#his bi character arc means the world to me !!!!

[min-kit]

Thinking about Evan Buckley. The boy who was born as spare parts. Evan Buckley who tried soooo hard to get his parents attention to the point of self-harm. Evan Buckley who, as a child, got all of his attention from his sister, who was eventually pulled away by her abusive boyfriend, leaving him alone. Evan Buckley who upon realizing he doesn't know who he is tried every job he could to figure it out. Evan Buckley who acted out and flirted and had women on a string because he seeks attention because he's never had attention joining the 118 to be the hero. To have people look at him and be like wow, he's cool, only to find a group of people who become his family. Evan Buckley who slowly realizes he doesn't have to act out and flirt with every woman to get attention, he can just be himself. Evan Buckley, who upon meeting Eddie Diaz, was frightened that this family he has formed would replace him. That now that this cooler guy is in the group, he won't be needed. Evan Buckley who realized that's not true, that there's room for both of them, and now his family is even bigger. Evan Buckley who felt like he lost all of this when he was removed from his duties at the 118 due to his injuries, and was once again scared that they'd no longer have time for him, that he'd be back to how it was when he was vying for his parents' attention. Like how he had Maddie's attention when he was a child, but she left, now his found family is leaving him too. Evan Buckley who realized that's not true because this family isn't built on something so simple as being co-workers. This is his family for life. To Evan Buckley who, despite realizing these things, is stuck on the hamster wheel. Evan Buckley who doesn't understand why all of his relationships fail. Evan Buckley who doesn't know what it is he is doing wrong. Evan Buckley who, despite all the strides he has made in seven years, still doesn't feel whole. Evan Buckley who sees Tommy and thinks wow, that's a cool guy, which is what he wanted people to think when they saw him. Evan Buckley who, like he did so long ago, is vying for the attention of someone. Evan Buckley who sees this cool guy and his best friend so seamlessly hit it off and is once again left attentionless from two people he's craving attention from. Evan Buckley whose jealousy causes him to hurt his best friend and he feels horrible and what is it that he's doing exactly? Why does he want this attention so badly?

Evan Buckley who stands across from Tommy and admits aloud to him that he was jealous and he's wanted his attention and slowly... slowly the wheels are turning in his head. The light bulbs are coming on. His heart is beating. And that puzzle piece he's been missing for his entire life is being slotted into place.

Oh. He's bisexual. And he's never felt like enough because he never felt like a whole person. Because he tried so desperately to fill that whole with other people's attention and this is what's been missing. This is who he is. And now he can breathe. Now he can explore. Now he can be himself.

I'm thinking a lot about that Evan Buckley.

[wisegjrl]

no bc as a chaotic bisexual myself every single thing buck does is so real, from him coming out to his sister by accident and not realising his jealousy was just a… crush

[blazinghotfoggynights]

Can Team Tuck and Team Buddie please agree that both can exist and serve as positive spaces for queer male representation?

I've been thinking. Let me run something by you.

Oliver says he has always felt Buck was a bi-coded character? Right?

Does that mean when TK thought Buck was hitting on him, he was?

If Buck was always bi, but just didn't know it, are we supposed to believe he never flirted with Eddie just because his first kiss was with Tommy?

Was Tommy his bi awakening or was Tommy the embodiment of the attractive traits he has seen in a man he's been falling for over five seasons?

You can like or even love multiple people. Even at the same time! 😮

Believing that Buddie is or should be the endgame does not negate or disrespect Buck's arc with Tommy in any way. I question if Tommy was just a convenient character. He's a safe guy to explore Buck's evolution with. He has a history with members of the 118, but he is not integral to the cast. If it doesn't work out, he is easily explained away. Remember Natalia?

I think it is possible to have a Buck and Tommy centered arc, focused on Buck becoming comfortable with his sexuality and exploring it in a healthy, positive way and still have Buck and Eddie eventually realize they have been each other's person for years. Having both doesn't make the other any less important. How many people have dated others when their eventual life partner was right there? They had no idea they saw that person in that way.

Now that we know Buck is bi, it could lead to different interpretations of scenes:

Buck is looking at Eddie. Tommy is not there and we don't know for sure who Eddie was speaking to.

2. Look at that smile and his eyes at the end. Buck positively beams and bats his eyes when he realizes Eddie is going to look at him. That's how platonic friends look at each other?

3. But we can take it all the way back if we have to. Look at Buck when Eddie compliments him.

3b. Do you know what that reminds me of?

4. If Buck has subconciously been into guys for a long time, then this scene takes on a whole new context.

Moving closer to the other man? Check.

Eye contact? Check?

Smile and shy head duck? Check.

*I'd like to state that I have no doubt Edmundo Diaz knew Buck was into him. Look at the reaction.

5. When I'm into someone, you know what I don't talk about? Someone else.

6. Wow. Look at how Buck looks at Tommy.

6b. We have never seen that before have we?

Buck x Tommy and Buck x Eddie can coexist in harmony. Life stories are long and have jumpscares, plot twists, plot holes, etc.

Buck being genuinely attracted to Tommy doesn't mean that all the scenes from the past five seasons that made us all side-eye Evan Buckley didn't happen.

If we never get Buddie, let's just take the win. ABC said, "There are queer men in the world who are masculine, hot, and relatively stable. Let's show that."

Do we really need to talk about how the LGBTQ community was represented on their former network? I could stand on that soapbox and go off for days. Let's just say I know others who also felt some way about it, whether they were straight, queer, or allies.

I am just going to enjoy what is shaping up to be an amazing season. Moving to ABC breathed new life into 911 and I am excited. (Season six? Can we just not talk about it?)

[m3r1m4r5u333]

I feel like many people misunderstand us, the unhinged, insufferable people with OTPs so. Here's a quick guide into the mind of an rabid buddie shipper.

I'm not clinging to buddie because I fail to see how awesome Buck's bi growth is. I AM BI!!! You think I don't get how awesome this bi character, this story arc, this bi representation is? Get out. Don't tell me, a bisexual how I should watch and experience a bisexual character. I drive my own brain, thanks.

And I know that it's possible to multi-ship. You don't need to tell me that!!

People need to understand that multi-shipping isn't some grand, epic personality trait that always comes with maturity, that the people who don't multiship are just wee dumb babies.

I may sound like I'm 14. I am not. I am very much not. I'm OLD. So old. And guess what that means? I know myself!!! That's maturity, too. And who I am... Is someone who falls hard, and obsessively.

I know I am just not built to be a multi-shipper. I have tried, sometimes. I have tried so hard. And realised, that's just not me. Multi-shipping is never as fun, and interesting or rewarding to me as focusing on my One True Pair. It just makes me feel suffocated, to attempt to like something I don't really find much joy in.

That doesn't mean that I hate the actors or characters who are "getting in the way" of my ship. Nope. I actually often adore the characters and actors, and the writing. I can also see and appreciate what some other character means for my OTP's growth.

Like in this case... Lou, playing Tommy? Not only do I love his acting choices (so funny, so skilled) but he also, he sounds like a lovely guy. I'm a fan!! Also, damn he's fine, I need a bucket for my drool.

And Tommy, the character...? I think the character is interesting - and don't get me started on "problematic", the shaming is futile. I am all in for fucked up, problematic characters. If you don't get why, you should really read some literary classics. Fucked up, problematic characters are art, they make you think, they broaden world-views. My best educators have been the monsters, and I will take this stand to my grave.

Demand for "unproblematic" is demand for censure, and censure is just another form of oppression. Want characters without flaws? Go watch Teletubbies. Ffs, even moomins have flaws. (Of course they do, Tove Jansson was a freaking amazing writer.)

Anyway. The point here is.

I am a mono-shipper. And I love slowburns, I love the romance of them, I get attached to ships. And I'm queer.

But where are the queer slowburns? I have been waiting for a slow-burn queer romance for so long. I CRAVE IT. Getting that, truly, would be queer history, a revolution.

And I see the potential for it in buddie!! The spark, the history, the journey. It has the potential to be the greatest queer slow-burn I've ever experienced.

You think I'd just abandon a ship like that, a slowburn like that, for some fast food, cooked up in what... Two episodes? Pffft. I invest. I am waiting for my roast to cook.

So yeah. I'm not going anywhere. I will watch, and let my freak flag fly, and I will have the time of my life. If buddie never becomes canon? Well so what. I can deal. It's not my first rodeo. Disappointment isn't actually deathly, you know. Trying to avoid disappointment kills hope, and enthusiasm. So yeah, I refuse to manage my expectations. I'm all in, and enjoying this mad ride.

"Well, I'd still take you."

"You think so?"

"I KNOW."

[stagefoureddiediaz]

ugh this is horrible news tommy is still around, hope to god he's gone in the finale. v

Maybe in your world Nonnie, but not in mine and I'm not entirely sure why you felt the need to come and complain about it on my blog, but here we are!

It makes perfect Narrative sense for Tommy to still be around in the back end of the season, and even possibly into the start of season 8. The show is telling a story of Bucks bisexuality, so why woould they get rid of Tommy so quickly? To do so would do a disservice to that story - a massive disservice. I'm guessing you're hating on this relationship becasue you see it getting in the way of Buddie, rather than viewing it as a vital step on the route to Buddie.

Lets put it into simple terms - Buck figures out he's bi and then begins to explore that newly discovered aspect of himself. The show has also taken the time to move Buck from someone who didn't really do relationships (of the long term variety), into someone who is looking for love and looking for forever. But in amongst all of that, he hasn't really had a healthy long term relationship, the closest he had to that was with Ali and that one didn't last especially long and she wasn't around for most of it

Buck isn't ready for an endgame queer relationship right now - he is still to immature from a relationship perspective - especially a queer relationship perspective. If Eddie was available and he and Buck got together - as they are as characters right now, they wouldn't last - they're not in a position to do so successfully. And this isn't me suggesting that they need to have figured everything out before they get together - to have fully healed etc, because thats neither realistic or something I would want to see - what it means is that they both need to get to a point where they are in a healthy enough place to put in the work together, understand each others flaws, and their own flaws and proactively work towards overcoming those things together and as of right now, neither of them are - they are getting their and moving rapidly in the right direction, but Buck needs to learn a bit more, and in many ways learn how to be with a man, before he will be ready to start anything with Eddie.

The growth we're getting to watch Buck go through right now - in the aftermath of the lightening strike, his reckoning with his mortality etc and the fact he's now off the hamster wheel and moving forward - in a healthy and faster way than we've ever seen from him, speaks volumes.

Tommy is also a far better developed love interest than any other love interest we've seen Buck (or indeed Eddie) with (Abby excepted but she was a main, so had her own purpose on the show)- I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling like I know Tommy more after 3 episodes plus what we got from the begins episodes he was in, than I managed to ascertain about Taylor or Ana or Nataila etc!

Not to mention, him figuring out he's in Love with Eddie as part of this process is going to be fun to watch. The show has made no bones about re-enforcing at every. Single. Opportunity how close, how entwined and how important Buck and Eddie are to one another - the show has quite literally been prioritising that over anything else Buck and Eddie related - Buck was there front and centre - placed very much on an equal footing with Shannon and even Eddie himself in 7x01, and then Eddie was the centre of Bucks bi arc in 7x04 and in his coming out in 7x05. They are literally moving chess pieces into place to tell an amazing story of queer love in later life and creating an epic slow burn for the ages.

And finally, Eddie is, as far as we know at this point in time, still in a relationship with Marisol - why shouldn't Buck get to explore who he is and what he want's within a relationship rather than sitting pining on the sidelines - that isn't healthy in any way shape or form. Eddie still has stuff to figure out about himself.

Even Tim and Oliver have stated in interviews that this is about a happy and joyful queer experience of figuring out bisexuality and therefore within that is giving the narrative a romcom vibe. But they have also stated that Tommy isn't going to be around for that long - that he is very much a narrative device.

It is worth pointing out that timelines on various aspects of the narrative may have been shifted because of the season 8 renewal - but that is only going to help tell the story because now it doesn't have to be rushed. I'm still fully expecting some form of feeling realisation from one of them by the end of the season (my money is on Buck), setting up for season 8 and Buddie going canon either 8a finale or early into 8b.

You have every right to dislike Tommy if thats you jam - have at it, but don't come to my blog and expect me to agree with you. I'm not a multi shipper by any means - I'm a one ship kind of gal and I will be a Buddie shipper until the end of time, but within that, I am here for amazing storytelling and amazing queer storytelling - the like of which I've not had the privilege to watch on my screen before - especially one that hits so close to home. Its a really important story to tell and I'd rather it not be rushed.

And if you had to pick - I'm pretty sure you'd rather have Tommy around for a bit longer that Marisol!!!!

[grassbreads]

I’d love to know about Yulma and how important it is to representation in shounen manga

This has been sitting in my askbox for a couple months (because I am incapable of punctuality), but anon sent this to me back when I was talking about Yulma over on my vnc blog. For those unaware, Yulma refers to Yu Kanda and Alma Karma from the manga D.Gray-man.

So the thing is, to be honest, I don't know if you can say Yulma is/was important for representation. They don't tend to get brought up as an example of representation (except by diehard d.gray-man fans like me, lol) in shonen, and their whole thing is complicated enough that I feel like the queerness of it all flies over a lot of people's heads.

However! They're very important to me personally, and I do think it's kind of remarkable their story came out in like 2010. Because even though their queerness gets overlooked a lot, it's like. really there no matter how you interpret it.

The short version of their very complicated story is that Kanda and Alma are a couple who were resurrected into new bodies. Alma was a woman when they were originally together in their past lives, but is physically male in the present. Kanda is still very much in love with them by the end of their story, which, depending on the reading, makes Kanda very bi and/or Alma very trans.

This sound like something you want details on? If so, let's talk about how D.Gray-man's fan favorite edgy badass toughguy character briefly became the star of his very own heart-wrenching tragic queer romance.

Here's a brief crash course in Yu Kanda and Dgm for the uninitiated:

D.Gray-man is a manga about a group of exorcists (in the loosest and most anime sense of the term) in the 1890s fighting a holy war against mechanical demons powered by the souls of the dead. There are two things you need to understand about this plot for me to explain Yulma:

The Black Order, the secret branch of the church that exorcists work for, has a long history of committing horrific human experiments to further the war effort.

Due to complications of world building, only a tiny number of people can become exorcists, and tracking down new ones is extremely difficult.

Yu Kanda is one of the exorcists, and though not the actual main character (that's the lad in my icon), he's a very important secondary character. Arguably he's the most important secobdary character, since he's the main guy's biggest foil and the first character to play deuteragonist in a major story arc. He's also a huge fan favorite. The character popularity polls that Jump used to do always had him and the mc going back and forth over who won #1 most popular.

Kanda was also a classic edgy toughguy character. His first two scenes are him almost murdering the main guy because he thinks he's an intruder, then complaining about people grieving for their friend too loudly. He never smiles. He argues with the righteous mc about wasting time/energy protecting civilians. He threatens (and delivers) violence on anyone that annoys him. He looks like this:

TLDR; Kanda was an adored-by-fans mean badass archetype in a 2000s shonen manga. Not generally the guy you peg for starring in a piece of queer romantic storytelling.

And for the entirety of the original anime adaptation's 103 episode run, for the first 188ish chapters of the manga, you do not learn a single thing about his early life. You learn he joined the Black Order very young, and you meet the mentor that took him in at that point, but although there are little hints, a couple cryptic mentions of him searching for a certain person, his early origins remain a complete black box.

Then came the Alma Karma arc.

This is the point where I start getting into spoilers.

To make a very long story short, the Alma Karma arc reveals that Kanda is one of the Black Order's human experiments. The Order ran a secret project 9ish years before the start of the series in which they essentially tried to re-use dying exorcists (since finding new ones is so hard). They took the bodies of dying or recently deceased exorcists and harvested their brains, implanting those brains into new magically grown child bodies.

Key to this project—the second exorcist project—is that these newly grown second exorcists were not supposed to remember anything from their previous lives. Kanda, however, recovered a few hazy memories from his past self. Most importantly, he can recall an unclear image of the woman that his past self was in love with. This memory gradually becomes Kanda's reason to live. He wants desperately to find and meet that person.

Now, aside from Kanda, there was one other successfully revived second exorcist. This was a boy named Alma Karma.

Over the course of their brief shared childhood, Kanda and Alma become extremely close. However, due to a series of horrible events that I'll spare you the details of, Alma is eventually driven to murder-suicide. He wants himself and Kanda to die together to spite the Order, and Kanda almost lets him do it.

The one thing that keeps Kanda from letting Alma kill him, the thing that drives him instead to kill Alma, his most beloved and only friend, is that he can't bear to die without finding that woman again.

Have you figured out the twist yet?

9 years later, in the present, Kanda discovers that he didn't actually quite kill Alma. The Order kept Alma secretly half-alive in order to do more dubious experiments. And, more importantly, when they meet again, Kanda discovers the truth. The woman that he's been searching for his whole life, the woman he's in love with, the woman he tried to kill Alma in order to find, was also killed and made into a second exorcist. And her brain was placed into the body of Alma Karma.

After quite a lot more violence and tragedy, Kanda and Alma end their story arc by running away together on their deathbeds. Alma dies, for real this time, in Kanda's arms, and his last words are to tell Kanda he loves him. These words are presented as something Kanda hears from both the boy and woman versions of Alma's soul.

So! At the end of a very long and complicated story, one thing holds true: Kanda and Alma are in love. As passed down from their past selves, they are specifically in romantic love. They were a couple. And to speak as a fan, the sheer absolute devotion to how Kanda's love for Alma is presented is seriously intense and moving.

Now, given the absolute hell that is Alma's life, gender identity is frankly the last thing they have time to worry about, so it's hard to say how the whole "literally a woman's brain in a male body" thing might have settled for them if given time to think about it. But that is inherently a pretty trans narrative. And given the whole Alma gender situation, there's simply no reading of their whole situation where neither of them is queer.

If you take present day Alma as a guy, which is more or less how he's presented in canon (though again, who knows how he would've felt about that male body in different circumstances), then congratulations! You've got mlm in your shonen manga. They were straight in a different life, but now one of them's a dude, and they are still deeply in love with each other. They've even got not one but two "let's forget it all and run away together" scenes, just as every mlm couple seems to have.

On the other hand, if you go with the angle that Alma's still a woman based on her mind/soul, even in her new body, then Kanda may not be canonically queer, but Alma is inarguably trans. Again, literally a woman's brain in a male body. It may not be how most people end up trans, but that doesn't change the facts of her situation.

You see what I mean about how they're undeniably queer, but also kind of easy to miss? There's so much other insane shit going on in their story that Alma's whole gender situation can get passed over. Plus, you can look online to this day and find people arguing that Kanda's not "technically" explicitly in love with the present day male version of Alma, since he doesn't 100% unambiguously say as much. I love reading comprehension.

Also! As a possible extra reason for why people don't talk about them much, the official English translation of the manga translated Alma's final "I love you" very differently. There's always a lot of nuance and argument when it comes to translating "大好き" into English, but given the full context of their relationship and the scene it's in, Viz's handling really sets off the censorship bells in my head.

Here's the different versions (Japanese then fan then official), if you want to compare:

Nothing more classically queer than censorship by way of questionable translation 🙃.

At the end of the day, Kanda and Alma are in kind of a strange middle ground. They're each in love with the other one, but the whole second exorcist brain transfer situation makes it complicated enough that people argue their feelings aren't explicitly romantic (and thus not gay) in the present. Alma is literally a woman's brain implanted in a male body, but we don't have time to dwell on the gender complications of all that because of the hell that is the rest of their life. They're canon but not canon—queer people whose stories don't have space for them to be queer.

However, given that all this messy, tragic ambiguity was published in a fairly popular shonen manga back in 2010, it still feels kind of remarkable to me. Alma is somewhat an antagonist (it's complicated), and he dies at the end of his arc, but once again, Kanda was/is the fan favorite! And when he re-enters the main story after Alma's death, he's more important than he's ever been, and his history with Alma continues to be a huge part of his character.

Katsura Hoshino took the much-beloved edgy toughguy character from her long-running shonen series and, after keeping his origins secret for such a long time, confirmed that his whole life has revolved around love this entire time. Almost every facet of his character can be traced back to his love for his lost best friend or his yearning for his past life's missing partner. And then she reveals that the best friend and the partner are one and the same.

You can go back and forth about the degree to which they work as representation, but in any case, I think their story is something people ought to know about. It's romantic and it's heart-wrenching and it's fucking wild, especially given the context in which it was published (a Shonen Jump spinoff in 2010). I never see anyone besides the few remaining hardcore dgm fans talk about them, and I think that's a shame.

So anyway, that's tale of one of the most insanity-inducing romances I've ever seen put to paper. I love queer people.

Here's some choice pages if you want to cry with me (the last two are a sequence):

[babyindeath]

I just rewatched DP&W for the first time and I'm so bummed out about the last scene where Logan takes the dog from Wade and tells him "talk to the girl" kinda kills the whole build up of their (Logan and Wade's) progressing relationship :((( it was all cute when I first saw it but after all this time it kinda ruins the gay vibe from the rest of the movie

I totally get it, anon. The first two times I saw this movie I thought that neither of these romantic storylines worked narratively. Like at all. I’m still confused by the writing of it. I was really furious about it for a long time.

After my, say, third time watching it, I realised Vanessa did not necessarily “take” Wade back. First, we have the obvious fact she’s still seeing that aforementioned German guy from work (it’s only been two days), and second she does not respond to Wade’s confession - “I did it for you, even if you don’t want me” - verbally. Just held his hand seemingly platonically. Because why would they break up and get back together? They’re really going to fucking write this arc again? Seriously? So, after thinking about it, I decided to have at least a bit of faith in Ryan Reynolds et al.. They’re friends

Logan knows Wade still loves Vanessa. Even if Logan is starting to maybe fall in love with Wade, he knows that Vanessa is the love of Wade’s life and all he wanted to do for the entire mission was save Vanessa and his universe. It makes sense why he’d encourage him to talk to her. We know he truly cares about him thanks to the Time Ripper/Subway scene. (Genuinely can’t believe they didn’t kiss, instead he playfully hit Wade. ‘kay.). As a bi+ person myself I understand that he’s still not quite over Vanessa 6 years into their break-up while simultaneously crushing on Logan. Especially as she is still part of his found family.

When I first watched that scene, I was flabbergasted just like you. ‘What? What do you mean? But they. What? I.’ It’s another clip that the Deadpool-Wolverine fandom seems to either skim over or just pretend didn’t happen to protect the ship. But let’s be honest. These writers have heterosexual brains. Or so it seems. Debatable about Ryan’s brain. I don’t know how heterosexual brains work but from some of the choices in the movie re: Poolverine, I’m guessing not the best.

As for it taking away the gay vibes, Wade is still pansexual. He talks graphically about how he’d like to get fucked by male ‘dancers’. He says he doesn’t have a lot of vaginal sex. He has a sex dream about Thor. And another one. He’s very obviously aroused by Logan. He’s always talking about ass play. But I hate the fact his queerness is only discussed in jokes either among his character or for the audience and his love for Vanessa is always treated very seriously. Even 8 years after the first instalment. I hate it. And I can’t think about it or I’ll want to die.

Wade and Logan’s relationship changed completely in two days. They wanted to kill eachother. They had wrestle sex for 12 hours. They saved the world. Logan moved in with Wade. Wade introduced him to Al like a boyfriend. Again, I don’t know what heterosexuals think when they watch this movie, and I wish I did. So I still don’t know if the queerness in this film is intentional. My soul tells me it is. Everything I know about Ryan tells me this too. But when I think about Disney, Marvel, Ryan’s thinly-veiled desperation to be liked by the general public, the fact he’s for some reason become a business mogul, and that queer people will always be viewed as an accessory to our forever heteronormative society, my heart does sink. A bit heavy for a blockbuster discussion but representation is ALWAYS a big fucking deal. And I totally understand you.

I don’t even know what the hell my point is to be honest. Hope you can take something from all that though. Thank you for the message, I don’t get a lot of interaction on here so it means a lot! I don’t know if I helped. I haven’t written anything in an essay format in so long

[blubushie]

i'm kinda curious now... what are some of the worst/most ooc takes on the tf2 characters that you've seen 👀👀

I covered this before kinda with my "what does Blu hate about TF2 fanon."

For Sniper. For the rest of the mercs.

To sum it up:

Fandom constantly calling Sniper a Kiwi despite him only being born in Aotearoa and his entire character arc in the comics being "the people who birthed me aren't my real family, the parents who kept and raised me are". The fandom is so fucking weird about immigrants and adoptees. Also people who headcanon him as Aboriginal: I hate you because none of you can even fucking research shit to get it right. If you're Aboriginal and do that you're cool though. Namarnedjare ngudman <3

Twinkified Sniper. He's a sniper and uses a bow, he's going to have strong arms and stronger shoulders, and the comics depict him as lean.

Saying Sniper would smell. None of the fandom understands how important a lack of scent is during hunting, and Sniper is a hunter. Similarly, people headcanoning him as smoking cannabis for this reason. He does shrooms. If he's indulging in some THC that man is eating edibles so the smell doesn't stick to his clothes and skin and hair when he has to hunt.

Sniper being shy. The fandom doesn't understand how dog-eat-dog underground work is. This man would not survive long enough to become a world-renowned assassin if he was shy; also being shy would go completely against his professionalism mantra. He'd do whatever was necessary to get his kill.

Sniper being bothered by the cold. No one in the fandom understands how cold the outback gets during winter. He'd be absolutely fine. Additionally bushmen have to be highly adaptable to survive.

People making Medic evil despite canon pointing to him caring deeply for his team. At most he's chaotic neutral, and his only moment of "manipulation" is when he tricks the literal Devil, which I'm wagering is more than acceptable considering it's literally the Devil. Medic is not your sadistic manipulative monster archetype.

"Demo is abusive/lazy because he's an alcoholic" while ignoring him holding down 3 jobs while being an alcoholic, while ignoring him caring for his mum while being an alcoholic. Just say you hate addicts and go.

Intersex NB Pyro. I've been over it before. As an intersex man, I hate this fucking headcanon so goddamn much.

Infantilising Pyro despite Pyro literally being the CEO of a construction company and bringing in record profits for that quarter. And also being a mercenary PYRO LITERALLY KILLS PEOPLE JUST LIKE THE REST OF THEM.

People ignoring Medic's likely bisexuality in favour of promoting him as a gay man. I don't mean people saying that Medic was never married to start with and that Demo was talking out his arse, I mean people saying Medic's wife was his beard. The bi erasure is real. People treat bisexuality as a "less pure" variant of gay.

Bigoted Engie.

Communist Heavy (his father was literally murdered by the USSR and his family thrown into a gulag in Siberia because he was a counter-revolutionary).

Evil/arsehole Spy. Also people who take Spy too seriously. This bloke cracks "your mum" jokes and snorts when he laughs. Come on. Spy might take himself seriously but that man is not as serious as he thinks he is.

Bigoted Soldier.

People using the time period as an excuse to be a bigot so they can scream about how bad it is to be a bigot. You're still promoting bigotry. This wouldn't be an issue if racism wasn't a centre/scene in practically every fucking Demo fic. I'm kinda tired of seeing marginalised people be brutalised by a fandom so the fandom can virtue-signal about how bad it is to brutalise marginalised people. Can the characters please have some happiness? Or at least some angst that isn't a constant slew of queerphobia/racism/etc?

[sibylsleaves]

knowingly-bi buck anon again — thanks for answering! Your pre-S7 headcanon is basically what I was imaging too, except maybe a bit more self-aware. Like he definitely strikes me as someone who would try anything. I feel like that still makes sense even with canon-bi buck. That is a man who has had threesomes, and not just FFM. Making out with a guy while fucking his girlfriend still feels straight! It’s fine! I think I just kinda like buck being like ‘yeah I’m straight, but I’m also up for anything with anyone coz sex is fun.’ So maybe it’s less knowingly-bi but more like he’s straight-plus, permanently stuck in the ally-to-bi pipeline without coming out the other side coz he’s only ever really had Big Romantic feelings for women, so he can’t be actually bi. Plus I feel like buck struggles to separate his romantic feelings from his sexual ones, so he doesn’t recognise that he can be in love with someone (Eddie 👀) without their relationship having a sexual component (as if his jealousy and frustration isn’t inherently sexual in nature when it comes to Eddie but you know what I mean)

STRAIGHT PLUS LOL.

i mean in general i do not think buck has good self-awareness, even at this stage in his character arc. as evidenced by the gifset i just conjured in into the world by way of @thatbuddie (ty maria!!!!) he is constantly looking to everyone around him for answers and reassurance and advice and to tell him what he should want and do and feel and be.

and he is clearly someone who gets infatuated with people easily, and who can mistake that infatuation for something else (with women--love. with men--friendship and/or intense rivalry) so he relies on everyone around him to gauge what he's actually feeling. which is why so many of his relationships are someone making a move and buck then reciprocating. because at that point it's like, oh, ok so i guess it's like that! these are romantic feelings! even with taylor telling him she loves him, she says it first and then he reciprocates because she's giving him that cue and he's like. ok yeah i guess we're in love.

and this is not to say that he didn't love her, or that they weren't romantic feelings, but if no one tells him that's what's going on then i think he genuinely doesn't know how to parse them. i think he is just floating around with all these feelings all the time and waiting for someone--Bobby or Maddie or Eddie or whoever his love interest is--to tell him what they are and what they mean. which no one can do but him. but he STILL doesn't know how to do it. (which is also why s6 was so frustrating, honestly. they set him up to resolve this at long last and then DIDN'T!!!)

so when it comes to his feelings for eddie all the external feedback he's getting is that they are best friends and that it is NOT romantic. so that is what he will continue to believe until something in him actually changes.

[troperrific]

/ekuoto chapter 63 spoilers/

Pretty surprising chapter, all things considered.

I was not expecting another fight between the exorcists and the witches so soon.

It’s… good that Mr. Priest is starting to question the Church’s dubious morality, but this kinda feels like too big a leap from last chapter…?

I mean, I guess it helped that Vir sympathized with him and then helped him save a kid, but… hm, how to explain it…?

I think I’m just surprised that Mr. Priest considered the possibility of there being people labeled as witches unfairly by the Church or who “didn’t even use magic to defend themselves” this quickly.

That said, it is interesting that the type of victim that Mr. Priest specifically brings up is the one that “didn’t even do anything wrong”.

Just gonna put a pin on that.

This chapter was from the witches’ POV and so it’s very fitting that many of the panels featuring the exorcists are frightening and even dehumanizing, as they are shown through very monstrous lens.

If you notice, they are deliberately drawn with their faces obscured- they are the enemy, they are monsters. To the witches, that’s what they are. And yet, it’s very interesting that the raid was done mostly by the traumatized child soldiers we’ve come to know so well.

I’d argue that this was done in a similar fashion on that brief flashback in Beelzebub’s arc, where we see the witches as faceless, cackling figures, delighting in the suffering and torture of those they offer to the Lord of Flies. It’s only through the volume extras that we gain further context that those were former (and corrupt) members of the Church, which, like the example above, should “muddy” our perception of the situation.

Poor Charlotte. Her crush is likely gay (and not bi), still deeply in love with Dante and lying to her and the rest of the witches.

Somehow these panels are very funny to me:

“Wow, what does Tachibana even do to get shit like this?”

“Oh, you know, the usual! Corruption, money laundering, oppressing minorities, being a pick me…”

Asmodeus really just gave Vir one of her eyes kfndhheb

I mean, I guess she has plenty to spare!!

On a side note, I do wonder how the other Demon Lords feel about this… Walpurgis Night thing.

I mean, unless I misread something, it’s implied that it’s part of Satan’s plan, no?

We know that Beelzebub got pissed off when hearing about his plans, and that Belphegor currently wants to prevent them as well (likely because they get in the way of his own vision for the world).

Asmodeus gave them one of her eyes because of a “deal”, which apparently involves this ancient witch. But we don’t know the exact terms nor what Vir told her (as he likely hasn’t told her the whole truth, just like with the other witches). And Mammon and Leviathan… I have no idea how much they know about what’s been happening nor how they feel about it.

I do think it’s going to be a real shit show, however.

Also…

So she was Baba Yaga, after all! Congrats to that one JP fan on twitter who predicted it!

To summarize, for those who don’t know, Baba Yaga is a figure from Slavic folklore and a recurring stock character, at times helpful, at times antagonistic, in many folktales.

She’s mostly known for her bone/skull torches and her house with chicken legs. Some of the volumes’ extra images are likely a reference to that!

Also the fact that she eats kids. Which is a bit humorous considering that she’s heavily implied to be the one to have tricked Beelzebub into giving her his little finger and the one to have prevented him from entering Leah’s village. Cannibal on cannibal violence!

On a side note, I like to discuss a theory I’ve had for a while, so indulge me if you will:

Beelzebub’s nickname for Leah is “麗しいの少女 (uruwashi no shoujo)”, translated as “pretty girl”.

Considering Baba Yaga’s possible connection with Leah’s village, I think this might be a reference by the author to the Slavic folklore stock character Vasilisa and, perhaps, specifically, the folktale “Vasilisa the Beautiful” or in Japanese, “うるわしのワシリーサ (uruwashi no Vasilisa).

Vasilisa is a common name for the stock heroine that often appears in Slavic folktales/Russian fairytales. And in tales where Baba Yaga is present, usually in a rather antagonistic role, she often has to outsmart the old woman in order to survive.

So I wonder if we’re gonna get a significant interaction between them in the future.

also, if the ancient witch= Baba Yaga, and Leah= Vasilisa, would that make Beelzebub Koschei the fucking Deathless?? lol

The black cat appears again (it appeared on… let me check… chapters 2 and 14!), but I’d like to sit on this one for a bit… so I can think a bit more about what it means…

But I’d like to point out a few things:

Black cats are commonly portrayed in media and superstition as being witches’ familiars or generally linked to the devil;

This image from the first volume depicts a black cat with a glowing skull (often characteristic of Baba Yaga). So this particular black cat could be hers;

Cats, in general, however, have been strongly linked to Leah (she’s literally a cat girl with her uniform, the news about the guy who tortured cats is also on her flashback) and, to a minor extent, to Mikhail (who also wears his nun veil in the style of cat-ears, just like Leah);

On a final note:

Whyyyy are you still with the witches?! Ditch them! They don’t appreciate you!! They call you ugly! They left you to deal with a fucking influencer, the worst of fates!! Diiiitch theeeem (<- witches are canceled in my heart for hurting the mandrake’s feelings. my poor little monster, haha)

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL

Feb 2023 Wk 1

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs. Organized by which ones (in each category) I’m enjoying most. 

Ongoing Series - Thai

My School President (Fri YT) ep 9 of 12 - WinSound totally won me over in this ep. They were great. Their competitive style of romance, made me really happy. Double tsundere it’s so rare to get and not be annoying or depressing. Of course the mains were adorable too. 

Never Let Me Go (Tues YT) ep 8 of 12 - Solid little episode. Perth in the pool, thank U BL gods. Peeling the shrimp to rope, always a favorite of mine. Some awesome couple flirting and a nice romantic sex scene. What’s not to like about this episode?

Hit Bite Love (Sat YouTube) ep 2 of 6 - King is fucking adorable. Burger is clueless and (apparently) entirely straight. Shogun is one of the gayest characters ever put in high school BL. Heda is kinda awesome, basically a chaos wingman. Matteo is interesting. I genuinely like the central friendship between King & Shogun a lot. Queer baby besties! It’s Ming & Wayo-esk but better. Holy KINK FEST outta nowhere, BLman! I’m getting total whiplash with this show. Very Make It Right. What does it want to be? Who tf knows but I’m into it, that’s for sure. It’s accomplishing something, which most pulps don’t.

609 Bedtime Story (Fri WeTV) ep 11fin - my backup computer is down so I haven’t had a chance to watch this yet. Hopefully but next week’s report.   

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

HIStory 5: Love in the Future (Taiwan Weds Viki) ep 6 of 10 (or 11&12 of 20) - Jonny’s hair is driving me nuts. Hai Yi’s behavior is confusing me too. Office boys remain totally adorable. Very doomy mid run ep 6. Ah Taiwan, how unpredictable you are. 

Candy Color Paradox AKA Ameiro Paradox (Japan Fri Gaga) ep 7 of 8 - these weirdos make for very strange boyfriends. Frankly? K seems like a useless bit of business, if you ask me. 

Individual Circumstances (Korea Thurs Viki) ep 5-6 of 8 - I’m just annoyed with Mr. Tsundere at this point, he’s gone from grumpy to mean. I just want him to have a really good reason for having disappeared without saying anything, and good does not mean “sensitive pathetic authorial feels.” You don’t abandon your best friend just because you fell in love with them, that’s an unforgivably shitty thing to do. 

The End Of The World, With You AKA Bokura no Micro na Shuumatsu (Japan Sun Gaga ep 1 of 8 - Stars Toshiki Seto (Senpai, This Can't Be Love). The world is about to be destroyed by a meteor, so Masumi visits his old uni library to read as much as he wants until the end. There he meets Ritsu, his player ex. It’s a bit awkward, and I’m not sure about the premise (it scares me that it might be sad). It’s racier, gayer, and has better kissing than i was expecting (again a sign it might go dark). Also Is Ritsu a big time bi-slut player or is that Masumi’s perspective? Regardless I’m intrigued if wary. 

Finished this week

The New Employee (Korea Weds Viki) ep 7fin - They are so cute it’s unbelievable. I thought it was a good office romance ending, if not a great Bl ending. All in all this is a darn near perfect nugget of an office romance BL, sweet and much gayer than we have any right to expect from Korea. Rainbow rice cakes forever! 9/10

Between Us (Sun iQIYI) ep 12fin - It’s a serviceable series about hot swimmers flirting and dealing with family drama in a sweetly earnest manner, but ultimately it squanders the talent in play. I would’ve preferred a cleaner narrative arc, less angst and more plot, fewer couples, and a shorter series. That said, there’s nothing objectively wrong, sub-standard, or off-putting about this show. And it has lots of consent and other good qualities. It’s fine. Watch along here. 8/10

I Will Knock You (Fri Gaga) ep 12fin - I did think a lot over why I disliked this one. Because on the surface it’s just your standard slightly terrible Thai pulp, and I’m usually not that mean about them. I think in the end it comes down to the uke who just seemed to never warm to the boy pursuing him, and never really actually wanted to be his boyfriend. Also terrible dead fish kiss. 5/10 

Gossip

Apparently we have new scions (waves goodbye to BrightWin) - GeminiFourth: The Crown Princes of BL. If you’re wondering how their chemistry is so good (My School President), this article may explain it. 

In Case You Missed It

Caught up on 2020′s The Reason Why He Fell In Love With Me. (Gaga picked it up and I’ve been wanting to see it since it got announced in 2019.) 

TRWHFILWM Series 1 - 2 teachers who work together at the same high school, one outgoing and the other reserved, start an affair. Gave me Ossan’s Love vibes and that is my least favorite kind of JBL. It’s just far too cartoonish and slapstick and I don’t like it. That said, it has several kisses, a happy ending, and they are cute together. So if you can this style BL, it you might like it. 

TRWHFILWM Special - Completely ignores the first couple and the teacher premise, carrying over just one main character, and should have been a new BL (Boys Love flashbacks). I understand 2021′s season 2 continues this tactic. But I’ll watch it eventually. 

Next Week Looks Like This:

Not a lot actually, which is cool, I still got some 2022 catching up still to do. Why You Y Me, may be? 

Starting: 

Moonlight Chicken (Weds? YouTube) 1 of 8 -   

My Beautiful Man S2 - ??? sorry I’m scared of this one and not really paying attention, it being Japan and a desirable property, I’m assuming it will either be impossible to find or just show up on my dash in 2 places at once. 

Feb releases list is here. 

2023 forthcoming BL master post. (see comments some are inaccurate, NOT UPDATED)

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

Hit Bite Love it’s classic terrible Thai pulp and I’m kinda loving it. 

Thank you very much GMMTV. 

FINALLY! 

Also FINALLY. 

More FINALLY (My School President). 

I love the acknowledged combative nature of this relationship. It’s great. 

(last week)

Current Kpop earworm? Under the Skin by &team, eh, it’s catchy I guess

[amageish]

Thinking way too hard about the queer possibilities of X-Men ‘97

When X-Men ‘97 was first announced, I’ll admit I was kind of ambivelent to the entire project... It felt very nostalgia-focused and was just less interesting to me then an all-new X-Men cartoon that could do its own thing without being burdened with established canon...

...and then I listened to the X-Men 60 Uncanny Years event earlier this year and hearing the executive producer of the series discuss what the X-Men meant to him as a kid as a gay black man in Florida basically changed my mind about the entire project. Now I’m excited for it!

The X-Men are so fucking queer. Even ignoring the ways that the mutant metaphor have been used to discuss queer issues before queer issues could be discussed textually, Marvel’s merry mutants just have... so many queer members and even more when you expand the list to include sub-textual and intended queerness.

So, with all that in mind, I did a little thinking and decided to take some guesses about who could make for queer representation in '97... Let’s dive in!

Part One: The Comic Canon Gays

Let’s start with the characters who are explicitly no-subtext-required queer in the comic books themselves. These are a few of the characters Marvel uses in Pride events and generally parades around every June.

Northstar

Jean-Paul Beaubier may seem like the vanilla ice cream of this rainbow sundae, but there’s far more going on with this character then the “Marvel’s first explicitly gay superhero” title that he is so often boiled down to. A French-Canadian superstar athlete, he’s lived never being entirely sure if his skiing career success was a result of his talent or his mutant abilities.

While his depiction in X-Men The Animated Series just had him be painfully French-Canadian with an on-the-nose accent and French exclamations, there’s a mean catty gay under the surface that is just waiting to be unleashed. They could also adapt his famous wedding arc, wherein he married his husband Kyle Jinadu...

Also he hates cops, so y’know... Maybe Marvel did nail the queer experience on their first try?

Iceman

Bobby Drake is arguably the most famous queer character at Marvel. A member of the original five X-Men, he was famously confirmed as gay when his teenage self was transported to the present and, with some unsolicited help from a teenage Jean Grey, questioned why his older self remaining closeted, even in a world that was (comparatively at least) accepting of queer desire.

In the original show, he showed unrequited interest in Polaris, as he had in the comics before his coming-out. This reboot could potentially give a more grounded and less fantastical take on coming-out then what he had in the comics... or maybe time travel will be involved again - who knows really!

Prodigy

David Allyene, aka Prodigy, is one of the most notable bi men at Marvel with one of the most distinctive coming-out stories. His mutant powers cause him to instantly learn things that other people know, hence the name Prodigy, and, through his powers, he also learned his own sexuality. How’s that for a crazy journey of self-discovery.

Prodigy is a newer character who did not appear in the original animated series at all, so there’s no continuity concerns there...

Mystique and Destiny

Destiny, also known as Irene Adler, met her lover Mystique when he was presenting as male and operating as a consulting detective in Victorian London.

Yeah uh. This is implying what you think it is.

The two of them have been lovers for centuries now, though both took other partners at different points during their relationship. Their love is something special though and together they raised Rogue as a child - as well as maybe sired Nightcrawler together? That was once intended to be Nightcrawler’s origin, but it was famously scrapped due to Marvel editorial not wanting to depict a child that is a product of a queer relationship at the time... but now this November a new comic will explore the “true” origin of Nightcrawler, so maybe Mystique/Destiny having a biological child is back on the table!

Mystique was, of course, in the original series. I’m not sure the actual odds of her relationship with Irene being acknowledged in ‘97 - partially just because I imagine Marvel would be concerned about backlash to queer villains... but also they’re adorable and good to me so I’d like them!

Captain Britain and Askani

Betsy Braddock and Rachel Summers are two incredibly complicated characters to summarize. Rachel is the time-displaced daughter of Scott and Jean from a hypothetical alternate feature, while Betsy Braddock spent like 30 years of her publication history trapped in the body of Kwannon, a Japanese assassin. While these two characters are some of Marvel’s most actively in-your-face unquestionably queer characters - the last Betsy story had a surprising amount of implied sex for only five issues - they’ve never really had a chance to shine in a multimedia way (well, at least not with Betsy in her own body and not being merged with Kwannon).

In the original show, Rachel cameoed briefly as a prisoner of Apocalypse while Pyslocke appeared without being named - assumedly they didn’t want to bother explaining the body-swap storyline. Personally, if they were to be in the show, I’d suggest that Betsy should be introduced as having inherited her brother’s title of Captain Britain, with Pyslocke of the original show being revealed to have been Kwannon in her own body all along...

Part Two: The New Mutants

There’s so many queer New Mutants that I’m just giving them their own category here... plus, with Sunspot being in the main cast, I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of the time got (Sun)spotlighted as well!

Note that the sapphics of the first generation of New Mutants can also be mixed and matched when it comes to shipping. I present them based on the pairings that are currently canon/teased in the present comics, but Dani/Xuan, Xuan/Kitty, Kitty/Rahcel, etc. are all valid too and could be within the cards for the show.

Karma & Galura

The first explicit lesbian of the X-Men line, Xuân Cao Mạnh is a refugee of the Vietnam Boat Crisis, a thing which makes no sense when you consider that she is still canonically like 20-something years old in 2023. Her coming-out was a much lower-key affair then Jean-Paul’s, with her friends just casually running into her at the Exploding Person festival (i.e., Burning Man) with a shaved pink haircut and already travelling with her two “girlfriends”.

After the musical festival, she proceeded to fall in love with her roommate Kitty Pryde and then her co-worker Dani Moonstar, both of which were never (textually) requited. Recently, she’s started dating the winged mutant Galura and finally gotten to do stuff like “kiss a woman on-panel regularly” after two decades of being a lesbian denied a girlfriend...

She has cameoed in X-Men ‘92-related media with a design that is truly terrible IMO, but I think she could be rebooted and appear in this series in her full glory... especially after the New Mutants movie left her out entirely!

Mirage and Wolfsbane

Introduced in the original New Mutants run, Dani Moonstar and Rahne Sinclair share a unique telepathic connection, helpfully described as them being “soul-mates.” The Comic Book Code prohibited depictions of queer people, but uh. This first run is incredibly not subtle, even as Rahne nominally has interest her male teammate Cannonball.

Unfortunately, post-Claremont, their relationship was more or less abandoned for a few decades (coinciding with a massive downward spiral in Rahne content in general) climaxing with Rahne being killed off entirely in an allegory for transphobic violence... Thankfully, she recovered from her death and has recently been written by a non-binary author and now a trans author, both of whom have leaned back into the idea that these “soul-mates” may, in fact, have romantic feelings for each other.

Oh, also they were explicitly gay in the movie. So. Good for them for that!

Magik and Shadowkat

Another classic pair of X-Men “roommates,” Illyana Rasputina and Kate Pryde are another Claremont-created “soul-mate” duo - albeit without the telepathic bond. After decades of queer-coding, both were able to do queer-adjacent things explicitly for the first time in the Krakoa era, with Illyana asking a group of people of various gender presentations to make out with her and Kate kissing a tattoo artist who looks suspiciously like her bestie on-panel.

Pryde famously lost the spot of “Teen X-Men PoV character” to Jubilee in the show, but maybe X-Men ‘97 could give her a second chance... plus Illyana is one of the most popular X-Men characters not given a full spotlight in the original show, in spite of her more or less being an A-list X-Men in 2023. I don’t know if Marvel is brave enough to make this one canon, but I do think these two are two of the most obviously missing characters from the ‘97 line-up.

Escapade

Shela Sexton, aka Escapade, is a transgender sapphic who debuted in Marvel Pride last year and has since then had a starring role in the most recent New Mutants series. She has the incredibly unique power of the ability to “steal” things from people - including everything from stealing physical objects like their wallet to stealing abstract concepts like their emotional or physical state. Her character also generally has embodied the intersectional approach to mutant identity which has become more and more prevalent in the modern era - her mutant identity and trans identity are both important to her character, but neither are allegories for the other.

I think she’s probably too new to be added to the X-Men ‘97 cast pragmatically, but maybe they could have snuck in a cameo at the last minute? Idk. I figured I’d include her on the list.

Part Three: Let’s Get Wild!

Okay. Fuck it. Let’s talk about some comic book justifications that could be used to queer up the actual main cast from the original classic X-Men The Animated Series.

Jubilee

Jubilation Lee, the teen PoV lead of the X-Men, has been written as queer a handful of times, but never explicitly in 616. Most notably, she was gay in an AU Runaways story (written by N.D. Stevenson), where she dated a bisexual version of Pixie as well as an ice-powered sapphic named Frostbite. Monet also had a crush on her in the X-Men ‘92 animation-inspired comic book series. In terms of 616 content, her relationship with Laura Kinney has often been read in a sapphic way, especially in Liu’s X-23 series where Laura notably breaks up with her boyfriend only for Jubilee to be waiting back at her apartment to go out with her.

Storm

Ororo Munroe, aka Storm, famously has had a subtextual Sapphic fling with the bundle of chaos that is Yukio. They two met for the first time when Ororo went to Japan and their time together was almost immediately followed by her famous punk Storm era, which is very queer when you consider that context. Yukio was also later made explicitly queer in Fox’s Deadpool 2 movie, though the movie character doesn’t share much of the personality and thrill-seeking antics of her comic book counterpart...

Storm is the central protagonist of the original Claremont Uncanny X-Men and will be central to the ‘97 series as well. It’d be really bold to confirm her as queer, but I’d say this is the kind of move that would be worth it if they want this to stand out among X-Men adaptations.

Wolverine, Phoenix, and Cyclops

Finally, Jean Grey, Scott Summers, and Logan were implied to have been in a poly relationship throughout most of the Krakoa era - though they have fallen on hard times recently in the run-up to Fall of X.

I’ll be blunt: I don’t think there’s a chance in hell that Marvel corporate would approve this being textual... but I’m willing to be proven wrong, I guess!

WHEW. Okay. That’s my list. This is nowhere near definitive of course - I didn’t discuss Shatterstar’s bisexuality, Deadpool’s pansexuality, Gwenpool’s aroace identity, et al - but also basically every X-Men character is either textually queer or could be justified as being queer based on comic book lore. This entire brand has a queer poly energy that even the straightest writers weren’t able to fully shake off of it... so, while this is my list, they could really do anything they wanted (and that Mickey Mouse lets them do, at least)... We’ll see what happens!

[PS: In light of the strike and the general shitty way that megacorporations in entertainment have been treating their workers for years now, I’d be remissed if I made this post and didn’t encourage people to consider donating to the Entertainment Community Fund as well!]

[cleradinel]

Genuine Q: how is the boys only sign a gay proof for Mike Wheeler and a sign that he isn’t bi? Isn’t he just saying “Boys Only” because they go into a men’s space? Like they weren’t gonna go into a women’s bathroom/locker room? And Lucas goes with them, so if that’s “gay Mike proof,” wouldn’t that make Lucas gay too? Saying “boys only” is not a gay thing either in general, lots of media has moments where straight male characters break off for “bro talk” or “just the guys” and it has nothing to do with their sexuality. Are guys not allowed to socialize with their gender without it being a queercoding clue? (Is it lesbian when girls go into the bathroom together?)

see i was debating the value of presenting my arguments because i truly don't know if you're up for civil discussing or not, but i'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here.

dear anon. your first mistake here is watching and thinking of the show as one dimentional : aka, you think of mike as a person with free will figuring out how to go about trapping a dangerous murderous cunt inside a sauna. in a non meta way, in their world, it is absolutely what's happening, it's just mike stating "i figured something out, will, lucas, follow me." but a tv show is two dimentional : there is a meta layer to the dialogues, to the set design, to the character blocking etc. there are a lot of thoughts put into those decisions, and writers have a lot of fun figuring out how stuff something that on surface level is innocent and devoid of importance with double meaning. i'll give you one example, when will is encouraging el when she's called to do a presentation for class, you can read the word "HENRY" above his neck. in THEIR world, this is just a random name that happens to have been written on a piece of paper and stuck to the wall after discussing whatever henry dude will and el's curiculum asked the teachers of california to talk about. in OUR world, as people watching a tv show, the set design decision to place it here, the director's decision to have the cameraman do this specific shot and to place noah in this specific way is foreshadowing. it's a hint. it's a meta detail. it SHOULD mean something to you. another example ! jason telling lucas "you first hangover feels like you're going to split in two" is not about jason knowing he was quite literally going to end up split in two, he is just recounting his experience with his first hangover to lucas. to US, in a meta way, it's significant, because it was foreshadowing, it was a hint, it was MEANINGFUL. it wasn't a random choice of words from the writers that coincidentally ended up lining up with jason's death down the line. it was INTENTIONAL. jason as a person was not saying anything more than just "man hungovers are a real bitch lol", jason as a tv show character was quite literally telling us how he was going to meet his demise. another one : max in the school's bathroom. there is a graffiti on the wall with "i see you" and a little doodle of two blue eyes. in their world, whoever wrote this was obviously not doing this in vecna's name. it's a random person who randomly decided oto have some fun and graffiti this particular thing. in a meta way, this is referencing vecna. it's not a coincidence. especially considering this is a max scene and her arc is very closely linked to vecna this season. do you see where i'm going with this ? mike in hawkins indiana 1985, saying "i have an idea, boys only." is just letting lucas and will know that he figured out how to stop billy and that this plan requires going somewhere max and el can't follow. in their world, that's it ! but in our world, in the double meaning way (which is a very real thing, if you insinuate the stranger things dialogue, or most of cinema dialogues are "not that deep" you are quite literally insulting writers everywhere, like. straight up), in the "this is a character who's words are chosen by someone else with purpose" way, this particular phrasing is meaningful. he didn't say "i have a plan, follow me to the men's locker room guys". the writers chose a specific phrasing. it's even more obvious recontextualized : mike JUST fought with will, who told him his obsession with growing up was ruining them and the party. mike, affected by those words tries to figure out what that whole argument and his own reaction to it means to and for him. he has an idea to figure it out, and it is to let himself wander into "what if... i was..." territory as we do see in the second half of S3. (i would include screencaps but i can't be bothered rn)

mike's reaction at the end of s3 aka the conclusion of his S3 arc (in 3 parts : pushing dnd and queerness away because it's not socially acceptable -> why am i even doing this ? why am i acting like this -> right. i'm actually gay and terrified to be.) goes something like this : a scene flirting with will, followed by a scene of el kissing him and not reciprocating, followed by a scene that is shot in the same way a scene in which a character realizes something shows us the conclusion that mike has come to about himself : yes, he is gay. his own theory about himself actually being into boys was the correct theory. i think that answers the second part of your ask. someone choosing for mike to lay out his plans with this choice of words at this particular moment in the story is heavy queercoding. had it been dustin (random choice, he wasn't even there), whose narrative is simply not mike's, it would have been meaningless. it wouldn't even have been worded like that. in the case of mike, because it is mike and because of the nature of his storyline, it isn't.

[psi0nics]

Spider-Gwen is Very Likely Trans in Across the Spider-Verse, says One More Person

But this shit matters.

I've rewatched Across the Spider-Verse for probably the eighth time recently, and it continues to be blaringly obvious to me that Gwen is most likely a trans girl. I'm most certainly not the only one to have pointed this out, and I don't really think I'm adding anything new. But we need as many voices to speak up, I feel, and I might as well share what I think of it. Now, this little essay is going to focus mainly from the movie's material alone since I'm not much of a comic reader, and it'll be limited to my own experience as a Filipino trans girl who really wants to express some thoughts.

Spoilers ahead!

Across the Spider-Verse explores the journey of Miles Morales after the first film, Into the Spider-Verse, where he rises up to the mantle of Spider-Man. Now, we follow him as he fights to be recognized as Spider-Man by the rest of Spider-Society, who reject him for factors out of his control—and yet he made the best of them, took pride in them, and rose up to become Spider-Man in all the ways that matter. Unfortunately, the exact circumstances, Spider-Society doesn't like—represented by Miguel O'Hara. From all that I've heard and read, a lot of Miles's story strongly being a very Black story, drawing from Miles being Afro-Latino, and though the story itself never shows racism nor do the different universes explicitly show systemic discrimination and whatnot, his story still clearly draws from that. Miguel O'Hara isn't some racist white dude excluding Miles because he's Afro-Latino, Miguel is an Irish-Mexican man and the entire theme of the Spider-Society is that it is extremely diverse and open. But that doesn't mean that the institution that it represents in the context of literally everything Rio Morales, Miles's Mother, tells him. To remember where he's from, to not let those big institutions tell Miles that he doesn't belong there, and all these things that are brimming with subtext.

The subtext is there, and it's all intentional.

Then there's Gwen Stacy. Who, for her entire arc of the film, hinges on a relationship setup from the beginning—her father, George Stacy. Now, for a lot of trans people, including me, we found it striking that that arc felt pretty queer-coded. Now, by itself, there's nothing much to be gleaned, just Gwen struggling with the fact that she's forced to reveal her superhero identity to her dad in a tense moment, ripping them apart, and later reconciling. Now, I'm quite young for a queer person, but I'm aware of the history of all these subtle things or narratives about identity being all that queer people had in the mainstream for a very, very long time.

But these days, we celebrate every win, for every explicitly queer character, for every confirmation from creators where they couldn't explicitly show anything in the material (except for Rowling bullshit, fuck that fake shit), and every hold that we're constantly fighting for. I know I'm speaking for a lot of people when I say we are so happy to see so many gay and bi characters see the mainstream's spotlights, be left unquestioned, that I, someone on the other side of the world, am left in positive awe whenever I see some middle-aged white dudes casually say, "My daughter's girlfriend." But of course, it's always a fight. We can't be complacent, because for every win, people will always try to tear it down, and I know I just happen to be in pretty inclusive online communities to see what I see in the west. There, people queer sexualities still fight. Here, people still fight. Queer identities will never stop fighting.

All this to say, what of Gwen? Well, one of the moments that made me think about her this way was when I was putting the little hints together. Because her arc does not stand in isolation. Her arc is literally colored by transness. From the big trans flag above her door, the trans colors that literally paint her and her world, the reflections that show her other identity, her reconciliation with her father hitting us with "They can only know half of who I am," the acceptance, and even the tiniest bit of Mary Jane's voice over talking about raising a child that's different than everyone else and learning to learn as a parent, and all these details. Hell, she even hangs out with Hobie Brown, whose entire thing is anarchism, the rejection of what society has considered the norm for bullshit reasons, to hang out with a radical leftist—and as one of those, there's not any other group (or at least from my experience) quite as intersectional with solidarity with marginalized groups as radlefts. To those who say, "Maybe she's just an ally," I challenge you: why would the film stop there?

Why does the film that goes out of its way to casually show more people of color as normal, to show people with disabilities playing basketball, to show an entire arc about Miles striving to fight the institutions that want to keep him down, to drive with progress, to drive the narrative that anyone can be behind the mask, why would it stop at making Gwen Stacy a trans girl?

And very similar to Miles, of course there's no one explicitly transphobic nor are any groups shown to be that. It's a more personal story, and is more subtle about it. And it's crazy how much this reminds of when I grew up watching The Legend of Korra, when Korra and Asami's relationship was only some endgame thing and hinted at with a "vacation." Gay people didn't have that much there. Not much in other places in the mainstream either. They started making their own, of course. Through fan-fiction, through art, making their own stories. But fortunately (I say with as much dripping sarcasm as I can) capitalism now sees it as a big enough market for billionaires to profit off of. (Which is, in a very dystopian way, a win.) And now, it's eerily familiar to see trans people get the same treatment now, stuck in a limbo of infrequent and rare representation in the mainstream if we aren't clawing for every inch.

So, while Miguel O'Hara isn't a racist authoritarian, George Stacy isn't a transphobe—not when he goes out of his way to wear trans flags (and no, it's not a trick of the light; nothing is a trick of the light, it's all intentional in animation). But the conflicts they represent aren't any less meaningful in the subtext. And that means a lot for people who are fighting tooth and nail to be recognized.

And all of this, too, is representative of one of the first and second film's main themes. It's not that it doesn't matter who's behind the mask, it's that it can be anyone behind the mask, carrying with them all the richness of their experiences, bringing forth a Spider-Person unlike any other. And in the second film, to defy the patterns and labels set by the institutions that govern our lives, doing things like using fear and preserving an order for some grand picture.

So, I'm pretty sure Gwen Stacy is trans. What does it add to the story? Nothing. Being cis never added much to the story.

But for someone like me, it's doing a lot. It gives me hope.

[lover-of-mine]

Is it weird that when I read The coming out storyline was suppose to be for Eddie, I just got extremely pissed. Like... we finally could have had a good storyline for eddie after seasons of basically nothing and half-assed stuff. Only for it to go to Buck, a character that always has a front-centered storyline. It just bothers me. It wouldnt have killed the show to have just kept Buck on the downlow for a season. But no he gets the storyline, that even tim agrees made more sense for Eddie and Eddie gets whatever the f*ck is happening with Marisol that is just the a non-storyline really. I don't know. It just pissed me off. Maybe Eddie will finally get his due in Season 8, but with the history of this show, I'm questioning and doubting everything when it comes to Eddie. The character deserves better. Ryan deserves better. I'm happy for Buck fans and for Oliver who clear thought Buck was Bi too, but this is just shitty for Eddie fans, cause we're stuck with another bland girlfriend (A homophobic actress at that) and no guarantee that Eddie will every get a storyline like this, if ABC says no. Not to mention a lack of prospect for an actual good season long arc for Eddie if this is already Tim's idea of good writing for him. I just need to vent somewhere, and maybe you understand some of what I am feeling. Bottom line I guess, I'm just tired as Eddie fan of getting the short end of the stick on this show. But maybe I need to have more faith in everything.

Baby really, I think you're super valid for feeling like this, really, I love Buck, I do, but it does get annoying to watch him get yet another huge arc, even more with the amount of focus there was on him last season too. And to hear this storyline was studied to be about Eddie did make me feel some time of way. Especially considering Eddie has yet another girlfriend he didn't want to get he's moving too fast with that adds nothing to the plot because I still don't know anything about Marisol besides the fact that she has a brother, she owns a house, she was a nun (?????) and the actress playing her is a homophobe. I am choosing to believe they decided being grabbed and kissed wasn't the best way to spark the revelation for Eddie and that there is some plan because I don't see how they would greenlight Buck being bi and not buddie going canon and that we are going to see Eddie get his own queer arc. Maybe it will annoy you a bit too because so far I keep seeing this being sparked by Buck and Tommy, so his arc would be attached to Buck in some way, but I think we are getting there with the both of them. The fact that there was conversation about how to make Eddie queer, means they are thinking about how to make Eddie queer, so the idea is there, they could turn into it at any time. I do so so so feel you on the Eddie not getting a season arc, I think I could've enjoyed the catholic guilt angle, because honestly, that's a huge opening to see what else that guilt might be making Eddie do, if it wasn't for the Edy of it all. The focus on saying Eddie is still chasing Shannon, and a mother for Chris, and thinking about who it would be expected for him to date aka a nice latina woman, not someone he actually wants to be with also gives me some hope they realized they have my boy trapped in a closet made of glass. Again, they didn't have to take the "I'm having erectile dysfunction at the thought of having sex with my girlfriend" route, like, that's straight up the gayest thing they could've done to that man and they legit had him have panic attacks about dating a woman, like, who even thought of that? And he could be on his way to learn more about himself considering the "learning his place in the world" comment, he could be about to do some exploring and we could get some satisfying payoff here. I'm hoping for it. Praying and manifesting for it. But Ryan has been too giddy about this season for me to believe nothing is gonna happen for Eddie, yk? So, maybe, we should just keep the faith I guess. But, you're not alone in your feelings, and they're super valid, it is upsetting.

[fandomsmeantheworldtome]

2023 Character Wrap

Share your top ten characters of this year

Tagged by the lovely and huge talented @the-20th-century-girl thanks dear❤️

Furfur - Good Omens series

An obsession for a character and actor that came out of nowhere and i didn't even asked for it😂i was so in love with Aziraphale even before season 2 was out and then this little demon showed up and change everything, i tried to fight back this obsession for him at first "who is that character?"i remember asking myself and why i feel so attracted to him?( You already love Aziraphale you don't need another good omens distraction i replied to myself 😂)" but i could see also the actor behind the character and that actor got me more than intrigued,i needed to know everything about him.The rest is history for me but i am glad i answered the call of my heart

All Reece Shearsmith characters in The League Of Gentlemen,Inside no 9, Psychoville and every other project he's been in and i had the chance to discover and watch it

(please be patient of me i am head over the heels for that man so of course i will add here all his characters 😂)

Choosing an Ollie gif though because he honestly deserves the world

Aziraphale - Good Omens series

Even from the start of this year February i think i was so excited we would have season 2 of Good Omens in summer and i was waiting to see my beloved Aziraphale again,i have an undying crush on Michael Sheen since 2019 and good omens s2 restored that flame to the fullest😂

Renfield - Renfield movie 2023

I am sorry i am not so active now in the Renfield fandom but i still love Renfield and Nicholas Hoult with all my heart

Stede Bonnet - Our Flag Means Death

Stede Bonnet is my sunshine,my sweet baby my fave from Our Flag Means Death but he also evolved so much this season i am so proud of him

Izzy Hands - Our Flag Means Death

Tbh i didn't like Izzy Hands in first season as much as i do now but oh god he had the best character development this season, i love him so much😭

Spock and Christine Chapel- Star Trek Strange New Words

Choosing both of them because their chemistry and arc this season was everything to me and was the main reason i got back watching the second season of Strange New Worlds

Dale Jennings - The Newsreader series

Still in my heart always in my heart,i love Lestat too but Dale is the sweet bi disaster of my heart, Sam is so precious as Dale i can't hardly resist

Tim Laughlin - The Fellow Travelers series

I already had a crush on Jonathan Bailey when Bridgerton first aired but in Fellow Travelers he looks so different,hotter? and so cute i love Tim so much

Ouroboros- Loki series season 2

I will never stop loving Loki and Mobius as characters but Ouroboros was for me the highlight of S2,there were lots of moments where Ke Huy Quan was stealing the scene with his quirk,nerdy sweet funny persona as Ouroboros it would a crime not to love a character like this one

Tagging some lovely mutuals @edscozyblanketfort @neverswungonswingingstars @eames-with-two-roses @almost-born-in-1893 @a4chocolate @amalthea9 @whizbang-cap @gavetheflamingswordaway @lilac-paeonia @parnagfegg @haras24 @9leaguesofmirrors @ollieplimsollsgf @lapis-lazuliie @sherlockig @merry-andrews @coiled-dragon @mandycantdecide @its-all-ineffable and everyone who wants to do it