#don't they have lesbians in the writing room? or people with common sense?

[gildeddlily]

I actually need them to kiss so much

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

Man, this pisses me off so bad. If you're a woman who relates more to males than other women, it's because you've decided to focus more on how you're different from other women rather than how you're like them. You will literally never have more in common with males, and males do not feel the same way about you. These cute little posts that you write about how you love males more than your fellow women? They do not write the same thing about you. They hate and mock you constantly. Anyone remember "Cis women need to shut up"

"As a cis woman, I agree"

"You need to shut up, specifically"

?

Yea, that's how they feel about you and your solidarity.

The difference between lesbians and trans women in female spaces is the fact that lesbians do not have high rates of violence. There is no group of women that outclass men in terms of violent tendencies. Trans women retain the rates of male violence that regular men do. I'm not saying you have to treat trans women like they're all violent beasts, but if you can't see why female people would be uncomfortable with male people in their spaces, you're either naive or genuinely unsympathetic towards the very real fear that women have of being subjected to male violence. You can't say trans women and lesbians are similar because, unlike males, there is no statistical evidence that lesbians are highly likely to take advantage of a woman. If it turned out that 98% of rapes were committed by lesbians, I would 1000% understand why straight women don't fucking want to be around me. Have some fucking empathy, holy fucking shit. Even if you are completely on board with trans women being in female spaces, at LEAST acknowledge that it makes sense for women to be concerned about who is allowed in their spaces. It's crazy how I could tell someone I have a fear of dogs because one bit me when I was a kid, and they'd put their sweet pooch up, but God forbid a woman be cautious around a demographic who commit 90% of all violent crime. Oh no. That woman is suddenly a terf bitch.

I have nothing in common with trans women. I don't care how much pain they have experienced. We are not the same. When I was twelve, I cried and I cried as I put my palms together to pray to a God I hoped would be able to take away my homosexuality. I didn't even grow up in a particularly homophobic family. Both of my parents were accepting of me, but I still sat in the dark of my room, tears streaming down my face, as I prayed to have my sexuality changed.

Two years later, one of my friends made a joke about me dressing to impress my crush. She said my crushes name---a feminine name. A girl sitting in earshot heard her, turned to me, and asked me with disgust if I was gay. I said no without even thinking about it. It absolutely did not help that we were in a locker room with other girls. I was aware of my sexuality by that point, but I was 14 and unable to hold my own against a girl looking at me like THAT. For a few weeks after that, that girl made comments about how she was "watching me".

I know pain, I know discomfort, I know what it's like to feel predatory. Seeing feminine women, especially if they're white, makes me feel like an alien. I look at them and think "how are we so different? I see none of myself in you."

Sometimes I'm right. Sometimes we're not similar at all. But guess what? That doesn't mean I'm similar to a straight male. Fucking hell, sometimes I'm not similar to other lesbians. That's completely normal. I think OP needs to read better work by cishet women. If you think that there is not a single piece of cishet female writing that can move you more than something written by a male, you're not looking in the right places at all. I don't understand why some LB women seem to think that the very act of someone being a straight woman makes them incapable of relatability. Of course it makes sense for you to be cautious. Lesbians deal with a lot of alienation and predatory feelings, but if the very ACT of a woman being cis and straight makes you feel like she has absolutely nothing in common with you...? The issue lies with you. YOU are the one othering THEM. Not the other way around. You're the one who has decided that a few cis straight women othering you means that they ALL will so you'd better beat them to the punch. You're the one who has decided that your relationship to womanhood is so astronomically different from straight women that nothing they say speaks to you. That's INSANE. Do you realize how much you have to alienate yourself from womanhood to feel more relatability with a male person than a female one? Idk how to tell you this, but it is highly probable that the most cis, most het woman you have ever met has had a period. It's highly likely she's been harassed by a man. It's highly likely she's been made to feel inferior by way of being born female. No, they can't relate to the experience of being a lesbian who is made to feel predatory for no reason, but to say that nothing a cis het woman says/experiences can move you at all? Nothing they say can make you feel like your experience with womanhood and hers are similar? Do you realize how you sound? "Trans women have been harassed by men and made to feel inferior, too!!" Okay! So you should be able to relate to cis women in the way you do trans women, right?

I told my discord server that I was nervous about my future roommates. I showed them photos and someone said "all this tells me is that they're feminine and white" and I literally think about that all of the time. I was projecting. I was so scared that these white, feminine, probably straight women were going to judge me for being a black lesbian that I didn't even realize that I was the one violently judging them based off of nothing but their skin color and their femininity. I knew nothing about them. I STILL know nothing about them. I've barely spoken to them. But already I had labeled them as unrelatable judgemental women because of how they looked. Hold on. Wasn't I the one afraid of them judging ME? How could I be so afraid of them judging me for being a black lesbian when I was the one judging them already? What sense does that make?

You guys are so busy writing off cis straight women as unrelatable bigots that you've failed to see that you're the one who is extremely prejudiced against them. And I absolutely fucking know someone is gonna read this and say "well, you can't say that all trans women have male violence patterns and dahdahdahdah" and it's like. But YOU can say that cis straight women are so unbelievably different from lesbian women that you'd rather say you're more similar to a straight up fucking male???

I'm not saying it's not a little jarring to see women who are so different from me. I'm not saying I haven't been burned before and there's no reason for me (or other lesbians) to be cautious. But I will literally ALWAYS have more in common with cishet women than I ever will a man pretending to be a woman.

One time I had a professor. She was on the older side (I'd say 40's) and white. Not the type of person I'd think I'd click well with. She was straight and married with children. One day we talked after class, and the only thing that ended our conversation was the fact she had an event she had to go to. We would've talked longer if not for that. She emailed me a little while later to tell me that she enjoyed our chat. After that, she actually hugged me on two occasions. You wouldn't think we'd have common ground. An older, straight, married white mother and a young black lesbian. Both of us are "cis" but I can tell you I relate to her much better than I ever could someone born male.

I once had a personal trainer who was a feminine woman. She had acrylic nails and everything. One time she said that she couldn't hug her male friends anymore because she had a boyfriend (he wasn't the one enforcing that rule. That was something she personally felt). Also not someone I thought I'd click well with. But we did. One time we had a really productive discussion that was actually derived from the conversation with my professor. I felt very close to her in that moment. Our conversation came to a close because she had another client, but I still think about that convo.

There have been so many fucking times where I thought "this woman is not like me. Look at her." But what I realized was that I was the judgmental one. I was the one deciding we were different, not her. I was the one writing her off. I was the one convinced we had nothing in common.

I am BEGGING you not to alienate your fellow women. There are no inherent traits that make you unable to relate to other women. No amount of whiteness or cisness or straightness can make a woman completely unreachable. I am NOT talking about political parties or views so don't fucking try me with that shit. Obviously that puts a wedge between people, but someone simply being born cis and het does not make them alien from you. For God's sake, look at the fucking MeToo movement. Women from all fucking backgrounds who share an experience that an unfortunate amount of women go through. Women from all different races, sexualities, etc. who came together to talk about how they've been subjected to sexual violence. Ellen degeneres was one of them. How does that fit into your "lesbians and cishet women cannot relate to each other" spiel?

OP's post has 130k notes and it makes me fucking sick. Holy crap y'all, we need more solidarity than this. Other women are not your enemy. I'm begging you to reconsider your approach to women who are different than you. You are missing out on people who can love and support you in a way that literally no male can. You are depriving yourself. Just because a few cishet women in the past alienated you, does not mean that you have to continue their legacy. Let it go. Everyone on earth can see you embracing your hatred of women, and you wonder why your fellow women never hug you? They fucking can't! Put your hatred down and make space for the love that comes with realizing that you absolutely are like other girls!

[musicfeedsmysoul12]

Before we start this: I’m Nonbinary, female presenting and into girls. I call myself a lesbian cause it’s less words. I come from this perspective when I discuss things.

Secondly: I do make references to fics I have read. I try to keep them vague but I’m a grown up and can admit you might see a fic you know. Or maybe you wrote it. I’m not going to spread it around.

Thirdly: some of this is technical help and writing advice. You don’t need to follow it but it’s helpful.

Alright, so we begin.

Things That Diminish/Damage How Good Your Fic is

- Whenever people are writing curse words and instead of writing them they go like f*ck or whatver? That instantly downgrades the quality. That one fic I mentioned that was 10/10 but became a 5.5/10? Yeah. That’s why. It instantly takes some one out of the mindset and is just jarring. I know in todays culture and with TikTok censoring works like fuck or shit is the norm. However it is terrible writing. Don’t do it, it’s awful. If you do not feel comfortable enough to write them I can think of several ways to get around it. (He said a word that his mother would wash his mouth out with soap for./The amount of cursing could make a sailor blush.) If you still don’t feel comfy… get out of the fandom. No seriously. If you do not feel comfy with writing cursing or work around that aren’t censorship, drop your writing and leave. They are quite literally just words with social stigma attached.

-Similar, if you don’t feel comfortable writing slurs or discuss illegal activities. This might be more controversial but for me, I find that people who want to have stuff like homophobia or transphobia or heavy discrimination and don’t use the words… it falls flat for me. It just does. Yes those words are disgusting and writing them may make you feel the need to shower. However, it comes to again the fact censorship and blocking out words is just… dumb. It’s really dumb and looks ugly in a story. Again I was reading an amazing fic, who censored a slur. Look I get being uncomfy again, but there are work around rather then doing that. (He continued his sentence with a word that made the room go silent and breaths stop.) As well you cheapen the experience your characters go through. How is a reader supposed to feel when you won’t go through with your writing?

-To long to get to the plot. This is really common with AU fics, such as fics where Izuku has a Quirk. People really want to expand on the backstory for this change, and it's understandable. What's not is when it takes 10+ chapters of his childhood. I have lost count of how many fics I just drop because it's chapter 10, and we are still age eight for Izuku. It's to damn long. If you feel that it's needed, then make it it's own fic. Don't combine it with the canon changes, becuase I promise you: a lot of us readers want to focus on the changes to the plot we know.

There are exceptions to the above. They're RARE though, and in my experience really what they do is expand upon All Might's training. Think about books, few if any would go into detail on the main character's backstory. At most, you're looking at perhaps 3 chapters before the plot-plot starts. Or at least the introduction to it.

-To long fics. I'm not talking word count. What I'm talking is a fic 100+ chapters without stopping. It's daunting, and honestly it feels... hmm... I think the word best used here is it feels unprepared. I also honestly think people are scared of splitting up their stories for some reason, which makes no sense. Series are beloved for a reason! Having them all in one story just makes most of us mentally check out of the fic, feeling exhausted, rather then invested.

-Stutters where it;s "l-l-like t-th-this'. You just ruined your own fic. I have no patience to read the damn thing now. It looks terrible, it's hard to read and honestly? Half the time it's with a character you just want to woobify (Izuku is the primary target of this.) I actually want them PUNCHED seeing this.

Trying to seem edgy/cool/woke

-I am so freaking sick of how many fics take 'Quirkless Discrimination' and ramp it up to RIDICULOUS levels. Like oh my god, my brain melts every time I read a fic where Izuku gets denied everything, gets emancipated at fourteen, has his parents beat him and make him sleep on the floor, the list goes on. Yes, horrific child abuse happens. Horrific tales of discrimination happens. But you're going to look me in the eyes and tell me that none of this isn't just you trying to be edgy? This is just... torture porn. A level of discrimination against Izuku is understandable. One thing I've found annoying about the source material is how we get told of the discrimination but recieve no actual evidence or proof. But again: some of ya'll go way to far to be edgy.

-Similarly, the Commission fics. Yes, they're corrupt. Yes they probably cover up shady shit. Yes, they raised Hawks as a weapon. But again, the level of drama ya'll include makes my eyes bleed. 'They run orphanages to create villains', 'they force heroes to work overtime', 'they would try and murder Izuku if he went as a Quirkless hero'. It again approaches the level of: to bleak, stopped caring. I think a fic would be way more interesting if a Quirkless Izuku gets roped into a Young Heroes program and blackmailed because the Commission wants to control him.

-Disclaimer again: I'm NB. But one thing that really annoys me is the amount of neopronouns introduced in a fic... only for them to never be used. And honestly, some are plain dumb. I am honestly curious if people try to use 'book/bookself/booked' as actual pronouns because I'll be honest: that just... doesn't work. But yet I have seen it included in fics. And again: no one ends up using them. Pronouns are tricky, I won't deny it. I use they/them, but accept she because I've been raised as a woman and thus experience the world as it as well. Some people use multiple but default to one. It's all valid. But it's REALLY obvious that ya'll are just trying to be woke or whatever when there's six pronouns like 'book' or 'vamp' or 'pup' but NONE are ever used. (I also have complicated feelings reguarding pup thanks to the comments I've heard comparing NB people to animals but that's just me)

-I said it before, and I'll admit there are actual exceptions but like... dude, the amount of times I get exhausted with a fic because everyone is trans is high. Again, exceptions are around, but the majority I find tend to have the vibes of 'I am so cool and edgy by having everyone trans even if nothing changes in the fic and everyone acts the exact same'. That is NOT making people trans, that's just wanting a pat on the back.

-Said it before... any fic where Bakugou is 'a sad baby uwu because Izuku took his advice' is an instant no because you just gave him man pain. "I'll be a hero for you," and then he's fucking canon? Nah, that's him deciding Izuku is a rallying cry, not him actually seeing his own faults.

This is just transphobic/homophobic/sexist

-Any gay fic where you make the female love interest a bitch. (I like to have actual onesided feelings and a nasty fall out but like... wow. Just fucking WOW. More so when you mix in shit like 'Uraraka is a gold digger after Bakugou so she'll try to break up BakuDeku uwu'. Dude if you want her to be a gold digger, Yaoyorozu is RIGHT THERE)

-I said this before but I notice that a lot of harem fics tend to have a bisexual Izuku but an all female harem. Look, yes preferences exist in real life. But fanfic is NOT REAL LIFE. You doing that is just a giant ass sign you're not okay with Izuku dating a guy even if you make him bisexual, which is pretty homophobic to me, no matter how many gay ships you slip in (which all get maybe like a second of screen time compared to the heterosexual ships). More so when you go for 1B girls. You have to basically make them OCs to have it work. No hate to OC/Canon ships, but like.... dude. I don't care if you didn't mean it like that, it is pretty fucking homophobic, because it isn't a real life person choosing it. It's you writing it.

-Said it before, but the amount of people writing NB Izuku fics which changes nothing but pronouns for Izuku and then going on about how making Izuku a girl isn't the same and it's way to much of a difference... transphobia much? You LITERALLY genderbent Izuku.

-Plus, again: I see way more transgirl Izuku being straight up fetishization where she dates all of the class 1A girls (dude we can tell what you're doing) compared to transguy Izuku. (It exists but it's rarer). A lot of NB fics (with exceptions again) as well give me sexist vibes by having it pretty apparent they consider it no different then canon Izuku but act as if him being a girl is to far. It's just sexism and transphobia then.

-Having one of the characters in a mlm pairing be super feminine. Do these people exist? Yes. But wow. Ya'll are leaning hard into heteronormativity dudes.

-Making the canon arospec character actually interested in romance while making the canonly heterosexual character aro/ace to explain why she's so cruel and so focused on a boy character. Hey, guess what that is? AROPHOBIA.

-Fics where Izuku is only friends with guys despite canonly being friends with girls, and we basically sideline all the female characters.

Bad Genderbends (With a focus on Male to Female)

-The majority of my fics/ideas are genderbends. Mostly cis!Female!Izuku cause I have fun exploring her life but like... as soon as I read a fic where nothing changes. At all, and everything is exactly the same as it is for canon Izuku? Out. That's an actually terrible fic, I am out, gone. Bye-bye. PEOPLE ARE NOT SOCIALIZED THE SAME. NO I DON'T CARE YOU ARE ALL ABOUT EQUALITY. Girls are not treated the same as guys.

-Completely abandoning the canon personality. Yeah, I know, the above, but just because socialization changes people doesn't mean you can completely change a character. Izuku as Izumi can still be a giant nerd who is super into working out, mutters up a storm and loves to watch hero fights. She can also love pink, gossip about boys and giggle over magazines. You can combine them. Again, I think this is related to sexism in a way due to the amount of people who seem unable to just... see that while the world does treat girls and guys different, they aren't in fact different?

-The fics where the assholes are right. You're just homophobic. Somewhat the same as the top, when people just turn a character into a girl without acknowledging the differences or the fact somethings would be the same to pair up characters they normally don't cause it's gay.

These Tropes are Overdone or Suck

-Bakugou faces consequences but it's a slap on the wrist, and he changes NOTHING about himself, but oh everything is okay and he dates Izuku/Ochako/Whoever.

-Izuku takes Bakugou's advice but it's blamed solely on All Might and Bakugou's actions are ignored and they become best friends/start dating! Or he takes Bakugou's advice and gets a Quirk, so everything is okay!

-Abusive Mitsuki is why Bakugou how he is. I only read 1 fic where this was actually treated like it should be. 'Cool motive, still murder'. Just because you have a shitty upbringing doesn't mean you can get away with assault and abuse.

-All Might bashing where they take his character and put it in a blender while claiming things are canon. No, I am serious. I have said someone say it's canon All Might overworked Izuku on purpose. Meanwhile canonly, Izuku decided to ignore his plan to work on his own time. All Might did agree to adjust the plan but like, holy shit. Or the ones where they act like it's canon he despises all Quirkless people/mutation Quirked people. Meanwhile he's the uncle to Melissa and has nothing but good things to say about heroes with mutations. There is ONE type of All Might being an Idiot I like, and it's where he's just a very stubborn old man set in his ways who doesn't see what he's doing is wrong. That makes sense. Not All Might murdering Izuku for knowing about OFA. He's a shit teacher who doesn't know when things are to far but wow. Nice character assassination there.

-Iida bashing cause he's a rule following nerd who hit Izuku while Ochako, who left Izuku alone in a mall so he got attacked by a villain and gets jealous of other girls, is an innocent pure angel. No seriously- both of these people are literally the same. It's just that people hate Iida for some reason? Meanwhile he's a dork who gets excited about beef stew, loves his family enough to kill for them, is the guy willing to help his friend come back to UA and while he did hit Izuku, it was in a situation where Iida was emotional and worried for his friend after he was permanently injured by Stain for doing something similar to Izuku.

-Aizawa bashing where they also take his character and shoot it out back. The guy who is terrified of people ending up like his friend ignoring outright abuse of their Quirks, willingly letting Izuku be beaten by classmates, refusing to read the files, brushing off students DYING, and trying to force students to stay in the hero course because he can't be wrong? Wow. Just make an OC and call it a day.

-Izuku has an OP Quirk that makes him a ladies man and he is so awesome and I can't finish it holy shit no.

-Inko is 100% a plot device and not really a character but DAMN ya'll need to chill out with the abusive Inko fics. Her systematically beating him and starving him and shit is just... WOW. Give me neglectful Inko who ends up abandoning him. Same amount of screentime as canon. Or give me my own blend, where she is a helicopter parent who is convinced she knows the right path for Izuku and gets angry enough to ignore him if he doesn't listen.

-Toga gets adopted by Inko and has a weird ass relationship with Izuku.

-Wooby Hawks fics when in reality this guy is a predator who can and will fuck you up, and I 100% think he's some level of yandere about those he considers 'his'.

-If I had a penny for the amount of times Dabi gets redeemed and it's the blandest shit on earth, I'd be rolling in money. Give me drama if you want him redeemed.

-Anything where Endeavour wasn't that bad/misunderstood. Though also, in general I find fics where he's actually a terrible hero dumb to. He's number two out of how many? Man is a shit person, but a good hero.

[cat-denied]

👻🎁✨ :)

👻 What is your wildest headcanon?

My wildest headcanon? That's a hard one. I don't really do a lot of headcanoning! Mostly I just turn stuff into actual fanfic rather than just headcanoning it, and so I keep a layer of separation between the canon and my fic, if that makes sense. I guess I have a lot of headcanons of Fire Emblem characters being lesbians in canon even while not strictly defined as such (like Minerva and Palla in fe11), but those are usually pretty common ones.

Here's a couple of headcanons for you:

Nico Minoru (of Marvel's Runaways and others) realized she was bisexual while on the team of A-FORCE (2016), i.e. while surrounded by gorgeous and powerful women. Because come on. (Context: in the original Runaways series from the early 2000s, Nico was portrayed as straight: in the new Runaways series from 2018, she had since realized her bisexuality.)

In Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, only characters who are lovers and characters with the Thief class can exchange gold. I think this is because the Thief (Dew in the first gen, Patty or Daisy in the second) characters happen to be people who deeply love all their friends.

I also headcanon...pretty much everyone as trans and/or gay. If I like them (especially for Fire Emblem, where characters often have very little character at all) they get the "YOU ARE GAY NOW" seal of approval.

Oh, here's a real wild one! Wolf (from Fire Emblem 11) is a trans woman! This is because YOU saw her and went "she's a girl" and I went "okay" and rolled with it. This may come up in my fanfic sometime, who can say

Putting the rest of this behind a read more because it got long.

🎁 Have a piece of a WIP you want to share?

I do! Here's a section from the first chapter of a Minerva/Palla haunted house AU I've been working on in the background.

The room is soaked in dust. At one point in time it had probably been a bedroom, and indeed a bed frame rots grayly in the corner. Rather than any mattress, however, it’s covered in boxes: boxes which have sprawled out to take over the rest of the room like an invasive species of plant. The walls are bare. The edge of the room’s one window can just be made out, the rest of it totally obscured by still more boxes. They stack five feet high easily, and though Palla is tall enough to circumnavigate the undergrowth they form with ease, and Catria at least tall enough to manage, Est can barely see over the box in front of her, and she complains loudly at this. Catria argues lightly back, and Palla smiles under her breath as she makes her way around, simply looking. 

None of the boxes are labeled: the lower ones have more the look of trunks, and Palla idly wonders when cardboard had been invented, whether this was someone else’s reshuffling of the Macedons’ remaining possessions after their departure. She cracks open the nearest top box to find stacks of books: unlabeled volumes in that old style you would see on the shelves of houses that had become museums. Carefully opening one, then another, to their title pages, she sees that they are books of strategy: for warfare and diplomacy. Interesting. 

I just love the Whitewings and Macedon and all that jazz! Also I should write more of this, I was having a load of fun with it.

✨️ Out of the comments you’ve received on your fics, what are two or three of your favorites?

! I love to receive any comments because it tells me that people enjoyed my work enough to tell me about it, and when you write for fandoms that are as relatively obscure as I do (in terms of fanworks), every little bit counts for a lot! The exception to the obscure fandoms of course is the Goncharov fic I wrote, which became hugely popular and now I'm considering writing a second chapter or sequel, just because of the absolutely hogwild response.

Here's a coupla specifics:

"Always happy to see the Nagi tag get a little bigger, and you have a fascinating version of her here! I thought your interpretation of the setting was brilliant and you really brought out the nuances of the characters you portrayed just before such a climactic final battle." from Oricalle on my fic Meetings, Manifestations, and Manaketes. (I have a lot of fun naming my fics.) They left this comment after I read through some of their works and left some comments, which made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Every comment on my Goncharov fic for being brilliantly in on the joke, but especially this one from tinuviel_tinuviel:

because not only did they call me out by name (blushes), but when I read and commented on one of their Locked Tomb fics, they called me out on it:

and yeah thats me now i guess. ao3 user road_trip_girl from goncharov fandom. whatup

Also, getting a comment from summer_society whose Robin/Nancy fics I consume like fresh water was an amazing time, seriously.

And finally, this comment from JajaLala on the same fic, because it made me go "! you know who i am!!!" I guess I'm really not used to fanfic sites, where you can be a fan of someone's work and then have them turn around and look at your work, and like it! It's a great feeling. (Also, I just realized we're tumblr mutuals, so, uh. Hi!)

Thanks for asking!

[lordeasriel]

ATTWN: A Look at Miss Brent

I keep circling around the idea of writing And Then There Were None meta, like a full, proper analysis of the novel, but I just can't settle down on how to do it, cause I do have many thoughts, but I can't seem to organise them in a way it will make sense. But-

I was thinking about Miss Brent today, and she's not exactly a character I have that many thoughts compared to Vera or Armstrong, but she certainly has my interest. What strikes me stronger about her is her complacency, in a way.

Let's look at the novel first: here's this sixty-something woman, a spinster who takes on girls from local charities/orphanages to train them into proper maids or whatever. It's not an unusual thing for that time based on the rest of Christie's novels, it seemed like a common occurrence for the period. At any rate, she's very righteous, uptight, her belief is almost borderline fanatical, she never hesitates over her "innocence" in front of the accusations, and the thing is: she doesn't deny shunning the girl away.

Unlike the others, who remain resilient on their innocence (Lombard the exception cause he literally confessed right away), Miss Brent never denies that she did refuse to help Beatrice. In her own mind, she didn't do anything wrong - and if we're going there, in its fucked up way, she technically didn't do anything wrong. She had no familial attachment to the girl, she didn't have to do anything for her legally speaking; morally, of course, she should have but we don't arrest people for being morally corrupt lmao Let alone death sentence them. *coughs*

But what gets me it's her complacency. You know, I'm blaming this on the windy day, but thinking about her, sitting by herself almost all the time (including when she died), she never does anything. Unlike the others, Vera included considering how Christie often writes the women isolated, Miss Brent never gets involved in either investigating or helping them to find a way out; she just sits and knits and eventually bosses Vera around or say some mean stuff to someone. She doesn't act, which is odd for us as a reader; I mean, if I was in her spot I would have already made a signal for help, even with the bad weather lmao This book heavily traumatised me anyway--

Miss Brent doesn't act, that's my main point. In her head, I suppose she expects some sort of divine intervention, in its way; not a miracle, but you know, she expected her righteousness guaranteed her safety. She sees the other deaths as punishment, she thinks them all guilty, perhaps not the General or Wargrave, but I've no doubt she considers the rest of them wicked and deserving of the punishment, but never herself. She didn't do anything wrong, she has got nothing to feel sorry for. There is a whole section, where Vera asks Miss Brent if she is not afraid or if she simply doesn't mind dying. To which she reacts exactly like I said before, like she was above them all, like death wouldn't come for her.

Now, I will just vaguely go over the show because I think their choice of handling her was an interesting one. I like most of the choices made by show, except the ending which I'll save for another day of ranting, but Miss Brent in the show behaves similarly, but her background gets deeper. For one there was two key things - I say two because I've seen two different interpretations of this - and they were 1) repressed lesbian and 2) predator. Now, these two could coexist with each other, she could have been taking in girls to take advantage of them, but I don't know, I think it would be hard for her to do that always, so I like to think if repressed lesbian was it, then it makes more sense for her crime and her reaction. It would be related to a feeling of betrayal - "I've given you a home, a job, affection and you still went behind my back to be a whore" - and it's something Miss Brent would probably not acknowledge. She was always too religious, too righteous, so Beatrice probably haunted her more in death than she did in life: no one would believe this ragged girl over any accusations - even if there was consent on her part. But that's just beside the point.

What I mean for the show is, they go in a different direction. Miss Brent's reactions over the murders are a little more in line with her religious dynamic for the show: when Tony dies, she makes a little prayer, she worries about Mrs. Rogers state when she sees her passed out (despite the fact she humiliated her earlier over being meek and weak and so on), she has a judgemental attitude towards Vera, but even that comes from a place of almost understanding? She still judges them harshly, but she is a lot less harsh to the ones she consider less harmful (aka she is absolutely distasteful about Lombard, whose crime is easily the worst crime in the show and she thinks so).

Of course, all of her views and beliefs and behaviours are based on her own lifestyle, so she is a bit blind and biased - when Lombard points out about the missionaries crimes in Africa, after she calls him out; or when she states she couldn't imagine crossing paths with a man like him, despite the fact she knows well enough they're all there because they're guilty - so she is bound to hypocrisy every now and again. But her fanaticism from the book is turned into a proper, religious attitude; she does abide by the Bible, she condemns very little her other companions (I mean, she still judges Vera over her youth and her inertia, she judges Armstrong's lack of calm, she judges Lombard because well, because of his Existence™ lmao) She is, of course, judgmental and vain and arrogant, but this is less cartoony and more realistic. More importantly, because her beliefs are much more ingrained in her life, she is afraid. She is genuinely afraid and that is an important, key change that I genuinely like.

Miss Brent has faith, at first, that they will leave the Island, so she stills acts very coldly at first and of course, she still denies her guilt, she still claims she did the right thing and Beatrice caused her own undoing. But, the show pursues the idea that Miss Brent, upon being reminded of the event, starts to feel guilt: when she is praying she hallucinates Beatrice (hallucionation was a choice they did to convey these feelings, but you could just claim that's a memory in her head); and more importantly, before her death - which happens the day after she hallucinates - her demeanor changes entirely. She goes from trying to stay calm and resolute before the tide, to feeling weary. That's important because unlike Book! Emily, she is fully aware she has committed a sin, and now whether that is her neglect of Beatrice's pleas or her own feelings for her, that's beside the point. The point is this woman realises she is very close to meet her maker and the burden of having sinned wears her down.

Miss Brent also adds "It's only wool" when Vera is pouring her coffee (which I had to crop cause Gif size), which is her redirecting her distress to something mundane (in another scene later, Vera mentions how doing the dishes is a mundane task, which she finds soothing. In fact, seeking a sense of normalcy is a recurring theme for the show, but also for the book) and ordinary. Vera, of course, notices her distress over being hunted; she shares the feeling, and I don't want to focus too much on Vera because I'll talk about her eventually later, but this shows how Miss Brent changes drastically.

On their first conversation after the dinner, Vera's impression of Miss Brent is of an uptight, self-righteous, straight-up cruel woman and she avoids her if she can help it, and truth be told, Miss Brent does act very badly and says bad things, Vera is not being touchy about it. So when Vera lays the coffee tray, she is ready to walk away before Miss Brent addresses her (she even makes a dry remark on "There is no milk, I'm afraid", which is meant to spite Miss Brent's earlier attitude over asking for perfect eggs after Mrs Rogers died and so on), and Miss Brent talks so unlike herself, a weariness that makes Vera reconsider and come back, to pour her coffee. She feels sorry for Miss Brent, because she finally cracked like the others; Miss Brent knows now that no amount of faith might defend her from this killer, because this killer has got nothing to do with a justice kill.

She stays seated, knitting again, but when she reaches for the coffee she hesitates. She realises Vera could have poisoned it (before entering the room, since she watches Vera pouring the coffee), and then she puts it down. There is a sense of danger in her, and she has no desire to die, unlike in the book where she so casually just stays behind, unafraid in her own attitude of superiority. I like this change a lot; I think showing her fear before her God enhances her religious mania a lot more, because she truly fears Divine Judgement, because she understands, deep down, that she did a bad thing; maybe not murder - I mean, it wasn't murder after all - but she still did a morally bad thing. If there is a Heaven, it won't be for her.

[holy-fate-worse-than-death]

Okay, hear me out

The Outlaws re-form but it's just Jason Todd and Harley Quinn running around like chaotic bisexual messes working on their unresolved trauma and identity issues, while Poison Ivy is the Tired Lesbian Mom Friend™ trying to keep them all together.

So here's the set-up:

Via Roy's connection to Killer Croc (and yes Roy is definitely alive in this one, fuck you Tom King) Roy and Jason end up working with Harley and Pam.

It's supposed to be a one-time thing, but when Roy hangs up his quiver to be a Hot Single Dad™, Jason finds himself in need of some help, and he doesn't really have anyone else to ask.

This ties into the idea that Jason combats his social isolation by somewhat accidentally forming teams (eg Outlaws 1.0 and 2.0) that are meant to be short-term alliances but inadvertently become like family.

Ideas I have about this AU:

- Harley and Pam are absolutely canon. Not just queerbaiting where they're a bit too close to be friends. They kiss, they call each other "girlfriends" and Jason is absolutely beating the shit out of anyone who says anything remotely homophobic

- Harley and Pam definitely encourage Jason to admit his feelings for Roy (which they know about before Jason does), and eventually there's a lot of Jason and Roy being perfect gay dads

- Harley and Pam definitely babysit Lian at some point when Jason needs Roy to come out of retirement for a mission that only he can do (which also doubles as an excuse for a whole lot of sexual tension, e.g. "I miss spending time with you"-type stuff), and although Roy is incredibly skeptical, it actually works out really well

- Not only are Harley and Pam great babysitters, Roy feels empowered to start working on tech for the new Outlaws and he works as their own version of Oracle; gathering intel, sending them on missions, etc. This is kinda similar to the role he took on in Red Hood/Arsenal (2013), and it allows him to feel a sense of purpose and connection to his superhero days without feeling like he's neglecting Lian. (It's also a great excuse to spend a lot more time around Jason, if you catch my meaning)

- I know some people really don't fuck with the idea of Harley and Jason interacting, but I actually think it would work really well. We already saw somewhat of a precedent in Red Hood/Arsenal (2013) when Jason was trying to connect with Duela Dent (AKA Joker's Daughter). He's able to be compassionate towards her and connect with her despite the fact that she's literally wearing the Joker's rotting skin as a mask

- I think a similar relationship between Harley and Jason would be really healing for both of them, because it allows them to be people who form relationships that aren't necessarily decided by their trauma. I think there were absolutely points in Jason's life where he couldn't have been friends with Harley, and points in Harley's life where she couldn't have been friends with Jason, because of how much they remind each other of Joker. But Jay and Harley being able to have that friendship, and find common ground in other aspects of their identity (in the case of this AU the fact that they're both LGBT+ and don't adhere to Batman or the Justice League's moral standards), means that they've moved beyond their trauma and don't always see the Joker in everyone

- Obviously there'll still be initial growing pains, but I don't think the focus of this story should be on the Joker or any clown-related trauma. At a certain point, trauma just isn't a personality trait and it certainly shouldn't make up the majority of either Harley or Jason's personalities. They're both so much more than that

- At some point later in the story, however, there would be a situation were Harley and Jason come across the Joker and have to fight him. There's an unspoken tension because Jason is worried that Harley is worried that Jason can't handle it; and Harley is worried that Jason is worried that she's going to go back to the Joker. But they're in such an intense situation that they have no choice but to trust each other and trust the friendship they've built, and in the end they save the day because they were able to do that, which strengthens their friendship even further

- Pam routinely makes good points about radical environmentalism, and there are throwaway gags about how -- while the Outlaws primarily do the vigilante work that's too dirty for the Justice League -- they also occasionally break into animal testing facilities or sabotage coal mines/big businesses/other environmentally-damaging institutions

- There are regular cameos from other grey-area vigilantes (e.g. other former Suicide Squad members) and this story really tries to delve into the complexities of morality and why people do things that appear "criminal". It's mainly about dispelling myths and reducing stigma surrounding things like criminal behaviour, mental illness and addiction

- There's a cameo appearance from Killer Croc that deals with addiction and redemption, especially through Roy and KC's friendship

- KC is just so fucking proud that Roy is a dad, and there's probably a cute moment at some point along the lines of, "I may be a croc, but these sure aren't crocodile tears"

- Because this is my AU and I can do anything I want, I'd also like to see this story involve Dr Victoria October. I love her so much, she's one of the most underrated characters in all of DC, and I feel like a snarky, middle-aged trans woman would really round out the gigantic queer mess that this story is

- They come to Dr October for advice in a case that involves biomedical science of some kind, and it's meant to be a one-off. But then Jason gets injured a couple weeks later and Harley and Pam don't know where else to take him

- Victoria and Basil (Clayface) are definitely still dating in this one, and occasionally the Outlaws will team up with Basil for a case (although he's mostly in retirement while Victoria tries to figure out how to stop his powers from causing his brain to deteriorate like in Detective Comics (2016))

- Between Roy and Dr October the Outlaws end up with better tech than Batman a lot of the time

- Victoria is absolutely horrendous with kids but regularly finds herself having to discuss plans and gadgets in person with Roy, so she ends up sitting in his living room surrounded by children's toys, sipping tea and resisting the urge to glare at the adorable, gurgling baby in front of her

- She gets left with Lian at one point while Roy runs off to save Jason's ass, and it basically goes down like this:

- Croc loves babies and the first time Lian sees him she cries (Croc probably sneaks up from the sewers to talk to Roy about something while he's out for a walk with Lian in one of those cute chest harnesses you use to carry babies). Croc is so hurt that she's scared of him

- As she grows older she stops being scared and ends up fascinated by his shiny scales and big pointy teeth

- I'd also like Lex Luthor to be involved in this at some point. I'm thinking that maybe this could slot into the New 52 canon pretty well. Maybe the Roy in this story is the "real" Roy and the one that died at Sanctuary was a LexCorp clone. I'm also just really into this idea because I like Roy's robot arm and I think portraying those types of disabilities is really important and cool. Plus, it separates him from the other archers in DC and kinda epitomises the fact that he's the "tech" guy

Okay that's all I can think of right now, but this AU is basically my OTP + my other OTP + my other favourite characters

... Guess this is another fanfiction I gotta write lol

[thedeadflag]

so this is something I've been mulling over for a while now - do you reckon it'd be possible to make a version of a/b/o that isn't fundamentally transphobic, or would it reach the point of "this is so different that you might as well not call it a/b/o" before that? off the top of my head you'd have to take out all elements of g!p, mpreg, and biological essentialism, and it'd probably be possible to write a version of a/b/o with that framework, but I don't know if I'm missing anything.

a/b/o is a reactionary trope that relies on cissexism-derived biological essentialism to function. Like, that’s the engine that powers the bdsm/power dynamics, cisheteronormative breeding/family building, “dub/non-con”, etc. elements that draw people to it, and led people to create it in the first place. 

Like, my best attempt at describing a non-transphobic, non-shitty typical a/b/o adjacent fic would include:

Werewolves (let’s face it, werewolves can be really cool if written well, and there’s a lot of really good ways to write them, a lot of ways to subvert tired subtropes within the trope)

Found Family-focused family/pack building (because wolves often adopt wolves from other packs into their own, blood lineage isn’t really a thing; much like vampires being created, newly turned werewolves of any age can be considered their sire’s child; if it needs to have a pregnancy arc between two men or two women, there’s IVF/IUI, or magically/spiritually-induced pregnancies, and of course writing a fully fledged complex trans character with their own non-pregnancy arc and virtues/flaws/goals/etc. and getting relevant trans beta writers who aren't your friends to keep it on track if you’re a cis writer)

A flexible, non-binary gendered society (rather than the rigidly structured biology-is-destiny a/b/o society) that’s trans inclusive either explicitly, or implicitly if it’s a new social universe with different rules. 

If mating seasons have to exist, they’re cultural more than biological, and no biological processes that could impede or trouble a person’s ability to properly consent. 

No inherent, glorified or reified power dynamics, certainly none rooted in or fostered through biology. 

That doesn’t seem very much at all like a/b/o to me. It’s a werewolf AU, which is the reason why a/b/o was created in the first place. It wasn’t enough. It needed something more than just a supernatural bent

I’ll continue on below for a bit on some simplified functions of a/b/o, but it’s mostly just some ramblings.

-

Like, to quote the originators of the genre/trope:

I'd like to see Alpha male Jared, and Bitch male Jensen. Jensen is a snotty prude (think Lady from lady and the tramp) he may be a bitch male but he's not just going to let anybody take a go at his sweet little ass...until he meets Jared...then prudey little Jensen turns cock slut for Jared. Bonus points for J2 being OTP, Jensen was a virgin before Jared, and now that they met each other, it's for life.

...

There are three types of men, alpha males, beta males, and omega males. Alpha males are like any ordinary guy with the exception of their cocks, they work just like canines (the knot, tons of cum, strong breeders, etc) The beta male, is an ordinary guy without the special cock. Omega males are capable of child bearing and often called bitch males.

Like, I want you to look at that real close and see what’s going on in there.

This was created to be a trope where there’s a world where women, as we explicitly know them, don’t exist, but where a subgroup of men take up the functional role of the woman in the heteronormative social structure of the world. It’s also not surprising that (assumedly cis) women created and initiated the spread of this trope.

Look at the language used. This is heavily, explicitly gendered for a reason. If you’ve read much of anything about how the male gaze impacts female sexuality, you’ll know a common response is for women to position themselves out of the proverbial frame entirely, so that no part of them can explicitly exist as an object, where they can take on the role of a subject. There’s no women whose experiences will directly link to her own and her own perceptions, comfort/discomfort/etc.

However, many of these women also have been heavily affected by the male gaze and heteronormativity, and that combined with not knowing what a real gay male relationship is like, what it looks like, what experiences might be unique to it...they fill in the blanks with their own conditioning. 

And maybe seeing a lot of that toxic masculinity in media content was unsettling because of how women get treated in that content, and how they in turn might feel in those shoes. But if a MAN, even if it’s a heavily female-coded man, were to undergo that...well, it’d be easier to appreciate those tropes and dynamics they’ve been force-fed to believe were arousing, hot, desirable. Especially if they can have two hot men in it. They can enjoy that self-created taboo, bypass their own discomfort and insecurity, and project it onto a type of person different enough to suspend their disbelief and maintain that difference, even if they’re pumping that guy full of all the typical misogynistic tropes and experiences they’re not comfortable having directed towards them and other women.

In short, it’s a way to get off on heteronormative norms/tropes, using another as a vehicle in order to keep up their cognitive dissonance.

Of course, this eventually spilled out into the Het fandom (makes perfect sense, since many of the a/b/o originators and proponents were het women), and then worked its way into Femslash fandom by piggybacking on g!p in order to meet the necessary criteria for PiV sex. 

Just, in this case, you necessarily shift some of the puzzle pieces around. Trans women take the place of the “alpha”, acting as an acceptable vehicle for a toxic masculine cis man, since lesbians aren’t into men. Even if the trans woman is generally written, in nearly every way aside from part of her body, as a toxic cis man. The original a/b/o’s “Bitch Male”/Omega Male is swapped out for the  Omega Female, usually a spunkier, more in your face version outside of romantic/sexual contexts in the media content, but let’s be real here, she’s still by and large submissive when it comes down to it. 

In a world where more wlw grew up feeling predatory for their attraction to other women, for feeling sinful, for being rejected from female intimacy het women enjoyed with each other after coming out, etc., it’s pretty common for a lot of lesbians to lack initiative, not be able to read or communicate romantic/sexual cues between each other...to essentially be “useless lesbians’ as the joke goes,and to feel isolated and undesirable. 

So writing a F/F fic where some hot woman modeled in the image of some hot cis woman pursues you? Takes the initiative sexually/romantically? Doesn’t beat around the bush, but is blatant? Who can’t control her lust around you? Who can give you the perfect nuclear family you’ve been conditioned to want in order to feel value in our heteronormative world, but were told you weren’t worthy of or could never feasibly attain? Who gives you a sexual encounter you have some education in and some emotional stake in due to common conditioning of PiV sex > all else? Who can give you plausible deniability for a number of contexts due to a lack of ability to explicitly consent? etc. etc.

Like, yeah, that’s going to feel comfortable for a lot out there. That’s going to seem pretty hot/arousing. It’s a way to get off on the norms and expectations thrown on women in society, but in a way that lets them distance themselves ever so slightly from men by shifting it from text to subtext, explicit to implicit.

Don’t just take my word for it, though. Here’s a few snippets from one of the most popular g!p/omegaverse femslash writers (if not the most popular) that help illustrate how/why this trope has found an audience

Why Do I Write G!P?The elephant in the room. It arouses me, but it’s also a form of self-comfort. I grew up in a very fundamentalist home. Women being with women was at first unspoken, and then derided, both by my church and at home. I felt insanely guilty for my attractions, so I developed ‘cheat codes’ to deal with it.

It was okay if the woman I had sex with in my dreams had a penis, for example. It was okay if she forced me to have sex with her. It was okay if we basically simulated heterosexual sex.

Because of my childhood (which included conversion therapy), I found myself falling into heterosexual roleplay patterns, at least sexually. It was a lingering thing from my childhood.

It’s still there, and I know I’ll never be rid of it.

...

I associate penetration with power. You know, being steeped in sexism from an early age turned some problematic thoughts into kinky lemonade. And since I’m a femme sub, taking power away from the top by ‘penetrating’ them can ruin the mood for me. I mean, I can write power bottom scenes with the best of them, and I enjoy them, but… *shrug* if I’m going to write omegaverse or g!p, someone’s getting fucked, and it’s not the top.

There are rules to a/b/o. There are specific reasons it’s sought out, read, and created, and that’s why it’s hard to imagine a version of it without those harmful elements, because the trope requires them for the audience to be satisfied.

It’s why all gay male a/b/o fits a pretty specific pattern. it’s why femslash a/b/o fits a very specific pattern. There’s nearly no deviation as a rule, because there are so many parts that have to be in play and functioning in a specific way in order to get the desired result. 

I could go on for hours about this, and the above is all a pretty damn simplified take of what’s going on in a/b/o for it to exist in the way it does and meet the needs of the audience, and I’ve already written a lot about this in the past, so I’ll try to cut it short here.

[elizabethrobertajones]

(part 1) this is random but something im curious about is do you think the next few years will see a radical shift in more lead lgbt couples in shows? i feel like when supernatural started it was all about subtext/queerbating between characters we would never see canon (maybe), the last few years have seen an update in more side lgbt characters/couples and while not a lot, more main lgbt characters then we had before. I don't know if tumblr/twitter fandom translates to general audience...

Yeah, I mean, the only way is up. I feel lucky that I managed to encounter a fair amount of queer content in my formative years, whether targeted programming on TV, or taking the route of not really differentiating the perceived cultural value of independent media like webcomics and webnovels etc from the mass media as I was young enough to naturally grow up on the internet as the internet itself was growing up and web 2.0 was pretty much taking off alongside my use of the internet. And that I had liberal parents who didn’t regulate our internet, and lived in a community where culturally I didn’t really fear being discovered casually accessing all this like in particularly this terrifying seeming evangelical christian community in America.

Which really makes me feel like A: everyone should feel that comfortable in themselves via the media as I did as a mass accessible thing or B: that the world at large should be soaked in as much representation and more that I encountered as a curious teen because at the very least it did me no harm and at best helped handhold me through an awful lot. 

And then brings us to the problem that the world isn’t actually like that and for a lot of people their media is restricted one way or another, from everything such as the era of social media weirdly making us much LESS broadly travelled on the internet as I was back in the day (SO many bookmarks - I had like 100 that I would check either daily or on their weekly update schedule, with enough habit that I had pretty much memorised it all without using an RSS feed or just following everyone’s twitter and waiting for update announcements, never mind the vast pit of things which I occasionally checked to see if their sporadic but very worth it updates had occurred somewhere in the last month/year) to the vastly overwhelming amount of media accessible to us. It seems almost to flood the market and creates this panic about watching the worthiest shows and campaigning for them and raising awareness and the FOMO and how things slip by and zomg you have to watch this that and the other, when even just making this list on Netflix now contains more hours of TV than a human lifetime and also one liable to disappear from the service at some point or another without warning. 

And then on top of that you have the absolute cultural monoliths that if you’re not going to have a cohesive culture - which now includes the entire population of the world because of our connectivity on the internet and mass-joining of services - based around smaller shows and stuff, then at the very least everyone is going to watch anything under the main Disney umbrella, other superhero flicks, animated things, and all the really big studio franchises and remakes, as well as a few TV monoliths which manage to get enough people talking to make it seem like “everyone” (again - these days it seems like that’s presumed to be the entire western world plus everywhere else these things air) are watching, like Game of Thrones or whatever… THESE properties are the inescapable ones and on that basis they’re the things we have to lean on the most for representation and then again barely get any, when it comes to gender and sexuality, due to them shooting for such worldwide markets that they can’t imply gay people exist to censors in places such as China. And it exposes the cultural awfulness inherent just in getting a white female character in the lead role of some things, or the absolute garbage fire lurking underneath that if you dare have a black stormtrooper or make one of your female ghostbusters black when you’re already ruining the childhoods of so many how dare… 

In those respects, having side characters who aren’t even major well-known superheroes or jedis or ghostbusters or whatever also be gay (because even well-known lesbian Kate McKinnon didn’t manage to get her ghostbuster to be canonically gay even if we All Knew) would be absolutely groundbreaking, even if it was, like, a role that could be snipped out for the Chinese market or something. And that’s probably exactly what would happen, and cue ensuing riot from whichever fandom, along with everyone rightly pointing out that even for us who got to watch it it was still a tiny side character… I mean Disney is still at the stage of what they did with Beauty and the Beast’s ~canonical gay character~ 

So yeah… that’s thrown back to TV and smaller movies to lead the way and because the generations showing most likely the real global percentages but actually just the young western world stats on queerness in any form (like… 25% instead of 1% or whatever and that’s STILL probably too low) are still teens to young adults. The previous gayest generation above them are still just arriving in power and settling in, and the excellent changes we already have from the generation before that is what we are seeing now... But given THEIR cultural context, even their best can still seem to younger eyes, moderate and not generally placing queer characters in lead roles except in niche or indie or otherwise “acceptable” places to take those risks. I think change is always coming and culturally each generation being more open and accepting that the last is really making changes and so on, hopefully things WILL change rapidly and what was the common state of affairs in the sort of indie media I consumed as a teen will be the mainstream soon because a lot of those creators 10 years later are kicking off… 

All that said, TV in the mainstream is still controlled by Mark Pedowitz types exercising their power over the Bobos who have their Wayward Sisters pitches with the clearly labelled main character for the main teen demographic being queer. The culture is very much that we’re now pretty open and can happily have queer characters, but the main characters are still largely held separate. A good example is Riverdale, which is on the CW, a newer show with writers such as Britta Lundin, who is young, queer, and wrote a novel blatantly based on being a Destiel shipper and fan interacting with the cast and crew in fandom spaces, and whose first solo episode of Riverdale featured a looooot of the gay stuff (yay). 

But while she’s a story editor and writer for the show and can use it as a platform for writing stories for its audience using a whole range of canonically queer characters, the show still keeps all 4 of its mains at a strict remove from this. Cheryl can come out as a lesbian in the second season after a lil ho yay in the first but no clearly marked storyline about her identity, but even though Betty and Veronica kissed in the first episode it was blatant fan service (for Cheryl in-story, lol) and mostly just set the tone that they are the sort of seemingly straight girls kissing for attention while having strong romantic or physical attraction to guys. In the second season the kiss comes up again in joking that Jughead and Archie are the only ones of the main 4 who haven’t kissed, Archie gets one planted on him by a dude as a “judas kiss” moment of betrayal in season 3 and he and Jug are teased that they were expected to get together because they were close but in the same sort of homophobic undercurrent tones as early Destiel snarking from side characters, seemingly less about their relationship and more to unsettle them with implications… I mean it was a complicated moment but in the long run it didn’t seem entirely pleasant to me, especially given the overall emotional state they were in and later plot etc etc. (My mum is 1000% invested in Riverdale now as a former Archie Comics reader as a kid so this is now my life too as I was in the room when my brother callously exposed her to it, hi :P) 

Anyway that’s just one case study but aside from SPN it’s probably the most mainstream teen demographic thing I watch… Other examples would be things like B99 which had Rosa come out as bi and that’s awesome, and made us all cry a lot, but Jake, the clear main character even in a very strong and well-treated ensemble, has a great deal of bi subtext, there’s no way given Andy Samberg’s apparent habit of ad-libbing MORE progressive jokes that he’d ever be intentionally harming people if that’s how his brain works (you know, like other people quick-fire offensive stuff from their mouth working faster than brain sense of humour :P). But at the same time for all Jake’s quipping about crushes and such and the fact the show clearly knows how to be sensitive to bisexuality with Stephanie Beatriz being a strong advocate, just because Jake’s the main character and adorably married to Amy. In NO WAY can that be threatened because they’re SO GOOD, so there’s STILL uncertainty that this will pay off in the same special episode “I love my wife but I am bi” kinda way that seems obvious that could just be said. We all carry on without it affecting anything because obviously Jake’s found his soulmate so we don’t mess with that but they should know it’s important to clarify it… Even with B99′s track record, I’m nervous solely because Jake’s the main character and main characters tend not to get self-exploratory arcs about latent queerness and ESPECIALLY not if they’re happily married. If ANY show was going to do it right and trailblaze in this exact era it would be them, but… gyah :P 

Anyway I guess the conclusion right now is that the more mainstream you are the more uncertain it feels, but we are right at that cliff edge, especially with shows putting in SOME of the work. If B99 doesn’t get us there (or the Good Place where they’ll happily confirm Eleanor is bi in interviews but I believe she hasn’t said it outright on the show despite clearly showing attraction to female characters, again, the denials we know so well in SPN fandom reflect a wider audience view of dismissing this stuff as jokes and not reflective of character feeling and identification without a Special Episode dedicated to confirming it >.>) then we’re very clearly on the cusp of SOME mainstream or massively well-known show doing it at least once in a meaningful way that has an Ellen-style cultural impact on TV writing. 

Let’s make it a goal for 2019 or 2020, and hope that a NEW show with a canonically queer main from the start is pitched and becomes a mainstream hit in the next 5… Still got a ways to go before Disney level mainstream but again there IS work going pushing the envelope, especially if we get a movie of a franchise such as idk Further Legends of Korra, or Steven Universe or something else that’s massively pushed the envelope with sexuality or gender for their main character on the small screen in the experimental petri dish they’ve had there for children’s TV. Something that would force Disney to blink about a lesbian princess or Star Wars to let Finn and Poe kiss or Marvel to let Steve and Bucky hold hands or something in order to remain relevant.

Once the Big Cultural Monoliths get in on it, I expect culture as a whole to first of all react quickly on the small screen, but honestly I’ve been waiting for them to snap pretty much my whole life since adolescence and they’re taking such wee tiny baby steps, and some factors are enormous geopolitical awfulness, that the story as a whole is unpredictable and we can only really hope that things don’t slow down. 

(Where this affects SPN is just impossible to say right now, given its almost unique position in this mess due to longevity vs fandom vs almost entirely new generation of writers’ room)