#i have no idea what to do. the only socialization i get is random queer support groups but getting friends from them

[toonfinatic]

"Surely if i move to the city majority of my friends live in i will see them more often! Surely i will actually have a decent social life for Once!" yeah no i literally get no answer if i ask them if we can meet up and now i'm more lonely than ever 👍👍👍 in one of the biggest cities in the country 👍👍

[poisonheiress]

Vivziepop and Queer Rep

As we all know, many fans and media reps alike have commented on the apparent "queer rep" seen in both Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel with many sighting their MLM relationships and use of Sallie May as proof of Vivzie's dedication to queer rep. Yet for how much this idea is spouted across social media, I cannot say that Viv truly cares about Queer Representation in her shows. The apex of this disagreement comes from phrase that man people seem to not remember when it comes down to queer rep: Representation for one is not Representation for all.

In her hyperfocus on thin, cis mlm relationships, Vivzie creates rep for only those relationships, leaving behind countless other queer identities and relationships that also heavily need queer rep. The largest dismissal of queer individuals/relationships in HH or HB appears in characters that fall into one of three categories, The Fat, Sapphic, and The Nonbinary.

The Fat

When some of you look at this, you may be confused as to what fatness has to do with queer rep, I would tell you that it has a lot to do with it. Fat people are not inherently removed from queerness and have been there since the beginning, the creation of the term Bear is proof of that. This is the first strike on HH and HB's records.

As many other creators have thoroughly pointed out, fat representation is abysmal in both HH and HB with either shows either lacking fat rep completely or having fat characters made using more fatphobic stereotypes than I could count. With this poor managing of fat representation, its no surprise that Vivzie pop ignores all possible avenues of queer rep with fat people involved. This also impacts her presentation of mlm ships with all those in these ships only appear as thin cis men, not a single bear or trans man in sight.

The Sapphic

The second largest and arguably most obvious strike against Viv comes in her disturbing lack of sapphic relationships in both shows. While HH has at least one sapphic ship (Charlie and Vaggie), HH has none to speak of. As a result, Viv's ratio of Sapphic to Achillean relationships is heavily one-sided.

It shouldn't take me having to say this for many of you to realize that you cannot claim to have true or complete queer representation when you ignore a whole side of the queer community. While this issue in sapphic relationships likely tied to Vivzie's smaller amount of women in her stories, this does not excuse it. Having one or two of these secondary characters be in a sapphic relationship (especially Sallie May) be shown or even mentioned in passing (not random background shoots) has having a girlfriend would fix this issue, but we cannot even get that.

The Nonbinary

The final strike against Vivzie's queer rep comes in both shows ignoring the existence of nonbinary characters as a whole. While we get some presentation for the binary trans community (even though most are background characters never seen again besides Sallie May), we have yet to see a single nonbinary character in either show's canon.

This is honestly fucking ridiculous. To ignore an entire gender identity because its easier or you simply don't want to is ridiculous and should strip any claimed queer rep media from their title. Nonbinary people have always existed throughout time in different countries and cultures. To think that they're wouldn't be a single nonbinary sinner or demon in hell after all this time does not make sense.

Trans people on the binary and nonbinary side have the right to representation equally, and even if we were to ignore the concerns about Viv's current trans rep, trans people deserve more rep than random background characters and a one dimensional trans woman.

The Finale

As I end this essay, I do want to say that I wanted to discuss HH and HB's treatment and ignorance of asexuality and aromanticism as they are both highly relevant to the discussion. However, I need to do more digging on Alastor and his ace situation first before I do so in order to prevent spreading misinformation.

But even without this section, I still stand on my belief that neither of Viv's shows should be paraded around as good queer media or as truly supporting queer rep. While HH has a little more leeway with Viv's only sapphic ship, HH and HB still ignore large sections of the queer community. It feels more like Viv is picking at the parts of the community she likes more, grabbing at the more marketable identities and appearances until she has enough to call her show queer.

I hope one day Viv will listen to her fans and critiques about this lack of other queer identities but I will not hold my breath. All that is left to say is that queer people deserve better especially in adult shows and in animation. Picking and choose what queer people you include in your media simply because you like one more is the farthest thing from queer rep.

[missingexaltation]

AU Fic Idea:

In 2022 famous frontman and guitarist Eddie is accused of inappropriate behaviour back in the 90's, at the beginning of his rise to fame (though the allegations are obviously false and easily proven to be false).

However...things get weird for his fans pretty quickly as other stuff about his (usually quite private) life is discovered.

He responds to the allegations on Twitter with just one word. 'Lol'. The internet goes insane, thinking Eddie is just being blasé about what he did, to the point where after a day or so he gives an actual official press release.

'I'm deeply sorry for my initial response to these allegations, however I can confirm said allegations are completely and grossly false. I have been happily married since 1991 and have at no time cheated or behaved in a way that could be seen as cheating, especially with someone underage. I was not in the same country (or continent!) at the time these events were supposed to have taken place (lots of proof available online). Apologies again for being so flippant, but I didn't think anyone actually believed I was capable of doing something so awful.'

His fans immediately are confused because...Eddie's...married? And has been for over 30 years? Social media runs wild because the only proof of marriage they can find is from 2016, and here's the kicker, it's to a guy called 'Steve' of all things.

The only thing they can find from 1991 is a request to change his name, but he's been Eddie Harrington for as long as anyone can remember, certainly as long as he's been famous. Then SOMEHOW the entire 1986 saga gets brought to light, and 'Eddie Munson' and his 'husband' are discovered to have been 'attempted victims of a serial killer', but survived. Hence the scars on his stomach and neck, the internet realises. What the fuck.

This all happens over the space of a week or so, and Eddie's social media is silent (not unusual for the old man, but still... people want answers). The internet is very confused and his music is suddenly being played everywhere, a complete resurgence in his early, very popular rock albums with his band (who have also remained silent).

Eddie eventually goes live on social media and answers a bunch of questions from the chat.

Yes he's married. Yes in 1991 but it wasn't legal, but he still counts it, because fuck the government, that's why.

Yes they got legally married in 2016, on their 25th wedding anniversary.

Yes it's to Steve, yes Steve was prom king at school and really popular, and a 'hot piece of ass' (and still is).

No Eddie wasn't popular, he was a nerdy piece of trailer trash like he's always claimed.

Yes he nearly died, but that was ages ago. Steve saved his life and they've been tragically in love since then.

Eddie (and Steve by proxy) somehow become the internet's favourite queer dads, despite neither of them really being active on their social media or doing anything to promote themselves. Eddie eventually gets a tiktok where he puts up dumb clips of his family and friends, and lots of random clips from the past when he was on tour/recording. Steve's in almost all of them, mostly in the background.

#WheresSteve becomes popular whenever Eddie posts something new, and if he's on live then he has to drag his long suffering hubby on camera so chat will be quiet (they just post lots of heart emojis, which confuses Steve so much because what has he done??).

[joelletwo]

🎉🎉Star Trek Saturday🎉🎉 every saturday at 9:00 PM EST

localized entirely on my blog and yours

remember cable tv? coming home and turning on the background noise machine and sometimes u end up catching a really cool random episode you have no context for? maybe you dont even know the show and can't keep any of the characters straight from scene to scene but it's still doing something interesting that grabs you? well do i have a group dash activity for you!

open for anyone who wants to follow along via dash liveblog to drop in or out at anytime. star trek familiarity isn't needed - this is how i got into star trek! i still frequently have no idea whats going on lol.

pluto.tv has multiple trek channels (we'll be switching between whichever of voy and dsnine is more interesting each week, probably. i miss my wives if im away from either one too long. they also aired in the same time and have some plot/character crossover). pluto is usa-only but can be vpn worked-around. pluto also runs like shit and breaks often. woo!!!!!!!!!!

[my wife dsnine channel]

[ID from alt: odo looking over a ship railing contemplatively, narrating, "nobody ever had to teach me the justice trick."]

the queer polycule of coworkers in the space mall deal with the aftermath of space fascist occupation and the threat of repeated space war. with religious background shenanigans i still dont understand. the ferengi rehabilitation show that fails at that spectacularly. the charismatic as all get out antagonists who genuinely suck show <3 half of whom are jeffrey combs. loves a hamfisted harrowing historical allegory

[my wife voyager channel]

[ID from alt: g1 transformers megs, beautifully lit: welcome home noble voyager]

they want to get back to earth and can't get to earth ): a resistance group and a state military group get stranded on the ship voy together and learn to overcome their differences in definitely politically coherent ways. i got banned from social media for saying what captain janeway did to her cyborg mentee she's teaching to be human again. loves a harrowing "wouldnt that be fucked up if?" psychological labyrinth

come hang out!!!

[mauesartetc]

Have you seen vivzi's tweet regarding the mille situation?

Oh yeah. Though to be clear, it's not just one tweet; it's a motherfuckin' thread (with screenshots below for posterity).

I won't go over this whole thing point by point, but one aspect that jumps out at me is how Viv deflects responsibility from herself onto the viewers. If your audience doesn't fully "understand" your characters, that's a problem. It's your job as a writer to make them understand, and do it in the story you're telling, not on social media. Can't help but see shades of how gobsmacked Fennah was that his audience didn't get how one of his characters represented toxic relationships, despite that character amounting to a harmless, childlike pet.

While Viv's response doesn't demean the audience like Fennah's, it does come off as a tad arrogant, as if Millie being perceived as flat is the viewers' fault, not hers.

The second thing that stood out is the list of Millie's qualities: "She is resourceful, she has strong family ties and memories, she has sibling rivalry, she's excitable and hyper focused." Only three of those are actual personality traits, and I can't even remember her being "hyper focused" at any time. To me, that would suggest working long hours on some kind of project, too engrossed to notice hunger, thirst, or how much time had passed. I guess you could make the argument that she worked tirelessly to become the skilled fighter she is, but we never see that in the show. I'm not even sure how "strong" those family ties are considering Millie didn't even hug her mom when she saw her. Basically, this smacks of telling rather than showing, trying to convince us this is the case rather than letting us see for ourselves.

[Edit 6/10/23 Forgot to mention this tidbit: "we are literally on 3", meaning the third episode. Girl, no. You were literally on ten episodes total, and eleven/twelve (depending on whether or not the pilot counts) with the release of Western Energy. That's way too long to go without properly developing one of the main characters.]

Also, "we found more storylines that influenced Blitz"? You mean you created more storylines with him as the focus. You chose to follow those paths in Season 1. It didn't just happen to you. "Whoops! Tripped over this random plot! Guess I have to use it in an episode!" Obviously Blitzo is the main character so it makes sense that he'd have the most plots centered around him, but it's extremely telling that y'all gave absolutely none of the focus to Millie.

Let's look at the seven episodes of Season 1. Blitzo could be the focus of three, Moxxie could get one, Millie could get one, Loona could get one, and Stolas could get one, and you could save extra story ideas for Season 2. There ya go. Yes, seven episodes is a pretty short season with not much wiggle room to fit all the juiciest stories in, but there's definitely space to tease what's coming. Imply that there's more to these characters and this world than meets the eye. Make the audience hungry for more. This is a fan-funded Youtube series, after all; it's not like any networks or streaming services are threatening to pull the plug if the metrics aren't up to snuff.

Finally, the "this is a male-led show" excuse for female characters being underdeveloped is so weak, especially for an adult show that prides itself on social progressivism. You've got a handful of queer main characters and a trans side character, but fleshing out the women was a step too far-? Y'all are all about spotlighting LGBT stories, but anything resembling feminism that goes deeper than '90s-style "hey, this chick can fight!" girl power? Whoa, that's a bit too much, buddy.

Call me crazy, but shouldn't viewers get the impression that all of a story's principal characters have inner lives, regardless of gender? What is Millie like when she's alone, isolated from her relationships? What does she think about? How does she entertain herself without anyone to brawl with, or anything to hack into with an axe? The show hasn't given us any hints.

Honestly, if you're not good at writing female characters, you're allowed to say that. Yes, it's embarrassing to admit when you're a woman yourself, but if you grew up in a culture that promotes internalized misogyny and prioritizes masculine wants over feminine needs (which many of us did, let's be real), it's understandable. That shit's hard to unlearn. What might make it easier when it comes to characters, though, is what I like to call the Ellen Ripley method.

Challenge, Viv: Write a nuanced male character. Give him strengths and flaws, likes and dislikes, quirks and hobbies, strained relationships and happy ones.

Now make him female.

It really is that simple.

We'll have to wait and see how much that defense regarding Hazbin Hotel truly reflects reality, though if I were a gambler, I'd bet Alastor and Angel Dust will dominate the story and leave Charlie and Vaggie on the sidelines.

[voiceoffenrisulfr]

You Don't Know Me

𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 -> Bucky Barnes x NB Reader

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘 -> Nat’s charity auction doesn’t quite go off without a hitch – but luckily, Buck is on hand to help out, reluctant as he may be. Until he meets you, that is.

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓 -> 1507

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 -> (T) Language

𝐀/𝐍 -> I have no idea. Random fluffy oneshot goodness. Utter candyfloss Bucky, sweetly understanding reader.

Prompts fulfilled; ‘Himbo’ and ‘Bachelor Auction– @buckybarnesevents (Build-a-Bucky Bingo); “I Understood Most of That.” – @fandom-free-bingo (Flight Edition); ‘We Can’t Even Compromise or Not Needing to be Told’ – @julybreakbingo (Pre-July Flash); ‘Social Media’ – @fandombingo; ‘Coming out’, “My pronouns are they/them.” and ‘Queer’ – @lgbtqbingo; ‘I Can’t Believe I Ate The Whole Thing’ – @multifandom-flash Thanksgiving Flash (7026); ‘Awkwardness’ – Gen Prompt Bingo (Here on Dreamwidth) Check it out below, or on AO3 here! Stagbug sticker used in cards from here.

“Not a fucking chance.”

Nat turned her emerald eyes on Bucky’s, wide and pleading. “C’mon, James! Steve got called away at the last minute- we promised an Avenger! It’s all over social media, and it’s packed out there. Can’t we compromise?”

“What about Clint?” he grunted, and she fluttered her eyelashes, sidling closer.

“He’s not as popular as you...” she purred, resting her head on his shoulder to gaze up at him adoringly, earning a laugh from the soldier.

“You don’t want to hand over your boyfriend, more like,” he snorted, shaking his head, and letting out a heavy sigh when she simply continued to stare, a fond smile curving the bow of his lip. “Fine, fine... What do I have to do?”

Her face split wide in a broad grin, and she clasped her hands together, shifting excitedly. “Nothing! Just stand there and look pretty.”

He flexed and stretched pointedly, a companionable arm draping over her shoulders as he wondered what he’d gotten himself into. “Fortunately, that comes naturally to me.”

All of Bucky’s bravado faded as he stood awkwardly on the stage, spotlights shining down on his uncertain grin as his eyes scanned the audience, absently listening to Nat wax lyrical about his many positive attributes (and carefully not mentioning that he was most known in the Tower for his intense nightmares that woke up anyone within three floors). Bucky simply hooked a thumb in the pocket of his jeans, leaning back on his heels, flashing a cocky smirk, his heart pounding a little harder at the sighs and sounds of delight from those in the crowd. He was an attractive man, and he knew it – but that made this process all the more daunting. Since he’d joined the team, the only people he’d managed to date were either chasing the fame, or just interested in one thing.

It seemed that anyone he spent time with had their own expectations of who he was; the problem was, he wasn’t that person. Perhaps he had been, once upon a time, but he’d lived a long life, and times had taught him that just because people found him attractive didn’t mean he had to bed everyone he could.

The unfortunate reality was that nobody seemed to stop and ask; nobody took the time to get to know him, to learn about him and how he worked. Not that he minded, especially – pleasure was pleasure, and if he truly didn’t want to, he made it clear. He simply longed for someone to care.

And yet, here he stood, with dozens of eyes assessing him. It was nice, but…

“Sold! Now, remember the rules, folks. This is a charity auction; keep it clean, or the contract is null and void. Come and collect your prize!” Nat added, gesturing into the blur of faces.

And that’s when his eyes met yours at last, pale blue meeting deep brown, and his smile widened, just a little, as you blushed.

You stood beside him uncertainly, head ducked and fingers knotted together, and he grinned down at you politely. “So… You won me for the evening, huh? Congratulations. It was a pretty fierce competition.” You nodded, cheeks growing darker, and he bit back a chuckle at your shyness. “What did you have planned?”

“I thought you might like dinner,” you whispered tentatively, and his eyebrows raised.

“I- I mean, I can try, I suppose. I’m not much of a cook, but-”

You cut off his stammering with a quick shake of your head, looking up at last. “No! No, I wouldn’t- I meant that… I’d like to take you for dinner. I imagine you don’t get to just… Have a nice meal and some relaxed company very often, so…” You shrugged, toe scuffing the ground, and his eyes lightened as he smiled.

“That sounds really nice,” he assured you gently, reaching out to squeeze your bicep gently with strong metal fingers. “I’d like that…” He paused, head cocked, and you barked out a laugh.

“Oh. Yeah. Uh- Bug. You can call me Bug… My pronouns are they/them,” you added quickly, brow furrowing just a little. There was an edge of uncertainty to your voice, and you winced as you heard it, but he simply continued to smile, nodding once.

“Bug.”

“- and then that couples the neutral stimulus to the unconditioned stimulus to elicit a conditioned response. It’s pretty simple, really.”

Your eyes were bright as you explained the basic principles behind – yet another – training method from your work, quickly followed by your cheeks flushing pink and your eyes lowering. “I- Sorry. I could talk about this forever.”

“Feel free,” he replied, chuckling, his head cocked endearingly to one side as he took you in. “I understood… Most of that, and it’s nice to see some enthusiasm; I don’t get a lot of it in my line of work.” Your eyebrow raised in disbelief, and he laughed. “Well, I suppose that’s not quite true. They’re enthusiastic in some ways, but it’s not…” His hand cycled thoughtfully as he hummed. “… Passion, you know? It’s something they do because they kind of have to. They have these gifts, and, one way or another, they ended up in the team, and that’s… Just the way it is.” His brow furrowed a little, lips pursed, and you leant onto your elbows, considering him quietly.

“You said ‘they’. Like you don’t consider yourself one of them.”

Blinking in surprise, he paused for a moment before nodding slowly. “I suppose not. I am, I guess, but… The only one who really knows me is Steve. And even he doesn’t know everything,” he added with a rueful smile, shrugging a shoulder.

“He doesn’t?” you mused aloud, eyes still locked on his. Your focus was entirely on him – there was no glancing around, no checking to see who saw the two of you together. There was no discreet – or not-so-discreet – flicks of your gaze to the muscles of his chest or his exposed forearms. You were paying attention to him, as a person behind the persona, and he was enchanted.

“I’m not... Nobody- I-” He’d begun quickly, but paused as he faltered, blowing air up to clear the hair that was falling into his eyes as they flitted away uncertainly. “I… Guess not. Does anyone ever know anyone else, really?” he added cryptically, offering you a wry smile. “I can’t believe I finished the entire thing…” The redirect was clear as he nodded towards his empty plate, the heaping helping of carbonara having been eagerly eviscerated by his increased metabolism.

You simply watched him in silence for a moment, head cocked curiously, before offering him a reassuring smile of your own. “How about I tell you a little about me?” you prompted softly, hardly waiting for a nod of confirmation before continuing. “I’m non-binary. Folks don’t always understand that – what it means to be outside the societal expectations of male and female. But for me, it just feels… Like me, you know? Like neither of those labels quite fit right. I’m somewhere in between – or something else entirely, I suppose. It’s just who I am.” He nodded again, his brow furrowed slightly with curiosity, and your lips quirked higher. “I’m also bi… And I’m somewhere on the asexual spectrum – though I can never quite settle on where!” You chuckled slightly, resting a chin on your hand, mahogany eyes locked on his diverted pale ones. “Do you know much about asexuality? I’m happy to tell you more, if you like.”

“I’m familiar,” he replied quietly, still unable to meet your gaze,  and you reached out to squeeze his hand gently.

“I think I’d like to get to know you,” you murmured, smiling a little wider when he finally looked up, “if you’d let me, of course. I think we might have some things in common, huh?”

He hesitated for a moment, then frowned, eyes shifting to your hand on his. “You just want to know the Soldier… That’s what everyone wants. The fame. This,” he added, his tone free from ego as he gestured at himself with his free hand, and you quirked an eyebrow.

“While I’m sure you’re very irresistible to the allosexuals of the world – ace, remember? This,” - you mimicked his gesture playfully – “doesn’t do all that much for me. You’re a pretty man, sure. But… I’m most interested in why you do what you do. You risk your life on a daily basis for complete strangers; I’m curious about what makes someone quite so altruistic. I’m interested in you, James. You seem like a good guy, and I think you don’t have too many people in your life who want to hear about you without all the muscle and cameras.”

He could only stare in surprise, stunned into silence by your short speech, and leant forward, just a little. “I think I’m demisexual,” he blurted quickly, his cheeks colouring crimson at the words.

You simply smiled, fingers squeezing gently around his. “It’s nice to meet you, James.”

[butmakeitgayblog]

Hard to say but I think ADC has been trying to shake the lesbian fandom for a while and for me this puts the nail in the coffin. She's made some truly terrible choices before and I don't blame her for every thing but she's not a messy teen making these decisions. She wants to appeal to the male gaze with her modeling and her thirst traps and I'm not interested anymore. Waste of talent.

I'm genuinely saying this with kindness, I think maybe you need to take a breath and step back here. Because this is reading very parasocial relationship to me, and I don't think that's healthy for you.

She is an actress. She wants to act in wide varieties of things like most actors do rather than being typecast. She has said herself she never even expected to be in the sci-fi/horror genre to begin with, but those just so happened to be the jobs she landed at the beginning of her career. Her moving on and branching out to different kinds of roles is good for her as an actress. It's good for her career and her bank account lol.

I personally find the thirst trap comment particularly raised-eyebrow worthy because the woman barely posts on social media at all. She keeps a very defined line between her personal life and all of her fans, gay and straight alike. She posts pics of herself that she obviously thinks are pretty and chic, mixed between 47,000 pictures of her dinner and random walls. She knows her looks are a commodity in her field because I'm assuming she's not stupid, but beyond bolstering her image for modeling opportunities (none of which have been male gaze oriented at all I'm sorry but they haven't), she's explicitly said she enjoys getting dolled up and looking pretty. I don't think it's fair at all to insinuate a woman enjoying that is somehow doing something wrong or provocative. And even if she is trying to be provocative, why is a woman intentionally being sexy and confident in her looks on social media a bad thing?

As for the wanting to leave her lesbian fans behind, I really have no idea what to even say to that. I don't agree at all. What I do think is that she wants to broaden her fanbase. It makes sense that an actress wants her work to be seen by more and differing factions of people. Again, assuming she's not stupid or blind, she has to be well aware that her queer fans are ride or die (mostly), so.... overall I'm just not entirely sure what exactly it is you expect her to do to show she appreciates the support. Only ever play queer characters? Never have a male love interest on screen? Never take roles that require her to be anything other than chaste? Thank her queer fans in every interview? I don't mean that in a smartass way, I'm just genuinely perplexed by this thought process because what is she supposed to do?

Honestly and truly I'm not trying to be an ass to you here or even dismiss you. I just think that maybe you're attributing some inner feelings you have and are projecting them onto her, when all it really seems like she's doing is just being out here trying to work and live her life

[thumperdaetime]

A Gentle Reminder:

if you feel like you're spinning your wheels, and stuck doom scrolling this week -due to the current political landscape. I highly recommend logging off for a bit and seeing if you have the stomach to call a loved one who has political veiws that clash with your own.

social media and news coverage is fantastic for getting info out to people who want to listen, but it is an ineffective tool for actually communicating with people you disagree with.

I'm not a people-scientist but every time i see "yelling at each other online doesn't actually help" and have the energy to look into What does actually help, experts always say that it's empathetic, long term relationships between people that disagree.

so if you have a bunch of nervous political energy and no clearly helpful place to put it right now:

go call your grandmother. talk about the weather, and the way you miss her cooking. give her a real living person to picture The next time a newscaster talks about the radical-left-mob. if you talk to her regularly consider asking what she thinks about the recent political thing. you're not there to debate or prove her wrong or even change her mind. just listen to someone you love confess their fears, and then share your own fears. you are probably actually on the same side when you get down to it. you both want a safe place to live and the people you love to be happy, (most people do) its just you dont agree about how to go about that.

text your little cousin a random meme, when they send back a thing about how voting is a scam, let it go. share a vine to find out if they know the deep lore. make plans to meet up and play whatever video game they're obsessed with right now. and if the vibe is right and its not going to become an argument, try talking a bit about why the whole not voting movement scares you. don't talk down to them, talk like your two friends who respect each other's opinion (Thats The whole goal actually) ask them why they think its a good strategy, collaborate on other activist things you can do together. included them in your politics instead of dismissing their points.

and its not easy, as wild as it is to think about having a deep but pleasant conversation with your worst Uncle. the fact remains that Your Problematic & Uncle is much more likely to speak up for gay rights. if you can get to a place where you enjoy each others company, and you feel safe talking to him about your struggles as a queer person. and to be fair, you are more likely to take into account the effects of a gun ban on the local wildlife balance, if you sit through your Problematic Uncle complaining about how local restrictions made deer season hard to do last year, and now the tic population is up and the food banks are empty.

divide and conquer is a long standing tactical strategy. and we have seen that fascist in particular like to divide people into a hierarchy of ""real people""" and an ""inhuman enemy"" . when we let their rhetoric turn our peers and neighbors into an inhuman enemy, we can loose sight of what we should actually be fighting for and against.

and if you spend all your time yelling at Doug Nobody who was taking an angry shit when you were typing out that essay, you take energy away from the real fight (the systems and actual active oppressors). the best way to stop that tactic is by standing together with people outside of the box you've been assigned (as much as ethically possible). and refusing to let the system make you perpetuate usless infighting.

When we let the political fandom (yes i mean the media made around politics and not actual political action) act as a wedge between us and people who could have been in our lives, we end up with weaker support groups and less per review for political ideas. it is easy to believe Q-anon if the only people you talk to believe in Q-anon. the same way it is easy to believe that Taylor Swift is a lesbian if everyone you talk to believes Taylor Swift is a lesbian. sometimes we need a person to stop and say "wait, can you run that idea by me again? it doesn't fit my perception of reality"

and Yes. it is probably unlikely at this point to convince someone who has voted one way their whole life to change their political views before November. but that doesn't mean we dont reach-out ever. there will still be politics in September and October, you will still need a diverse support group, and people you trust to bounce political ideas off of. and if you are as worried as i am about this upcoming election, it is very possible that having a community of people who are okay with working together despite political differences will be very helpful in the coming years. (and holding a meaningful, satisfying conversation with someone you disagree with on a fundamental issue is a huge skill to have if you want to take part in alot of activism, community building, or family gatherings)

a quick list of things Op is NOT Saying in this post:

it is your duty and responsibility to do this thing and you're a bad person for not doing it.

this is really easy and everyone should be able (and willing) to take on the emotional energy needed to do this for everyone they know who doesn't agree with them.

watching news or being on social media doesn't help anything.

this is the best way to help and there are no other things you should be doing with your time/energy.

the conversations will be pleasant and/or will always have a positive outcome.

any beliefs i listed together are some how morally equivalent.

you should compromise your beliefs for the sake of getting along with others.

the best answer is most likely centrist because both sides are extremists.

voting this one time will fix all of the things and you're evil if you are conflicted about it.

voting is the best way for a single individual to enact change in their country.

i love the president, and the candidates, and the voting system, and the two parties, and the electoral college, and the bombs, and the genocide and all the death and corruption and violence its all holding up and being held up by.

we should listen to "both sides" to get a fair and balanced picture of the issue

we should let nazis, and bigots, and fascist talk openly about their ideas openly as if its not hate speech calling for violence against marginalized people.

you Have to go reconnect with your abusers and toxic relationships from your past in the hopes you can convince them to vote correctly.

the current political thing that made me make this post is The Most Important Thing!!! that has ever happened in the whole world over all of written history, and we should all be talking about it for forever, otherwise you're helping the inhuman enemy!!!

things are already fucked so theirs no point in trying to get enough votes.

things will be fine and ok if nothing changes and we just keep on this projected path forward.

i know so much and am so smart and I've solved political discourse and if only everyone listened to me we would have world peace already.

Taylor Swift is a wlw

things I am saying. now. here. at the end of the post:

be kind. go look at the sky. i love you <3

[adarkrainbow]

A brief talk about Fables and LGBT

When it comes to works dealing with oe re-creating fairy tales, I always like to take a look at any possible LGBT representation. After all, fairytales became such a monolithic symbol of a heterosexual world with no place for queer people that taking a look at non "orthodox" orientations is always one of the easiest but also deepest subversions of the genre. (There's a whole thing to say about the very strong queerness of literary fairytales from madame de Murat and the knight of Mailly to Andersen and Oscar Wilde, but we'll keep this for later - let us focus on the "popular opinion" and "random Joe or Joane" knowledge that "fairytales are for heteros only").

As such, I had to take a look at the LGBT representations in the comic book "Fables". Being one of the big names and great example of fairytale media, building an entire franchise on reinventing fairytales into a modern fantasy and marking the first American entries into the urban-fantasy fairytale world... And it is very interesting because in recent years "Fables" has come under heavy criticism precisely because of a lack of LGBT representation. You have this numerous series, that spawned numerous spin-offs, and co-existed with other great Vertigo titles filled with queerness (Neil Gaiman's Sandman to take an example)... And yet all people remember of it are "heteros everywhere". Is it true? Is Fables truly as queer-unfriendly as we recall?

This post originally began last year as a catalogue of all the queer characters in Fables... But I stopped halfway, realizing I was exhausting myself by just dissecting every little part of the comic. Not that I do not enjoy it - but I have better things to do on my free time. So instead of making a full and exhaustive list of every mention of non-hetero things, I will rather make some broad and general observations based on my knowledge and reading of this franchise.

If we look at the main series, we can only confirm this popular opinion: homosexual characters are neither primary nor secondary - they are tertiary at most. The only character I remember to have been truly confirmed as homosexual was Moss Waterhouse from "Jack Be Nimble". A very cool character - an intelligent, ambitious, charismatic, slightly morally ambiguous Black, gay and Jewish man who knows he is every minority the old world hates and doesn't hesitate to use it as a weapon, and ultimately gets the fame, the wealth and the power. A very cool character... that lasts a few issues and disappears completely. Beyond that... What do we have? Rose-Red says she had "experiences" with women before - but it is a detail thrown hastily in a dialogue of "Animal Farm", and it is unclear if she is truly bisexual, simply "experimented" in her past, or purposefully had lesbian relationships in her conscious and intense effort to break all the social taboos of the Fables community... I did notice a hairdresser that seems to be a "gay hairdresser" stereotype in "The Sons of the Empire", but after that, the series is a desert.

So, while Bill Willingham recognizes gay people exist, he clearly doesn't want to focus on them or talk about gayness in his plots. In fact, he seems to have been thinking more about them in the beginning of his comic (all the mentions above are from the first third or so of the series), before completely focusing on something else. There is not a refusal of depicting homosexuals, no, there is simply no desire to focus on them or push them forward or tell stories about them (except for Moss Waterhouse, who is a focus-character and one of the main characters of the Jack Be Nimble arc - but a tertiary character in Fables as a whole). [Note: I am only looking at here through the lense of inside the comic, but it doesn't help that Willingham is in real-life an openly Christian and old-fashioned author with some... specific ideas that do not really fit with modern sensibilities, resulting in some of the series' primary controversies, like the handling of abortion.]

HOWEVER! To say Fables is not a gay comic FRANCHISE would be a big mistake. Because while the main series is a desert with one oasis, the spin-offs are BURSTING with gay characters! Well, it isn't a Pride Parade still, but we have prominent, important, front-stage homosexual characters, and gay romances are part of the plots and character growths!

"Fairest" is probably the most gay of all the spin-offs : in "The Hidden Kingdom", Rapunzel is confirmed to be bisexual and a key part of the plot is her romance with a female kitsune. In "The Return of the Maharaja" Prince Charming is revealed to be bisexual and Nathoo (of The Jungle Book) to be gay. And in "Clamour for Glamour" Mary is in an homosexual relationship too... Not only are homosexual relationships openly depicted and primary characters confirmed as queer, but the topic of accepting these relationships is also heavily talked about - from Rapunzel facing the rejecting of a feudal Japan moral system, to Nathoo being afraid of his own feelings and Charming having to explain to him they are normal. What is especially interesting about "Fairest" is that the series seems to go at counter-flow against the main series. For example, Prince Charming is confirmed to be bisexual and to have loved at least a man before... But if I recall well, in the beginning of "Fables" Charming made clear he was NOT into guys, only girls. Another case could be brought up - Crispin, whose "gay-coding" was massively amplified in "Of Men and Mice" - in fact, it is very obviously and strongly suggested by the story that Crispin and the Huntsman are more than friends, given how the Huntsman rushes by his side and refuses to leave his hospital bed after the explosion... It is not openly said, leading to Wikipedia articles to go with the usual routine of "They're just good friends", but the way it is framed and having this "very strong same-sex devotional friendship" sandwiched between openly gay romances, it all VERY strongly implies some homoromantic feelings...

Another spin-off that deserves a good place on this list, but that is not well known (because A- it is the last of the spin-offs and B- it got cancelled due to low sales) is "Everafter", which explicitely confirms that Connor Wolf, one of the children of Snow and Bigsby, is not just homosexual, not just bisexual, but PANSEXUAL thanks to his extensive shapeshifting abilities allowing him to turn into all kinds of sexes, genders and species. And this isn't just told to us by dialogue, but also explicitely proven and shown by having Connor enter an homosexual relationship with one of his male colleagues, Tom Swift (from the Tom Swift novels).

So, what made this "queer boom" in the spin-offs? Was it because Willingham was less present, if not completely absent, allowing other voices to write and speak? Was it because it was "side-stories" that could be split from the "main stuff", and thus there could be more experiments? Was it because these series were made and written in the late 2000s and early 2010s rather than the late 90s, and so these subjcts were more on people's minds? Probably a mix of all that - after all, one thing well known is that the spin-offs were places of free experiments and competitive alternatives, resulting in contradicting plotlines that made the series semi-canons compared to Willingham's main continuity (see the dual Sleeping Beauty origin backstory).

The Fables franchise is not "anti-gay", far from it - I do hold the idea that fairytales are an inherently queer genre and so every work dealing with them for too long ends up showing queer themes at one point or another - even though it is true that the Fables SERIES is very, if not almost exclusively, heterosexual-driven. But the very open and normalized homosexuality, bisexuality and pansexuality of the spin-offs help balance this in the scope of a franchise.

Now, you might say: "Hey, you spoke of queerness at the beginning of your post, but now you're all rambling about sexualities! Where's the transgenders at?". And believe me, it was deliberate! Here is the thing - when it comes to trans folks, Fables becomes a whole other lot of complex topic. I do not know what Willingham's personal opinions of trans people are, and it doesn't really matter here because am looking at the actual created work as it can be received from someone with no knowledge of the author. Here's the thing: while the Fables main series is a desert of gayness, it develops a very strong transgender esotericism through focus on specific fairytale topics, reversal of fairytale tropes, and discussion of motifs that truly work as gender-breaking occultism. This is why anyone who reads some arcs of the main series can easily believe Willingham is trans-friendly (again I don't know if he actually IS, and from the rumors I vaguely heard, he might not be fully okay with trans people, but his work speaks a different language). If Willingham truly is against trans people, than this proves my point above: anyone dealing too much or for too long with fairytales in their work will grow queer-messages and queer-themes, that they want it or not.

On one side, you have numerous shapeshifters in this story who explicitely keep altering and changing their appearances and identities, which brings forward questions of "living into two worlds" (like the cubs, halfway between humans and wolves) or having to choose one identity other another. When this gets mingled with inhuman, cosmic entities and personified natural powers this results to some very interesting gender issues - most famous being the North Wind case. When there is talks of the North Wind getting an heir among his grandchildren, there is a whole discussion about how the North Wind will always be King of the North and of Winter... even if the new North Wind is a girl. Which, as the North Wind attendants say, lets the heir choose if they want to become male to match the title, or stay female while being called "King" - because ultimately the North Wind, being a seasonal and weather power, is above and beyond these gender considerations, and mostly uses them as attributes and titles more than anything of real substance.

On the other side, the topic of names is truly fascinating... Fables being iconic characters of popular stories, feeding off their fame and celebrity to gain power, means that they are deeply attached to their names, that their names are their essence and their being, and that these same names will keep haunting them. And yet... in the second half of the comic, we have numerous characters changing their names. Changes that not only mark deep personal growths and dvelopments, but also are accepted by others and change the perceptions of who the character is. When Flycatcher stops being a low janitor in deny, and decides to become a brave, powerful, messianic king, he returns to his original name of "Ambrose". Similarly, Frau Totenkinder when returning to her true self, abandoning the nicknames and disguises, gains a new identity so that the other Fables do not recognize her and mistake her for another person. And of course, there is how Stinky - who got a name he hated, not by choice - becomes Brock Blueheart, though this is here meant to be more of a religious allegory than anything else. But still - for anyone aware of his transgenderism works, to see this importance and focus on the power of names, of names as defining an identity, and of the changing of names to change who you are... It is hard not to see some trans motifs in the second part of the Fables comics.

But even more relevant, even more obvious, even more trans-coded, was the story of Rodney and June. This arc was the definitive proof that no matter what Willingham's personal opinions might be, Fables was a trans-friendly comic, even if maybe against the author's own intentions, or by accident. [Or again, purposefully if Willingham turns out to be cool with transgenders people, I don't know the guy]. Rodney and June, wood-soldiers, born out of trees, made of wood, part of an entire elite nation and civilization of wooden people... Are fascinated by people of flesh, dream of becoming flesh people, even if others see them as weird freaks and advise them to "keep all this hidden" not to compromise their reputation ; and their story is fully developed and fleshed out (no pun intended) from awkward and failed attempts at imitating and understanding the behavior of flesh-people (things like eating or kissing), to them openly and bravely undergoing a quest to demand that their creator grants their wish of becoming people of flesh, and be recognized as such by the empire they live in... When you read this story, it seems massively obvious that this is a barely-veiled plot for anyone dealing with identity issues and trying to change who they currently are to be true to who they want to be - and more importantly who they feel they have to be. You can't do more trans than that - from the whole "don't tell, keep it hidden" behavior of the awkward friends around you to the secret experiments and roleplayings in the privacy of the bedroom...

In conclusion: Next time someone says Fables is homophobic, point out to them that the comics themselves are not. The main series might not have prominent gay stories or characters, but it has some very strong transgender motifs and characters (accidental or not, they're here, they're queer and people have to deal with it) ; while the spin-offs are bursting with unashamed gay romances and explicit lesbian sex. It is definitively not the greatest franchise when it comes to gay representation, but it cannot be said it isn't a queer comic in its whole.

[foone]

Hi I'm Foone Turing. I've been here a while but never really did an introduction post, so...

Hi. Yes, that's my name. I'm an asexual trans enby (they/them pronouns), I'm married, and I'm both older than you expect and younger than you expect, depending on what you know me from. I'm a writer and programmer. I'm better known on Twitter, at the moment. I'm well known for being severely ADHD and I'm also on the autism spectrum, somewhere near ultraviolet. I live near Oakland, California, USA, but I grew up on a farm in the south. I'm a furry, but I don't have a fursona yet.

I'm big into retrotech stuff, especially floppy disks. 80s and 90s PC stuff mainly, but I have a passing interest in everything else. I loves me some weird tech that you have no idea ever existed. I'm also big into analog media. VHS tapes, laserdiscs, that sort of thing.

Fandom wise, I'm a Trekie from way back, primarily in the TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT era. I haven't yet gotten into the new stuff, and I have only a passing knowledge of the original series. I'm also a big fan of Babylon 5, Red Dwarf, and Doctor Who (4th doctor, and new who doctors 9,10,11). I watch a bunch of British panel shows: HIGNFY, Mock the Week, Nevermind the Buzzcocks, 8 out of 10 cats (primarily the countdown spinoff).

I am a Big Hater on crytypocurrentseas and AI art. I used to be famously mad at the JWST, but now that it's in space and functional, I've calmed down. They just need to rename it and I'm golden.

I'm currently splitting my social media presence across three sites:

* Tumblr, obviously. Shitposting, jokes, queer stuff, and queer joke shitposts are all going here.

* mastodon: I'm putting my tech stuff here. Teardowns, building new death generators, fun historical weirdness.

* Twitter: formerly my primary platform, but now I just use it to keep in touch with people and make fun of the impending collapse of Twitter.

Stuff I do and have done after the readmore.

(I'm on mobile now but I'll get back to this on the desktop and add more links)

* I run lettuce.wtf, a webcam showing a lettuce to see if it will outlast Twitter. (My money is literally on the lettuce)

* my long running site The Death Generator: a tool for making fake video game screenshots, with user supplied dialogue.

* I run some Twitter bots, one of which is more popular than me, and all of which will need to be migrated soon: Gay Cats, WinIcons, Print Shop Deluxe, and Every Clue Line.

* I got Microsoft 3D Movie Maker open sourced

* I got rickrolled so hard that it ended up on national TV

* I ran doom on a pregnancy test

* I have made many horrible and weird keyboards. Keyboards with hair, keyboards which write poetry, keyboards that take 5 hours to say "hello world", keyboards with randomly placed keys, keyboards with 7 toggle switches instead of buttons, and many more.

* I tear down random electronics and try to figure out and explain how they work. (originally on Twitter, but moving over to mastodon now)

* I pissed off the FBI on more than one occasion. They tried to get me fired, they delayed my wedding by over a month, and they mentioned my 4chan nickname in a federal trial.

* I used to work for 4chan. I was a moderator and coder, I created /rs/ and /r9k/, and I convinced moot to destroy the original politics board (for obvious reasons). Things went further to shit after I left, but I am still glad I left. Oh and I also inadvertently prevented the creation of the 4chan dating/meet up site by being too ADHD to actually complete development of it. You're welcome.

* I ran a windows 95 machine for the maximum amount of time. There's a bug where it crashes after 49.7 days of uptime, so I let it happen. I livestreamed the end on YouTube.

* I've done exhibits at the Vintage Computer Festival on the history of floppy disks and optical discs.

* I've worked with the Video Game History Foundation (and others) to preserve old games and game development resources (source code and such). I'm big into archival!

* I wrote a really famous Twitter thread about the surprising way our vision works, which is still circulating in screenshots (including on Tumblr!) something like 5-6 years later.

* I made my old apartment play the Zelda Ocarina of Time shop music when you walked I the door.

* I run the Tumblr animefloppies, collecting screenshots and GIFs of floppy disks in anime.

* I run several other sub-tumblrs for collecting weird things, but I'll have to link them later.

* I am technically a speedrunner. I did the TAS of Duke Nukem 1, episode 1, and a joke speedrun of Solar Winds, where I beat the game by ignoring every single possible objective and just flying to the end, which takes over an hour.

* I used to make games. Some of them are available for download.

* but it still do, too: I'm working on a (currently unnamed) game about managing a dairy farm. Both the developers have ADHD. This is going to take forever before it comes out, if it ever does.

* I'm currently working on three books. Two are compilations of stuff previously twitterized, one is a novel:

- Always Screaming Forever: non-fiction, stories about my career in the tech industry and various other tech/science/history stuff I love ranting about.

- The Other Side of Screaming: fiction. My short stories.

- Mundane Kaya Sona (placeholder title): a linguist gets pulled into an FBI investigation into a car crash. An unknown language leads to the discovery of a wizard living in a forest in Oregon, and an interdimensional plot to smuggle nuclear weapons to another world, and break a cold war stalemate we (the planet earth) didn't realize we were in. I've been working on the setting for this story since I was about 7 years old, and I'm excited to finally get it out of my head and into yours.

* I'm probably forgetting like 5-10 major things I've done but ADHD is a hell of a drug. I'll add more as they come to me.

[n7punk]

"Roses & Thorns" Fic Notes

Roses & Thorns is finally done! It really slowed down there at the end as my life got busy, but I had a lot of fun with it. No playlist this time since I was mostly listening to random stuff as I felt like it.

Epilogue Life:

Catra moves to Bright Moon so Adora can keep cheerleading, which she does professionally until her mid-thirties before switching to cheer coaching for middle schoolers. As mentioned in the epilogue, they get married two years after the show. One day they looked at how much of the tapestry they had done and were both suddenly like, oh, I’m ready to be married. Within a few months they had everything thrown together for the wedding. Someone working with their wedding planner leaked news of their wedding to the press, which is what led DT to digging around and finding their date, but aside from a few tabloid stories like Former Bachelorette Couple Tie the Knot and a carefully curated Instagram post on Catra’s page, the public doesn’t learn much about it. They mostly get added as a statistic to the show’s wikipedia page as a successful relationship that made it to marriage and is still together. Catra slowly transitions into more all-encompassing graphic design work until she follows through on her speculation from Fantasy Suites and starts working with a charity dedicated to providing equipment to hybrid children and schools. She still does other work on the side sometimes, but she’s happy with the direction her career has gone, and she keeps up a sparse public Instagram to make some posts promoting her work — pre- and post-charity shift — and to flaunt the life and relationship that she really can’t believe she has now. Adora’s old Instagram is still up and public but she abandoned it and only uses a private one now because she really just wanted to leave the show behind. Adora and Catra go down as an odd and rare case in the franchise. The show never risks casting an ex again even though it would certainly go closer to the way they intended the next time. The casting directors insist that they knew the love story could work if given the right encouragement and that’s why they brought Catra in. Adora and Catra are always brought up in discussions of odd or adorable Bachelor couples, especially after they get married. They were also, yknow, the only queer couple to come from the show until Melendy’s season, so that made them stand out a lot too. Adora’s seasons did end up being as positive when it comes to representation as something like that can be and she’s proud of what she managed and what came of it in the end.

Chapter 1: Opening Ceremony

⦁ I was, like, really nervous to do this fic. I didn’t want to step on any toes but I really loved the idea so after sitting on it for a few months I decided fuck it, I’ll start writing it just to see if I like it. Once I realized it was definitely going to be a whole fic, I went poking around for socials and found petty_labelle’s permission statement and was like oh thank god XD Obviously some tropes don’t require credit to anyone (celebrity AUs, there was only one bed, etc), but this was a case of direct inspiration no matter how wildly different the fics were once you pass the word “bachelorette,” so I’m really glad they were down for it.

⦁ Speaking of, having to type bachelorette so many times might just have driven me insane. I hate spelling that word.

⦁ Usually the bachelor/ette is cast from the one of the fan favorites of the last season. So whatever girl the bachelor didn’t pick would become the next bachelorette, etc (it isn’t always that clear cut; sometimes it’s a girl that got sent home sooner or a girl from a season further back). In this case, there was an open casting call because none of the contestants from previous seasons who they knew/thought were sapphic were willing to either come back or come out, which is how Adora ended up on the show as a nobody to the franchise but a strong contender thanks to her prominent cheerleading career (and being hot. Let’s be honest it’s a third charisma, a third being willing to play ball, and a third being hot).

⦁ Finding out this show usually films in just 6-9 weeks was less surprising than it should have been but still insane. I thought it was three months since most seasons are 10-13 episodes (I think) (and also the fic that set this off was literally called 12 weeks) but I looked it up and. Nope. So I gave Adora like 7-8 weeks in the middle range. That shorter time range actually worked better for the fic, it’s just an insane premise for the real show. 90 Day Fiancee has more realistic expectations! Come on!

⦁ Okay, I know the women pull up to the mansion in a limo, but for some reason while writing it I thought it was all in different limos which doesn’t even make sense. Anyway, after I verified that I edited the language around it to make it more clear they were coming from the same car.

⦁ I also think the host is usually there to greet the women too, but it doesn’t matter how those greetings normally go in this case, because it was a unique moment and Hope was going to be there regardless so she could partially guide it.

⦁ I also have no idea if someone’s ex coming on the show has any precedent, but I’m saying for Etheria it’s a first.

⦁ “-a dashing magicat’s body” Listen, Glimmer is aware that Catra is hot.

⦁ When Glimmer asks “how could you not tell us” she isn’t meaning in a hurt “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me” way but in a “how did you hold that in?” kind of way.

⦁ Canned phrases I know from this show are “Can I steal you away?” (to get one-on-one time), “Here for the wrong/right reasons” (when someone is ‘suspected’ to only be there to get famous rather than get married), “I want to focus on us” (focusing on your relationship with the bachelor/ette instead of all the other contestants and drama getting in the way), and then something like “Trust the process” (you know, cult mindset cutting out questioning the establishment and contrived doctrines).

Chapter 2: Here of the Wrong Reasons

⦁ That first night at the cocktail party I imagine as being a lot like Princess Prom, with Adora trying to focus on getting to know all these new women and figure out who she has the best chances with but she keeps getting distracted by glimpses of Catra through the crowd. The other contestants didn’t know what to make of it, but the ones that overheard Catra was Adora’s ex told others until it spread through the crowd. The consensus among the women at first was this was a TV thing and they probably didn’t have to actually worry about Catra too much. That slowly changed.

⦁ Damn near every season DT goes undercover at the first cocktail party. One of the lead’s brothers did this as a bartender once and I think it would be an interesting way to gather a bit more info to further their storylines. Because of this, Adora barely saw them on the first night.

⦁ I went back and forth on how I was going to handle the other contestants: if they were going to be the other princesses, or largely a blank mass, or a more detailed cast of originals. I ended up somewhere between those last two. I also considered having the other characters from the show working on set, but when the idea for a watch party came to me (because I really wanted to show what people at home were seeing here and there), that cemented where the other characters would be and left me with OCs for the other women.

⦁ Names came from… All over. I hate coming up with them, so I did the lazy thing and scrolled through the characters list on Wiki Grayskull (I know, fuck Fandom [company], I’m sorry). Elmora is a minor character in the OG series. Veena was Grayskull’s queen in the He-man reboot I saw 5 minutes of in 2002. Serenia is a folk hero in the reboot (and the name of the constellation that helped them locate Darla). Swen is the (fake, but presumably real somewhere else given DTs impersonation tendencies) piano player from the Enchanted Grotto. Faith is a recurring Random OC Name in my fics and also just ironic. Melendy Britt was the VA for OG Adora and Catra. That one is honestly an homage since she voiced like a fourth of the women in the OG series.

⦁ Originally the fic was supposed to roll straight from the first chapter into the confrontation night, but that pacing seemed too sudden and I wanted to explore more of the TV side. Also, Adora needed a horse riding date and there wasn’t one anywhere in the other plans so I put it in here.

⦁ When the horse riding date idea came up I had to be like “wait… could Tali do this?” and that’s when I found out that prosthetic arms have come a lot farther than they were the last time I looked into them. Tali can absolutely go horse riding.

⦁ For years after the show, Adora will joke that being on it was worth it just for the horseback riding day, even when she’s literally holding hands with her wife.

⦁ Storm is the actual name of Catra’s horse in… the toys at least? I’m not actually sure if that made it on-screen in the filmation version but it’s from the OG canon regardless.

⦁ Catra did not intend to sabotage the horse date. At first. She was mad at Adora for bringing her somewhere she knew Catra would be scared, but said fear meant she fully intended to spend the entire date refusing to play ball. That lasted until she saw Adora and Serenia kissing, and especially how excited Adora looked, realizing that if she wasn’t going to play along Adora might turn to someone who was.

⦁ The horse debacle got cut so it looked like Swift Wind just bucked for no reason and it gave Tali and Adora a cute moment together. They could have made it into a whole thing, but once Catra won, they cut the interviews implying anything happened there. The other girls never really knew if anything happened, but the crew definitely did. They caught a little bit of it on camera (although not well), they goaded even more of it, and one of the staff retrieved the crop afterwards as the smoking gun.

⦁ The first group date of the week (horse riding) was mostly people Adora wanted to connect with, the second was production’s orchestration (the softball date that didn’t make it into the fic because Catra wasn’t on it), and then Erika got a one-on-one “because she hadn’t had time with Adora yet” (actually because she and Lauren were making out the night before and Catra was onto them, but only had a hunch, so she could look all jealous and spurned on camera when Erika got picked). Adora also gave Lauren a rose because 1) production told her she should and 2) she actually did want the resulting one-on-one time with Lauren to sus her out.

⦁ Glimmer eating popcorn with chopsticks was actually in chapter one but I was worried people were gonna call it stereotyping or something when I know people who do it IRL, and then I talked to them and they said it’s the superior method so I just stuck it in anyway. I eat popcorn with a spoon sometimes for the same reason, but chopsticks really are better if you can use them, my hands just shake too much to be reliable.

⦁ Melendy was one of the last girls to arrive at the mansion because production didn’t want to muddy the waters for Catra’s arrival. Catra assured them she and Adora were very serious for a long time before it broke bad and Adora would remember her immediately, but they wanted to get that moment of instant shock from Adora with her hopefully not even thinking about Catra’s existence and suddenly being faced with her. If Catra was telling the truth about how important they were to each other, even the sight of another magicat might have put her on Adora’s mind.

⦁ Melendy was supposed to be a potential rival, but in a less orchestrated way than Lauren where she was playing out a storyline at production’s direction. Melendy was an actual potential relationship they thought might stand a chance with Adora, and in that case Catra would have really hated her and it would have been great drama, but Catra could tell from the beginning that while Melendy would be sticking around for a while, she wasn’t exciting or challenging enough for Adora. Which is good, because production was absolutely right about the kind of rivalry they would have had and it would have made Catra look a lot worse than getting defensive over someone “cheating” on Adora.

⦁ I kind of assume bedroom locks are a no-go on reality shows in general because, well, what if they lock the camera out from some drama? But they’re also renting places like the mansion and it seems like those houses would Have Locks and they wouldn’t install different doorknobs just for the show. Idk, but I am saying that if they don’t usually have them they gave Catra and Lauren rooms with locks so they don’t actually kill each other. (Although, conversely, they put Catra and Melendy in the same room partially to up their drama — and partially so they only had to worry about one room that could accommodate magicats).

⦁ I’m not actually sure on the use of mic packs vs boom mics on reality TV. I know there’s pool/beach/bikini dates on the Bachelor though, which by necessity require a boom mic since you can’t put a mic pack on a bikini without pulling it off, so I’m leaning towards them usually using a boom unless a mic pack is required. Initially I had them using mic packs and throwing them out the window, but I decided that was just a little unnecessary.

⦁ I mentioned the window both because of that and as a hint towards how Catra saw Faith getting up to some business.

⦁ Catra looks uncomfortable not because she’s telling the truth, but because she’s finally confronting the fact that she doesn’t want Adora to send her home.

Chapter 3: Can I Steal You Away?

⦁ This and chapter 2 were supposed to be one as I said, but then it got reeeeeeally long, and cutting to the watch party meant reshowing — from the TV perspective — some stuff that had already happened, so it seemed a good place to cut them and use that as a “recap.”

⦁ The “we need to talk” was actually a dub-over that Adora recorded later and they just modified to sound muffled but still understandable. They kind of just barely picked up the “no cameras” part but the rest of the conversation was murmuring at best. Part of how Adora kept from getting in (much) trouble was giving them the voice over and just generally complying with all the fall out that came from it like interviews and reshoots.

⦁ The shots of Catra pacing were in fact reshoots, but that did happen, it was just behind a locked door first.

⦁ Catra was up in the room for close to an hour, only coming down when she thought she might be in danger of missing their chance to talk (or at least making it seem natural). She spent that time having a small crisis over how much she didn’t want Adora to stop chasing after her, even if she was doing it with suspicion.

⦁ I actually have no clue where the bachelor/ette stays when the girls are at the mansion, so I just kind of went, eh, guest house? I know they’re not allowed in the main house without a camera, but it seems like a hotel would be pretty far.

⦁ “I’m not an ***hole who can’t see my ex happy,” that is exactly what Catra told herself she was the whole time, but if she can lie to herself she certainly can lie to the camera.

⦁ The rose reshoot cut from the real footage at the moment Adora went off screen, then to the new footage of her walking up to the vase and selecting a rose, then to real but carefully cropped footage of Catra’s reaction so you can’t see the flower she’s really accepting, and then to a further back reshoot of Catra holding the rose as Adora redelivers her line. They used the initial audio and reactions where they could.

⦁ Melendy was nesting because she was anxious after the Very Weird night. There was also a part of her that said “well, if Adora and Catra patch things up, then I’m out” because she was used to things like this only “needing” one token magicat, but obviously Adora doesn’t feel like that. They did look a little similar in human eyes (IDK if the description of Melendy ended up staying in the fic, but: brown coat, dark brown hair, two yellow eyes, no stripes) so Melendy thought it might also be weird to Adora from that angle if she did end up rejecting Catra.

Chapter 4: Right Choices

⦁ I found out that strip dodgeball exists on the Bachelorette and went, yeah, so I can use that. People didn’t refuse to answer often so “Bare Your Soul” never got too racy, but some clothes did come off.

⦁ Tali just calls Jewel “queer” because he is gay, even though what he realized back in middle school was actually that he was trans. She wasn’t going to say that on television, though, because he wouldn’t want her to. He didn’t mind people knowing he was generally queer, though.

⦁ Glimmer’s comment about Veena not posting proves that she did follow Veena before that happened, because otherwise she would have no idea. She actually followed all of them from the moment she knew the casting but tried to resist the urge to do too much digging on them since the show had already wrapped shooting and her research could just end up taunting her with knowing someone is super wrong for Adora that she then had to watch go all the way to final three. And well… that still ended up happening in a way.

⦁ They did cut the exchange about how the show was crazy, but they did use Catra’s “I’m only here for you” audio for some promos which some eagle-eyed fans noticed was never actually in the show. I’m sure that’s not uncommon though.

⦁ Hope didn’t question Adora’s request for two reasons: 1) Adora actually asked to do it on camera rather than trying to sneak down for whatever it was, 2) if she stopped Adora to ask questions, Adora might think about what she was doing, and having someone in an emotional fugue state usually makes for better TV. Everybody could tell the vibes died as soon as Sylvia implied that she didn’t want to date a cheerleader so it was obvious that Adora was questioning something when she called her up.

⦁ I learned a lot about the show listening to that recap podcast (which covered a few seasons of the Bachelor, the Bachelorette, and Bachelor in Paradise until… that summer), but it’s also been years since I’ve listened to it/it was canceled. I based most of the pacing for women getting eliminated and when hometowns and shit would happen off of the episode summaries for recent seasons I found online. I wasn’t worried about doing it exactly since this is Etheria and it varies between season (see: Clare running off with “her future husband” in episode four), but I didn’t want to do something wildly wrong either.

⦁ My general (not set in stone) idea for the show’s timing was week one was obviously introductions, week two was horseback riding, football, and Erika’s one-on-one, week three had the confrontation with Catra, week four had the coming out date (amongst others), week five had the Sylvia drama and cheerleading date, week six was the two-on-one, and week seven was hometowns. Week eight was fantasy suites, the women tell all happens (I don’t see a lot of people saying they like the wo/men tell all specials. There’s a reason I mostly left it out of the fic. It’s a boring rehash), and then week ten was the long-ass finale. I’ll be honest: the coming out and cheerleading date were supposed to be the same week but I think you’re not supposed to give the same person two dates in one episode. Showing that transitioning perspective from the viewership angle was important, though, so the whole Sylvia thing and an extra week got added in for it.

⦁ Melendy was actually still sharing a room with Catra during the night visit, they just kicked her out before Adora got there and no one brought it up until Adora was leaving and noticed the second bed.

⦁ No one says anything after Adora says she was letting the other girls sleep because she was admitted that Catra was staying without realizing. Now, this was incredibly obvious, but Catra still needed to process it.

⦁ Adora stayed awhile just cuddling and murmuring a bit to each other, but eventually she started feeling really tired and reluctantly left Catra’s arms for her own room.

⦁ Adora sent home Serenia, Elmora, Swen (mostly cut character, but she was supposed to be the main butch rep that season that Adora still kept when there was little chemistry was, again: representation!), & a rando I guess. I didn’t want to introduce twenty women’s names to keep track of, so I tried to come up with enough to have variety in the date composition without bogging things down or getting confusing. You can tell which ones you’re supposed to remember by the fact you could recognize their names going in lmao.

Chapter 5: The Dragon Slayer

⦁ Chapters four and five were also supposed to be one chapter, so I’m really following in 12 weeks’ footsteps with the two-part chapters LOL

⦁ Production was fine with Adora letting a bunch of girls go at once because it was dramatic and she was explicitly doing it to focus on the girls she felt better about (she had actually hung onto girls a bit more than they expected until then), but they couldn’t let both of Catra’s rivals go at once because then there would have been no conclusion to that plot at all and it would have felt really weird from a TV perspective, so they put their foot down on Faith.

⦁ The reason they planned for Catra and Melendy originally, though, was that they did expect Faith to be gone already. Adora cut so many girls at once they had to pick their battles, so they decided to keep the biggest villain rather than worry about the rest of it. If Catra and Faith went on a date together, it would have been fireworks, but at that point it would have been obvious who was going home. Catra and Melendy, on the other hand, would be two girls who were final four material, so people Actually Invested In Adora’s relationships would have been highly invested in the date.

⦁ Originally, Adora went into this chapter with Serenia still on her roster too (she stuck by the rules and let her keep her rose) and Catra, unaware of what had happened between them, included her on the list of girls she gave Adora, in the same category as Melendy. Adora then worried about Catra giving her four names, implying she was ready for Adora to send her home, but Adora couldn’t help offering a rose to Catra anyway, and she was obviously happy to accept. This whole exchange still happens, just with a little less weight since Catra going to hometowns was obvious with only four non-cheaters left. However, last chapter got more dramatic in exchange with Adora taking her rose back from Serenia and seeming to invest in Catra emotionally instead, and I just thought it made more sense for Catra to intend to go through hometowns to really get her message out there before going home.

⦁ Lou (the vineyard owner) is named after Lou Scheimer, a VA for a lot of the male characters on the original She-ra, namely Swift Wind and Light Hope (who was like a sentient beam of light. Listen, just go with it).

⦁ Catra’s allergic to grapes in this because I randomly give her cat allergies when I feel like it and I recently remembered cats and dogs are Kind of allergic to grapes where sometimes One is okay and other times even that is toxic so it’s best to not. Absolutely make sure they never get a hold of a second one, though, and in general you should protect grapes from them.

⦁ Okay, in general, I think the girls are responsible for their own wardrobes, but I do think production probably intervenes here and there, and in Catra’s case she kept wearing suits and the like. For this specific date, DT dropped a hint that she should show up in something ravishing, so Catra borrowed a dress Melendy was saving for Fantasy Suites because she wanted to make it harder to mic her so she could try to get some whispers to Adora. Since they were dropping back home first, Melendy could swap for something new and didn’t mind the loan knowing exactly what Catra was going up against since she told her the night before and Melendy was also mad at Faith for it.

⦁ The “losing focus” comment was both a play on the canned phrase previously mentioned and a reference just for me and my friend.

⦁ Production, in general, was trying to get the clout of a queer season while changing as little as possible, which is a bad call for several reasons, but part of that meant making sure all the women were conventionally attractive and dressed in the way viewers had come to expect. They had all of Three butches on the season, Catra qualifying as one of the soft butches who put her foot down and wore a suit or similar in almost every episode. Adora didn’t mind wearing a dress most of the time even if it wasn’t her usual, but she also insisted on wearing pants sometimes as part of her representation thing (and also just being authentically herself).

⦁ Okay, so villains on the show often end up with a “nemesis” (or just a self-appointed good guy) who eventually warns the lead about their bad behavior. This is the dragon slayer: they don’t win, but they provide a character role and help the lead with things that they wouldn’t know otherwise because production certainly isn’t telling them. This season plays the jealous ex angle at first (for its own drama as they originally intended, and to try to make Catra’s behavior “understandable” once she turns over a new leaf) but as her feud with Lauren grows, Catra starts to seem like the dragon slayer, especially once Adora goes to her for advice on what to do with the other girls. People read that one of two ways: the way the watch party did, or the “oh, they’re not feeling the romance coming back so Adora is going to her for advice like you would with a friend.” This date coming up seems to reinforce the dragon-slayer narrative, but it’s the rare case where telling on someone works out. It helps that what she was telling on wasn’t just something like a hunch about someone wanting to get famous.

⦁ “All this because Catra got horny” Mermista you should see the stuff that happened in other universes because of that. This is nothing.

⦁ I did googling on the spelling of mic as a verb and mostly I got a lot of people with loud — incorrect — opinions. And by incorrect opinions, I mean people saying “it should be this, ‘mic’d’ is stupid,” which is completely missing the point. Language and spelling is not about what “should” be, mic is the accepted term used in the industry. Niche words like this come up all the time and it’s the people who invent those words and use them day in and day out that decide what those words mean and how they’re spelled, not loudmouths on Reddit. Because of all that though, I couldn’t find a consensus. I had to phrase it as “mic’d” though because that’s what the industry says. The people filming wouldn’t have phrased it another way (another suggestion from people on forums online) so I had to find a way to spell it. Consensus seemed to be either mic’d or miked, but the latter does Not look right, so I ended up settling on mic’d.

Chapter 6: Hometowns

⦁ Adora and Teela really had a more kinda “big sister” relationship, but they were both only children and Adora had no concept of family, not to mention they were on a show all about finding romance, so they were kind blinded to it. On the hometown date, they didn’t really talk that much about marriage despite production prompting them around it because they were kind of subconsciously blocking that and also having so much fun together they didn’t question it. Adora wanted to spend time with Teela and thought she was super cool, Teela had a lot of fun and wanted to show Adora all the cool things she experienced and open her up to a new lifestyle she was clearly enamored with, and no one questioned that further because they were getting the gushing confessionals they wanted. Teela’s parents saw such a small cross-section of them they just saw them having fun together and didn’t second-guess it.

⦁ By the time of Catra’s hometown, production had figured out that Catra was going to be final two (even though Adora hadn’t). Adora hadn’t even fully processed that Catra was going to Fantasy Suites with her since Melendy got cut. Production knew they really had to humanize her, which had been a slow shift in narrative behind the scenes the more it became clear Adora was actually giving Catra a chance now, but this was when the scramble happened. They were lining up their editors and ready to get Catra anything she needed for her hometown, even if it ended up untraditional. This was their mold-breaking season, after all, and even though they followed the formula pretty well for most of it, there were some big moments, and this ended up being one of them.

⦁ I’m like 99% sure volunteer dates have been done on the show before when the star was an activist or something but I can’t think of any examples so I can’t back that up. Either way, it’s definitely not common, but it was Catra trying to get a positive message out there, like she talks about in her Fantasy Suite.

⦁ Adora weird texts were because she needed Glimmer to at least be open to being in Catra’s corner considering the bombshell they were going to get later.

⦁ Usually hometowns are for sussing out 1) if someone is being real with you because what their families are like and what they say around them tells you a lot, 2) if they’re ready for marriage (it seems like every season there’s someone in the family who tells the lead their child/sibling/nibling/etc isn’t ready for marriage or doesn’t seem like themselves around them), and 3) if you’re really in love. Sometimes people do get left dramatically mid-hometown (like the one in season 19 where the bachelorette realized she wasn’t ready to meet his family when she got there and left him on the street to VISIT THEM ALONE comes to mind oh my god. Like she wasn’t wrong to not lead him on but that sucks. I found out about this after writing the Melendy shit btw lmao) but usually someone is only cut at the end.

⦁ I didn’t include Tali’s hometown, even though it could have included some good angst, because 1) I really wanted to end on that line about disappearing into the trees, 2) all the internal debate Adora had during it was just a Less Aware™️ version of the angst from the Final Rose chapter so it felt repetitive. I know that made it “more obvious” who Adora was going to choose but… if you didn’t know that from chapter one I can’t help you.

Chapter 7: Fantasy Suites

⦁ The conversation during the watch party speculating about the order the show was using for the girls is kind of the prelude to them picking up the subtext in chapter 9.

⦁ The mentions of their final dinner tie into a cut scene I might post separately, but then I came up with new context which is my actual in-universe explanation: their first date didn’t involve dinner. However, there was a family restaurant the football team would go to for victory dinners sometimes, dragging some of the cheerleaders along, and of course wherever Adora went Catra did too, so they had eaten there before, just never on their own.

⦁ It wasn’t until I was editing this scene that I realized you might not know what the date cards are if you hadn’t watched the show but like. I was too lazy to add an explainer lmao. I’ll do it here though: basically the host (or the lead) gives out date cards every week with a little ~teaser title~ on it and the list of names for the people going on in (for instance “Bare Your Soul”). Kinda punny/foreshadowing names like that come up. For Fantasy Suites, it’s basically a card inviting them to go up to the Fantasy Suite together.

⦁ I was picturing a specific hotel in Thailand for their resort, but I don’t know what this hotel is or when or how I saw it. I remember seeing video touring the whole thing at some point though. Anyway it quite literally backed onto the forest with monkeys running all over and stuff. I don’t know what the technical difference between forest and jungle is but my brain says if there’s monkeys and a bazillion percent humidity it’s probably a jungle.

Chapter 8: Interlude

⦁ The reason Light Hope is the host and not DT is two-fold: 1) I cast Hope for the host/producer role because of her manipulative role in canon, before my brain caught up with the fact that hey, this is reality TV, why isn’t DT here? And 2) the in-canon reason is DT needs to manage all these story lines, which means they are the one that needs to be available off camera at all times to prod someone at just the right moment or manage things to create dramatic moments, and they have more opportunity for that if they aren’t the one hosting. I did consider having them be the host of just the Wo/Men Tell All special, but tbh Adora would have accidentally blurted out spoilers if DT was around to goad them so it had to go this way lmao.

⦁ I watched a bunch of Bachelor/ette anouncements on YouTube (again, having never seen the show, recaps usually sum it up as “[the host] announces [x] is our new Bachelor/ette”) and wow there is no consistency to them. Almost every single one was a little different and set up differently, but a common model was “Your new bachelor/ette, [x]” followed by applause as they walk out in evening wear, so I went with that but added in a bit like the contestants normally do when coming out of the limo because that felt fitting both with the franchise and with the fact that this was Adora’s introduction to the franchise. In the announcements I saw, not once did they use a last name because everybody watching already new who “Joey” or whoever was from watching the season, but again, Adora was brand new to the franchise, so a full name and bit made sense for her.

⦁ Deena was one of my “potential names” that I didn’t end up using/needing, but it was some… IDK, Twiglet or NPC or something in the original. The real reason I picked it is because I has used “Dee” as a random generic background character name before (for those curious: it was in OTOS’s sequel, BYLM).

⦁ I know the show has discussed stuff that happened on Instagram and shit repeatedly so I decided they would probably be willing to acknowledge things that happened “off camera” if they were important and alluded to in the show like the cheating.

⦁ A lot of people were speculating on who the “other two” on the camping trip were but the real reason it was a four-bed cabin is I’ve never seen a three bed cabin XD The ones at the park near me are all four-bed in the sense they all have two bunk beds lol. It were just Adora, Teela, and Catra.

Chapter 9:

⦁ I don’t remember if I ever said this in the fic at this point, but Catra has short hair in this one because she gave herself a dyke cut after coming out to rub it into Weaver’s face.

⦁ Adora was picking up on the vibes and griping about it, but Catra said she wasn’t bothered and then climbed in Adora’s lap to “distract her.” And yeah she was too distracted for Glimmer’s next text lol.

Chapter 10:

⦁ There was voice over as Adora went through the ropes and their meanings both explaining some details on what they meant (since the concept is familiar, but in a mostly abstract way, to mainstream audiences). The narration talked about how important the tradition was to Catra and how Adora could never take her this far and not look over the meanings. It made it kind of ambiguous whether she was legitimately considering the ropes or just showcasing this thing that was important to her once-best friend.

⦁ Adora looks at the camera after Hope mentions keeping Melendy because she’s thinking about Melendy (potentially, she would totally understand if she wasn’t) watching along at home and what she would want to say to her that she didn’t get to before.

⦁ Hope’s “sometimes you follow your heart” line is 100% canned and something she regularly regurgitates from a script when the moment calls for it. In this moment, however, the follow-up was a quiet disapproval for picking Catra. Hope was never going to directly interfere with Adora’s final choice — it seemed obvious that Adora had to decide independently or the relationship was going to blow up fast and make them look worse than Adora picking the “wrong” option for their preferred narrative — but she still didn’t want Adora to pick Catra, so she has occasionally let slip something to that effect in private conversations off camera. Usually not to Adora, but Adora has long figured out what production actually wanted out of the season.

⦁ The camera suddenly cut to Adora and Tali after Tali mentioned Catra because Hope twitched from someone spoiling her show (even if like, come on, everyone knew Adora was going to ask Catra Something and Catra would say yes). There quietly controlling her inner rage was something Adora could detect after working with her for so long, which is also why Adora was giggly (well, that and relief). That’s also why Hope was so aggressive jumping back into the conversation, because she was trying to take control of it again.

⦁ Adora looked more serious/neutral because she had her whole speech prepared about the things they needed to work on and the fact this was, in essence, conditional, so she was gearing herself up for that and didn’t want Catra to think that she was ignoring everything she had planned to do.

Chapter 11:

⦁ I went back and forth on Catra’s phrasing following the “Rebuild with me?” because Catra’s response doesn’t work as well from Glimmer’s perspective, but it’s so important for her to respond like that because it’s Adora saying “Rebuild and try with me” and Catra saying “Yes, I want to change” so I kept it.

⦁ Adora told Catra about the whole ropes debacle that night and Catra was both annoyed — at production, and sy how much the delay made her worry — and found it funny. After Catra pulled her into the limo following the proposal, they went back to the hotel, packed up, and Catra joined her in her suite again that night before they had to fly back home at 4AM. They did some catching up and making out but mostly they just held each other and were Done.

⦁ Okay so they haven’t told their therapist how the show ended, it’s just incredibly obvious. They’ve told her they can’t legally tell her anything that happened until after the corresponding episode has aired, but then they’re going to therapy to build a healthy relationship together and work through past obstacles like Catra’s jealousy and Adora leaving her behind and expecting Catra to follow her along — especially since that’s kind of still happening, only for better reasons now and when they can both be more mature about it — so it’s kind of really obvious what the end result was lmao. Their therapist watched two episodes for context but with how heavily edited it is, it wasn’t actually that helpful.

⦁ I never brought up their jobs because… they weren’t working for months lmao, but Adora works for Angella as he day job so she could get the time off and at the start of the fic Catra is a graphic — and website, to some degree — designer primarily working for Entrapta’s robotics business, though she does work on the side for other clients.

⦁ Glimmer’s ambush wasn’t actually coordinated, Perfuma just saw it happening at a volume that seemed calm and quietly assisted letting it play out. She wants them all to have healthy relationships now, but she wants to protect her friend too.

⦁ This final chapter took so long despite being written before I even posted chapter 9 because I knew something was missing from it but I’m so busy I’m kind of creatively stalled out so I couldn’t really pinpoint what vibe was off. It turned out to be a rehaul of the confrontation and adding in the party scene to have a bit more closure on that angle since it felt like Glimmer accepted it too quick for her. It allowed circling around on the marriage aspect before the final scene too. It ended up making this the longest chapter of the fic though.

⦁ Melendy… deserves a break. She left Adora’s season knowing she had to focus on her own happiness and getting to a good place with her family. After her parents drove Adora away, she had a fight with them about them preferring to ruin her happiness over it coming from something they didn’t approve of. Things were really tense with them for a while but they started trying to work on being more open so Melendy would be comfortable sharing her life with them even if it didn’t go how they wanted. When Melendy had a few awkward dates that didn’t work out and then eventually decided to go on the show again, they were hopeful that they wouldn’t have to confront any of it further since she was going on a man’s season. Obviously that didn’t work out, and it was upon meeting the bachelor and him being a lot less concerned with things like Melendy’s ear positioning that made them face themselves a bit more given how parallel the situation was to how they met Adora. Melendy sat them down and had a really long talk before her season about how she was going to have guys and girls on it and they had to be prepared to meet and support both in the finale or be prepared not to be there at all. They tried to open themselves up to it more. Melendy was really excited about being the bachelorette and having one last shot at happiness. Despite being near all the manufacturing of the show twice now, she believed in the love story still, and she was the kind of person who liked structure around dating. It was easy back when she was in school, but once it was down to meeting random strangers out in the world and on dating apps, she struggled with it a lot more, so she really thought the show could bring her happiness if she gave it one last chance as the lead. It did, btw. Her final three were Duke, one of the fighting girls, and another girl who was kind of a surprise to her but things suddenly started to heat up with her near the end. Duke pulled an Idiot and basically eliminated himself when one of the producers talked him into going to her after their Fantasy Suite and telling her on camera that he wasn’t comfortable with her sleeping with the other girls. Melendy was seriously considering him and might have been willing to decide on him and make that concession if he brought it up in the privacy of the Fantasy Suite, preferably before they had sex so she could really consider the whole picture without a fucking camera on her. It felt manipulative — probably because he was manipulated into doing it when a producer caught him stewing over the upcoming dates — so she told him she wasn’t making that promise and they parted ways really tensely. He basically knew he was going home when the next girl stayed the night with Melendy. There wasn’t any dramatic early exit, which gave him and some of the viewers hope, but it was an eventuality when she gave the roses to the other two girls. Her parents were disappointed, but they’d prepared themselves for this situation and were a lot more open than they had been with Adora. They ended up endorsing the surprise contestant — half because she seemed really sweet, and half because she was a magicat — and Melendy was thrilled to make that decision with her parents’ support. She wanted to be proposed to, so the girls went with it, and though Melendy personally would have been happy either way, the surprise girl passed her parents’ final test when she brought ropes rather than the ring the other girl picked out (which, to be fair, she did knowing Melendy was okay with it since she was unsure about the rope thing in general and asked Melendy about it). They have a much more whirlwind married in nine months kind of relationship the producors are really looking for, but luckily it worked out for them too.

Original Outline:

This fic was originally a lot shorter. Basically, I had a few big moments and then not more plan of what (if anything) would go in between. The original idea was the limo entrance, cocktail party confrontation, the coming out Bare Your Soul date, a later addition of the vineyard date, Catra’s hometown, and then Catra’s fantasy suite, the ropes, and the proposal.

Originally, it was a lot more ambiguous how Catra was feeling about Adora until the Fantasy SUite. She was a lot cooler to her throughout it and they didn’t get stuff like the soft moment late at night in Bright Moon that they ended up with. In the original outline, Catra’s plan was a bit more manipulative, with her original (conscious) idea being to try to make sure Adora got her heartbroken however she could, even if that meant luring her in again and breaking her heart at the end herself. That lasted about five seconds, and as I thought about the idea I realized that wasn’t really how I was picturing the intent or function of Catra’s plan, but it did mean I lost the line of “The plan was to break your heart on national television.” I did my best to get something close because I loved that line.

Catra was also supposed to be a lot more cagey after the reveal because she held onto her plan for longer and thus had a harder time sorting out the actual feelings she buried beneath it, so she couldn’t say what she did for the show and what she did for her plan or when she stopped trying to hurt Adora, but when the plan softened, so did the fallout from it too. The show was then supposed to roll right into the ring/rope selection with Adora’s time with the final girl specifically not shown but its absence making it clear she didn’t make up her mind regardless of what happened in the Fantasy Suite, but it needed more fleshing out by the time I reached there in the story, especially since I knew who the other girl was at that point. The fic was supposed to basically end with the proposal, but I couldn’t have stopped there once I reached it and it wouldn’t have been the right call anyway lol.

Upcoming:

I might have more meta coming for this (see: cut scene mentioned above) but aside from that I’ve got some ideas competing and a low creative pool at the moment so I’m not sure which fic will be next. I’ve got some fun ideas and some specific ass weird ones.

[aterribleinfluence]

about me !! ★⋆.　✭　

i realized i never did a proper about me so this is my introduction post!

jailedmoonshine ♡ toppedbykakuna

hello!! you can call me alexis or lexi !! i've been a phannie since easily 2013 and i've been using danandphilgames as an emotional support crutch since the gaming channel went on hiatus, so i'm SO happy that they're back and i'm SO happy to be back in the phandom!

i try to tag as much as I can, personal posts will be tagged as #lexis thoughts and any posts about anything other than Dan and Phil will get the #not dnp tag!

♡ ˚₊‧⁺˖⁺‧₊˚ ♡ ˚₊‧⁺(🔴▶🔴)⁺‧₊˚ ♡ ˚₊‧⁺˖⁺‧₊˚ ♡

i have a youtube channel where i make dan and phil compilations! you might have come across dan and phil reminding us that they came out of the closet , or perhaps the week after christmas where i made a dan and phil compilation video daily that i lovingly called Chaosmas ! if not, you can see my recent compilations such as DanAndPhilBAKES or phil's top gaming moments !

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i'm a writer! i have a creative writing degree, a handful of poetry publications, and one selfpublished fictional novella about a young trans girl beginning her transition (it was my first book and i wasn't quite sure what i was doing, so you can only see it if you ask really, really nicely), however i do have two physical poetry books that i wrote and created myself, called incoherence and resilience! incoherence is an honest look into an often unspoken form that ocd can take in a person's mind, and resilience is a handful of poems showcasing the beauty of the queer community. more information about them down the post, or click the links for more info!

i am also dipping back into fanfiction! i'm currently working on a Phil!Vampire AU where Dan is his oblivious roommate for over a decade without realizing he's a vampire, it's gonna be a bit dark and a bit weird and a bit sexy but i think that's the fun of fanfic right? i'm also gonna start a handful of random story ideas and see if any of them speak to me so be sure to keep up with my ao3 account!

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i have a patreon and a ko-fi! i am currently unemployed (and not making any money from my compilations) so any support is hugely appreciated! i am also a poet and an author, any supporters are free to reach out for a free copy of either of my poetry books, incoherence or resilience (click the link to jump to the post with more info!)

i'm taking compilation commission requests! feel free to request anything within reason on my kofi or patreon and i'll dedicate the video to you and your preferred social! i'm still working through a few youtube comment requests, however any payment will get priority! ♡

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if anyone wants to be friends on the switch hello i love playing on my switch pls add me! if you play animal crossing, mario kart, smash bros, fall guys or honestly any switch game, come be my friend lets hang out! i'm happy to add discords or snapchats!!

if you made it this far, thank u for ur love and support! i've been having a lot of fun doing this so far and i'd love to keep doing this as long as i can, so be sure to follow for updates on my fanfics and poems, plus i'll be posting new compilations relatively weekly so subscribe over on youtube to see them when they come out! i'm always down to chat or answer questions, my ask box is always open so feel free to come chat!

[bnnuy-wabbit]

Cunospig -> bnnuywabbit

Name's Lago. I'm 22.

My art tag is #feral art tag

I'm prone to note spamming mutuals! I personally love being note spammed. It's a love language. To me.

If you happened to stumble upon this blog, you Must Know that I'm obsessed with many things, such as FNAF and my own OCs as of writing this post!

I'm Brazilian. As in from Brazil. As in Born There and Living There till my eventual demise, possibly. If you also happen to be one of those or adjacent, feel free to hit me up. É nois 🤙

I treat my blog as an open diary sometimes. There'll be cool things about my life and things in excited about and things that make me upset and general life shit. I also talk a lot about my little brothers endeavors because i love him and he's my little creature. If this bothers you, i recommend not following. Also this blog contains adult stuff because im an adult, follow at your own risk and/or pleasure 👍

More info under readmore!! But only if you feel like it.

Other than the aforementioned, i have Many other interests that Can and WILL show up here, like:

My OCs and worldbuilding

Portal

Half life and hlvrai

Disco Elysium

Stranger Things

Homestuck

Whump stuff

FNAF

Literally whatever show and game im currently watching or playing.

I'm also VERY into music. My favorite genres are 00s pop, industrial metal, heavy metal, classic rock, folk and mpb. I love learning more about music and getting to know new music genres. Feel free to pop some in my inbox.

Random info: I use emojis abd smileys unironically. I just love to pepper my texts with some emotion here and there. I promise there's no sarcasm associated to my emojis and smileys. If i send i smiling smiley i Mean It. I also add !!!! To them if I'm particularly excited. Tone tags are confusing to me, I don't use them.

Regarding The Me: I'm queer and weird about it! My gender is completely not my business, it's up to you to gender me haha also I'm an Artist and creator at heart, so i draw a lot, i like sculpting things with clay and foam, i love doing collages, i like playing my guitar and sometimes i write fucked up things for fun because it's Fun, tho i wouldn't call myself a writer. I'm diagnosed audhd. I'm weird and not in a cutesy way sometimes, but at least I'm funny about it i think!

I'm a year one med student with a background in AG/rural sciences (vetmed + fishing) which ig is kinda funny. The funniest thing about me is I'm an honest to god fishing technician. I have a fucking diploma in fishing. I have no idea how or why, it still baffles me!! I have plenty thoughts on the ag/fishing field as a whole and a bit of experience with Some Things. I've worked in a few labs and written and published a few papers and I've wanted to be a Real Scientist when i grew up since i was a kid :)

I'm REALLY shy, but please feel free to send an ask asking for my discord if you'd like to chat. My messages are off for nonmutuals because I grew tired of getting spambots. One thing i MUST state upfront if you'd like to talk to me and be friends: i likely have a personality disorder (avpd, extreme anxiety regarding Connecting to People) but I'm working on it! I'm trying to get better at talking about myself and my interests and socializing, so don't blame yourself if our conversations fall flat. Talking and initiating conversations with people is Hard, but I'm alright at keeping conversations going if you tell me about your likes and dislikes or if you wanna do small talk! My cheat sheet is: Talk to me about your favorite weather, your timezone, what you like learning more about, about your country and culture or your favorite types of music and your favorite bands! Tell me about yourself, please!!! I'm told i can be really cool to talk to if we get to know each other, I'm told I'm a very trusting, agreeable and judgementless individual. I'm eager to make new friends and learn more about people and we'll bond over something, I'm sure 🥰.

I think that's about it.

Updated: 15.may.24

[ratedn]

Welcome!

About Me

Hi! I'm William, I also go by the name Willow and Will, use any of the above that you prefer. I will not reveal my age (except on accident if I accidentally date myself), asexual but bi-romantic and absolutely hyper fixated on the idea of love. I'm also neurodivergent (no clue where I lie on the spectrum but differently not normal) I do have ADD, and yes I do forget where I set things down. I have a deep interest in psychology and love meeting people who's brains are weird like mine!

My Interests

I have an absolute mess of interests, and they frequently change. Currently I am having a great time fixating on playing tennis, Minecraft, and acting. I am a stage performer who tends towards playing young boys or authoritarian rulers (weird, but that's theatre). I am also an aspiring blacksmith and engineer.

As far as Tv shows and other media, I am in love with all of Vivziepop's creations and absolutely adore hand drawn animation, especially when it is done by people with passion. I also like audio dramas such as Hannapocalypse, The Road of Shadows, and Midnight Burger.

My Projects and Posts

Currently I am leading work on an independently developed game called "Morti's Quest for Individuality" which is about an anthropomorphized mushroom that is separated from its colony and then has to learn what it means to exist as a singular entity. Along his journey he ends up creating his own colony which will lead to a final plot point. (Secret). It will be a two dimensional game that heavily features pixel art and dramatic story telling. If you are interested I may occasionally post art updates and (hopefully) a link to the beta at some point!

Additionally I am working on developing a TTRPG called "Hearthside Havoc" which is an adventuring game where you are always a commoner and never level up. The gimmick of the system is that death is always a real possibility and that the only way you improve is by acquiring better gear. Once I get it to the point it can be tested I may try to generate interest by posting about it here.

Finally, most of my posts will probably be reblogs of stuff I like or support, and occasionally random thoughts

Project Socials

For those interested, as my projects develop more of an identity I will link their specific pages here.

@your-stupid-face-the-book - This is the project page for my teen romance drama. It's about as cliche as it gets, but it does have a lot of queer representation

@signed-in-blood-the-book - This is the project page for my teen horror setting which revolves around Goetian magic (although the actual rituals are altered because God knows one of you would try summoning a demon). This one has several QPRs, several heteronormative relationships, and general queer representation. (We got Ace, Aro, and Aroace so tune in for some good representation!)

[drdemonprince]

Hi! I've recently been getting into fashion and I need some advice. Specifically, I (queer trans man, American) really like the look of like. Men's leather bondage gear, and I want to try and incorporate that into my outfits to look cool, but at the same time I don't think my sexuality is anyone's business and I don't really want to be advertising the fact that I'm gay to everyone who sees me. Also, I don't want to be dressed innappropriately. My logic is that if people can wear chokers in public, there has to be some level of leather gear that is appropriate and not immediately obvious - do you have any ideas of what that level is?

I actually have an article on this! To wit: I think because of homophobia we hypersexualize a lot of gay men's fashion despite the fact that when we look at high fashion designed for cis straight women, bondage gear is absolutely fucking everywhere.

Leather, rubber, and bondage gear are an important part of queer history. Harnesses, collars, pup hoods, leather jackets, heavy boots, and handkerchiefs are all associated with sex, but they are also all cultural signifiers and articles of clothing. And they're all articles of clothing that you'd see on the runway or on a goth at the mall and barely blink at. The only reason we see these things as inappropriate is because of the growing moral panic surrounding gay people's sexuality, and our culture's particular bent toward hypersexualizing gay men.

(you'll notice in this essay that I say sexualizing leather is just as absurd as sexualizing drag. Just three years after I wrote it, we now live in a moment where drag queens are routinely painted by conservatives as being inappropriately sexual around children. This is the path we go down when we try to filter our sexual expression to placate conservatives who accuse us of being groomers. They just keep taking more and more away from us, because it's our very existence that is inappropriate in their eyes, not "how far" we have gone.)

A leather harness is no less appropriate for public wear than a promise ring or wedding ring. They're both symbols of the culture a person belongs to and that culture's standards regarding gender and sex, as well as a reflection of the person wearing the article subscribing to some extent to that culture's value system. I wear a collar nearly every day and that might put some sexual thoughts or hang ups in the minds of random people who behold me, but I haven't done anything to violate another person sexually by openly being myself.

I would also apply this same line of thinking to fursuits, by the way. Furries do incorporate their love of anthropomorphic animal people into their sex lives, consuming porn with anthros, pretending to be animal people during sex, or even having sex in their gear. But that is because being a furry is an important part of who they are, how they express themselves and who they find community with. And so, because being a furry is so important to who they are, they also incorporate furrydom into many many elements of their lives that are completely nonsexual: socializing with friends in their suits, making new outfits and accessories for their costumes, performing in their fursuits at furry talent contests and for tiktok.

A furry dancing around in their suit is no more sexual than a straight man dancing on tiktok with his wife. And a gay man wearing a harness, collar, leather chaps, or hell, a rubber tail on his belt is no more inappropriately sexual in public than either of them.

[thegatesofinfinitespace]

you. grabs you. popular/staple dishes and/or cuisines in Soul-Bound. how do these vary by region? what about culture? what about class/status -- is there a difference? what is considered a delicacy or luxury food item?

DISHES ASDASDSADASDASAAA

Okay! So,,, to start: the current timeline of Soul-Bound is a lot like that of our modern-times, but with magical elements added in. That means you see a lot of the same foods and meals that we do in our own world and countries (ex: Vesper is technically Welsh, on his mother's side, so he enjoys those kinds of dishes).

The cultural system is similar, with minor differences in how society treats itself more than the foods they eat. I'd say that this concept is common with most of the works Kara and I make, since we'd prefer writing societies where social concepts like queerness doesn't really get mistreatment and confusion, it's just a staple of life and thus does not matter to the environment as a whole. Being a shapeshifter and being trans is like. Basic. There's no hate against whether you like the same gender or something else, gender is a loose concept anyways, you get the idea.

Tangent aside, random foods from pizza, ramen, beef wellington, pasta, to salsa and chips, brownies and cake-- all these things still exist and are still made regularly, but! The biodiversity is what has changed. The ingredients are more diverse. There are plants and animals that may have gone extinct or don't exist in reality, that still exist in Soul-Bound.

So while the recipes and foods conceptually are very similar to the foods here per region, what goes into them may change more so than their general makeup. For instance, a meatloaf, but one of the meats is ground griffon meat compared to simply beef may occur due to a population of said creatures nearby.

(I only recently got into Dungeon Meshi, but I'd say that what ingredients are used in that series are very comparable to Soul-Bound. Things like regular iceberg lettuce exist and can be used towards food, but you could also say, use mandrakes to make up your salad too. As Kara puts it, "You make a familiar recipe with unfamiliar ingredients.")

As for what cuisines are considered delicacies versus normal, that absolutely matters on your species. I'd say humans are the most adventurous in terms of eating odd foods, but demons will eat anything yet absolutely adore things that have an insane level of magical potential in their makeup (souls, being the most obvious thing here, but eating the spells from a grimoire is equally something appetizing for them).

Cannibalism is also, a thing too in terms of like, not everyone has the response humans do to eating their own kind. Some are like snakes and don't think twice about eating other snakes, a demon sure doesn't care about eating other demons. Mers will eat fish despite being half fish. It's also abhorrent to do this with some species and totally fine to others, even varying on the individual level.

Eating another intelligent species sometimes doesn't matter; though it can become dangerous depending on the properties. Something can still be toxic to one species but not to another, and sometimes there are bonuses to eating certain cuisines. A human eating a mermaid's flesh could achieve immortality, but also said human could turn into a grotesque undying monster that lives forever in eternal agony! :) You never know!

Class and status affecting foods also depends entirely on the species too. Centaurs, being larger creatures, may have trouble traversing cities, and thus 'richer' centaurs may value such casual things as human street foods as something that could belong in a high end restaurant. Mermaids may like sushi and land-based meats because how the hell do you get beef in the ocean??? Fae may only enjoy fruits grown from trees that have only been watered using the most purified of water, and the most natural of soil (or they may only like soil that has been using compost from demon remains. crazy stuff).