterosexual fans everything they needed in order to feel desired by him.  I’m not saying I know how Harry feels about all this, but I am saying I’m very wary of other fans using a claim that they know Harry’s feelings as a way of bolstering their own reactions.

To your more substantive point - you end with motivations, why people might be objecting to fans who desire Harry. It’s not something I had touched on.  If I was going to give a reason for why I wouldn’t talk about internalised misogyny.  I would probably start with fandom dynamics - in this case Larries creating a ‘bad’ fan’ to differentiate themselvesselves from.  I agree that a feeling of empathy and experiencing their own boundaries is probably a factor for queer women (although I’m not sure I think that queer women are more likely than straight women to express objection to women desiring Harry).

I think that people can have very good reasons for why they respond the way they do and still end up reinforcing existing power structures in the way they express that response (a distinction that tumblr is quite bad at acknowledging).  It’s possible that queer women are responding to particular aspects of how particular women express their desire to Harry, but the easiest language to hand is language that shames women for having sexual desires. 

For women who are objecting to particular articulations of other women’s desire for Harry then the way to make it clear is to be specific. To name expressions and actions that are crossing the line, rather than focusing on women’s desire.

And while I don’t think it negates your main point since I’ve been thinking about the gendered nature of desire - I also wonder about the example you used.  The whole point of hetreosexuality (as like a social instituion) is that it’s not easily reversible.  The language around sex gives very little option but to portray men as active and easily ignores women’s consent.  I’m not sure that ‘Fuck me in that hat Harry’ in the tags is very similar to your example with Adam and Brad.  I’m not sure I think heterosexuality works that way.

Thanks for your thoughts - and I’d love to hear anything else you have to say.

[thestuckylibrary]

The straight writers + mlm fic thing. I'm totally bummed that sounded like a dig at cis straight fans for being into + supportng m/m ships. Why s it bad for us to support slash ships just cause we're straight? LGBTQ writers matter + we need more of them, y'all! just why does our work mean less when we're here for and supprt those LGBTQ people and writiers? an I'm writing for everyone y'all, not just straight gals. We should support each other equally + not put others down dude

No one is putting you down, or saying you shouldn’t support or create content for slash ships. We’re just saying as fans writing about queer people, specifically mlm, we shouldn’t treat straightness and cisness as neutral or the simple fact that we are writing slash as allyship. We’re talking about queer issues, specifically mlm issues in fandom, and by sending an ask like this you are placing yourself in the role of a victim, which you are not. While I’m not mlm, I am queer. disclaimer that I’m not mlm I’m just a queer woman whos trying to show some solidarity. I’m not an authority by any means, I’m just riled and trying to put forth opinions Ive seen mlm give and you know, not hide from the fact that fandom isn’t perfect. but do note that I’m a cis, albeit queer, woman writing this, not mlm. 

We’re not saying your work is less or that you shouldn’t be here, we’re just saying, hey maybe engage with what you’re writing a little more critically and don’t act as though your writing is for everyone unless you are actively listening to mlm about problems that show up when women, particularly straight cis women, write about mlm.

As usual I could not keep it brief for the life of me so I put most of my queer rage under the cut

Ok so first off you have the whole side of fandom (once again, not mlm, but women, in my experience mostly cis straight women) that like calls bucky their “sad gay baby” or “smol sad gay” and calls m/m erotic fic things along the lines of “filthy sinful gay smut”. I can totally understand why this makes mlm uncomfortable, I mean like who wants their non heterosexuality to be the defining trait that makes them appealing to straight people, who would want their love to be routinely called sinful and filthy by a community that claims to love them? Seriously guys take a step back and think about how it would feel to have someone talk about you like that. 

I read a huge wonderful post by a bunch of mlm in fandom a while ago and I’ll sum up a little of it here. Basically it’s absolutely wonderful to have a huge community devoted to create content about lgbt+ characters. It’s amazing to have a space where people can come together and create content where queer people get happy endings and we can explore all sorts of themes all with lgbt characters. But since slash has a huge number of women, cishet or lgbt+, writing about lgbt+ men, stuff can get a not great. 

For example, its really, really common to see top/bottom debates among fans. It’s one thing for mlm to identify as a top or bottom, it’s a whole other for women to sit there and debate which character fits in which static role. The whole thing reeks of deciding whos the “man” and whos the “woman” all to appease (usually and I am speaking from experience, not statistics or anything) straight cis women. We used to have a mod here who was a sex therapist and she talked a lot about how top/bottom debates are a really stereotypical way to look at queer mens relationships and as they are now its basically all about perceived gender roles and fetishization which like, is one of those things that should be putting up a red flag. She also talked a bit about how statistically it’s pretty likely that most gay couples don’t even really have penetrative sex and stick to mostly oral, intercural and hand stuff. And I’ve seen like so many mlm say that the whole top/bottom debate in fandom is homophobic as fuck time and time again and people just keep on going. Randos (especailly straight people) debating whos penetrating and whos being penetrated in a gay relationship as static roles is really. hoo. yikes. You also see things like only trans writers writing trans men who top, which speaks volumes. While what you read and write is up to you, it’s a good idea to look at why these trends happen and how they happen and what they do. 

You also see a lot, like A LOT of unsafe sex practices because they’re “not hot otherwise” Just to start, me, a bi ace woman, cringes when I’m reading a fic and someone just shoves their dick into an asshole with like only some kissing as warm up. No. If you did that in real life, it would straight up just be painful and cause anal tearing. Also: rimming with no cleaning first? Like ok if you really think its hot to plunge a tongue into a dirty asshole, go for it but like, really? It takes literally one sentences to add in like “oh hey I did an enema and cleaned up before you got here” before delving into sex. It takes one sentence to do the same for lube oh my god seriously unlubed anal sex no matter the gender is just gonna lead to either 1. dick or toy stuck in asshole, 2. severe anal tearing, 3. both and even more delicate skin and tissue related injuries. While I’m on it if you are a vagina owner, or a penis owner or somewhere in between and are interested in playing with genitals, you should be using lube if you aren’t already. lube is your friend. 

While it’s not content creators duty to make sure people know how to have safe sex, it’s pretty troubling that unsafe m/m sex is looked at as being “hot” in a very particular way. From what I understand, proper prep is a vital, vital part of gay sex and woman saying fics that show proper prep aren’t “”hot”” and fics that don’t show it are, that speaks to a broader problem. 

Anyways this is me, a womans thoughts on the matter synthesized from reading a bunch of posts by mlm discussing the way them and stories about them are treated in fandom and it’s honestly better to just like, read their opinions. I tried my best here but I am still a woman and therefore don’t fully understand mlm experience (not that there is a single mlm experience)

Please do continue writing and creating and reading and making headcannons! No one is saying you shouldn’t be here or you shouldn’t wrote m/m! All that’s being asked is for women, especially straight women who read and write and create m/m fanworks, to engage with it mindfully and like, at least make your best effort to not to fetishize mlm, to treat them as people rather than objects, which I really don’t think is asking too much. 

Further reading

here

here (same post but with different topics discussed)

here

Feel free to add more links of mlm taking about these issues cause I know i’m long winded but I don’t want to talk over mlm!

[dictacontrion]

Hi Dicta, I have kind of a strange question for you. What would you say is the line between enjoying reading fic about gay couples, and fetishizing gay couples? I see posts every now and then who comment about people enjoying fic featuring gay couples together, or bemoaning how people just ship all same sex characters (or people in real life), together. As someone who can reads multiple, same sex characters in different fandoms, I worry about crossing the line? I hope this ask makes sense.

that’s a tricky question, anon, and an important one. this is gonna be a little off the cuff but i also don’t want to let this languish so here are a few things that i think make a difference:

Do the characters have interiority? If the characters have thoughts and emotions and motivations that have to do with things other than sex and sterotypically gay stuff, that’s a good sign. If they do things because they have a talent or skill for those things or want to develop one, care about how their friends and families will react, are addressing something in their personal history, etc., those are good signs. If they spend all of their time having sex, arranging sex, talking about sex, and occasionally, like shopping and being snarky with the girls and ~being fabulous~? Not a good sign.

Do the characters have complete lives? Do they have jobs, families, friends, roommates, pets, childhood memories, goals, histories, preferences? Do other parts of their identities - class, race, religion, nationality, etc. - shape their lives? That’s a good sign. If the entire construction of their character is about fucking, and if the things they think about and do are only or predominantly related to sex, that’s a bad sign. Being a one-dimensional gay stereotype is also a bad sign. Even if the fic is about them having sex, that doesn’t mean that’s all they do or all they are, and plenty of PWPs capture that.

How do other characters treat them? Do characters within the story treat them as whole, multi-dimensional people? Good sign. Less good: only interacting with the gay characters in ways that have to do with having or arranging for sex (going clubbing, helping them get dressed to go clubbing, getting or giving sex advice, gossiping about sex), only interacting with characters in ways that are obviously villainous and negate the subtlety and complexity of homophobia or erase casual homophobia, treating gay characters as though they don’t have any sexual desire or sex, only interacting with gay characters in ways that play to stereotypes (if it would be at home on queer eye for the straight guy, that’s not a good thing), treating them as though their sexuality is there for others to observe (which implicitly gives the audience permission to do the same thing).

How does the author treat them? If you get the sense that the author is doing the equivalent of smushing two ken dolls together and making them kiss, take a pass. Authors who write good gay fiction, fan or pro, treat their characters with respect and give them the aforementioned interiority and complexity.

How do you treat them? Are you in it to imagine cute boys kissing, or because these are characters you’re attached to for reasons to do with who they specifically are as specific people and/or who you specifically are as a person? Do you think of them as your ‘smol gay sons’ or similar? Do you have a preference for ships and stories that replicate heteronormative dynamics? Do you think they’re so cute you could just smush their cheeks together and it’s adorable to read about them getting happy endings? Are they your literal or emotional wank fodder? If you were watching fic instead of reading it, would your habits resemble those of straight guys who are into lesbian porn? Are the stories you’re reading about specific questions or characters? Or do you prefer things that would qualify as any two guys?

Why are you reading slash? Like why slash specifically? Why not het, why not femslash, why not profic? What is it that you get out of reading m/m fanfic? Is it that it turns you on? That you get off on it? That you think of gay men as harmless and therefore feel safe reading about their sexuality? That you think gay men are fabulous and fashionable and bitchy and fun and want to vicariously hang out with them because it amuses you? That you think of gay men as hypersexual and so assume they do a lot of things that other people wouldn’t plausibly do? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you might be a fetishizer.

How do you treat LGBTQ people? Not characters, people. Do you know what the laws for lgbtq people are like where you live? What economic, social, institutional, and safety-related challenges they’re likely to run into? Do you know whether the characters you love so much could, if they moved to your town, be evicted, fired, or jailed for being gay? Do you know how they would get treated by your local police department, and who they can and can’t turn to if they feel unsafe? Do you know what kinds of experiences they might have going on dates at restaurants, bars, and other businesses in your community and where they would or wouldn’t feel safe? If you have elected representatives, do you call them when issues affecting lgbtq communities come up? Do you know whether issues affecting lgbtq communities have come up lately? Do you know whether trans people could go to the bathroom where you work or go to school? Do you know whether trans and lgb people’s health needs are covered by your insurance? Do you know what the unemployment and murder rates are for trans people in your area? Do you know which health care providers in your area are lgbtq friendly? Do you know what it means for a health care provider to be lgbtq friendly and why it matters? If an lgbtq teenager got kicked out of their house in your town, what resources would be available to them? How have gay people  in your city, state, district, country, etc., been treated at different points at time? If you’ve read about gay men having sex, do you know what steps gay men take to prevent HIV/AIDS? What do you know about the history of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and how it would have affected your characters? How much do you know about the side effects of ARVs for the treatment of HIV/ADS, or about the resurgence of comorbid STIs in gay communities? If a gay teenager came to you for advice, do you understand enough about the actual anatomy of gay sex to give accurate, helpful advice that doesn’t rest on what you’ve read in the magical fic world where everyone’s prostate is just past their anus (it isn’t) or where anything vaguely damp can be used for lube? What do you do when you see homophobia or transphobia? Are you confident that you could recognize subtle homophobia or transphobia? Do you have relationships with lgbtq people that they would describe as important to them? In thinking about all of these questions, did you always or almost always picture white, middle- and upper-class gay men? How much do you know, and how much do you care, about lgbtq people? Or are you just here for the squee and the orgasms?

For each of these, there are obvious exceptions. It’s definitely not necessarily an issue of fetishization to be turned on by or get off on slash. It’s not a bad thing to want gay characters to have happy endings. It isn’t about one specific fic; many of us read the occasional fluffy PWP and, contrary to what tumblr might have you believe, that one thing you do occasionally doesn’t define you. This also isn’t one-reader-fits-all; it’s a really different thing to be a queer reader who wants to see gay characters get to be happy for once because homophobia is real and constant and horrible and it’s an emotional balm to believe in the possibility of queer happiness than it is to be a straight reader who wants to see gay characters get to be happy because angst is sad and reading about homophobia is sad and you want to and have the privilege to avoid things that make you sad. But I do think it’s a decent round up, maybe with an emphasis on the first two and the last two questions.

And anon? Whether you agree with all of the questions or not, and whether you like all of your answers or not, I’m glad - as a queer person and as a fellow fan - that you’re asking. The question itself is not an answer, but asking it and taking the time to be thoughtful about it is definitely a good sign.

[justanearth-boundmisfit]

It is getting harder day be day to keep our wits together for being a Misha/Cas stan and wanting what is best for the actor and character. Jensen's acting to Cas dying was clearly one where he is trying to be removed from the scene so fans don't read into it and scream Destiel. His face is so animated when Sam is dying or Bobby is dying, but Cas - hell no. I think Destiel fans have ruined Cas and Jensen's acting when he is around Misha. I blame them for Jensen wanting less scenes with Misha. UGH

Hi anon! Fair warning this is going to be really long. Under the cut it goes.

I agree with you that it´s really hard being a Cas/Misha only stan. Sometimes I feel like we are 5 or something around that number. Almost all of the blogs that love Cas, are also hard destiel shippers. And there´s nothing wrong with that in my opinion. We have different points of view. Look, maybe mmm 4 years ago? I would be jumping and celebrating like them (believe me I would be a happier person), but after all this time of being taunted, seeing my ship erased by the writers and some actors, seeing Cas suffering and left behind and a million other horrible things, I became ultra bitter. I can´t stand how they treat Misha and Cas. I see them first, I will defend them first. I don´t care about a fucking ship. I can´t see Cas hurt and jump because he said I love you. All I see is my angel hurt again and again. And I can´t be happy about that.

Destiel has become a touchy topic for a lot of people. Years ago we didn´t have this rabid obsession. But well, what can we expect? The subtext WAS there, everything was there. We were not delusional. As critic as I am of the deancas interaction nowadays, they made destiel seemed a possibility with a lot of baiting. A LOT. There are tons of posts in the early stages of destiel, analyzing the light, the way the scenes were filmed, the looks between the actors, under a romantic construction. And ALL of them were right. They knew it, they played with it, they played with us, and when it became a huge topic of discussion and incredible popular, they dropped it, they erased it, they shamed us. To be clear when I say “they” I´m talking about producers, writers, the network and, to an extent, a certain actor. 

After that, they tried to “fix it”, they kept Cas and Dean apart, the interaction was minimal, the relationship became less than a friendship. When this happened the destiel fandom broke into groups, there are people who hate it with all their hearts now, there are people (like me) who don´t hate it but don´t see it anymore and we hold on to the vintage destiel through fanfic, and there are people, the majority I think, that want destiel so much that they are fine with every little interaction they get between Cas and Dean. Some of them reach too much and this is what bothers a lot of people. I give you an example: Misha tweeted about the syrian refugees and the first response that he got was someone shouting destiel is real! I kid you not. THAT kind of behaviour is getting really tiresome and disrespectful. 

Which brings me to Jensen. I think he is a great actor. Really. He can show 5 emotions with only one look. And the chemistry he has with Misha is undeniable. Was he aware of his acting choices when destiel was developing? I doubt it. Although Misha seemed to know that the writers and directors were pointing at something, he had said this. But Jensen is another story completely, he really is no homo with Dean, he has constructed this character on this basis, Dean is Jensen sometimes, Jensen is Dean sometimes too. And he interprets Dean as straight. And that´s ok, too, because it´s the way he reads it. It´s the way he sees it. Nobody knows Dean more than Jensen. But that gives him no right to treat fans with disrespect when they have another reading. Because again, maybe he didn´t see destiel, but it was there. And people have a right to see things different, all forms of art are seeing from different points of view. And what he does, getting mad, answering with contempt and disrespect, erases a great part of the fandom. Although some destiel shippers are extreme, not all of us are or were like that. We don´t deserve that lack of respect, nobody deserves that for asking about a queer ship. And for that I blame Jensen and Jensen only. I´m not afraid to say it. He can talk about hetero ships but when a question about destiel is asked he gets mad? No, no and no. Something is wrong there.

Is his acting reflecting how uncomfortable he is with this? Yeah,for me, it is. Can he erase years and years of destiel subtext? Hell no. But it´s not only him: the writing and the direction have changed. All in all, there is a whole group of people trying to erase destiel, with our homophobic friend Robert Singer at the helm. And in this is when we find how blind destiel shippers can be today. Tptb don´t want it, Jensen doesn´t want it, a whole bunch of their homophobic audience don´t want it. It is NOT going to happen. Spn is a dude-bro-no-homo-everythin-is-white show. That´s the reality. That is what they want to transmit to people. Nobody is going to change that. No matter how much some deancas fans tweet to the producers/writers/actors, no matter how much they shout it at conventions, no matter how many questions they make. They can have whatever interpretation, but as I said that is not going to change reality. 

(Ugh anon sorry this became so so long. At this point you must be sleeping. But I wanted to vent about this and you gave me an out.)

So I can´t blame destiel fans for Jensen´s change in his acting. He is the one who chose that, because no homo! He is the one responsible for his acting choices. As a professional he shouldn´t change the way he plays Dean because of the interpretation of the fans. Imagine every actor in the world doing that. Impossible.

What I don´t like about destiel shippers is when Cas is only important because of a ship. When Cas is being tortured/destroyed/dying/bleeding and all they see is how Jensen turned his head and “destiel happened”. Cas is such an interesting character, with so many layers, that he is iconic by himself at this point. I think that we can´t see his actions only through destiel shipper eyes. Imho It´s a disservice to Misha´s wonderful acting. 

Again sorry for this long mess, I hope I didn´t bore you to death. And please forgive the mistakes and typos, english is not my first language. Take care anon!

[justasmallbloginabigklainefandom]

The Great ATOG Reread; Grey part 8

Cause I can’t stop reading. This is a liveblog.

Chapter 25

And Kurt thinks, I can endure this. I've endured worse. No. He hasn't. 

Ah, young love. Sebastian, our resident bag of dicks, is awful for both of them. 

I could write a lot of shit about this and about how Blaine’s on the Phalanx rollercoaster again (even when he’s not Phalanx, I will refer to this as the Phalanx rollercoaster now), but this passage does it all justice.

He tips his cup around, feeling guilty. He wants to be friends with Sebastian. He wants something in his life to be normal. He likes being greeted with a glance confirming that he's wanted, what's so wrong with that? Agent Sylvester treats him more like the Ghost's pet than his partner, the internet can't make its mind up whether he's the sidekick or if he's carrying the helpless Ghost, Blaine doesn't know that some days. Kurt's been weird for a long time, and Blaine can keep attributing it to bad nights on the streets, that team - at its worst, he knows what that team did to him - his job, now this situation with Sebastian; but the truth is just that Kurt is being weird, and Blaine's relationship with Kurt was one of the few normalities he had left to grasp at in his life. Is it so wrong to just want to have something ordinary? Because even Cooper looks at him differently now, like he's still working out if he likes the difference. Maybe even Cooper doesn't know if he does, behind the appraisal in his eyes there is fear: for all he knows every night of Blaine's life is that burning theatre, and it's only a matter of time before the night it's too much. It's weird seeing Cooper scared. The end of Blaine's placement and the end of his course is coming up and if he admits it he is fucking terrified of the real world, of having to actually face people and try to make them better. He's scared of fucking up his course because he never has enough sleep or time, he's scared of having to look for a job, what if he can't find a job? He's scared of not having college's timetables to keep to, the disruption of the life he's managed to keep just on this side of orderly is going to be utter and he's scared. He doesn't know who he is and he can't know how he'll cope with these things. And he would tell Kurt, talk to Kurt, but - But everyone calls him the sidekick, and he can't look so pathetic and lost in front of him . . .

God fuck damnit problem 2.

It’s kind of sad that they’ve reached the point where it’s easier to be the Ghost and Phalanx, because being Kurt and Blaine means hurt and miscommunication. It’s kind of sad they’re aware of the fact that their relationship without masks is getting worse, and they both don’t know how to handle it, so they hide behind their trusted masks.

(Oh, and, uhm... birds)

Oh mother-

Oh. It’s already time for Phalanx to almost fucking fall off that rollercoaster.

(Remember, this is a liveblog, not a review written after I’ve read this crap)

He needs to protect him, he has to protect him, he has to shield him, but - but it's only now facing him saying it that he realises that it's not for Kurt's sake that he's doing it anymore, he needs to be a shield more than he needs to protect him, and he doesn't know how this happened, how he became . . .

I know by now how Phalanx feels about homophobia and how it hurts him. I mean, how does it not hurt? But most night, Phalanx has learned to ignore it, but that wasn’t the right solution. Whereas I agree with the Ghost 100000%, Phalanx needed to do this to get it out of his system.

He’s tired. 

So fucking tired.

Coping has become something he’s gotten used to, because with the life he’s living, all he can do is cope and it still hurts.

AND OG SHIT IS THIS THE MOMENT WHEERE PHALANX ADMITS TO THE GHOST WHAT HAS BEEN DONE TO HIM OH HOD I AM NOT READY?

(Once again, I have the urge to scream. This part always makes me want to scream)

His voice is shaking. "That I don't know who I am."

Oh Jesus, I know I’ve listed Blaine’s problems, but there’s actually only one. Problem 1, 2, and 3 are combined. He has an identity crisis because people keep seeing Phalanx as less than the Ghost, which leads to him regretting some choices he’s made and longing for some normal stuff, which only makes him feel guilty because he doesn’t know what that does to him and who he is and what he’s capable of.

He always says the Ghost is unpredictable, while really, in his eyes he’s the one who is unpredictable.

"Phalanx." He squeezes his hand hard. "Oh my god. Do you actually do this, you sit around comparing yourself to other people's ideas of other people? Like there's not enough in our lives to drive us insane before you start listening to them? Because they don't know us, you know they don't, that's the point. The way they talk about me isn't me. And you know that and I know you know that so why would you think that anything they say about you . . . because I never wanted you to be another me, you know I didn't, you're - better -" "No."

Of course, the Ghost is so confused. Because of all this shitty miscommunication, the Ghost hasn’t noticed any of this at all.

What’s the best solution?

Throwing yourself off a building.

Oh how I love the Ghost.

He’s right about Phalanx, though. Phalanx should stop seeing the Ghost as a victim. Phalanx does not get to decide whenever the Ghost needs to defend him. He’s the Ghost of New York City for fuck’s sake.

And Phalanx is Phalanx.

There's a lot to take in. There's so much to take in and some of it is - heavy and dark like a bruise he has to accept, he knows he just has to bear, but mostly he feels - mostly he feels - He feels so light it's like he has wings, straining for flight in the air this high over the city. Because he told him. He told him. And the Ghost - Kurt -

I almost started crying, but this time from happiness. I feel the exact same thing. This fic is kind of burden for a reason, and finally it feels like there’s this heavy thing being lifted from my shoulders.

He laughs, can't stop it, he feels so light, he feels - lifted - out of all those dark places, all those confusing shadows, the Ghost took a look at his dark places and he's not afraid of the dark. He just marched into them for him and said, There's nothing here. It's just shadows. There's nothing scary, look. If there are any ghosts, they can do him no harm now. Maybe they never meant harm to begin with.

Enjoy your coffee, boys.

genderflipped ghostlanx hell yes \o/ I hate when assholes only flip *one* of them because thanks for erasing their queerness guys, but girl-on-girl ghostlanx srsly does do it for me <3 An m/f couple is not automatically a straight couple yeah, but given how heterosexist thr world is anyway, I have no faith that people are being *clever* when they only flip one, they're 90% probably just being a dick. 

Shit, fandom is on a roll. (They’re both right)

For the first time in this entire verse, Ghostly is high key freaking out. We’ve seen her freak out before, but now you finally get what’s going on and why she rejects BB. Given the fact that they’re both adults, age isn’t important, and Ghostly knows that.

But Ghostly, the woman made of steel, is afraid.

Or not 'as soon'. That's the worst thought. What they would have done to him. How long it could have . . . it would never have been just death.

Phalanx is back on the rollercoaster, but this time the Ghost has strapped him in his seat. He’s slowly realising that all the dark thoughts that have been nagging him... aren’t that big of a deal.

BUT

You know what I love about Grey? The solutions to the problems are so small and so easy, and they make those problems feel like nothing. Yet, they’ve suffered. They’ve suffered a lot. 

Yes, looking back on them, those problems were fucking easy, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t bad. Rainjoy is a genius for doing that. The problems and the suffering were still valid. As a reader, you’ve seen how much this has fucked Phalanx up. You’ve seen that, even though the problems seem relatively easy to handle, they’re not easy and unimportant at all and Phalanx’s pain and suffering was real and valid.

Some stories fall in the “YOU’VE BEEN OVERREACTING ALL THIS TIME GROW A PAIR” trope, which is just awful. Rainjoy doesn’t follow that trope. Rainjoy writes reality.

He's allowed to struggle. He's allowed to not be sure. He's allowed to find it hard. That's what life is. And the joy of being allowed to fuck up, he could cry, he never knew how hard he was trying until he was told that he could forgive himself for it.

YES!

Oh wait, this is also the chapter where he gets poisoned? HE REALLY CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS, EH.

I hate the Pink Dagger. How can someone be such a great, yet awful, villian?

Chapter 26

Oh shit, all that was just ONE chapter? This is what happens when I liveblog.

Phalanx is dying. AGAIN.

Why does this always happen to Phalanx? This and the fucking rollercoaster I named after him.

Phalanx means so much to him, he’s willing to break all the rules? Driving with Finn? Cool, why not? Stopping in front of Mike and Tina’s apartment and making it obvious they know each other? Sure? Willing going to meet a villian, knowing it’s a trap? Yeah?

Two things to remember about the Pink Dagger. One is that he does have an incredibly twisted sense of honour when it comes to the superhero vs. supervillain game; he understands the rules they're supposed to work by, and he sticks to them. If he said that he made an antidote then he almost certainly did. He's not actually evil, not as the Ghost knows evil. He might want to take the Ghost down out of sheer petty spite but he's got very little against Phalanx, and if he said that he made an antidote, in his ridiculous, overdramatic way, he probably did. The Ghost does have a chance to save Phalanx's life - if he can actually get that antidote. Two is that he's a coward.

OH god. Again, he’s one of the most brutal villians, but he’s also awful at being a villian? This is why Rainjoy chose Sandy Ryerson to be a villian.

Why is he so dangerous? This is awful. He’s forcing the Ghost to relive his worst memories and to make his worst fears seem real. It’s so bad the Ghost fucking gives up.

But he does that. He fucks up the rules for Phalanx.

Mike picks something up from the night table, lets a breath out like he needs to steel himself, and injects it into the drip running into Kurt's arm. "He's been drugged. His fear responses are - I'm trying to regulate them. He was calm enough when he got back, it's only when he started waking up that he -"

Can’t these guys get some rest?

They need a vacation, but Mike and Tina will have to pass for now. They’re good people.

It is awful. Blaine knows that what the Pink Dagger did to the Ghost was supposed to kill him. That he's alive at all is because he had people to help and because he's incredibly fucking strong, and, Blaine knows, because he's incredibly fucking proud; Kurt might die, but not to someone who calls himself 'the Pink Dagger'. But he hangs, still, on the precipice of how weakened he is. What was done to him should have killed him, and what he teeters on the edge of isn't just that his heart beat itself so hard it could have ruptured, that his lungs could have suffocated him by breathing too hard. He was dying of fear. He didn't have a clue where he was, he didn't know what was happening, he just knew that he was terrified almost to the point of it killing him and for all he knew alone in it, and Blaine doesn't know what desire Kurt could have left for waking up. He leans to his ear, brushes his hair behind it with his fingertips, murmurs to him, "Finn's here." He strokes his wrist. "You going to wake up and say hi . . . ?"

FUCK.

Kurt’s recovering, but he can’t fully wake up. Blaine is still recovering too, but at least he’s awake, and he can think. Kurt seems incapable of doing anything.

Finn carries him, over his shoulder and unresponsive, down to his car. They only get a few stares, the incredibly tall man carrying the smaller unconscious man like a rolled up carpet, the shambling little guy leaning on a much taller and very bruised man with a woman carrying the bag to the car behind them almost in tears. People have seen weirder. This is New York.

Bless.

And Kurt gave Blaine his life back: Blaine will never fail him now.

Double bless.

I feel bad for Rachel though, since she’s not used to this, but that’s life.

This is so fucking hectic and sad, at this point I even miss the fandom.

Because Kurt gave him a new mirror to see the world with, and now that neither of them are on their feet, he really has the time to look into it, to see the world reflected the right way. To see himself reflected the right way, finally.

Thee times bless. I am just so happy for him that Blaine’s feeling so good about himself, even though he’s half-drugged.

But now he has time to think and slowly, 

God. Blaine's not the only one struggling with what other people say about him.

he starts to realise that they’ve gone too far and that they need to talk. Kurt has changed to world the day before, and Blaine wants to do the same.

Both Blaine and Mike know medical shit (I don’t), so they both know the awful truth: Kurt doesn’t want to wake up. Well, Blaine’s not gonna let that happen.

The line opens, and he says, "Hi, Mr Hummel."

Chapter 27

Oh, you get Kurt’s POV.

This is kinda sad.

He’s so defeated. He’s ready to die.

Thinking Blaine will always have Sebastian anyway. Well fuck that bag of dicks.

It's not just the streets, it's every magazine he opens, every time he turns the TV on, every time he overhears another joke in a café, every time he goes online. Be yourself! society sings, and then, You're doing it wrong. Kurt can't do it right.

Please, don’t die.

Well shit, I know you won’t die. I mean - JULIO.

But it’s so sad to read about someone who wanted to give the world everything, but got nothing back.

He got stopped by the police, once. Came back to Kurt's apartment on a Saturday afternoon and the showers at his gym were out of order, he'd travelled back hair sweat-wrecked, more Phalanx than Blaine, still in his gross boxing gear and not the neat polo shirt and bow tie packed in the bag over his shoulder. And he'd been - his smile was a little wrong, too broad, as he recounted too amused that a couple of cops had stopped him for questioning (for walking while in possession of a suspicious skin colour?), like it was funny, when Kurt stared at him thinking, What? The police have never stopped Kurt. Not for all those years Kurt actually was performing illegal activities every night, no-one ever looks at Kurt and thinks of trouble, and looking at Blaine making light of it Kurt thought, They never would have stopped me. Not if I came straight from aikido looking like I'd just been in a fight. They would never stop me just for being on the street. Blaine had shrugged, grinning, and gone to use Kurt's shower. They both knew he was more startled by the incident than he'd let on, but Kurt suspects that he's the one who remembers it more often than Blaine does now. Because Blaine makes light of it so he doesn't feel hurt and angry, and Blaine's inherently sunny nature pushes these things out of his mind, and to Blaine, of course, this is only one incident amongst all the incidents that make up his life and can be catalogued as such - but to Kurt this was new and appalling, it was sickening. The one tick box that never will hurt Kurt: the cops who stopped Blaine knew nothing at all about Blaine that mattered to them except that they could tell that he wasn't white, and for once, his appearance didn't even 'pass'.

What good does it do Blaine, how will it possibly help him survive, if the only difference between them is that Blaine is forced to live by two tick boxes that will never be right instead of one . . . ? No wonder he claimed that he didn't know who he was, how can he? Caught between straight enough, male enough, white enough and the boxes that forces him into, how can that make him feel about the other halves of himself? Be yourself! society sings. Just not like that.

Is it weird I think about this a lot? I recently made a doodle of Phalanx and Incendiary, in costume, looking unamused and it read “NOT WHITE, BUT NOT A CRIMINAL”

Blaine isn’t black, which is kind of a terrifying thought. The way people stereotype black people is fucking awful, but I sometimes feel people forget that all PoC have this problem. It doesn’t matter what colour your skin is, as long as it isn’t white, they will look right through you.

Society says, Be yourself! We have already designated which 'yourself' is acceptable.

Shit son.

BUT FUCK YEAH PAPA HUMMEL IS HERE, READING VOGUE.

Really Kurt, wake up.

"Buddy, I hate to do this to you, but you gotta start wakin' up. You're scaring your doctor. Don't even get me started on your boyfriend. Kurt." He nudges his cheek again, until Kurt drags his eyes back open. "You're scarin' me."

WAKE UP.

AND HOLY SHIT

NO

NO

NO

NON

O

NO

THIS

OH I AM NOT READY

GHOSTLY

I wish I could put the entire passage in this post, but it’s too much. Ghostly. I’ve read a lot of good Ghostly stuff over the past week, but this is the best of all of them, because she’s right. This wears you down.

So here is the second thing I'd suggest, before the next time you treat someone else like shit because it's less effort than stopping to think before you start to type: imagine a mask on every person you see. Imagine that *they* deal with impossible shit you haven't got a clue about, imagine that they suffer such crap that other people throw at them, imagine that *they* make sacrifices to make the world a better place and that they deserve our respect for it, because you know what, fandom?

Ghostly, I love you.

This part of this chapter is needed, because you delve right back into the pile of shit that is Kurt Hummel’s current mental state.

Blaine stares at his coffee, then shakes his head, slowly. He takes a sip of coffee, holds it in his mouth and thinks before he swallows. Blaine has spent too long letting other people dictate to him how he should think and feel and live; Kurt has spent half his life coping with things he can't cope with by living for other people instead. And it's only now they've hit this wall that Blaine realises that neither of their coping methods work. Blaine can't let himself be pushed and pulled by other people, can't let what other people think dictate to him who he is but Kurt can't keep on disappearing the way he does, just submerging himself into other people's needs, fading himself away because he thinks that someone else needs something more.

Blaine is realising that they have missed so much. Kurt really had no idea what Blaine was going through, and now Blaine understands that Kurt’s been coping on his own too. Burt Hummel reminds him of that.

They don’t necessarily have to talk about heavy shit only. Just knowing they’re both awake and together is enough.

Amused, now, "How was your day, Blaine?" "I sang a medley of nineties girl group r'n'b in the shower." Kurt's laughter ripples under Blaine's cheek, sunlit water over stone. "I know, I could hear it." "I really enjoyed it." "I could hear that too."

Chapter 28

Something was finally restored to him in all that shouting, all that spent grief, something more than just Blaine's body was healed by that antidote. Returned to Kurt again is the boy he first met, wiser but still bright and enthusiastic and sweet, chivalrous and hopeful and kind, he looks at Kurt and it's like he sees him. His eyes are actually on him. He's actually smiling because of him. And he actually seems to look at him. He actually seems to listen and hear him. Because for so long now they've been so used to each other, Kurt felt himself so dull to Blaine as Blaine went for coffee with Sebastian and what was Kurt anyway, Blaine already knows Kurt and Kurt is hardly the most interesting creature on the planet, the most interesting part of Kurt is the Ghost. Blaine fell in love with the Ghost first, it's not like Kurt ever could complain, but, but - How long has it been since Kurt felt noticed? Phalanx and the Ghost were for so long so much steadier than he and Blaine were, in that costume Phalanx paid attention to him, in all that dull grey the Ghost was actually noticeable.

Welcome back, idiots.

It’s still so shitty how defeated Kurt feels. It’s like he has a time bomb strapped to his chest. He seriously thinks he’s going to die. He stops caring. Why care? One day, it will all be gone.

And Kurt goes with Brian, because whatever. Blaine is with Sebastian anyway.

Both of them are just... sigh. Kurt realises what’s Brian after, and Blaine realises Sebastian is a bag of dicks.

Fuck Sebastian and fuck anything Sebastian says. Blaine is defined by the choices he makes: now and every time, he's choosing Kurt.

Good. Sebastian is disgusting. You know who else is disgusting?

So if Ghostly's not here to yell at everyone for like expressing an opinion, I DO FIND THE WAY HE STANDS REALLY ANNOYING OK. Like Jesus we *get* that your gay already I'm sorry, I didn't realize people needed telling this, the fandom's angriest woman having stuff going on in her life doesn't mean that you're not a dick. *Fuck* you.

Fandom. I take back what I said, I don’t miss them anymore.

paleandghostly wrote a thing once about how people want to see puckzilla as a monster because its easy but hes more complicated than that i liked her, noone writes puckzilla meta, hope youre ok paleandghostly xxx

Dude what. You say something reasonable for once.

Was it just because he was still too drained to go back to work, he should never have gone out, and he panicked at his body failing him? Blaine knows how hard Kurt pushes himself and how Kurt's shortened limits might scare him right now. If he felt himself too ill to get home on his own, could that have kicked him into . . . ? But he hasn't done that in months. He hasn't for months and months, Blaine's been so proud of him, Kurt practising meditation breaths and reading up on CBT, Kurt so determined and strong. He hasn't done that in months. How worn down must he be to go back to that old fear, like no-one exists who'll protect him and he can no longer protect himself?

UHM YES TO TALKING ABOUT THIS.

Oh Jesus. The “break-up” is heartbreaking, because Kurt is drowning in his lack of self-confidence and Blaine can’t help him.

Kurt’s problem 2 is really suffocating him.

And he's been strange for months, because of - This. Because of this. He's been strange for months while he was disappearing and didn't - couldn't - tell him - "No. No."

NO.