#bc they are the only gay rep on the show and theyre treated like a spectacle compared to all the het pairings

[spending-life-pretending]

i love insane gay people

[jakowskis]

Day 15 - Are there any ships you dislike?

alrighty so. there are only rlly four i ‘dislike’, and the first three… it’s more complicated than anything, it’s not entirely utter pure-n-simple disdain. it’s less about the ships themselves (in two of the cases, anyway) and more about how they seem to be perceived by the fandom + how much they dominate everything. other ships exist, guys! the other characters exist! anyway ill try not to be mean but i am gonna be petty, lol

so for starters, yeah, jack x ianto. i have a very specific view of it, that i do enjoy, but the fandom seems to be doing something else entirely and i've developed some resentment despite myself. especially bc it’s overrated as fuck. don’t get me wrong, it’s iconic, as far as being culturally significant gay rep, but if im honest idk how well they hold up in 2024? i thought their relationship in s1 and s2 of the show was lackluster at best. poorly written bread crumbs. and yeah i know it was big for 2006 but im just personally kind of offended that they could show them sucking face but not show the intricacies of why the hell ianto would fall for a guy who shot his girlfriend down?? like, their relationship is inherently dark and angsty to me and im interested in exploring that, bc the show certainly doesn’t (initially) bother to, and a lot of the fan content i see is either fluffy (??????????), or angsty in a Tragique way, or is just kind of… fetishy and whumpy? people slot them into a Specific Kind of Dynamic and it grosses me tf out. so the fandom culture rubs me wrong, and then it’s just… such a bummer to like owen and tosh and gwen in a fandom that only seems to prioritize this one ship. there are 22k fics in the torchwood ao3 tag, and 13k of them are janto. now, all that being said… they do intrigue me and endear me, just a bit. but it took the audios to make me give a fuck about them, which is sad. 

on that same note - i have the same relationship with tosh x owen, but i'm significantly less fond of it, cuz it just plain rubs me wrong. i like them in theory, so i spent months trying to figure out how to make them work and what other people are seeing that they think is so endearing and cute - i just can't find it. owen's treatment of tosh is just about the only thing i can't stand about him. he treats everyone poorly, but most of the rest of the cast defends themself (or even hit back, like ianto and gwen, and thats why i ship them with him! it’s spicy! i love balanced unhealthy dynamics in fiction hfdsjkf i can’t lie) - but tosh just lets him, creating an unhealthy power imbalance where she’s just getting hurt over and over again, and it makes me wanna fucking punch him cuz she does Not deserve that. i want him far away from her lmao. except under certain circumstances, cuz i have written fic about them, and i’ve read like three rlly good ones (and the main link between them is tosh stands up for herself and puts him in his place! i HATE how he walks all over her in canon ughhhhhhhhh). additionally, i do admittedly enjoy the angst of their canon arc. i just think fandom throwing them together and making it cutesy is lazy, uncreative, and an injustice to both characters. i think the SHOW throwing them together was an injustice to both characters, especially tosh’s. they're tragic and compelling, ill give them that, but theyre not sweet, and i don't think they'd be good for each other. 

(also worth noting on a show where everyone has tension w each other, imo barrowman & gareth and naoko & burn pull it off the least convincingly and have little to no chemistry. like every other duo just kind of sparks in some way or another, and neither of those duos do. which SUCKS bc they’re the canon ones. but it’s also heavily poor writing like they were doing the best w what they had. grr. like i still dont know what the fuck ianto likes about jack or what tosh likes about owen 😭 that’s ridiculous!)

the other ship i’m petty about is jack x john hart. i just think it’s far too popular for what it is. idek why that is, do we have a substantial amount of buffy fans in the fandom? don’t get me wrong, i liked john in the show + i liked their relationship as well, but i'll always be annoyed when a minor character gets more attention than the fascinating main ones. 

and lastly i hate john x ianto, because i respect ianto, lmao. i can’t lie, if he was my fav i’d probs ship it HJFKDSHFK i love putting my favs in awful situations. but as is it just grosses me out. get him outta there!! 

tldr: i don’t interact w the john hart side of the fandom, and if a fic is tagged 'jack/ianto tosh/owen gwen/rhys' i probably won’t read it 😷

[redheadbigshoes]

for anyone planning to watch one day at a time for lesbian rep, they should also know numerous ppl make lowkey homophobic comments to the girl who's a lesbian that are never challenged("we know youre gay but do u have to act so gay?" type shit as well as her mom like. ughh, there's a whole episode where her mom is just really homophobic and in the end shes like "i may be thinking these things but its ok because i sould never say them to her and anyway my daughter coming out was an understandable shock") and also that the main family says some rlly racist shit( specifically their grandmother repeatedly saying theyre the "good kind of cubans" bc they're white, as well as referencing her family being invokved in the plantations where they lowkey owned black and brown ppl as a good thing, lots of pro us military bullshit as well, like, extremely,.) and that's never treated as a real issue either, just something to laugh at. so yea h. just throwing it out there because a lot of ppl recommended the show to me but being a brown lesbian, well, lol, lets just say it sucks to have to realize on tthe show that's being recommended to u for being "so progressive" and "such great latino rep" is racist af and repeatedly has homophobic insinuations about like, the only regularly seen queer character on the show. i lowkey doubt you'll post this anon, bc most ppl dont give af but. id appreciate it.

No, actually you’re right. When I said it was a good lesbian rep I was mainly talking about Elena, not how the other characters treat her or how they see her identity, it’s very very rare seeing lesbians being represented in a more positive way, not fetishizing or anything like that, and the fact that they do use the word lesbian (not as frequently as I’d like to but still better than never) is a huge thing because most lesbian characters are never referred as lesbians.

After I rewatched some episodes there really are some things that bothered me like those you brought up. That particular scene of “acting gay” I did not really like it, I don’t know if the character who said that (from what I remember it was either Alex or Lydia) was actually supposed to sound homophobic or not. But considering that scene is supposed to be funny I do think it’s just a way to kinda mock her. Also that scene of Penelope saying she can think homophobic things about her daughter because as long she doesn’t say anything to her is okay… That sounded so wrong. It’s not okay. Just because you’re not saying those things out loud it doesn’t mean it’s not wrong.

I’ve never actually noticed Lydia said that because they were white… wow. The part of the pro military I can’t really say anything because that’s the most common thing in american movies/shows. It’s very annoying though.

Yeah about being a great latino rep I don’t think it is, I say that as a latina. It’s still very much stereotyped, which is one of the things us latinos hate about how gringos see us. Tbh I don’t think I’ve ever seen good latino rep in american movies and shows.

Considering the show is still pretty much (from what I know) made by Americans for Americans, I’ve never really expected great rep from it.

[cubedmango]

Yeah I saw that too which is definitely an explanation that makes sense but also makes me so sad because a lot of the blame fell onto machida and akaso for that and at least from what i’ve seen and know about them it looks a lot more likely to be their/one of their agencies… I always want to pull my hair out too because seriously men getting married yeah chief that’s about as gay as it gets but a little peck on the lips is where the line gets drawn):£: and then I wonder how it works too cause even with that scene in the drama with kurosawa’s imagination in ep 9 when they were literally in bed like man that was a big fuckin step up in terms of any physicality between them which made me wonder like okay that was fine but again actually having a visible kiss wasn’t? I just don’t understand and when the director was asked about the whole no on-screen kiss thing he said it was to put more emphasis on their ‘emotional bond’ like what😭 idk nothing really adds up but some homophobic entity pulling the strings behind them unfortunately seems to have all arrows pointing at them it really is kinda :// tho cause I loooove the movie and the beach scene but also wish so much wasn’t taken away from it cause seriously imagining that part from the manga in live action form especially knowing how much of amazing actors they are is so crazy I would have killed a man for that💔

(putting second ask below for length!)

Ah naina there’s some unconfirmed tea which you can choose to post if you want to or not idm!! Some ppl have been digging into it and think that it’s tri-stone akaso’s company and it honestly makes sense from the promotion of the movie and how the release was treated on their side for example their official account was basically silent the whole time which is super weird because for his other roles they post about them regularly and retweet the promos but for a movie where their client like that’s your actor!! was literally the main character they were radio silent?? and in fact this was during the time hiru was airing and they posted about that almost every day but barely a word about cherry magic… and even weirder on his paid for fansite thing eawd at the end of every production they post a picture with akaso and his costars but there wasn’t one with him and machida… there’s so much more I’m gonna have to go back and look for it if you want but it’s just so ????? To me

the thing abt akasos agency is actually the exact thing i saw, i didnt have any way of checking it for myself so i couldnt confirm it but if its true that explains . basically everything ?? and its so dumb too bc if theyre so intent on being homophobic why did they even let him not only act in the drama but also come back for the movie ???? like were they expecting the levels of gay to go down or what 😐 and not doing promotion for ur own actors work just bc its a queer role is ??? extremely fucked up first of all but also theyre just losing out on money themselves so ??? who knows whats going on in their brains lol

either way to me it feels like neither the actors nor crew did this stuff on their own bc the way they handled the drama+movie doesnt match at all, they wrote and acted krdcs story v carefully and respectfully without that typical baiting and pandering, and also making fujisaki aroace when she wasnt in the manga and giving her so much depth too shows they did care abt the queer rep so i doubt theyd have any problems with the kissing and all themselves ? sensei even supervised the whole thing and donated movie proceeds to marriage for all so it rlly doesnt add up that any of the crew involved would be the one opposing stuff like this .. wouldnt be surprised if it was actually those agencies or even the network higher-ups doing all this, and the actors getting blamed for it is such bs too but alas its easier to pin it on them than admit theres a more systemic homophobia at play, and fans will usually fall for any random rumor and take is as truth so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[synodicatalyst]

what do u think abt rose/m and vriska/m in fandom? if u search the tags u can still find active shippers (notably joh/nrose n j/ohnv/ris) w ppl denying that they can be lesbians. common arguments r like "its biphobic to say shes a lesbian bc on page 5471 line 39 she canonically flirted w a boy!! lol" while ignoring,,, that comphet is a Thing... what i find esp interesting as an actual bi person is that these ppl are seldom bi themselves; it reads more like theyre trying to justify their (1/2)

like of the pair (like dirk/f shippers saying "jOhN is a hETeroSexual but people ship [joh/ndave joh/nkat etc]!!!! str8 oppression!" or "uhhh in this pesterlog with roxy he said he ISNT GAY" while ignoring all other textual evidence that goes against it,,, or altogether cherrypicking the parts they want to hear to support their het narrative). its honestly a bit disheartening to see this like. ok in some instances things are left up for interpretation, but why would you want to say (2/3 whoops)

(for example) that rose is bi bc she "flirted w john/dave" when there are so many interactions in-canon where she was only interested in women!! and for bi rep, why would you want her instead of NUMEROUS characters shown to express attraction to multiple genders (eg dave, roxy, karkat, jade just to name a few!) like i personally find that to be more than a bit iffy, especially in 2018 and not like. 2010 when dav/ejade joh/nrose etc was popular. (3/3)

wow anon really spicing up my inbox today huh [its ok i love some spice]

uhm..hm. i think..well.. i gave up being super angry about j/hnr/se (and other rose/dude) ships a lil while ago because i mean, there is literally nothing i can do that will stop those folks. like me being like ‘yall shes obviously a lesbian’ isnt going to stop user ilovejo//hnro//se69 (thats not a real user tho afaik) from shipping their ship

i will say that its 2018 and if you havent gotten the memo yet...rose is pretty clearly a lesbian [see: jasprosesprite’s unabashed flirting with like All The Girls and zero of the boys] and i genuinely dont understand why you’d want to ship her with a dude

it is pretty disheartening and i do find it genuinely disrespectful towards both lesbians and bisexual folks (especially bi women) because using bisexuality in order to “validate” your boring m/f ship that died in 2012 is a shitty thing to do. it feels like people are commodifying bisexuality because they can’t handle that perhaps lesbians exist

with regards to vriska - i think that her situation is a bit different, because she was never explicitly stated to be a lesbian in the comic, and this new age of lesbian vriska is definitely just largely in part due to this sect (i.e. the lesbian sect) of the fandom seeing vriska and realising that she has Big Lesbian Energy and also shares very large portions of her story with The Lesbian Narrative (in that her only important relationships that actually affected her emotionally were all with women; xtine once said that vriska got more worked up about aradia’s indifference towards her than she felt about tavros in the entire comic which is very true) and her arc definitely shows lots of traits of like, comphet (going after tavros because of her ancestor and because she thought that’s what she was supposed to do) and general social dissonance.

so like, there’s a lot about vriska that points towards her being a lesbian, and frankly i genuinely cannot imagine her being in a fulfilled or happy relationship with a man, at all (and it surprises me that some people can). however this was never stated outright in the comic, and a lot of this evidence is probably more difficult to pick out or relate to if you’re..not .. a lesbian, obviously, which is fair. i still dont put stock in people who use john, tavros, eridan or fucking nic cage as “evidence” for vriska being attracted to men because all of those relationships (if they were even that) fucking sucked and vriska was not invested in like any of them emotionally [apart from john but there’s like a Lot to that and ultimately i think vriska wasn’t romantically interested in him, she was just not used to being treated like a normal person and john helped her realise that the hyperviolence imposed upon her by society was shitty]

i.. dont want to be Like That but i genuinely just think it’s unfair when people take characters who are very obviously Lesbians [or gay men i.e. dirk] and be like ‘ya well heres an m/f relationship i like with u in it’ when homestuck has like. COUNTLESS characters who are bi/attracted to folks of another gender

and i get annoyed about rose’s lesbian identity being erased in the same way i distrust folks who erase dave’s bisexuality, because similarly, his bisexuality is an important, integral part of his character and erasure is bad

I WILL ALSO SAY bi terezi is more valid than bi vriska though i hc both as lesbians 90% of the time, but folks that go “uhhh calling terezi a lesbian is bi erasure!” and ignore the whole “you dont need him” retcon arc really don’t... get it and are failing to empathise with the folks who see their narrative in her (i am not trashing on bi terezi its a headcanon that i love too dont twist this shit)

also in general i just question the motivation of people who see characters in loving relationships with folks of the same gender, squint at it, and go “nah this sucks my m/f ship is better”

not to invalidate non-het folks in m/f relationships but yall cannot make me fucking care about like.........d/vej/de on my goddamn life

[lesbeancats]

here’s a proper vent under a readmore so y’all dont have to see my issues with a certain season 7 if u dont want-sorry to mobile users.

OK SO HERE WE GO FIRST OFF: the baiting has been happening since season one/two ish idrk for certain and WE FINALLY, FINALLY GET CONFIRMATION BUT GUESS WHAT!! SHIRO BEING GAY MEANS ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOTHING AND HURTS SO MUCH MORE. No one in canon actually CONFIRMED that Shiro was gay, that’s an outside source shoe horned in baby!!!! Without that context of sdcc and that tweet, Adam being Shiro’s FUCKING PARTNER is COMPLETELY GLOSSED OVER. Adam ONLY appears in flashbacks and says jack shit!!!! He dies like five minutes later!!! Thanks for that super REPRESENTATION VLD CREW :)) WE REALLY APPRECIATE SEEING YET ANOTHER DEAD GAY CHARACTER, ESP ON THIS CHILDREN’S SHOW.  Also the AUDACITY of trying to justify YET ANOTHER DEAD GAY CHARACTER with “no representation is safe” IS DISGUSTING. We hear that ALL THE DAMN TIME.

Every interview in the past two weeks about Shiro being gay is fucking TAINTED as well bc it means NOTHING! It’s not explicitly stated by Shiro or any other character! You can praise yourselves ALL you want VLD crew but none of us are impressed!

not to mention its disgusting that shiro is by far the most tragic, the most tortured, and the most unlucky character on this show and U WANNA MAKE THAT SORT OF CHARACTER UR GAY REP? REALLY? THE MAN WHO LOST EVERYTHING? WHO LOST HIS PARTNER, HIS ARM, HIS LITERAL LIFE? THAT U WANTED TO KILL OFF IN S2 PERMANENTLY? YOU WANNA SHOW OFF HOW MUCH U LOVE TORTURING CHARACTERS BY USING THE GAY REP, HMMMMM,

Ezor and Zethrid had FAR MORE OF A ROMANTIC IMPLICATION THAN ANY OTHER DUMB SHIP ON THIS SHOW AND U KILLED THEM? AFTER MAKING THEM FALL ALL OVER THEMSELVES TO TORTURE THE PALADINS? THANKS VLD CREW, FROM UR LOCAL LESBIAN Also the episode where they were drifting through space was a FANTASTIC opportunity to fucking TALK about all the shitty things y’all promised would get addressed! Like Keith attempting to sacrifice himself to save Voltron! OR LANCE STRAIGHT UP DYING! but noooo we just got Keith snapping at everyone. But it’s ok :)) bc theyre all FRIENDS :)). And FRIENDS get to yell at each other with no consequences.

and wtf was UP with Keith’s justification for sending Lance home? Shipping aside, those two are FRIENDS!!! and Lance is Keith’s impulse control and right hand man. He trusts Lance in battle to think for him but any situation other than that he’s SUPER ANNOYING???? WTH. 

Speaking of Lance WHAT IN THE GODDAMN HELL WAS THAT? HE’S STILL BEING TREATED LIKE SHIT AND WHY GIVE HIM A SHINY NEW UPGRADE HE’S NEVER GONNA USE IN COMBAT? WHAT WAS THE DAMN POINT

oh btw thanks for showing us u REALLY cant write romance of any kind! the direction a////urance is going in is such a disservice to their characters, to fans of the ship. but keep talking about how “romance isnt really a main concern” clearly it is, if its het! clearly it is if its forced!

what in the goddamn HELL was that whole “acxa showing up to the grave” thing????? Keith had maybe like two conversations with her? the majority of the fandom was waiting to confirm that they were SIBLINGS?

how many GODDAMN TIMES do i have to see pidge’s family issues! thought we resolved this when her dad was rescued! 

im sure i have more to complain about imma leave a positive note bc im tired and drained as hell HUNK FINALLY GOT HIS CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AND HE WAS GODDAMN GLORIOUS BLACK PALADIN HUNK DESERVES THE WORLD ANDI LOVE HIM AND HIS ROCK GIRLFRIEND, SHAY. THE ONLY GOOD THING TO COME OUT OF S7 WAS HUNK SHINING LIKE THE BEACON I ALWAYS KNEW HE WAS AND  KOSMO GETTING PETS AND LOVE. 

[teddy-stonehill]

night-dark-woods replied to your post: Actually for me watching the G**d Om*ns series...

yeah strong agree about the original book, i havent watched the show and dont think i will bc both tennant in any role but the dr tbh and whoever plays crowley activate my fight or flight response, but i reread it recently bc i remember enjoying it but i think theres even a bit in the book where some kids like, call aziraphale a f*g or something and its super played for a joke, and then obviously all the ~subtext~ is its own can of worms. also i feel like gaiman (½)

(2/2) is really not to be trusted w/r/t gay & especially trans stuff, after all the stuff in the sandman comics that i dont think hes ever like… acknowledged or apologized for lol, or (my personal pet peeve w/ his works) the short fairytale, sleeper and the spindle? or smth? illustrated by the usual guy, anyway its like… sleeping beauty rewrite, the cover has two women about to kiss, but then Actually one of them is evil or whatever and thats the ~twist~ i (2/3 oops)

dont remember in detail i just remember being really upset when reading it a few years ago. anyway, yeah good omens is. really funny in parts but also pretty homophobic, and i dont see how many of what i thought were the funniest parts would be translated well to movie form since theyre in the narration (3/3)

-----

I can’t really comment on Neil Gaiman in general because I haven’t read a lot of his work. I’ve only read a handful of his books and I honestly disliked most of them. There’s something about his writing style that I just find deeply unpleasant.

And like I said, it’s been a while since I read the book, but from what I remember I think the show is even worse in treating gayness as a joke than the book was, so yeah.

I’m much more knowledgeable about Terry Pratchett, since Discworld is one of my most long-standing special interests to the point I wrote my undergraduate thesis on it, and he’s not perfect in terms of LGBT rep by any means, but he DID write my favorite lesbian book (Monstrous Regiment). And when Terry Pratchett writes gay/trans subtext it feels more genuine and ingrained in the character, instead of JUST being a clever joke. Actually, despite being the clever joke man, very few things in Terry Pratchett’s writing are JUST a joke. Maybe it was his influence that made me feel like something about the book was more genuine than the way the series treats it, but I don’t know. Something about the series seems outright hostile/mean-spirited to any gay viewers watching with hope of actual representation. 

But I digress. They actually do include heavy narration in the series so it’s possible some of your favorite jokes are in it. But is that worth the gay jokes? Up to you.