#it's not the only kind of queer rep we need but acting like we don't still deserve and need these kinds of stories is silly

[actual-sleeping-beauty]

the last twenty minutes of s2 ep8 of heartstopper is just perfection. it's gorgeous, it's beautifully acted, it's heartwrenching and joyful and difficult and easy, it's about found family, the musical choices are perfect, it feels settled in a way the end of season one didn't (by design). in conclusion i loved it

[chaifootsteps]

What drives me most insane about all the discourse (or lack of discourse) around Hazbin is people trying to act like Angel Dust is the first ever sex worker character portrayed in media as an actual *character.* To say nothing of the fact that he's an utterly HORRIBLE representation. If anything it reinforces the idea of sex work as some bottom of the barrel hail mary for the desperate and horny. Which...no.

You want to know what most sex workers are like??? People. They're like *people.* People with interests and identities outside of their profession. They also have a lot in common with Therapists in that people go to them for comfort and sometimes literally a shoulder to cry on. The old cliche of a guy hiring a hooker only to cry about his problems isnt just for laughs. Listening to people and comforting them is a HUGE part of sex work. SO many sex workers are incredibly kind and emotionally intelligent people and not all of them only resorted to sex work out of desperation.

Angel? He's basically just a sassy, mean, gay twink stereotype rolled together with a ceaselessly horny, drug addled, asshole. Just because we're meant to feel bad for him doesnt make him a good representation.

You know some shows/movies that DO have positive rep? Bobs Burgers, Bless The Harts , GLOW, Firefly, Moulin Rouge, fucking Independence Day and yes I mean the one from 1996, and Sweet Charity which is from the goddamn 60s.

And these are just a fraction of the examples out there.

As a rule (and this is for everyone, not just the dickriders) just because YOU haven't seen/heard of something before doesnt mean it hasn't been done. Stop making all these broad judgements based on your own very narrow experience and do some research, good lord...

Dont even get me started on people trying to applaud the show for queer rep when it's literally just a Yaoi Hentai with musical numbers and twice the exploitation.

I pray to god John Waters never finds out about Hazbin because I don't need the poor man finding out all the work he did for queer culture and media has been set back decades by one spoiled rich white bitch.

And yes, Vivienne is white. Having South /Central American heritage does not automatically mean you aren't white. White is complexion, not a goddamn nationality. If you look and act white enough, you'll get treated like a white person, and Viv is about as white as they come. She grew up in goddamn bourgie-ass Frederick, Maryland. We see you, Viv.

Honestly, at the moment, I think my favorite fictional depiction of a sex worker is Tuca from Tuca & Bertie in that brief window of time she dabbled in it. Did it because she liked it and was good at it, no stereotypical Valentino-esque pimp in the picture, her clients were all regular people too, and she did it online which is something you don't often see in media. Viv could never have written something that grounded and adult.

[thisismisogynoir]

If i may hope into your inbox rq to rant,i think there's a special kind of masculinazation queer black women go through specifically.There's this weird thing white cis wlw have where they automatically assume 'black women with a queer gender/orientation=masculine presentation' even if the bw in question is blatantly femme(remember the tomboy Megan Thee Stallion allegations💀)and it's highkey insane how they can't wrap their heads around the fact that black women can be girlypops and softgirls as much as any other queer women and i can only imagine how much worse it is for femme black trans women

Like for me i'm bigender and genderfluid along with being bi so i understand why people would assume i want to be masc on first meeting but a quick look at my blog or talking with me will make it very obvious i'm a dude but not the slightest bit masculine and that's absolutely influenced by my black womanhood but white woman fragility makes the idea of unlearning misogynoir 'scary'🙄Ntm my white trans girl friends have been way more normal about me and guys like me than cis girls so that adds to my opinion that transfem and black woman friendships are almost inherent and the overlap between transmisogyny and misogynoir.They think it's 'allyship' but the thing is almost no black woman ever asks to be masculineized

All of this is so true!!!

And then there's the fact that whenever you see Black wlw rep in media, they are almost always butch/stud or on the androgynous/masculine side, and while that does deserve rep, you hardly see femme Black wlw nearly as much, especially when they're paired with a non-Black or lighter-skinned Black girl who will almost always be the femme to their butch, it feels like Black wlw almost never get to be the feminine one.

A lot of white wlw I've seen tend to assume that Black wlw must be masculine, often so that they can be the more feminine one and it's unfair. Plus I feel like Black femme lesbians in particular face a DOUBLE form of femme invisibility that other femmes do not, because while femmes in general are read as straight or seen as having straight-passing privilege(which we do not), Black femmes often face both where we are assumed to be straight feminine girls or we are seen as not being "lesbian" enough because we're femme when Black lesbians must be studs. And it's unfair. And also I wish there was a term specifically for Black femme lesbians the way Black masc lesbians have stud, that was common and widespread, but I also just know that if a term like that did exist, then it would just be co-opted by non-Black femmes anyway, just like non-Black mascs try to do with stud.

I feel too that my femmeness is def influenced by my Black womanhood as well so I see where you're coming from. And I also agree that Black girls and trans girls(esp Black trans girls) should be friends because our oppression, although not identical, has a lot in common on the grounds that we are both denied womanhood by the white gender binarist society.

I wish this was a thing people talked about more, a lot of people act like femmes don't have any unique problems or that we are privileged for being straight-"passing" or having "so much representation" in media, when that is not the case and especially ignores the reality of being a femme of color, especially a Black femme who has to fight to be allowed to embrace her femininity and not be seen as man-lite due to white supremacy. I feel like only other femmes and butch lesbians care about our struggles but that the wider non-lesbian/non-wlw society doesn't? Especially with a lot of lgbt men/male-aligned people saying that the lgbt community has a "fear of/aversion to" masculinity which is complete bullshit(unless you're referring to butch/masc/stud women of course). But we need to start having this conversation! So thank you for bringing it to my attention!

[ourdreamsareneon]

okay *cracks knuckles* I did a post about gale, time for his better half - astarion

Some of you don't have media literacy and it shows.

I dont know where to start so I'm gonna go hard before getting soft (insert sex joke.) Act 1 astarion is an asshole. He's manipulative and toxic and uses his power as a ~230 year old vampiric high elf to manipulate you into (among other things) having sex with him. I understand falling for him at that point, that's not your fault it's just the game gaming and the writers are really good at how they write his manipulation. However, it does strike me as strange that some of y'all get to the scene where he confesses to using and manipulating you and you....don't care? 'He's just damaged! its not his fault!' babygirl, someone can have a good reason for hurting you, but that doesn't take away the pain. I'm not saying that you shouldn't still love him, but it's strange how many of you disregard that scene. I know for me at least I was saddened by it and definitely was a little wary about him afterwards until beating Cazador and unlocking the nice happy healthy Astarion relationship.

Now here's where we get soft to prove that I actually like Astarion. The reason that confession stings for me is because I have many a memory of being SA'd then being told "I'm not even into you, you were just there." Ever since I stopped being a girl and became a woman, something that happened all too early in my life, I have been used and abused. And hey, sorry for making my Tav the exact same way but I like processing my trauma through D&D. I relate a lot to Astarion. Hurt people hurt people and I know that better than anyone. I also know better than anyone that picking yourself up and healing from that hurt sucks ass. Which brings me to two points. Um apologies for getting hard on you again.... insert another sex joke here.

1) Astarion isn't ace. I've seen this briefly and while I appreciate the need for queer rep, and love headcanons, I do think this discounts the struggle a lot of SA survivors go through. Okay, back to my life so we can compare. When I was chin deep in my abusive relationships and just general shitty time of my life, I was fucking and sucking literally so much it hurt. However as soon as I got out of that situation, I basically became celibate for 2 years. I didn't know how to have sex in a way that was healthy, or that wouldn't make me feel awful about myself. It was only this year that I was able to finally have sex in a way that made me happy. I think you'd be blind not to see Astarion in the same way. He's just a hurt man that is trying to rediscover and heal himself. Which is why he doesn't care about Tav and Halsin, and why you can have sex on his grave. He is very sexually open he just needs some time.

2) Ascended Astarion isn't sexy and I don't think some of you are ready for that conversation. Look I don't have time to go through this because I have a meeting in 30 minutes because I'm an adult with bad time management. But I just. Come here. Come real close. Abusive relationships aren't hot and sexy. We all love a little bit of kink but if you don't see Ascended Astarion as clearly the bad choice, I'm very confused. He's so sweet and loving and kind and HEALED if you don't let him ascend, I can't imagine not wanting that. And like I said, kink is fine! And ascending him because you're doing an evil run or whatever is also fine! Just please, I need teenagers to stop romanticising abuse because the media you consume does rub off on you.

TL;DR I love Astarion with all my heart, but by the writers own admission he was created as a Try Not To Overly Sexualise an Abuse Survivor Challenge and y'all are failing left and right!

[absolutebl]

Hello, hello, Sensei! I figured other BL fans might benefit from this Q&A, so I'm posing this question on the public channels: in your reblog of my TharnType review, you mentioned watching Dew the Movie in a comment about being surprised about the developing kinds of BL that were coming out of Thailand in 2019. Could you expound a little more on that? I'm trying to get a sense of what Dew stands for by way of where it lives in the BL history books. I'm also aware that if it weren't for Bad Buddy, that this piece would have likely been Ohm Pawat's last appearance in queer media, and I want to keep that in mind before I watch it (which will be very soon). Dew will be the only movie on my Old GMMTV Challenge list, so I want to give it the understanding it deserves. THANK YOU, *FOR EVERYTHING*, SENSEI! <3

Dew the Movie

Not a review, more where it sits in Thailand's cinematic journey and how that correlates to queer cinema and its standard pattern of evolution.

I've always though of Dew as GMMTV's My Bromance. Not the same tropes but same tenor. Sweet Student Boy is another one. Or even Your Name Engraved Herein (although that is Taiwan and superior).

All quite heavy. Not much BL.

In Thailand this style started with Love of Siam. And I would put Present Perfect in there as impactful as well (very arthouse and complicated piece that made waves in the Thai queer film industry for many reasons not the least of which was political).

Most queer cinema enters the world with this kind of offering.

There is also a gay rep vis "character patterns in cinematic traditions" that everyone pretty much knows about in ET:

if there at all = kill the gay

if there at all = punch down humor (aka fear the gay so mock openly)

gay rep narratives green lit (usually arthouse) but in order to be taken seriously by critics and greater social structure are censored away from joy (gayness not permitted to be portrayed in a positive light) = queer characters exist but are not allowed to end up happy - these shows can win awards and critical acclaim (the Broke Back Mountain effect)

magical gay advice giver (queer serves only as a plot device to help the hets) - there's usually a make-over involved

1 major gay character (usually in comedy/romance) = tokenize the queer side (aka my gay bestie)

happy ending sanitized gay romances (or skinned romances where the gay characters act like hets - see seme/uke),

actual gay romances honest to the community/experience and peopled with multiple queer characters and life stages

Of course this is not a tidy progression, we can see Thai BL (stage 6) still grappling with 1-5, but also slowly moving into and having more and more of stage 7.

Actual queer narratives (of which romance would be a subset and tends to emerge later) like Dew stay quite dark, gritty, and chewy and usually spring up along side the mainstream depiction of gay characters - around the time that mainstream film decides to acknowledge gays exist at all (and immediately starts killing them).

They just get little to no attention because they are under funded, under marketed, and scary for mainstream viewers. Society isn't ready if these are made too soon in the 1-7 progression. Which is not to say the shouldn't be made! Just why they aren't popular in the zeitgeist.

Dew is part of the "yes but what about the real gays?" side (yet parallel) evolving tradition to BL (that is only now kind of getting integrated into BL). So, stage 3.

But also all stuff I watched North American arthouse grapple with extensively in the 90s and seemed to all follow EXACTLY the same non-romantic narrative path. Therefore it feels like I've seen it a million times.

I'm personally exhausted by this kind of "picking at gay pain" queer content. I don't need to see it anymore. I got into BL because it was materially different and all ways from what happened over here in Hollywood. We never got THIS level of stage 6 and it's fascinating that Asia is lingering in it for so long.

Back to Dew...

Wistful gay?

What might have been...

Something like that?

These shows grapple with identity and expression and out-ness and courage.

It's sad and depressing.

That's about all I remember of it because it was so much like so much of what I had already seen in queer cinema. Perhaps special for the Thai queer film world, but not special for me.

Although I do remember thinking Ohm was great in it.

In the end I think Dew was GMMTV picking up and experimenting with the more universal tradition of exploring (and exploiting for drama) gay pain. It's not really a romance in the modern sense of the term... and I prefer romance.

(source)

[antispopausandstuff]

I saw your post about same sex and Sapphic relationships in media and how not every pair of gay/bi/etc people have to be together and homie, I get that there are a lot of other ways to show love in lgbt+ shows but dude. Canon romantic relationships of all kinds is one of the big goals for our community. The "unrequited love" and such was what we Always used to see in shows and media and books. Always hinted at just enough to make audiences hopeful but never any follow through. We are LUCKY to have LGBT+ relationships and romances on screen nowadays and a lot of younger people don't remember the days when no one in the community even thought it was possible to see a pair of women or a pair of men kiss on TV or in a movie in a way that wasn't just a joke or going to be played off. Yes, we need more lgbt+ friendships on air but not at the sacrifice of the romantic relationships our community and our elders have fought to be shown and accepted as normal for decades now. If you wanna see pining and unrequited love and "will they, won't they", you can easily find it in the past. Typically it became queerbaiting of some kind if the authors refused to acknowledge the obvious subtext or in some cases, people would retcon it in after the dust has settled and people can't refuse to watch something if they have to see gay people being gay.

But comparing things to the "control group", it's exceptionally rare that showrunners don't try to shoehorn in some kind of tension between straight people. If showrunners don't, fans are always THRILLED to ship them. Until shows get better writers that know how to write friendships of any kind, I'm sticking firmly in the camp of happier to see the gays kissing rather than hearing showrunners whine about how they gave us representation so why aren't we happy to see said rep not acting on their sexuality in any way.

hello there!

i'm sorry for offending you, and i might've explained my thoughts poorly.

i do not believe we have to sacrifice one or the other, or that there's anything wrong with queers kissing and the "obvious" ( still not sure if that's the right word ) being canon.

what i do believe though is that, especially since comics and other online forms of media ( youtube, for ex ) are becoming more and more diverse and becoming more popular in general, there are a lot of opportunities for different topics of queer romance.

i'm very aware of how difficult it can be for shows/movies specifically, so i think i should've mentioned that i wasn't only talking about TV media, but i'm not sure how relevant that would be in hindsight.

to talk more about the unrequited love conversation, i definitely should've specified more on that! i understand how that can come off as incredibly queerbaiting, and often is, if it was one "potential" queer relationship.

however, i didn't mean to give off that i meant it in that context. i am a writer who makes all of my characters POC + queer, and only not do that in rare circumstances, so it was natural of me to think of what i said in that specific context, instead of how it could come off to others. i apologize for that!

i meant unrequited love, and potential "will they, won't they"s in the context of many already existing queers and queer relationships, rather than the sole relationship with clear queer subtext being used as a bait to lure in the gays.

i know this is less possible to do with TV media than it could be with social media and comics/manga, but i don't feel like that should stop others from trying to play around with these concepts. as time goes on, hopefully society will too, and queer media on TV, books, anything it can be in, can be even MORE diverse!

i'm very sorry for coming off as insensitive and like i want the old things back, this was my own doing by being unclear about my personal experiences of what i was saying. i kinda forgot that not everyone knows what i'm talking about ^^;

thank you for telling me this, though! it'll help me keep in mind of my explanations in the future, and i hope this cleared up your worries or concerns!

TLDR; my discussion was in context of multiple queer people/queer relationships in media, but my wording ended up being misleading and most likely came off as irritated or bitter. and, there is NO problem with having the crystal-clear gays kiss! if they're not unhealthy, let them kiss all they want!

[captaincoffeegirl515]

You know what? Fuck off out of my blog and unfollow me if you think that Good Omens is queerbaiting.

You're insulting everyone who is ace/aro or in a QPR and see's themselves in the show. Just say you're aphobic and shut the hell up about Good Omens not being good enough for you.

Stop saying that it has to be sexual, that the two guys need to kiss or fuck in order for it to be worthy enough for you to consider it as something queer.

Stop comparing it to Our Flag Means Death because fyi they're two very fucking different genres! And fyi Good Omens didn't even set out to be one big representative of queer media unlike OFMD. They're two different shows telling two different stories and giving different kinds of representation.

Stop acting like there can only be ONE TRUE SHOW for queer rep and that we can't like the rest because they're "not good enough".

This is the kind of shit that makes queer writers and artists hesitate to make more queer art because y'all assholes will criticize it to the max and if it doesn't tick every last one of your boxes, you insult it and stomp down on it until it goes away.

And fuck the hell off with the it's not queer enough because the straights can't see it! Not my fault you're used to generalizing straight people as oblivious queerphobes. Not my fault that you think if it doesn't have a makeout session and a good fuck then people won't know two people are in love.

We aren't being queer for the fucking straights! We're queer for ourselves, jackass!

Additional notes: My cis straight sister, who could tell very clearly that Aziraphale and Crowley were in love, mentioned that most Koreanovelas are extremely conservative so they don't have kissing or sex scenes between their couples yet they manage to be considered as a romance. You gonna start calling that straightbaiting bc they don't kiss or have sex??

[teaveetamer]

As the anon who asked gascon-en-exil about why Edelgard is considered "positive" LGBTQ representation even tho she's so problematic, I liked your answer, as well. Just to clarify, I didn't mean all LGBTQ characters must be morally white or anything. I just meant that Edelgard has proven to be the single most divisive FE character ever (far more so than Tharja, Camilla etc ever were). It's obviously fine to have morally grey LGBTQ reps. But Edelgard is so beyond the pale at times (1/2)

Like, this is the game where characters like Dorothea and Mercedes also exist, but Edelgard is emphasized as the only LGBTQ rep that matters somehow because she's a female Lord who can S rank fem Byleth thru a quick b/c the writers already pandered so hard to self insert avatar Byleth, that it didn't matter what gender anymore. That's why I said she's a problematic rep, not because all reps must be pure as white snow or anything xD I prefer that they're more complex tbh (2/2)

Oh yeah! Sorry I didn't mean to imply anything about you anon, that whole "they don't have to be morally pure" thing was more for the people who are under the impression I hate characters on some flimsy moral basis. I can't say she'd be my favorite character (regardless of how she's written I don't think I could ever get behind her methods), but if she were written better I don't think I'd have a lot of the beef I have with her character.

And then like you said, some people act like not only is she the only rep that matters, but that if you are part of the queer community you have to like her regardless of her writing for the sole fact that she is queer and we need rep. And if you aren't part of the queer community you also have to like her regardless of her writing or you're ist or phobic or a bad ally.

Frankly, I think it's kind of sad that people are willing to settle for the crumbs of blatant straight man pandering when we could get so much more in terms of representation. And like not even just settle, but browbeat and harangue other fans for wanting more than just crumbs, and saying so instead of happily licking the plates of more privileged people.

[sleepingfancies]

This is the ice cold take I am SO tired of hearing and more than anything that's the true tragedy of everything that happened on the Loki show.

The fuck do you mean "actual" queer rep? Bisexual only counts as queer if you're not in a m/f relationship? If you're "straight passing" (which by itself is a fucked up, awful phrase you all need to stop using immediately imo) then you don't count as queer? Why are you referring to liking women as a "part" of bisexuality like you're building ikea furniture and not like bisexuality is whole and encompasses attraction to multiple genders of varying degrees. What's not okay about a bisexual person being attracted to someone of the opposite gender? So what if that's the consistent relationship they fall into? Does that make them less bisexual? No, it fucking doesn't.

Beyond anything else, it drives me absolutely nuts that this Loki finale business brought these kinds of Biphobia Lite takes out of the woodwork all across tumblr. It is so frustrating and upsetting to see y'all say shit like this and realize for all your positivity posts and inclusion PSAs and cutsey banners, y'all STILL think bisexuals are the "one foot in the door, one foot outside" confused cousins of the LGBT+ community, and not, you know, part of the founding acronym. And it's not like this is new. Y'all said the same shit But Opposite about Jesper hooking up with a man in Shadow and Bone; that it isn't "good" bisexual rep unless we see him flirt/hook up with a woman next. That people are going to just call him "gay" otherwise, and he isn't gay, so we need to see him Be Bisexual In Action!

Fucking stop. Actual, living, breathing bisexuals don't owe you proof of our sexuality. Personally, I'm sick of y'all acting like the characters who represent me need to submit a fucking certificate of bisexuality and testify in court just to count as bi rep, to say nothing of whether it's good rep or not. There is no such this as a bisexual person being or not being "queer enough." There is no set relationship or gender attraction equality that determines when bisexuality is "good" representation in media. And if you're not bi, you don't get to decide what is or isn't good bi rep on principle.

You're mad bc Loki didn't get with the person you wanted him to get with? Fine, grand, I don't really care. I'm not emotionally invested in ships. Haven't been since I was 16. You're mad bc his sexuality was an offhand-mentioned freebie in a 5 second clip? Fantastic, I'll be the first to agree that Disney is allergic to LGBT+ representation and they're doing the barest of the minimum (god even knows how hard the crew had to fight just to get that 5 second scene greenlit, btw). You're mad because you think Loki having a romantic subplot with Himself Adjacent is weird and gross? Epic, I think it's weird and gross too.

But to drag actual fucking bisexuality through the mud like this to make some stupid point about why your ship is better or why Loki's character was done a disservice etc etc and - knowingly or not - spout biphobic bullshit in the process? That is not only perpetuating harmful narratives WAY more than a fictional bi man kissing a woman ever will, but is an incredible, amazing, horrifically bold spit in the face to Kate Herron, the director of the show, who is a bisexual woman.

You wanna be mad about how the finale went, or how Loki was depicted in the show, be my guest. But keep bisexuality's name out of your mouth unless you know how to talk about it without insulting very real bisexual people, including the woman who gave you this show to begin with.

[tumblezwei]

forget every other LGBT character on the show - in the show the only confirmed lbgt characters are illia who was originally a jealous terrorist who tried to kill her crushes parents, Jaunes sisters the background characters, and May who I will admit is great rep. Word of god and canon are two different things. While they are hinting at BB neither is confirmed lgbt. They don't have to be in a relationship but they still haven't been confirmed as lbgt.

Whatever you feel about the writing the marketing team and the animators did confirm they were coding Clover as gay. Remember at the time even homophobic fans 100% believed Clover was gay and Qrow and him might hook up. His death does set a precedent on how the show handled mlm. The fact the team never considered viewers would read the relationship as queer shows how for mlm they are unfortunately heteronormative. How they handled the fallout also set a precedent.

You DO NOT have to like Clover. You can hate him for any reason what so ever. But being a good ally means shockingly understanding mlm and the other lgbt fans who were hurt by everything that happened. Instead of getting mad at them for their reactions continue to encourage RT to include more lgbt rep especially rep for mlm that isn't based on stereotypes like Scarlet. Truth is many mlm actually hate Scarlet and don't appreciate him being their rep.

Fucking finally, I was wondering when one of y'all would see that post. I was starting to worry that I'd have to go without someone trying to devalue the LGBT rep on the show in order to lift up their favorite cop.

And despite what this ask is trying to imply, neither Ilia nor Saphron and Terra are bad rep. And I guarantee you that if this ask had come before the latest episode, this person would have tried to claim May was bad rep too. Also, I've said this so many times, you'd have to be acting deliberately obtuse to claim BB isn't canon yet. And it being canon is confirmation of them being wlw.

And I'd like to know what makes Ilia bad rep when she's incredibly similar to Clover. They're both characters that were part of a group that's doing morally questionable things because they think that what they're doing is right. Why is Ilia stuck with "ex-terrorist" as a reason for why she's bad rep, but Clover can't get "the leader of the secret police?" Almost like you're trying to downplay the show's rep so you can be more justifiably mad that your ship isn't canon.

And even taking away all that, the point of my post wasn't to say "look at all this great rep, we don't need gay Clover," it was to point out that there are other LGBT characters in RWBY, none of which have died. So Clover stans acting as if their no confirmed cop fave should be the standard for how we view CRWBY's treatment of LGBT characters and death is annoying.

The marketing team did jackshit. They sold Qrow and Clover pins, that's it. Because they are complimentary characters and Clover was an important player in Qrow's arc.

Animators shipping a pairing means jackshit. Kara likes White Knight but you don't see anyone using that fact as confirmation that WK is canon. Weird how Word of God doesn't count for the other characters, but it's fine to use as evidence for Clover being coded gay.

I'm gonna need a citation on that homophobic thing, and even if that's true, it means jackshit. I can already predict that these people were only talking about it as a way to shit on RT, something that they will use literally anything for, especially if it’s complaining about a popular gay ship in the fandom whether it’s canon or not. 

And no, Clover did not set the precedent for mlm rep, because he wasn't rep. It's not heteronormative for men to be friends, it's not heteronormative for them to support each other. Y’all were shipping the two of them from day one, before they even had the chance to talk at all. Don’t pretend like you picked up on some subtext that CRWBY didn’t when all it took was Clover having a good luck semblance and winking to get y’all to proclaim them as endgame. 

And bitch I am LGBT, and I know what queerbait looks like. I’ve been baited before, I’ve seen other fans of shows I don’t watch be baited, I know what it looks like for a company to use and exploit a relationship to draw people in. This wasn’t fucking it. Don’t you condescendingly explain to me what it means to “be a good ally” when all I see from FG shippers is attacking CRWBY and trying to downplay the other rep in the show to make Clover’s death worse than it is, kind of like what you’re doing. It will never be CRWBY’s fault that y’all took a wink, an ambiguous smile, and a semblance and decided FG was endgame. 

And I’ve said before, I want there to be more mlm rep. But understanding Clover wasn’t gay and his death wasn’t queerbait can be synonymous with that desire for more mlm on the show. 

Anyways Clover wasn’t gay, he was a fascist lapdog from beginning to end and died a stupid death due to his overconfidence, over reliance on his semblance, and refusal to disobey Ironwood’s orders for even a second. Cope. 

[diamondcitydarlin]

i know this can't be just me and I know that it isn't JUST the natural result of looking at 'recent' in fandom tags (which is 9 times out of 10 a fucking mistake) bc I've seen it outside of this many times but like...idk. I feel like the fandom communities surrounding sh@dows and 0fmd are far more aggressively negative than they were last time I checked. Mostly I'm talking about the way it feels like people have become possessive over characters from both things and refuse to assume anything but the worst for anyone who depicts their faves (in fanfic or fanart) in a way they don't like or agree with. This isn't anything new in fandom but I'm really disappointed to see it happening here, the same kind of shit we'd see in early 00's HP fandom when someone didn't like a ship or a character 'the right way'.

And ofc I completely understand the frustration of seeing a character or pairing or subplot depicted in a fandom thing in a way one doesn't like or agree with, like ofc I get that, but I'm seeing this new trend of taking anyone doing this in extremely bad faith right off the cuff. publicly and/or DIRECTLY. Like, if a character is depicted in a fanart as too masc or too femme for whoever the viewer is, suddenly the fanartist is a terf confirmed or something and that's not really an exaggeration. Drawing Stede with a fucking beard is now high treason and punishable by death, apparently

And I'm not talking about giving artists, writers notes for how to better depict different cultures, skin types, genders, and so on, because that's completely different. Giving notes implies that you have no reason to assume this person did this for nefarious or selfish reasons just natural human ignorance that just needs to be addressed so they can do better next time, and with most of these artists that IS THE CASE. This isn't that. This is seeing something you don't like and assuming the person who made it did it for the worst possible fucking reason one could come up with and refusing to consider any other possibility bc how else could you punish them for wrongthink??

I guess we...don't care AT ALL how this is going to stifle creativity and gatekeep anyone from attempting to participate in fandom for fear of 'getting something wrong' and being taken as a bigot? A homophobe or terf for drawing or writing something in a tonedeaf but wellmeaning way? For fuck's sake people. But then maybe cruelty and gatekeeping are the point here?

It's really not helpful and it certainly isn't some humanitarian act for fandom rep as I think these people like to pride themselves it is, it's literally just a way for them to narrow down the scope of participation in fandom until its completely under their control and preference, regardless of who they might ostracize in the process (POC artists, for one).

It's nothing new, but man am I pissed to see it coming back here where I really hoped things would be different. Anyway I'm not fucking participating and I really hope whoever reads this thinks hard about not participating in it either, regardless of what motives these 'critics' claim to have. I'm sorry, but it is not fair or logical or kind to jump to these conclusions about each other based on fanart and fanfic. You don't fucking know these people and they don't know you.

And what's more, I'm just going to say it bc it's been coming up GO vs OFMD vs WWDITS debates of which one is queerer (which also makes me want to drive my car off a bridge tbh bc some of these folks are over here debating the queerness of these shows while rooting for Queerbait Het YT Men S2 to finally do the thing when bitch you know damn well); not everything in fandom is going to be made for you. Not everything in a source material is going to be for you. That doesn't inherently make those things bad.

but, apparently, if something is not tailored specifically to MY PREFERENCES of how characters should present (with beards for example) then it's not only invalid, the person who made it is a bad person who should feel bad about themselves? Make it make sense.

Yes, we're coming into an age of openly queer stories and I'm as excited as anyone to see myself reflected. But I'm also going to see other queer people and THEIR experiences reflected and it is not going to be my own and THAT IS NOT ONLY OKAY IT IS HOW IT SHOULD BE BECAUSE 'QUEER' IS AN UMBRELLA TERM THAT ENCOMPASSES A WIDE RANGE OF EXPERIENCES AND IDENTITIES

thanks i hate this <3

[freyfall]

Hey sorry to bother, but i don't thing I've really seen any sexism in the fandom? I might have just missed it, but would you be willing to elaborate on it a bit? You don't have to if you don't wanna

CHOKES

I’ll elaborate under a cut because a lot of the sexism I see is rooted in the ns/fw side of the fandom. I’ll be talking explicitly so don’t click if you’re not prepared for a conversation about sex and ectoplasmic genital shit. Also... it’s long.

God, where do I even start? This post covers a lot of the base issues with the fandom, though most of what OP said had to do with queerphobia. The issue with writers and magic genitalia in the fandom boils down to the fact that so often - so often - I click on a fic to read and heteronormativity slaps me in the face. One dominant (male-identifying) partner with male genitalia, one submissive (male-identifying) partner with female genitalia. And okay, I get it, some couples are like that. It’s not bad to write something like that as long as it doesn’t rely on sexism or queerphobia to explain away the choices. But then it’s... every fic. Every. Fic. I click on. 

Actually, I’ll give you some numbers! I’m going to look at the UTMV kinktober fics I’m keeping up with and see what kind of ratios there are. I won’t name them out of politeness, but here we go. Out of 4 Kinktober 2020 series on A03 with, so far, 23 or 24 chapters each, here’s how the gender and sex of the characters play out:

In terms of biological sex, the majority were male/female* with two partners, making up almost half of the fics read (42 out of 94). Out of said fics, 35 had a dominant** male and submissive female dynamic, 4 had a dominant female and submissive male dynamic, and 3 were unclear or there was no such dynamic. Only one out of the 42 fics had the female character identify as a woman. (Furthermore, she was genderbent.) 

The runner-up was the ‘other’ category, which encompassed the following: no genitals present, only one set of genitals present, odd genitalia (such as tentacles), or unspecified. This category made up 26 out of the 94 fics. Of the 26, 20 of them fell into the ‘one set of genitals’ category, with 14 male and 6 female. The male fics were split evenly between dominant and submissive males, and the females were all written as submissive. 

None of the other categories were nearly as popular, with the next one down the line only having 9 fics out of the 94. This category was male/male with two partners. The next one, male/male/female with three partners, had 8. Of the 8 fics, all of them had dominant male and submissive female dynamics.

The female/female with two partners category only had 3. Only one of the three fics portrayed a lesbian relationship where both characters identified as women. 

The other categories were as follows: m/m/m with three partners, m/m/m/f with four partners, m/m/m/m with four partners, m/m/f/f with four partners, m/m/m/m/f with five partners, and m/m/m/f/f with five partners. These categories only had 1 fic each. Each and every fic with a female partner had the female partners playing submissive roles.

It’s important to note that out of the entire roster of fics, there were 3 women. One of them was a genderbent character in a m/f fic, and the other two were in a lesbian f/f fic. Why the lack of women? Why constantly portray those with female genitals as men?

Going back to the post I linked at the very beginning, I do want to cover my bases - I understand that male characters with biologically female genitals and sex characteristics can be a hugely needed source of rep for transgender people, especially those who are transmasculine. As a transmasculine person myself, it’s important to me that male characters with female bodies exist. Having a casual environment where men can have whatever genitals they want is, in theory, rather progressive. However, three things:

Never in all my time in this fandom have I ever seen one of these characters stated explicitly as transgender. None of the fics in the study above did, either. 

In the UTMV, when writing skeletons with magical genitals, having male or female genitalia is seen as a choice. It erases the need for transgender characters. It erases transgender narratives that deal with transition, discomfort, coming out, and dysphoria. If you can pick whatever kind of body you want, why would there be a need for being trans? There’s no easy way to determine a ‘male’ or ‘female’ skeleton, erasing the concept of gender assigned at birth and erasing the struggles that trans people may face.

None of the characters have bodies that might align more closely with transgender folks who medically transition. No top surgery scars, no bottom growth. No breast tissue growth on male bodies, nothing. Of course, why would that exist in the first place? Magic erases the need to portray bodies with quote-on-quote ‘imperfections.’ None of the bodies portrayed even step a toe out of the cisgender box - such as perhaps portraying female genitals with a flat chest or male genitals with breasts. None of that was found in the study, and I don’t recall fics like that outside of the study, either.

So clearly, most if not all authors are not attempting to portray any sort of transgender character when writing them this way - which begs the question, why write men with female bodies? 

While I was taking these statistics, I had a conversation with my partner in which they said something that applies here:

“[Every AU character] being Sans is a problem on its own, but when you have the power to make whatever character a woman, how you approach that says a lot. What people do is that they give a male character female parts and it’s only for sexual purposes. So like, the entire existence of [the female body] in the UTMV serves only for sex and that’s just kind of not good.”

Keeping this quote in mind, the short answer to the question I posed above is this: sexism. In this fandom, the female body, femininity, and being a woman in and of itself is objectified, hyper-sexualized, and exoticized... in that order, respectively. I’m not just using these as buzzwords, I promise you.

The female body is objectified. The same as the quote above, female bodies aren’t seen as something that someone will just have in a non-sexual context. After reading 94 smutfics, their treatment of the female body tends to start looking the same. The female body is for sex. That’s it. Giving or showing a character with breasts, even clothed, is seen as the display of a sexual object, even though breasts are visible on (cis) women in everyday scenarios. In sexual scenarios, the female body is never portrayed realistically, either. Female arousal and preparing the female body for sex - compared to its counterpart, the male body - is wildly unrealistic. Yes, this is porn, and there’s bound to be realism issues, but in comparison, female sexuality is much more unrealistic.

Femininity is sexualized. Characters act feminine for sexual appeal... and only for sexual appeal. Because a character acts feminine, they’re more sexually appealing to their partner. Feminine clothing, such as dresses or skirts, are seen as sexual. 

Being a woman, in and of itself, is exoticized. This isn’t even a staunchly NSFW issue. I’ve been asked if my male characters, explicitly stated to be bisexual, would have sex with a woman. My partner has received asks about ‘what would happen if (insert male character here) met a woman.’ Genderbends of male characters into female characters are seen as cringy, childish, or fanservicey by default. Women aren’t treated as a normal occurrence. When genderbends do happen and people like them, it’s often in a sexual way. “She’s so hot/sexy.” “Step on me, queen.” 

It most likely doesn’t help that all of the popular AU characters in the fandom are men. It creates an environment where women are scarce and hardly represented, leading to unnatural assumptions about them.

I’m not sure how to close this off, so... TLDR; women are normal people. Stop exoticizing them. Stop objectifying the female body. Don’t use trans/queer characters as a scapegoat for your sexism. 

Sincerely, a bigender lesbian who’s sick and tired of all this.

-

*‘Male’ and ‘female’ are used to refer to biological sex. When I talk about gender, I will say men and women.

**When I say dominant, I mean ‘in control’ of the sexual situation. This was determined by considering factors such as written personality, physical position, and how they behaved. Vice versa for submissive. I don’t intend to use these terms as an equivalent to what they mean in BDSM language, though several of the fics attempted to or did portray BDSM relationships. I also do not mean these terms to be equivalent to ‘top’ or ‘bottom’. 

[lovecolibri]

If we're being super blunt here I don't expect M*ria to ever improve much because quite frankly I don't see the same investment from Heather about her character that I see from the rest of the cast. The fact that she reiterated her 2x06 nonsense at the panel tells me she's not overly bothered by problematic rep and doesn't care to listen. Compare that to Jeanine pushing for badass ambitious scientist Liz, Tyler wanting more visible disability rep and to explore Alex's military background which apparently we're getting this season, Amber and Trevino putting their own backgrounds into their characters, Lily straight up writing Isobel's big speech in 3x13, Vlamburn putting so much thought into Malex and Vlamis forever learning from Tyler about queer identity. With M*ria there really doesn't seem to be growth or an arc of any kind and we're on s3 now. And if this season really was a collaborative process with the actors and this is still what we're getting with her that tells me all I need to know. There's always a chance M*ria will surprise us and I will happily take back everything I said here but I am not holding my breath.

You are absolutely right and you should say it. I usually try to avoid lumping actors in with their characters but after that 2x06 interview I just blocked her name and avoided anything to do with her because I just do not care. But the fact that she is still pushing and bringing that episode up as a favorite (of course, because m*ria got to have all the control over two men), and telling people who were triggered by the episode to stop all the "noise" about it tells me everything I need to know. Also, as much as I have hope for Malex and for what Chris has planned for them, what we have seen from the promos and the fact that he keeps hyping up m*ria and especially the m*ria heavy episode 3x08 is...really giving me some pause. We know that c*rina did a lot of re-writes and stuff and had no qualms about pushing the writers room around a bit, BUT she wasn't the only person in charge of writing things and I doubt she was able to re-write everything so I don't think we can entirely lay everything at her feet and so far it is....not looking great for anyone who was hoping we might get a modicum of remorse from m*ria, it just looks like a lot more m*ria apologist nonsense and reminding everyone that her character can do no wrong. But I don't watch the show for her, so I'm going to keep hoping for the best for Malex but if they think they can have her involved with them in any way, especially with her acting like we saw in that promo, and not get more backlash for it? They are very much mistaken.

[absolutebl]

Hello, live the work you do here. I especially like to read your trash watch alongs. I am following unforgotten night through your posts only.

It's just been months since I got into bl. But I remember watching one a couple of years ago and I dnf it . I don't remember what it's name was. If you could help me with the title, I'd like to revisit it and see what has changed with my new perspective and experience with BL.

It was thai. It was a restaurant setting. The seme was a chef and the uke was probably in school or college and maybe part-time working at the restaurant. That's all I remember.

oh I love a challenge. The Magic Spreadsheet of Doom is always easier to activate when you have setting.

However I don't think I need it, since restaurants are my favorite. I think you're thinking of 2021′s Bite Me. And apart from the food, it was really very much NOT good.

However in case I am wrong here are all (I think) of: 

Thailands’s R&B (restaurant & beverage) BLs

I Am Your King 2 2019 3/10 Youtube - Early love triangle about a cafe boy caught between two brothers, mostly not good because the wrong brother wins. Has no connection to the original I Am Your King. 

Love Area 2022 (2 parts) 3/10 GaGa - It wasn't as boring as Bite Me, but it wasn’t actually good, either. This started out as Thailand tackles love triangles pulp style, but in part 2 lockdown changed everything. Valen & Kaitoon dropped some great kisses but traded off crazy hair and makeup in a scene-by-scene whiplash that was clearly pickups done months after lockdown, and the second lead vanished. It was... surreal. Side dishes jumped up screen time but tackled mental health... badly. A fantastic new queer side character was randomly introduced, June, who was the best thing to happen to BL linguistics in 2022 but had nothing to do with the rest of the cast, show, or plot. What a mess. In the end, I didn’t know what I was watching, and neither did it.

Love Next Door 2 2014 4/10 movie GaGa - One of Thailand’s early very high heat pieces, it’s odd, but sexy I guess? Also some unexpectedly decent queer rep. (Part one is the same lead character early on in his life discovering he is gay with the sex worker next door but not really relevant to this story.) 

Evening Cafe 2021 5/10 YouTube - Cafe setting with no heat and no kisses (almost Chinese in this regard), but a decent lead pair, about a boy who works in a cafe and the new employee who has a crush on him. That’s it, whole story.

Love Advisor 2021 6/10 microfilm YouTube - Set in a cafe but not about cafe workers, this is an actor’s piece, more like a one act stage performance about friends to lovers and miscommunication.

Bite Me 2021 6/10 Viki - Thailand gave us Korean style slowly simmering ultra soft and sweet BL only at a Thai length so the pacing was… not good. Slower than molasses and full of insane subtext, long gazes, missing dialogue, abrupt mood swings, and one very pretty kiss. It curdled around episode 8, the sauce split, and there was no saving it. It did have some of the best food porn I’ve seen in my life, and i watch cooking shows. It was beautiful, the leads were decent, it should have right up my alley, and yet… it left me with a feeling of disaffected ennui - bland and boring and unsatisfying. 11 courses of tasty tasty pacing issues. 

What Zabb Man! 2022 8/10 YouTube - Star Hunter's WZM was better than we had any right to expect, with decent pacing and a foodie theme threaded through the narrative as both love language and plot driver. Basically CEO falls in love with a street vendor’s food, recruits him to work in his hotel, falls in love with him, and that’s the beginning. Class struggles! Kitchen drama! Papaya pounding (not a euphemism)! Chef poaching (not literally)! Spicy scenes (yes both kinds)! It’s all so delicious. 

La Cuisine 2022 710 GaGa - A sweet and somewhat pure show, and like the Thai desserts it features, perhaps requires too much patience for a layperson. Because of the pacing and the focus on a bad girl character, I did dock it. But if you like stuff in the Oxygen vein, then this show is for you, and far better than most Thai BL pulps. That said, I suspect that I enjoyed it more than many would. Full review. 

Coffee Melody (Pavel my love) 2022 airing right now on Viki

So far only the pulps have tackled foodie romances for Thailand, I’d love to see GMMTV do one. 

Perhaps that’s what Moonlight Chicken will be? 

The other places that do a lot in and around the food industry are Korea (Jealousy is My Guest, One Last Order, My Sweet Dear, The Tasty Florida, Ocean Likes Me, To My Star). They tend to have been rated better in general than the Thai ones, sadly. 

(source)

[studyingaleks]

ok i need to rant i'm wanting vincenzo right now and i'm up to episode 8... i haven't finished it but i really wasn't comfortable enough to continue it i mean i was really enjoying the show but it made me uncomfortable how they made the only gay character an abusive asshole. can gay people be bad too? yes but you see this is a kdrama and how often do you see gay rep? yeah exactly i'm sorry this is just... we can't afford this kind of representation right now when the whole world still sees us as predatory (which the character was too btw) and sinful. i get how y'all can say that vincenzo was uncomfortable bc the man was a literal abuser and why flirting with him made him shiver but i don't know i understand that part but why did the only queer character have to be a bad guy.

idk i'll continue it now but i'm just sad a little because i was really liking the show but it's homophobic looking side is just i don't know i was going to rate it 10/10 but now .. yeah nah

also can we just have a beautiful representation please like is that too much to ask? i'm tired of hearing "i raised you wrong," "just don't act on it," and so on like can we just have one happy queer without there being complications where it's treated normally like we really don't need more of those when reality is already that.

[rappaccini]

As a bisexual who watches toh - and has followed you for awhile cuz you're awesome - I agree with you wholeheartedly about Amity. It's not really talked about in the fandom because most people are willing to turn a blind eye to issues in queer ships, thanks to the lack of rep, which is kind of understandable but it's also telling creators that they don't need to develop a character if they're part of a queer ship. They'll be praised for it, even. It's absurd but... the community isn't exactly letting them think otherwise. Sorry for the rant, but it's so good to find someone who agrees!!

aw thanks.

i'm glad lum!ty was able to exist, to be this unambiguous and to go full canon gfs before the last possible second (especially given that this is a children's cartoon made by disney), but the romance does not compel me and i think it was not executed or paced well. i'm glad amity gets to be a lesbian/luz gets to be bi, and she can show clear attraction to girls in canon, but i think this particular girl she's attracted to just isn't right for her (and i'm speaking about both of them here) or for the story. it is so dumb that saying that is controversial.

and yeah we (fandom and at this point, now writers too) have this big problem where we hype up queer canon ships that are poorly-written or executed in a way that makes them toxic (by mistake), bland, or even Just Okay But Not That Compelling, because hey, at least it exists. and enforcing the idea that these ships in particular (and the characters within them) must be critique-proof, because of anxieties about homophobia dominating that criticism and the realization that saying that is a big weapon you can use in your ship war.

i get it, i do. but that's stupid. you aren't a bad person if you simply don't vibe with a (queer) ship, or if you don't think it was well-written. writers can fuck up all kinds of romances. it does not help at all to act like the queer ones (the sapphic ones specifically) are magically immune from being bad or not-well-executed. the only thing we'll get from it is (like with all other 'fictional character x is marginalized therefore you're not allowed to criticize them!' arguments) more shitty, watered-down, telegraphed or unintentionally toxic romance, because the people who write them will know they can get away with and be rewarded for putting little effort into them.