#but even if they were all cishet they'd be on our side.

[facedock]

Was just thinking about how if The A-Team were still active today, they'd absolutely be helping queer folks escape dangerous / abusive situations.

Murdock would be flying families with trans kids out of oppressive states, Hannibal would be lecturing dirty congresspeople who cared more about making money than helping their most vulnerable constituents, B.A. would be protecting trans and queer kids from bullies and telling them to always stand up for who they are and not let anyone keep them from being true to themselves. Face would be scamming evangelical pastors and bigoted lawmakers out of their money and giving it to organizations that help the queer/trans community. Amy would be writing human interest stories about supporting trans and queer people.

They'd be invading conversion camps and rescuing teens from the abusive parents who put them there. They'd be calling out bigotry whenever they saw it, and reminding people that, in the "land of the free", it doesn't matter if you don't like it: people have a right to be who they are.

I'm not saying this is ALL they'd be doing, they'd still be helping small business owners beat shady landlords 'n all that fun stuff, but they'd be known allies for sure. They wouldn't be afraid to stand up for people like us. That's always been their thing; stopping bullies and sticking up for the oppressed.

[leighlew3]

For some reason I couldn’t send the link of this post but I could download the picture and send it (hopefully)

This is what I was references in that ask to you lol

Ah. And... yeah. A painful and unnecessary creative choice.

Look, overall I'm loving Picard, despite quite a few issues with some creative choices and contradictions, because this nostalgia is incredible and so appreciated and being able to witness these characters in action again has been WONDERFUL.

That being said... well, I'm about to launch into a ramble.

Buckle up, and keep reading if you'd like...

Picard had an ICONIC legacy female character in an interracial wlw relationship with a dynamic new Black female character -- both women over the age of 50 no less, an amazing thing to explore on screen -- and it worked. And so many fans loved it and felt represented and thrilled to kingdom come. And it fit with the Star Trek brand of inclusion and acceptance in a modern society. It also made Voyager fans of 25 years feel vindicated and seen, having Seven not only confirmed as sapphic, but actually exploring it on screen and finding love, even if a "happy ending" for Seven was never in the cards for many reasons, they could have explored why instead of just sweeping it under the rug off screen and reducing it to one awkward glance between them, a joke from Worf, and that was it. Seven and Raffi deserved better. Queer fans deserved better.

Alas, they tossed it in the trash for no valid reason at all, and at the worst possible time in our current social and political landscape of an outdated and frighteningly dangerous resurgence of homophobia, transphobia, etc. Life imitates art, and art imitates life. And thus, now we see conservative-run media companies catering again to the vocal, hateful little groups and extremist far right fear mongers. There is a very obvious bias of late again against LGBTQ content (especially wlw due to the frightening rise in misogyny yet again lately) across nearly every channel and streamer and studio.

For that matter, even beyond LGBTQ stories, there's also a significant reduction in the exploration of ANY sexuality on screen across the board lately, even for cishet couples. We somehow went from Hollywood being absurdly and unfairly exploitive towards women and putting actors in uncomfortable and unnecessary situations, to some sort of bizarre, puritanical, utterly sexless exploration of romance on screen. And even a reduction of romance entirely in many cases, for that matter. We went from one extreme to the other, and it's absolutely nuts.

Anyway, back on the topic of Picard, the two actresses who previously were captains of the ship and ALL about the pairing have since seemingly now had to backtrack, make excuses for this bizarre decision, or just not speak on it at all. And that's beyond sad.

And again, it makes me concerned that if Seven does get her own spin-off or is a part of a new spin-off again, they'd likely not include Raffi nor explore Seven being with women further. Which would just be LITERALLY going backwards in time to the days of Voyager where many (not all) straight male fans tried to claim her as theirs and theirs alone while reducing her to just "the hot Borg in a cat suit" even though everyone else knew she was three dimensional as hell, one of the best written and acted characters in franchise history, and inherently representative of the LGBTQ community.

Anyway, I really really hope they prove me wrong and Saffi get a satisfying ending in this show, and if nothing else, even if they don't have a future together in other series, any other shows at least continue to embrace Seven's pansexuality. It's important.

Alas right now my trust in creatives in the TV space who are under the pressures of conservative-run media conglomerates... is limited. Even once seeming allies are showing sides to themselves lately that are... concerning, to say the least. People who previously would tell incels to F' off, and weren't afraid to stand up to and block phobes on Twitter are now blocking queer fans for just asking "WTF?" about queer favorites being sidelined or ships being tossed in the trash. People who previously seemed to truly see and value queer fans are now bordering on just using them for clicks and stringing them along on likely hopeless efforts regarding show survival. And people who actually do mean well and usually stand up loud and strong for LGBTQ audiences are suddenly growing very, very quiet if not even in some cases TURNING on their queer fans entirely as TPTB remove more and more wlw content from airwaves and streamer services.

It's all very disheartening. As a writer who has had this conversation so often with producers and executives, I GET IT. The fight is NOT an easy one. And most the time inclusion efforts are flat out shot down. But it feels like so few people are walking the talk anymore. People who capitalized heavily on LGBTQ characters and ships and fans for a few years when it was hot are now turning their backs when the going has gotten rough. And that's frustrating for us all.

But, the good news: these things are often cyclical. So if everybody can hang in there, stay strong, and fight the good fight online and IRL, rock the VOTE, etc and drown out the hateful voices that want the LGBTQ community silenced or worse, then I believe we can set (or force, in many cases) the misguided, fearful, extremist-rightwing-catering media companies back to the proper side of history.

[thotsfortherapy]

TW SUICIDAL IDEATION but here is a nice story about my housemate

okay so basically my house is comprised of a bunch of queer BIPOC afab ppl (~20/21yrs) and this year the landlord picked a stranger to move in with us

originally we were very worried because he was this 24 year old white-passing cishet man but he turned out to be very kind and easy to get along with

his gf lived with us for the summer and she was in the same program as us but is now studying clinical psych at a different grad school so she left once the summer was over

we noticed their relationship didn't seem to be the best and this week I noticed he was acting weird which I briefly mentioned to the others but there wasn't any concrete evidence that something was up yet

anyways yesterday his gf left our group chats and he came out of his room and asked my housemate for a hug 😭 when everyone was home we could just hear him crying in his room talking on the phone so it was pretty obvious they'd broken up

today me and one of my housemates were out of the house so our other housemate was home alone with him and she could hear him in his room banging stuff, so she texted saying she was worried for him. we decided to head home to go support and when we got home he came out of his room to go shower and he had this hoodie on and the towel wrapped around himself and he was literally the world's most pathetic little meow meow I felt so bad for him 😭😭😭😭

he's had suicidal ideation before and he said he was experiencing it again and we all just gave him a group hug and sat him down with cups of tea and we talked for like three hours about everything.. validating his thoughts and affirming that he plays an important role in our lives and that he isn't a terrible person etc etc

i just think the way these cards fell is so funny because I honestly don't think any of us would have ever been friends with him otherwise just due to how our social circles fall but I'm really grateful we were all able to be there for him... He was expressing how it was hard for him to open up to his guy friends cause they don't know how to actually talk about emotions but he feels guilty talking to girls cause his gf would get mad at him for it 😭

and later in the evening he came back out and said that he doesn't know where he would be if we hadn't been there to talk to him and I'm just so grateful for my group of friends and that we all have enough education and experience to deal with situations like these!

and on the other side of it I'm really grateful that he was able to sit there and be vulnerable with us and to reach out to talk to us :')

anyways that's all! I just think it's a success story of human connection that may have once been unlikely and I wanted to share!