#only one queer person as the token queer

[mistfallengw2]

In honor of Pride Month, here's a rapidfire ramble about my OCs' orientations and how those and their actual preferences play off with their personalities and shape key moments of their story. Bonus context for my hc on queerness in Tyria.

Aurelia Dragonwings - Pansexual homoromantic Girls are pretty. I mean, boys are neat too, but she only ever had eyes for Ardea and later on Ellara, and that clear preference never had her experiment with the other side. The one and only experience she had with a guy was with her best friend Obsius, specifically when Ardea wanted to have a cub and she took one round "just to try it", only to end up having a cub as well (Adamas is an oopsie baby, yes). In general, labels are very confusing to her and the topic of romance held a lot of grief for years, so she would avoid answering any question on the matter, but if someone were to ask her friends, they'd just say she "doesn't know she's lesbian for someone".

Adamas Crystalsoul - Pansexual He's a pretty boy with great pedigree and had waves of people interested in him, but in the fahrar he was too focused on becoming Legionnaire to entertain childhood crushes, and then his heart got snatched away by Maeveryl before he even considered romance an option, still recovering from the loss of his would-be warband. Countless hearts got crushed by the fact that the Pact Commander's son was open about dating a sylvari and being loyal to them, yet Deryn somehow managed to woo the guy (only because Maeveryl sometimes quite literally pushed him towards her). Overall he has a feminine and androgynous preference, though like his mother he never had a proper chance to explore romance with guys.

Tocchix - Demisexual panromantic (trans guy) He spent most of his teenage years feeling sort of inadequate for romance because he never felt "the full pull" towards anyone (not helped by the comparison to a serial crush-haver like Fynn, his best friend in Lion's Arch), so he preferred to focus on training hard and join the Order of Whispers, figuring that it'd be a problem for his older self. Terrible at picking up on flirting attempts and needing to have it very slowly and clearly spelled out for him, he missed a ton of chances with many, and that was not helped by the fact that when he falls for someone, he becomes the definition of devotion, not seeing anyone else even to his detriment. He only ever fell for Iotta, Poffi and, many years later, Huki.

Maeveryl - Panromantic asexual (non-binary) While they are pan, they do have a strong preference for masculinity, or better, a general aversion towards feminine behavior and appearance. They had their first experience with romance with their saplinghood best friend, Morwen, and they quickly figured out femininity wasn't really for them, both for their own body and in a partner. After that, they only had another experience that ended bitterly, and then Adamas became their heart. Years later, when Deryn joins their relationship with Adamas, they don't share romantic feelings for each other, though they quickly become quite platonically affectionate with each other.

Ellara Echodancer - Homosexual Just lesbian. Girls gals girls. Only women of all kinds. She's totally not a hot mess, because she's got rizz and isn't afraid to use it, even just to have a little innocent flirty fun that totally isn't a distraction.

Hel Ravenlost - Homosexual G g girls... pr... etty... Don't worry, after losing Sieran without having been able to tell her how she felt for years, she does get better at not completely hiding her feelings. Luck isn't on her side, but third time's the charm, I swear!

Bunnie - Pansexual demiromantic (non-binary) She likes to sleep around, so anyone willing and compatible (both personality-wise and physically) is fair game for her to have a little no-strings-attached fun. As for the romantic side, I elaborated on it a bit here, but in short she does want romantic relationships and isn't afraid of showing the kind of interest in others that could lead to that, but she always had issues with developing feelings of the romantic kind and having them last, so she tends to coyly hide behind a bit of an emotionally-nonchalant facade until she feels safe to love someone.

Ethanryel - Asexual aromantic (agender) Just never felt anything of either kind of attraction, and that's very much fine for them. Bunnie once explained queerplatonic relationships to them, but that ended up being a sore point for them. The closest thing to that could have been their bond with Grace, a Zephyrite gal who had taught them a lot about healing and voiced for them to join the Zephyrite on their last travel. She had a pretty evident crush on them yet she was the first that didn't make them uncomfortable, but before they got to talk about anything of that matter, she was mortally wounded in the crash in Dry Top, and they never forgave themselves for not having been able to save her. Years later, when Aurene branded their arm to save them, Ethanryel took the title of Grace of Aurene in memory of their friend.

Deryn - Pansexual Gender doesn't matter to her, if one is a nice and hot charr, they're a nice and hot charr. Probably if Mae were a charr she'd have made a move on them as well, but after the initial fascinated curiosity towards the very concept of sylvari, only strong platonic feelings towards them are left.

Markus Blake - Bisexual Due to his parents being in a queerplatonic relationship and being told since really young that he'd have assured the freedom to choose they nearly didn't get (Nora and Lionel were childhood best friends who married each otherso that they could have the kid they both did want and be done with further family expectations, with her being lesbian and him aroace), he never really thought much of romance, thinking he'd just know when he found "the one". When he met Kai, he thought he'd found that one and hoped she'd eventually return his feelings for years, failing at being clear with her about it while ignoring what he felt towards Fynn, the best friend he had found at the same time. It took him a while, but, by what felt just short of divine intervention, he eventually figured out that the "one" was actually "two".

Nari - Bisexual homoromantic Gals is where it's at. She does find feminine people hot in general and had a few experimental flirts across the gender spectrum, but proper relationships are something she knows she wants only with gals. She believes that such kind of strong confidence in her own ideas was what caught Hel's attention in spite of not being norn, not realizing that Hel prefers non-norn until much later.

Iotta - Pansexual demiromantic Her opinion of romance is that it sucks, like all that comes with it. Sure, people can be hot in ways that make sense from a biological standpoint, but for her whole life she couldn't imagine willingly being in a relationship, because everyone else is grossly incompetent and, at best, more annoying than what she could deal with on a daily basis. Being in a relationship with a dork like Tocchix only confirmed that she hates it, because that kind of implicit vulnerability and distracting fondness for someone else goes against everything she knows to be safe, and she utterly despises the fact she wants more of it and that she played herself into it by getting that brilliant idea of manipulating him in the first place. And then being "left behind" shattered any positive perception of romance nearly irreparably, and it drives her mad that she can't get that yearning blade out of her heart so it can rot in peace. So yeah, romance sucks, and it sucks that she fell for it that one time.

Poffi - Demisexual biromantic Growing up in a small krewe that was part of the same polyamorous pod for years and that treated her like their own progeny, she was exposed to plenty of relationship examples, so she thought she had a pretty clear idea of what she was like by the time she left home to join the Order. Sadly she never got the chance to test her theories due to her general insecurities, and she also missed the pretty important part where maybe some girls can be just as romanceable as guys. (hey, at least AU!Poffi gets to go through quite the poly rollercoaster)

Daunte Burstspell - Homosexual He's a simple charr: he liked his guys hot like his fire, and life was not a little fun without the risk of burns. Verge was his flame since childhood, and they openly shared their warmth with many others. Daunte continued doing so after losing him, and even though it was never the same, he did genuinely care for the young norn he so gleefully annoyed to no end.

Hagan Wesson - Pansexual Forced to run away from Hoelbrak and break up with his childhood sweetheart, Gretna (Hel's sister), he eventually tried to get over it in some way, and ended up having some... positively revealing experiences. Swinging for years between times where he wanted to enjoy himself without attachment and others where he tried to ignore everything else to focus on his duty in the Vigil, after Daunte's death he's been more open about enjoying other people's company, and eventually ended up being reunited with Gretna after he had already settled with Flom.

Flom - Pansexual Good thing he likes everything and is quick to like others, because he genuinely believed "beggars can't be choosers" for the longest time. Even better thing, he now has people he likes and who chose him first (and a demon in his head who regularly calls him out on bs he should unlearn).

Zehmik - Homosexual (masculine non-binary) Guys are just neat, sorry gals. Lost count of how many flings he entertained during his years in the Mist War, always keeping feelings at arms' length due to the risky nature of their situation and a heartbreak he never recovered from. The occasional experiment only confirmed his very serious case of gay gay homosexual gay.

Edraas Noiza - Asexual aromantic (?) Due to being a highly experimental hybrid, its body is a biological mess that may have yet to fully mature and its perception of emotions is different from that of all other sentient species, so the concept of romance or anything of that nature is downright alien to it.

Lenorey - Asexual ?romantic She doesn't really get what the big deal about romance is, not beyond just preferring someone's company over others', while sex is just an activity that can be fun. In general she cared more about getting high off of toxins, so it's all of little interest to her. Now, finding a weird little asura that is literally toxic, gives you more toxins as part of the experiments she asked to perform on you, and you get just a little bit high when you kiss her? Maybe that's what love feels like.

[lala-blahblah]

So at my job we have like a job yellow pages website where it lists people by name and their email and what knowledge areas they have, to help find relevant people when solving an issue. And we also have employee resource groups for like women in the workplace and disabled employees and LGBTQ+ employees, and when you join one you get listed as a member on your profile and added to a big list.

And what this MEANS is that if you join the LGBTQ+ group, anyone who looks you up to find your email will see a big ol button that labels you as being gay gay homosexual gay. And they can then click on the button and scroll through pages of EVERY openly queer person at the company in alphabetical order, and I DON'T know how to FEEL about that

[musclesandhammering]

Perpetually annoyed by the attitude straight women have about gay men and the gay men who encourage it 😒

[aaa-battery-not-rechargeable]

a very fucking special shout-out to aros who have been the token "weird queer" friend amongst a queer friend group, only to have the novelty lost and find yourself left when they all decide their romantic relationships matter more than you, or your aromantic worldview becomes off-putting because they don't (and don't try to) understand what amatonormativity means.

i have many qualms. this happens to a lot of aros, and it just speaks to the infantilization of aro folks (and ace too!) when all we're seen as is the weird one who doesn't feel love, there for the amusement of "normal queers" and then cast out when they find something more interesting.

if your friend group did/does this, it may mean they weren't truly seeing you, or doing their best to be actual allies to aro and aspec people.

it's the gay best friend trope all over again. everybody loves the gay best friend because it's trendy to have one and not treat them like a person outside the stereotype.

and it fucking sucks. ive been there.

it's not your fault you're not "palatable". let them choke.

[sev-wildfang]

2015 - 2024

it has been a while since ive felt the courage or need to post something like this. i worked very hard to scrub all pre-2016 photographs of me off the internet in fact, something i realize was not in the spirit of the person who inspired me at all.

for the sake of brevity im not going to post the entirety of my transition. some two or odd years into it i was fully immersed in the feminine persona i was trying to become but still filled with a yearning that seemed to be incurable.

it was a chance encounter on this website that changed my course forever. i saw a transition timeline by a user who has since deleted their blog, detailing year by year their journey to become a kind of trans woman i didnt even know could exist at that point: a trans-feminine butch.

the clarity of their vision intrigued me. it opened a door where previously i only saw an insurmountable wall. this was something one could want to become. this was not a failure state. this was a lighthouse.

"you measure yourself by stricter standards than you do cis women", my then therapist said, "you allow yourself to play with masculinity in your art. in your art you seem to be able to separate it from male-ness. do you think you might want that in real life?"

immediately after that conversation, i looked at the timeline post again. i decided to get a haircut - a variation of the same short undercut that has become my go-to since. i slowly phased out the dresses that had carried my thru the hardest times of my budding transition. most of them i gifted to other trans women who had more of a need for them.

i set to work on my self once more with new purpose and i found first joy, then peace in the never-ending process of becoming. like every terminally online dyke in 2020 i read Stone Butch Blues, read The Locked Tomb, read Hot Allostatic Load, buzzed my hair off twice, got way too many tattoos to count, found community and friendship in my local queer scene as well as among butches online, and learned that i have the capability to love more than one person. and i love all of the people i used to be and no longer am; the problem child, the teenage romantic, the spiteful young man, the girl wrestling with herself, the baby butch still worried about keeping her tokens of femininity about her, the idiot who tought working night shifts was a good idea, and the clown who said this would be short post just some paragraphs ago.

the user who made that post was a lighthouse that went out as soon as i made it to shore, if you forgive the sentimentality. i am not half the butch they were (and maybe still are?) but maybe that's enough to be worth something to someone. it is something to me.

[paraphwrites]

followup on my post about dbda & loneliness.

'dead boy detectives' is a show where fundamentally, every character is very very lonely. but, they make each other less lonely. jenny is a surrogate parent for crystal, edwin and niko are always there for each other, crystal and charles understand each other, charles and edwin complete each other. there's just something so beautiful that even though they are all in pain and lonely, they are not alone, they have friends who would literally die for them.

i realized i was queer pretty young and in a very non-accepting environment. i was the only queer person i knew for a really long time, and that was really hard for me. and there was something devastatingly beautiful about watching edwin go through the a similar journey and not be alone.

dbda is important for a million reasons. but i would like to focus on one reason in particular.

'dead boy detectives' illustrates that there are multiple different ways to realize one's queer identity. you have simon, who is so wrapped up in self-hatred that he tears other people down with him. you have edwin, who is utterly unwilling to express any desire in such a way but ultimately embraces it. you have monty, who seems to have always known he was queer and always been very okay with that. you have charles, (i include him because i believe he is, but that can be debated) who goes on a long journey to realize it due to his circumstances. and they are all valid, and they are all real, and some of them hurt other people. because when the world hurts you so fundamentally, sometimes you end up hurting other people too. and you have people who have never had an issue with being queer, and that's great. and you have people who have to come to terms with it and it is hard and it is beautiful but they don't have to do it alone.

and that MATTERS. so often in media, we have a narrow, limited perspective for what realizing one's queer identity means. but there are so, so many different ways to figure yourself out, and dbda shows that in a very tangible and real way

the stories you tell are the stories we hear. so if @netflix only wants to tell stories about straight white people (maybe featuring a token gay character, so they can put it under the lgbt section), then that is the stories that people will hear

chimamanda ngozi adichie gave an incredible ted talk, back in 2009, called 'the danger of a single story.' in it, she discusses how, when you only tell & hear a singular story about a certain group of people, that becomes how you perceive the entire populace.

when a coming out journey is limited to its popular depiction (*realizes* *is kinda sad* *gets a bf*) then that is what all queer people are reduced to

look, i get that netflix has a couple of great shows featuring multiple queer characters, and i've watched & loved most of them. but god if i am not tired of people telling me to watch heartstopper. (i did & it's great & that's not the point.) the point IS that there should not be Two Gay Shows on your platform. because then the entirety of queer people are reduced to that.

now, maybe if it was just dbda, i wouldn't be so up in arms.

BUT THE FUCKING PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY ADAPTATION?????????????????????????????????

you CANNOT reduce queer people to shows that aren't worth renewing. you CANNOT erase queer characters from classic lit just because you want it to be more mainstream. when you do that, you are reducing queer identities to the single story you are willing to tell.

(to be clear i'm not blaming all of homophobia on netflix. i am simply pointing out a way in which they are contributing)

[hussyknee]

I just want to make one thing very clear. Black and brown people, especially Muslims right now, don't owe white people for your allyship in racial justice. Not even those who are themselves systemically marginalized in some way. Not white Jews, not white queers, not white disabled, not white working class, not white poor.

Whiteness is the most lethal kind of oppression because it built the current colonial capitalist, imperialist world order. Every white person benefits from and is complicit in its systems in some way because white supremacy is global. Whatever marginalization has white people in it can be and is easily weaponized against the mellanated. When charged with your racist, exclusionary and oppressive behaviour you hold up Black and brown people of the same marginalizations as tokens. This is the only time they are ever visible; more often than not you profit off their labour, hoard their gains, throw them under the bus and make them part of your iconography for liberal progress points once they're dead and have no inconvenient opinions about your conduct.

This is why it's very hard for Black and brown people to take accusations of bigotry towards you in good faith. We also have a duty of care towards others but more often than not it feels like you want us to do what you want while holding a knife to our necks. Even when you don't do it directly, you issue demands like "if you don't do x and y you clearly don't care about my people and deserve the worst!!!" without considering for a moment that the full brunt of that policing will always fall on Black and brown people, because punitive justice exercises itself first and foremost on the vulnerable. If your demands for allyship carry disproportionate punishment for Black and brown people should we refuse, you're just on some power trip and never needed our help in the first place. This also obfuscates the needs and disenfranchisement of BIPOC Jewish, queer, poor, disabled and Global South people, because without racial justice, few of your gains will ever materialise in their lives. It's always trickle down liberation for the rest of us.

Your allyship is supposed to be the work of conscience, a recognition of injustice and a drive towards privilege equal to your own. For white people, it's an individual reparation on your part. It is not an act of kindness, or benevolence, or a transaction that must be repaid in kind. The worst of us deserve the same rights the worst of you already have. That's the meaning of equality. If you're willing to let us get fired, deported, or brutally murdered for bad behaviour, then not only were you never an ally, you were also just waiting for the opportunity to use that weapon you claim you never wanted. There is no justice in an asymmetry of power.

[theresattrpgforthat]

Do you have any recommendations for TTRPGs where Body Horror is a central theme or mechanic? Preferably ones where themes like loss of agency or control over one's body are the focus. Thank you!!

THEME: Body Horror (Part 2!)

Hello there, I’m going to start by providing a link to the Body Horror recommendation post I put up back in 2022, before I move on to new recommendations!

Mutant Monster Machine Girls, by babblegumsam.

In MUTANT MONSTER MACHINE GIRLS, you play as a member of "The Girls", a group of queer misfits fighting against an oppressive anarcho-capitalist state ruled by The Corporation. 

Each of you fights against them because all your lives have been ruined by The Man Responsible, a dangerous and cruel servant of The Corporation. Because of his actions and the nature of your evolutions, you can no longer return to your previous lives and the people you love.

Your only solution? Exact your ultraviolent revenge on him and bring peace to the city by force!

The Mutant part of Mutant Monster Machine Girls is pretty heavy on the body horror, although I think the other character options certainly have possibilities. Babblegumsam has a fondness for weaving trauma and emotion into many of their works, so you’ll likely find a lot of feelings about exploration and loss in this one. The game system uses a modified PbtA system, which gives you tokens that you can spend to add modifiers to your roll. (This same mechanic can be found in Apocalypse Keys!)

Soul Burner, by World Champ Game Co.

Soul Burner is a standalone tabletop role-playing game of adventuring ashen corpses wandering a volcanic ghostland in service of the gods of fate, protecting the timeline from imminent disaster by manifesting fractured memories to shape the world to their will.

Compatible with Mork Borg and inspired by Necronautilus, this game acts as a bridge between worlds of violent dark fantasy and stoner metal science fantasy.

Soul Burner embeds body horror both into the characters you play and the creatures you come across, using MORK BORG rules and depicting your characters as merely remnants of who they used to be. You will find creatures overgrown by fungi, desperate cannibals, and lava-worshipping cultists in this book, evoking a grim and gritty fantasy setting. Your own characters are ever-changing, morphing and distorting whenever you gain a Reminder - pieces of who you are that give you mechanical advantages in the game.

FLËSHMØG, by Freak Flag Games.

FLËSHMØG: THE FLESH BEGINS TO EXERT ITS WILL UPON ITSELF

mäw of hëck: flëshmøg is a pen & paper body horror character creator. draw your hand, discover your body, and mutate your form.

This isn’t so much a game as it is a character-creation exercise. Using a deck of playing cards, you assemble cards as you randomly draw them to give yourself body parts, strengths, and adaptations according to the world around you. This might be an interesting exercise if you want to come up with a wretched home-brew character for MORK BORG, or if you want to design some kind of horror to pit against your players in another game.

Do Not Fear: In Death We Bloom, by Hella Big Claws.

Do Not Fear is a Forged In the Dark Tabletop Roleplaying game, about accepting the fleetingness of life; and using the strength that gives you in order to combat a growing stagnation.

Fight as a Hunter, a person who has been given a Gift of Bloom; a fungus like infection that allows for incredible strength and regenerative ability; in exchange for subsuming your flesh as you die.

Combat or save the Rusted; living creatures infected by a growing viral stagnation; marbling their bones and rusting their flesh; sculpting them into horrifyingly beautiful creations. Ascend the Tower; a large, multilayered structure which you call home. Interact with the factions and people within, as you set down roots.

As a fungus-infested person, the characters for Do Not Fear feel like prime candidates for body horror. Your characters have accepted that their fate will likely end in death, but only because they must if they are to save the world from a horrible plague. The game is built off of the same system as Blades in the Dark, but I think there’s been some tweaks here and there, because there are teasers to creatures and weapons that indicate hit-points and stats. The character abilities however, look really powerful and exciting. If you are a fan of Bloodborne, Hunter X Hunter, or Technoir, you might like this game.

Mutagenic Hive Swarm, by Atelier Hwei.

Waking up as a transdimensional insectoid reptilian has never been more fun!You are a stone age psychonaut apparently occupying the body of a Transdimensional Insectoid Reptile, a bug.

But who you were is less important than where you are: you must navigate the bloody, alien meatscape of the MUTAGENIC HIVE SWARM and find a way back to the Here & Now… before memories of who or what you fade completely.

Mutagenic Hive Swarm is all about playing bugs who are not really bugs - your characters have found themselves in the bodies of alien creatures, and will need to fight in order to hold onto their sense of self. Much of your character’s skills and effort will be directed towards trying to resist certain influences and changes, so I think the theme of loss of agency really shines through in this game. What you might really like is the d20 table of mutations that can threaten you every time your body changes. If you want a game where your character is more likely going to succumb to their changes than find a way out, you might want to check out Mutagenic Hive Swarm.

Other Games to Check Out

Wasted, by World Champ Game Co.

Bio-Drones & Cryo0Clones, by ChrisAir (for Mothership).

[genericpuff]

What are your thoughts on the whole Hestia x Athena thing in LO? Personally it always infuriated me with how hypocritical it was of them to date each other despite them both being members of/Hestia being in charge of TGOEM. It especially annoyed me how Hestia constantly told Persephone that as a TGOEM member she can't date anyone but later saying that her relationship with Athena doesn't count. I give some credit to Artmeis for calling them out when finding out, but it wasn't enough

The hypocrisy is one thing but it at least could have been expanded on as a plot point (Hestia didn't even have the spine to return the coat and apologize, Artemis had to do it ???), but what REALLY ticks me off is that Rachel clearly tried to include queer rep through Hestia and Athena who are two traditionally aro/ace goddesses. So really all she did was erase their original queer identities, both of which are still massively misunderstood and argued over whether or not they're "real". And shit, we even see that in her old asks that lesbian sex "doesn't count" and that asexuality is somehow just a sliding scale / stepping stone towards "becoming" another sexuality (in this case, gay).

Like... you can be asexual and also still be romantically attracted to the same sex, "becoming gay" doesn't automatically erase someone's asexuality. Artemis can be gay and aroace. Lesbian sex is still sex and isn't a "loophole" to retaining one's virginity. To be fair, the whole "vestal virgins are flaming lesbians because you can be a virgin and still have hot lady sex" thing came from an anon, but like... she doesn't do anything to challenge that idea in LO either, if anything it's reinforced through Athena and Hestia using their relationship as a "loophole" within TGOEM (and the narrative never actually stops to analyze that.)

And then the cherry on top is Rachel removing the sexualities - sometimes even entire character identities - from canonically or commonly-accepted queer gods and giving them to others. Crocus is no longer a lover of Hermes, but a one-dimensional nymph who was killed as a plot device and then never spoken of again. Ampelos is no longer a satyr loved by Dionysus, his name now belongs to Psyche, a heterocis black woman who doesn't know how to read and has been basically forced into slavery. All of Aphrodite's children who ranged in gender and sexual identities are now replaced with one-dimensional cutout characters with no specific labels or characterizations beyond the translations of their names. Eros has been reduced to the "gay best friend" whose first introduction into the story is inebriating a 19 year old girl with the intent of dumping her in an older man's car. Apollo has been turned into a generic big bad whose only goal is getting his hands on Persephone and nothing else, with zero nuance to his actual characterization or plot arc, he's just "the rapist" who conveniently becomes a pawn in some bigger nefarious plan that makes zero sense. Dionysus and Achilles have both been turned into babies.

If Rachel wanted queer rep, she was already in the right place. The entire Pantheon was her oyster. But instead she managed to go the complete opposite with it and not only erase the queer identities of Greek gods in LO, but went the extra mile of egregiousness by replacing those queer gods with token-queer stereotypes and one-dimensional characters who are just there to say they're gay for the brownie points before being shoved back into the closet. They're out, but they're still not seen.

[onceandfuturelesbian]

the idea that there can only be one queer person (+ an outside love interest) in tv shows/movies is so stupid and unrealistic

like besties,,,, we flock like ducks

if there’s one, there’s another ten

in the last seven years of my life (age 12-19) my best friend (at the time) came out and there was like a ripple effect, now i’m a lesbian and friends w more queer people than cishet people

i was gonna say i need a show with a Token Straight Friend™️ but that’s literally tao in heartstopper

[luunamoona]

the way community handled queerness is honestly so peak. like, there're 3 main moments i can think of in the show where queerness was apparent and mentioned: advanced gay, queer studies and advanced waxing and britta's pitch in emotional concequences of broadcast television.

in advanced gay, the cornelius hawthorne is seen as a villian for having traits like being abusive towards his son, pierce, him being really racist and him being homophobic. this acknowledgement of homophobia being a bad thing is definitely good for the early 2010s, as many shows treated being queer as a joke back then. also cornelius being fucking murdered at the end of the episode solidifies the fact his actions were deemed immoral and he therefore had his comeuppance.

community only ever uses queerness as a punchline in the context of troy and abed's relationship, the punchline usually being "look at how romantic these 2 friends are how silly", which could be seen as homophobia as the same context with a man and a woman would be treated differently by the showrunners as it'd be turned into a romantic subplot.

the next example i have is from queer studies and advanced waxing. having the dean tell richie and carl that he "isn't openly anything and gay doesn't begin to cover it" is much more progressive than many other media at that time, and even now, as they'd usually have the queer character just be gay for convenience. this need for convenience is commented on in the episode with richie and carl basically coercing the dean into adopting a label that is inaccurate but convenient for his straight peers. back to my previous point, presenting queerness as being more complex and having more nuance than just gay and straight is something that is very useful to queer viewers as it presents an option beyond these 2 ends of the spectrum. unlike what other shows may do with this concept, community treats it seriously, showing the dean's inner conflict with presenting with an identity that isn't his, with lines like "i feel sick". (also side point, the line "i make gayness look like mormonism" goes so hard)

finally, there's britta's pitch in emotional concequences of broadcast television. in this, the dean protests britta's decision to make him transgender and not "all this other stuff". something i love about that scene is the ability to critique queer represention without insulting it. as a trans person, i've seen a good amount of transphobia is television. this isn't one of these times. being able to have trans identity be a part of the punchline without it being insulted is something that is apparently very hard for screenwriters of sitcoms to do, so i commend them for being able to do that. as well as this, this scene acts as a criticism of how basic queer representation in media is, how they like having one distinct, easy to understand label to give their token character, ignoring "all this other stuff". it's telling us that, like in queer studies and advanced waxing, queer idenity isn't black and white, it's a wide spectrum of identities that comes in many, many different colors.

all in all, community's representation of queerness and how it treats insults to queerness is something a lot of other shows should try to strive for. in my opinion, it has some of the most nuanced takes of queer identity and representation out of any sitcom that doesn't have queer people as a target audience. it feels very fitting, since the show is literally called community and it about a group of misfits who bond over their shared messed up-ness. this show is all about finding your people and accepting everyone, as pierce says in for a few paintballs more, "flaws and all". i think the showrunners had an impression this show would speak to a lot of queer people and i love that they were able to make us feel welcome just as greendale does to the study group.

[im-perfectly-normal-about-this]

For anyone that might still be on the fence of giving Dead Boy Detectives a watch:

I was sceptical too, I was on the fence. Netflix for some reason suggested DBD to me after every movie a watched for a while (and my flatmates and I have a nightly movie night). Black Parade was playing. Being an MCR fan I was honestly a little weirded out by the new version. It stupidly almost felt like misappropriation to me. I felt overprotective of the song that had meant a lot to me as an angsty teenager all those years back. (It's weird. They chose the perfect song to lure me in, did everything right and it still sadly had the opposite effect on me.)

And I love supernatural shows so I was intrigued by what I knew of DBD but the way Netflix tried to push it onto me triggered some type of fit of expectation aversion in me.

I ended up giving the show a shot anyway (waaaay later than I would have liked to in retrospect) when curiousity took over after all.

I stayed on the fence through the first episode, stubborn as I am. But by Episode 2 the characters had already weaseled themselves into my heart. And I stayed hooked and only grew more obsessive with every coming episode.

Dead Boy Detectives is funny and visually stunning, the costume designs are great, the music slaps and the actors are amazing too. And the characters are to die for which to me is the most important thing in any show! and all the actors and actresses are eye candy

And it's queer in the best way. Which is to say explicitly so and in a way so that it is important to many of the character's arcs. Those characters are queer but 'queer' is not the only thing they are. Their's no 'token gay' in DBD, nobody is fishing for brownie points in this. I don't think the word 'gay' is ever even spoken aloud. And yet queerness is so clearly interwoven in the narrative. Treated as something precious and worth protecting and fighting for.

I can do nothing but highly recommend giving Dead Boy Detectives a shot to anyone that likes supernatural stuff, found family, good queer representation and/or a good time in general.

I recommend to watch DBD even if you might already be partially spoiled about the plot or the characters. By the time I finally watched, I was too. Everything is so well made and executed that it's fun to watch even if you already know what will happen. That's why there are so many people rewatching it over and over again too! (The online watchpartys are so fun!)

And lastly, even if there's a chance that we won't get another season, I still recommend watching DBD. I don't regret my choice to watch it one bit. Had I known it would end like this I still would have watched anyway. It's worth every second of my time, every bit of my attention. And the DBDA community is so creative and everyone I've seen or personally interacted with was kind and funny and just great to be around!

tldr; watch Dead Boy Detectives, it's good and fun and gay!

[nekropsii]

your staunch defense of transfeminine people in a community where we're so routinely mocked and sidelined does not go unnoticed or unappreciated.

you're doing a fantastic thing

Hey, I'm glad it's doing something!! It was... Kind of radicalizing realizing that no one's fucking normal, actually, they just say they are. But the really, really radicalizing thing - the thing that got me to start being very loud and aggressive about it all - was getting hit with wave after wave of misdirected Transmisogyny for two reasons...

I acknowledged Transfem reads of characters exist, and stated that I actually - gasp! - enjoy some of them, even over the popular Transmasc readings of the same characters. Getting hit with backlash for this was expected, but I didn't foresee how that would manifest. Several people - all self-reporting as trans men, weirdly - flooded my notes and inbox talking down to me, treating me like I'm stupid, and that I don't understand Transmasc struggles (I do, I just distinctly was not talking about them), and... Most vexingly, treating me like I'm a woman, and acknowledging me as such. By saying I, for example, preferred a Transfeminine reading of Dave over the popular Transmasculine one - by simply bringing up trans women in a conversation that didn't include putting them down - I had apparently branded myself as a stupid bimbo woman in their eyes that desperately needed mansplaining to. By discussing trans women positively, I had branded myself as an "other", and needed to be treated as such. I don't understand why it was all trans men doing this - you'd think they'd know better than to start misgendering and condescending people just because they started talking about feminism or trans rights. You'd think they'd understand meeting feminism with traumadumping is inappropriate.

I put a Cis Woman in my Webcomic, and she apparently wasn't feminine enough for some fucking people. Mind you, none of us on the Dev Team ever really thought that she was any degree of Masculine. She was never designed to be masculine, and she wasn't designed with transness in mind. We'd always referred to her internally as a cis woman. She just happens to have broad shoulders, narrow-ish hips, an Adam's apple, a bigger nose, and some serpentine heat pits on her face that happen to look like facial hair.

This is her. The uncanny, ugly, mannish freak who should've just been a boy. She looks normal! She's just a regular woman! Apparently, when you tell people that what human beings would identify as sex characteristics are totally randomized on an alien bug species because that alien bug species literally only has one sex, that's cool and based until it's applied to women? Even then, these are all traits that some normal human cis women have in real life. What's even more jarring is that almost all of the Transmisogyny thrown at me over Tejuri's appearance was done over fucking Cohost - the website people fled to specifically to escape Tumblr's Transmisogyny. The site that touts its pride in getting rid of all Transphobes. God.

I've noticed that people often preach their alliance not as a genuine statement but as a way to keep with the trends. A lot of reblogs on posts about loving trans women are viewing them as either a body ("loving trans women" taken as synonymous with wanting to have sex with them), an object ("loving trans women" taken as their value being synonymous with their romancability), or a token (saying that you "love trans women" is the latest political trend in progressive spheres, and professing this makes you look like a better person, even if you don't mean it). I've learned recently that a lot of people don't know anything about Queer Theory or Transfeminism. A lot of people apparently don't even realize Transfeminism exists. It's been a fucking wild past few months. Things I thought were just basic human decency and common sense apparently need to be stated, because it turns out my standards for what counts as "basic human decency" is a lot higher than most. Wild. @_@

Every time someone pulls this stupid horseshit on me, I get more annoying and more powerful. Nothing's gonna make me back down. At the end of the day, I have the privilege of being able to shut up and stop facing harassment. That's not a privilege trans women have. It's why true allies cannot stop fighting even when it does get a little hard. We can put the weapons down. They cannot.

Every now and then I think about the phrase "Trans Women are the Women of Women". Every day, it becomes more true.

[will80sbyers]

The homophobia and projection are SOOO blaringingly obvious from Melvin’s.

“Byler can’t kiss bc it’d be weird and creepy!” But Melvin’s 13 year old make out scene is fine. Byler kissing each other on the cheek or holding hands would send them into an OUTRAGE of how “inappropriate” it is.

“It’d be more revolutionary for Will to move on and be single, lots of people have crushes when they’re young!” Yet Melvin should stay together forever despite the fact that they have relationship issues every single season.

“Will is evil and a home wrecker!!” Even though he hasn’t done a thing to break El and Mike up, in fact he’s the one trying to help them stay TOGETHER. Actually, Will hasn’t really done shit to anyone…but El can push max off a skateboard with her powers and it’s fine. Why does El get to be jealous but Will’s jealousy & feelings (that he keeps to himself) make him a “homewrecker?”

They use rovicky as their token gay ship, or something non canon like Elmax, ronance, steddie etc. but their homophobia jumps out with Byler bc it has potential to become canon & they’re scared.

I can’t count the amount of ppl calling Will the f slur on Twitter & justifying it by them being lgbtq as well…that’s not an excuse to call someone (even a fictional character) a slur esp considering the actor is literally gay? Regardless of what Noah did, that is homophobia, and coming from a queer person makes it worse! That affects our entire community. If you call them out on it they just gaslight you. It’s frustrating and sad to see.

Yeah honestly I agree, MANY of the people that think Will should not end up with Mike are acting like this and having double standards that are born from homphobia & biphobia more than anything else and they show it with the ''arguments'' they use to say that it should not happen in the show even if they don't realize it 100% that's the real reason they are saying these things, for many it's not only a question of diffent preferences for the story

[melsrainpod]

third episode of Protocol just confirmed what I sort of started thinking after the first episode: Colin the IT guy is absolutely my favorite character. a middle-aged, maybe a little balding man, in a funky off-yellow sweater with some nondescript knit patterns on it, stuck in a governmental branch that the government forgot about, having to deal with people up top not understanding what the hell a computer even is, stuck with users that sass him at any and every opportunity (it's self-defence for Alice, and it's the only form of entertainment Colin gets, but years of terrible jokes wear a person down), trying to figure out this program with weird proprietary code (in German for some reason) on an OS that will stutter if you sneeze near it (Win NT 4.0), being the person who knows the most about this weirdness and yet still knowing nothing... he's so real to me

also, I fully believe that in a cast of diverse and queer characters Colin is not just the token cishet man, he's Just A Normal Man TM. the one you imagine working a corporate IT job who's been stuck at it for 8 years or maybe even more. truly transition goals for me lol

[spockandstars]

I think that a lot of people take issue with the way the Spock/Chapel/T'Pring love triangle is presented in Strange New Worlds, but that sometimes this is dismissed as fans just being bitter spirk shippers. So here are a few reasons why I believe people are iffy on this plotline. (Disregarding the fact that we're disappointed that the showrunners didn't, and most likely won't, take the chance to do something really cool with Spock's legacy as a queer coded character...)

Firstly, it takes time away from other characters to address an element of Spock's story that has already been explored beautifully. (I will get into how this treats Chapel and T'Pring later...) Spock's struggle with his humanity and his anguish over the depth of his feelings for others (particularly Jim) is a focus in TOS and the movies, and if you're going to keep on talking about it, at least do it in a more creative way? This isn't to say that it shouldn't be acknowledged at all, seeing that it is a lifelong struggle for him, but by making it such a focus of the series they're not giving other interesting characters as much of a chance to develop.

Additionally, it has traditionally been understood that Spock coped with his inner turmoil by repressing his feelings. Over the course of his lifetime, he learns to embrace his human side more to become a more balanced and healthy person. SNW takes the approach of "young Spock was more human and horny!" which isn't necessarily bad, but they better be giving us an explanation for how he transforms so dramatically to the extremely repressed character he is in TOS. Maybe this is reaching too far, but this whole approach of young Spock just feels like an excuse to get hot ladies into his bed and to fulfill the fantasies of nerdy men who project onto him. This is the same Spock who scoffed at the idea of going to see dancers at a bar, who was immune to the charms of the sexy ladies in Mudd's Women, who only entertained women when drugged or when he needed to do so for a mission...

Furthermore, I believe it's a disservice to Chapel. On one hand, it does make her love for Spock seem more grounded in reality, which I appreciate. In TOS, it's pretty clear that Spock doesn't share her feelings and her crush is only really ever used as a means of ridiculing her. There goes silly Chapel again, trying to win over her unrequited love! It's not cool. But on the same token, making Spock the focus of her character yet again only further reduces her to nothing but that. Why can't we let the girl breathe and do other stuff? Sure, she does get some of the AOS Uhura treatment where she gets to be a generic cool badass lady, but this is in a way that is lacking in any real depth. Chapel deserves better.

I also don't love the way it treats T'Pring. Was it really necessary for her to be Spock's eye candy wife that he gets to bang and cheat on? In Amok Time, it's heavily implied that this was an arranged thing and that they hadn't seen each other since they were seven. If they really felt the need to include this relationship, it would have been so much cooler if they had explored it from that angle, with neither of them truly wanting to be together but being forced into it by societal expectation. Which of course, results in T'Pring using her intelligence to gain her freedom in Amok Time.

So yeah. Those are my main gripes with this whole thing. Overall, I think it's lazy writing that allows the writers to benefit from the nostalgia of legacy characters without developing them in actually meaningful or revolutionary ways.