#queer ships tend to be more relatable

[clfixationstation]

you know what, maybe I'm just off-put when a m/f romance is the center of a story. Maybe that's why eren/mikasa (as an example - there are others) gives me the ick, despite their plot/character relevance and generally being a perfectly fine ship. Just not my vibe

[mellosdrawings]

With how Rook stalks Leona and Vil (is it really stalking with Vil if Vil is very much aware and consents enough for rook to be in the open?) if both of them date Jamil, would he also be stalked?

He's already hyper aware of his surroundings so adding rook into the mix feels like he should just get more time to sleep.

Thank you SO MUCH for asking! Lemme introduce you to Vil/Rook/Leona shipping, the sheer potential of Rook-Jamil, and my Rook metamour theory!

First, I'm a big Vil/Rook/Leona shipper. I call Rook/Leona the Hunter/Hunted ship. Who's the hunter? Who's the hunted? Who knows. As @aria-faye (THE Rook connoisseur who made me love Rook too lol) said, they both come from the same place, have the same culture, and are both somewhat outsiders in their own way. Rook doesn't really fit the Sunset Savanah stereotype or the Savanaclaw mentality in full. Leona doesn't fit the ideal of a prince and gets ostracized by his own people. Both of them work really well as a ship with Vil and it makes this funny Pomefiore-to-Savanaclaw pipeline with Rook in the middle, having been in both dorms.

For Jamil, once more quoting V "I feel like Rook kind of already keeps an eye on Jamil, a bit. He watches things he finds beautiful, and Jamil is definitely beautiful." Plus there didn't seem to be any adverse reaction from Jamil toward Rook for the entirety of book 5. And Rook is so desperately honest and true to himself that it contrasts completely with Jamil who still struggles to find himself after a lifetime of lying. He'd be a good push for Jamil to be more honest too, a good influence.

In relation to the N2 squad, here's my answer : METAMOUR. I'm already polyshipping 24/7, it might not yet be completely obvious in my blog but I ship more OT3 than actual couples. I work better with 3+ characters relationships than regular couples. So since Vil, Leona, and Jamil are already dating, why couldn't I add Rook too? He's not part of the N2 squad, but he's such a constant shadow to Vil that it's hard to imagine them away from each other. Leona and Jamil would start dating him fully knowing Rook is there and not leaving. Really, Rook would probably be Vil's first boyfriend before Leona and Jamil become a thing.

That doesn't mean Leona and Jamil would necessarily start dating Rook though, and that's where the metamour happens. They all share Vil, but whether there is a relationship between Leona and Rook, or Jamil and Rook is up to... my mood, mostly xD Or reader's interpretation I guess. Maybe they just get comfortable simply sharing Vil, maybe they have a sort of queer platonic relationship, maybe they're all dating.

I tend to treat Rook as a bonus when it comes to N2, because he doesn't fit the group, but it's hard to imagine him away, and he's so stupidly supportive that he'd probably be a good influence on forever-depressed-Leona and desperately-confused-Jamil.

Tldr : Jamil and Leona would start dating Vil knowing Rook would be there anyway, so if they ever feel uncomfortable about it they can only blame themselves.

(Who'd you think held the camera in those illus?)

[autolenaphilia]

I’ve seen a lot of explanations for young queer people being so weirdly puritan, as in the no-kink-at-pride discourse, the anti-ship people working themselves into moralistic anger paroxysms over fanfic and the frequent callouts of people over harmless consensual kinks. Like people, including myself, have attributed it to the after-effects of an evangelical Christian upbringing or the related problem of the very sheltered and isolated childhoods many of these people have had. And that’s all probably true to a certain extent.

But honestly, it’s probably boils down to a simple thing: a form of queer respectability politics. All forms of queerness in cishetnormative society are seen as freakish degenerate perversion, but some are seen as worse than others. And openly disavowing other queers with weird kinks is the most common form to buy respect from normie society, and it does have some material benefits for them. It’s common to almost all forms of oppression for there to be a dynamic of asking certain sections of the oppressed to sell out other oppressed people for their own benefit. Divide and conquer. This has gone on for literally decades. The respectable monogamous cis white gay male couple who condemn those other gays who are into leather and bondage and casual sex is almost a cliché at this point.

And let’s be honest, some people in the queer community are more privileged than others and thus able to wield this kind of respectability politics against those more oppressed than them. This is why transfems are so often targeted by TME queers for callouts over harmless kinks. There is little more disgusting to the cishetnormie mind than a transfem being sexual. And so other queers are able to wield transmisogyny to build their own respectability. What all those callouts from TME queers are actually saying, if you would do a They Live glasses style analysis, is:“I’m not a degenerate perverted sex freak, but that transfem over there is, do harm to her, not me.”

Transmisogyny is so strong that the figure of the degenerate transfem can even be used to redeem previously unacceptable figures of queer sexuality. I’ve seen multiple posts that present the aforementioned leather and bondage cis gay male kinksters as wholesome in contrast with whatever evil kink they are ascribing to transfems this week. Nothing is as evil to anti-kink moralists as two trans lesbians who do fauxcest roleplay by calling themselves sisters.

And when queers deprogram themselves from cisheteronormativity, they tend to do it in very self-serving ways. They only unlearn their bigotry and disgust against varieties of queerness that apply to them. So cis gays accept that cis gay male and cis lesbian sex is fine, various TME trans people unlearn their bigotry against tme non-binary people or taking testosterone. The queer things that are part of their identity, that they are inclined to do. But basically no variety of queer listed in this paragraph have any strong incentive to unlearn their bigotry and disgust against transfems, their transmisogyny And why would they? They can use transmisogyny to their own benefit, to raise their status within the queer community and in wider society by throwing transfems to the wolves.

[demigodpolls]

Why do you think Frank gets so little attention from the fandom at large?

although I don't fault anyone individually for not having interest in a given character, I do think it's pretty sad that not much mind is paid to frank. it's not the best metric to measure things by, but on AO3, frank has the fewest fanfics of the prophecy 7 by a pretty wide margin.

there's no point in comparing him to the likes of percy, annabeth, and nico, who have existed for way longer, but the lost hero trio have well over 10k works for all three individually, while hazel has 8.7k (her popularity is surely bolstered by her relation to nico, the second most popular pjo character on ao3) and frank has about 7k. interestingly, will solace has over 15k fics--and that of course has to do with the popularity of solangelo (the second most popular pjo ship on ao3, as you see above), but considering how recently tsats came out (and how little material/information about him existed before that), I still think that number is pretty remarkable.

with all of this in mind, here are some of the reasons why I think frank doesn't get a ton of attention from the fandom below the cut.

- part of it probably has to do with shipping. while frazel is a well-accepted canon ship, I don't think it actually garners a ton of real interest. when a pairing is very popular, its individual parties will inevitably share that popularity; i.e., will solace, as observed previously. furthermore, frank doesn't really have any popular non-canon ships. online fandoms heavily favor mlm pairings over any other kind of pairing (this is just a very neutral, well-observed fact, so I hope no one is bothered by this acknowledgement), but if a male character is not popularly shipped with other men, they tend to fall to the wayside. to be honest, I think it's a little surprising that frank/leo doesn't get more favor; maybe it's because people just don't like to acknowledge the love triangle they were in, but the enemies-to-lovers material that people usually enjoy is right there, you know? jason/leo is fairly popular on tumblr at least, but no one really ships its SoN counterpart percy/frank either, which is interesting.

- part of it probably has to do with the fact that, compared to others, frank does not appear to be a very angsty character. fandoms tend to prefer characters who have tragic backstories and/or highly-animated personalities, and while frank undeniably has his individual struggles, they probably seem quite small compared to the bulk of the principal cast. for reasons like this, a lot of people will likely tell you that they don't find frank (or his powers) very interesting, and prefer to devote their attention to other characters.

- part of it probably has to do with frank (in my opinion) being neglected by HoO books. I wish he had gotten to do so much more! but of the things that he did do, I don't think many people consider them to be very memorable.

- I think there's also no point in ignoring the fact that frank is a chubby POC, and well, these types just aren't often so beloved by fandoms. that his only popular ship is with another POC probably doesn't help matters, to be honest...! it's just a well-documented phenomenon that, unless they're anime characters, POC characters and POC x POC ships tend to be much less popular in online fandoms than their white counterparts (i.e., 2010s star wars comes to mind). of all 10 percy jackson POV characters on ao3 (I'm including will in this figure and excluding apollo, who I consider an outlier), piper, leo, hazel, frank, and reyna make up the bottom 5 in that order in terms of popularity. this page is a great resource for more data on race, queerness, gender, etc on ao3. (unrelated - fascinatingly, percabeth is the 8th most popular m/f ship on ao3 of all time, and jiper is 96th!)

that's just my two cents as to why I think frank doesn't get a ton of attention. I hope no one is upset by my observations, I mean all of them in a pretty neutral, analytical way. to anyone else reading this, here is a reminder that character hate and ship hate is not tolerated on this blog. if you post unkind things, your comments will be deleted and your account will be blocked. we don't need to bash other characters or ships in order to uplift others. save it for your own blogs, please!

thank you for asking and engaging with this blog!

-demigodpolls

[theshippirate22]

I have a theory

listen up bitches (gender neutral) (affectionate) i’ve been cooking this for an incredibly long time and i’m very very excited to share it but it is gonna be long so i’m putting it under a cut

my theory is that there has been a new set of archetypes created by popular m/m media either in canon or coding and i would love if it was more widely recognized by a distinct name so here we go:

I present to you: The Mirrorball x Running Up That Hill Boyfriends™️ Theory

i need to preface this by saying that i am absolutely not an english major or expert but i have done so much analysis that i’m 98% positive i’m on to something here

so usually mlm ships- at least in my experience- get boiled down into typical Grumpy x Sunshine, Golden Retriever x Black Cat, or like. Babygirl x Badass. and i hate that because those are like really watered down hetero romance stereotypes and i think queer people deserve to get our own archetypes instead of trying to force queer characters into prepaid boxes but that’s a story for another day so:

basically, all content with widely accepted mlm ships (even if they are more in coding than in canon) has this pattern with the ship that fits into Mirrorball x Running Up That Hill

(name pending- open to suggestions)

Boyfriend No.1 of course is the epitome of Mirrorball by Taylor Swift (i know, i know. bear with me here). He’s constantly trying to prove himself and his worth and usually he’s driven to hide or overcome 1-3 specific and intense insecurities/character flaws. He often has innate loyalty to a system or person who has repeatedly abused/neglected/abandoned him and thinks that this treatment is a result of his own character rather than a reflection of the abuser. In relation to the plot and audience, this is the “more dangerous” of the two because he’s so desperate to hold onto the status quo that he’ll often act in a way that makes things more difficult for himself, often by leaving Boyfriend No. 2, sacrificing himself, or doing “the wrong thing.” He also commonly has an older male figure that is breathing down his neck constantly, haunting his perceived inadequacies, and fueling his self-loathing. He’s constantly mischaracterized because he’s either boiled down to “the silly one” or a visage of his trauma and the people that relate to love these characters are usually extremely sad people. Usually this character is also the “mean girl” of the couple.

Examples of the Mirrorball boyfriend: Dean Winchester, Aziraphale, Stede Bonnet, Lucius Spriggs, Sherlock Holmes, Eddie Munson, Mike Wheeler, Prince Rupert, etc.

Boyfriend No. 2 then, is the Running Up That Hill Boyfriend, based of course, on the song by the same name by the perfect Kate Bush. He’s the one that’s seen The Horrors™️ and gained a layer of cynicism that Mirrorball doesn’t have. He was once loyal to something that used/hurt him but he rejected it and used his newfound freedom to restructure his entire personality and reach his much higher potential. Usually, he has passed so far from having a few insecurities to perceiving himself as utterly worthless and unlovable but he’s so convinced that it doesn’t even haunt him, he just goes with it and usually comes off looking overly-confident or cocky. This is The Bitch (affectionate)™️. There’s probably a scene of him covered in blood. This is The Girls’ favorite blorbo and ultimate whump. He tends to be really good with kids and he’s the kind of character that would and often has to CLAW a life out for himself by his fingernails.

Examples of the Running Up That Hill Boyfriend: Castiel, Crowley, Ed Teach, Black Pete, John Watson, Steve Harrington, Will Byers, Prince Amir, etc.

unfortunately i haven’t seen a lot of popular queer stuff so if you can think of other mlm or mlm shaped characters that fit into these archetypes please please please tell me

i’m specifically curious about:

-Hannigram (Hannibal)

-Buddy (911) (@criminally-obsessed if you would mind weighing in but obviously no pressure)

-Lokius (Loki) (@henderdads same thing)

-Any of the marauders but specifically WolfStar

-Stucky (MCU)

-RWRB (i’m so sorry i don’t remember the guys’ names)

-Nick and Charlie (Heartstopper)

-What We Do In the Shadows has one I think?

-literally anyone else please and thank you 🙏🙏 love you all

if you want like explicit examples of each piece for a character lmk for sure because i could talk about this all day long

[olderthannetfic]

i gotta know if im the only one who feels like this wrt character preferences and writing characters

when it comes to established canon characters, i tend to prefer men - simply cause my fav archetypes are more common in men, as are interesting villains, while women tend to be educational "role models" and more on the heroic side (but when i do like a female character? i go apeshit for her)

OCs in established canons (to round out the cast f.e.)? surprise, almost universally women! unless there's a canon reason as for why it has to be men

my original stories? heavy focus on women, and all men are in a way defined by their relationships with women so their roles are either brother, father, romantic partner, and in very few cases friend

in established canons with canonical characters i mostly like het and slash with the occasional femslash thrown in, in original stories it's a LOT of femslash, some het, and i honest to god have to confess that I don't have a single slash ship amongst my guys. hell, most of these poor men that came from my brain don't even have meaningful interactions w men they're not related to (altho i have One non-canon ship thats father-son incest, lol) but i honest to god am not all that interested in the dynamics between them!! i rlly like my male OCs but they don't give me anything close to the brainworms as my girls do

for all of this (almost always accusatory) talk of queer women in fandom focusing on men... does it become different when we are given our own canvas so to speak? or am i the oddity in this? 😅

--

This is pretty standard and comes up every time the wank does.

[enquire]

Hello again! Dunno when you’ll be back online, but when you do return, could you tell me of any potential DRA ships you have? Additionally, do you plan to make them canon or ship-tease them in your pony AU?

Hello again! :D

I hope you're ready for an info dump because I have a lot of thoughts about class 79!

Ships... the age old question...

I'm honestly not the kind of person who gets heavily invested into a lot of ships. That being said, I do enjoy them a lot, especially when it involves a cast I am as attached to as class 79! And one of those handful of ships I am highly invested in is a DRA ship, lol. (It's Kinjomae... and to be honest, a really big part of my DRA special interest is filled by those two characters, and Utsuro, in general if not together)

Kinjo and Yuki tend to end up being with central roles in most of my DRA related thoughts, art, and writing, it just kind of sneaks in, regardless, somewhere.

I like interpreting them in a queer platonic or more ace-leaning relationship as well. Not always, but I've made a habit of it. So yeah they're going to have a relationship of some sort in this au too.

To specify, I am referring to DRA1 Yuki; I don't really ship the real Yuki and Tsurugi together. To me, they are two very distinct characters with different personalities from each other despite their similarities, not just memories... I won't get into all that (a post for another day perhaps) but in context of Kinjomae, only one of them is his Yuki, who knows and cares for him.

Exploring the relationship between Tsurugi and (actual) Yuki Maeda is still super interesting though, and I can understand why people ship it, there's loads of interesting places to go with it.

Also, I'm the kind of fan who can be swayed to accept almost any pairing or headcanon, especially in the context of the respective work (art/writing, etc) I really think it's possible to execute pretty much anything in a convincing manner if done well, and that applies to ships and stuff. Are there some ships and/or headcanons that give me the ick? Yup. Are there some I just don't like? Yeah. It just takes a lot for me to really get to a level where I hate something.

Uh, let's see... there are a few other ships I tend to immediately think of, even if I'm not as invested!

Ayame/Akane (may or may not be teased or explored in the pony au)

Satsuki/Haru (they'll probably be canon, I mean... it's satsuki and haru)

Rei/Teruya (I love their dynamic, regardless of the type of relationship they have)

Utsuro/Akane (they are super fascinating and it would feel remiss not to include this one in some manner)

I'm not sure yet what I'll do in this AU with everyone, we'll see. Including friend groups: I want to make more 'mane 6' type groups from the rest of the cast but I haven't finalized any of them besides the main one yet.

That's one of the things that makes me love class 79 so much; they feel very real to me, individually and how they all interact with each other. I'm invested in them as a group, and in all the little friendships and groups within the class. So I might spend more time thinking about them in terms of friendships and other relationships than pairings, except for Kinjo and Yuki of course.

My favorites of those are:

☀︎ haru, satsuki, and teruya

tsurugi, yamato, and mikako

teruya, tsurugi, and rei

best siblings yamato and mikako

the if only group: teruya, tsurugi, rei, yuki, akane, yamato, and mikako. (who also happen be most of the mane 6 for my pony au, and are my favorite characters along with Utsuro, pretty much.)

I love this cast a lot if you couldn't tell by now.

My least favorites are Mitch and Kizuna, though. I don't dislike them, but Kizuna in particular I am really neutral toward compared to everyone else.

I feel like I just... don't have a grasp on what kind of character she is at all? Her story in the game combined with her FTEs left me pretty conflicted about her. It feels like there were many opportunities to give more insight into her, but none of them worked for me.

I mean, we get to meet her mom, and even that didn't give me any more insight into her childhood or personality at all... which is kind of hard to ignore when the time we spend (or being told about via FTES) with Ando, Keisuke, Ryutaro, and Midori all give their respective family members more context and anchors we didn't have before. Plus the tiniest whiff of Juu we get speaks volumes for Tsurugi's upbringing, it is very easy to fill in the blanks.

As much as it is a tradition to hate on Mitch, I don't really hate him as a character: he works perfectly well for the kind of role he's meant to fill, (I mean, he's designed to be a case 1 killer first and foremost) and personally, I find it a lot easier to add layers to him than Kizuna because he has a base I can wrap my head around, unlike Kizuna, even if it is a really simple one.

Anyways...

As a bonus, here are some of my favorite rarepairs:

mitch/uehara

teruya/uehara

teruya/haru

almost any rei pairings (I usually pass on the very gloomy and incoming divorce vibes of tsurugi/rei though) maybe partially because I (personally) have difficulties seeing Tsurugi being in relationships with women. Sorry, but I can't undo it. He's just gay in my eyes. And/or ace and homoromantic.

I think that's the end of my thoughts for now. Thanks for prompting another ramble I appreciate it.

⋆⁺₊⋆ see ya later ! ⋆⁺₊⋆

[alpaca-clouds]

The Top/Bottom Thing

Okay, I need to vent about something. Because it really annoys me. You do not need to agree with me, but this is my blog, so I can vent about it all I want.

I hate how a lot of fandom stuff clearly assigns queer ships the "top/bottom" dynamic. I hate it so much. Because for the most part, it just tends to enforce heteronormative standards. Especially when we see who gets to be the top and who gets to be the bottom. Because, spoileralert, most of the time this is completely and utterly based on who is the more feminine and the more masculine between the characters.

Let's put a pin in that, because I want to talk about something else first.

*clears throat* You folks are aware that a lot of queer people switch positions, right? Sure, there are some that prefer one thing over the other, but in general a lot of queer relationships do not have "the top" and "the bottom". This is true for both gay and lesbian relationships. (And while we are on it: Some gay men do not like anal sex. I know, shocking, right?)

The reason this is so popular with fan related stuff (and also non-fandom female oriented mlm original fiction), really is that it kinda enforces heteronormative relationship dynamics.

A lot of queer people in same-sex relationships - especially of the millennia and older generations - know the question of: "But who in your relationship is the man and who is the woman?" Because straight people cannot imagine a relationship in which the partners are eye to eye.

In earlier queer anime/manga fandom we still had the idea of uke and seme. In which the uke was the girl in every way imaginable. It often looked something like this:

You had the big, masculine seme, and the soft, feminine, petit uke. In some manga it went so far, that the uke was even drawn like a girl. They tended to be like girls - just without breasts. It was also one of the main reasons for a lot of gay men in Japan very much despising yaoi, keeping very much with their own gay manga genre, bara.

Now, admittedly by now this has mellowed out a lot in yaoi manga. Newer yaois tend to have way less physical difference between the uke and the seme. While often we still have the scenario that the seme is more powerful and influencial, at least the uke is no longer "a girl".

Still, this dynamic then also got duplicated on fanfictions at the time. Basically fandom usually decided (especially with anime fandoms) that within a gay ship one was the uke and one was the seme. So in the fanfictions that followed, any canon characterisation would be ignored in favor of making the seme toxic masculine and the uke a little damsel in distress, who would cry a lot.

Now, most of fandom has grown out of this phase (thank God), and uke and seme has mostly been replaced by the idea of top and bottom, which usually tends to be way less extreme in the depiction. But... the general issue is still there, right?

Because... people still kinda subconsciously enforce the idea of a heteronormative relationship with queer ships.

For those who usually do not engage with this, quickly let me explain: The idea of Top and Bottom is about, who is the "giving" and who is the "receiving" part within a relationship. The bottom is the one, who gets penetrated, the top is the one who penetrates, to overly simplify this. But also generally it also kinda means, that the "top" tends in most stories be the one who holds the control or more control within the sexual scene. This is especially a big thing with male on male smut, where a lot of stories male it clear that one of the two characters in anal sex is the one who gets fucked, with the other one doing the fucking.

And most of the time this is very much based on who of the ship is the more outwardly masculine and who is more feminine. And yes, this even holds true for sapphic ships. Let me talk about some of my own ships, so you can see what I mean, alright?

Alucard/Trevor (Castlevania) is probably the least strong on this one. While a lot of fanwork has Alucard as the "bottom" - you know, the long haired, rather androgynous twink - his femininity clearly is a bit cancelled out by being half-vampire. So there is in fact a lot of stuff where he gets to be "the top". But still, there is a definitive tendency to have him as the bottom.

Hector/Isaac (Castlevania) is one, where I literally have never once seen a fic with Hector topping. Admittedly, I can understand it with them in so far, that Hector is not only feminine, but also clearly shown to be submissive within the show. So both things kinda go into one another. But, you know... While I have him be the submissive one and passive one more often, I do make a point of switching it around a bit. (And it should be noted: I have not found a single fic outside of my own, that even adress the fact that Isaac might actually not want to do anal sex, because the Qur'an is very clear on the topic of it being a taboo.)

Mizrak/Olrox (Castlevania: Nocturne) to me is probably the most offensive one in regards of Castlevania gay ships. Because while still fairly new, I only so far have seen Olrox as the bottom. Because of course the more feminine one, with a very masculine partner, has to be the bottom. *eye roll* Which in their case does so clearly just not even have any other possible explanation rather than "the masculine and the feminine". I doubly hate this, because this does play into a lot of racist ideas about indigenous men, but I will not go into that now. Just... why?

Joe/Cherry Blossom (SK8) is another one, were one partner is very masculine and one is very feminine in their appearance. And of course... this translates to like 90% of the fandom having Joe top and Cherry bottom. *sighs* I can't even...

Viktor/Jayce (Arcane) are a bit different, as neither of them is very feminine. Buuuut of course Jayce is still the more masculine between the two of them, so... yeah, you know it.

And again, this is even true for sapphic ships. I had people being very upset at me writing CaitVi a little kinky with a submissive Vi and a dominant Caitlyn. Because again, Caitlyn is more feminine, Vi more musculine. So oft course people want the relationship dynamic to reflect this...

And that... is exactly my point.

See, when I brought this up in fandom spaces, the answers I got were like: "Well, I just think that is their sexual preference." But of course not a single person could answer me, why that was. Why they think the more feminine (within a western understanding of this, mind you) would be the one who would prefer bottoming.

And that is without - again - going into the fact that not all gay people will have or enjoy anal sex and frankly, I find it unimaginative, how in so much gay fiction, anal sex gets depicted as the end-all-be-all.

I mean, I will openly admit that, yes, this does not only hold true for women writing gay fiction. Because there is a lot of historical baggage in this regard within the gay community itself. Because, yes, this was something explicitly forbidden by a lot of religion. Because, yes, this also is the one way (well, with the exception of 69) for gay man to have sex that can be pleasurable for both at the same time. And because, yes, there is a whole lot of just stuff of it being condemned and... It is a whole big thing.

But I just... I would just wish for it to be depicted with a bit more nuance. And for it to stop enforcing heteronormative genderroles. Because... god damn it. I am so sick of all of that.

[necrotic-nephilim]

about me

hi, i'm luciferos. i'm 22, disabled, Deaf, queer, and a general menace. my pronouns are they/them. this is an 18+ batcest blog. i'm pro-fandom and pro-kink. I avidly support SALS, YKINMKATO, and DLDR. most of what i write is of the darkfic, dead dove variety. i'm a fan of the comics, mainly pre-Flashpoint era of the Batfam. some of my favorite comics are: Red Robin (2009), Batman/Huntress: Cry For Blood, Birds of Prey (2010), Young Justice (1998), Huntress (1989), Sword of Azrael (2022), Grayson (2014), Robin War, and the Question (1987). i can be a comics purist, but i just tend to leave alone fandom content i dislike and i think everyone should have fun with their blorbos, whether they've read the comics or not.

my DMs are open for anyone who wants to chat, make friends, or just yell about your favorite character/ships. asks are also open if you wanna send a headcanon, question, or just, you know. yell. please feel free to come talk to me, i thrive on being asked my opinion on things! my (mostly unused) main blog is @devilbonesofmetal, so that's where follows and likes come from. i don't do DNIs, your internet experience is your job to curate, so feel free to block me if you're uncomfortable with what i post.

some of my favorite ships are: Tim/Jason, Tim/Dick, Tim/Damian, Dick/Bruce, Jason/Bruce, Ra's/Tim, Slade/Tim, Slade/Dick, Tim/Bruce, Jean-Paul/Tim, Cass/Tim, and Robin Pile.

and some of my favorite characters are: Tim Drake, Dick Grayson, Cass Cain, Helena Bertinelli, Luke Fox, Jean-Paul Valley, Bette Kane, Kara Zor-L, Zinda Blake, and Slade Wilson.

i write fanfiction, but i write anonymously on ao3 (for reasons explained here) so if you'd like to see all my stuff, here's a link to my tumblr masterlist and here's a link to my ao3 series, both of which contain all the fics i've written. aside from the typical ship and character tags, my vague tagging system on this blog is:

necrotic festerings - any ship/fandom metas i've written

necrotic answerings - answering any asks

necrotic writings - my fics

necrotic works in progress - rambling about fics i'm working on

divine and necrotic - tag for my partner @divine-dominion and i being gay on main

and, just for fun, some of the more interesting metas i've written:

why DC x DP crossovers are so popular

why the Batfamily fandom doesn't interact with canon & related thoughts

JayTim in the New-52 Deep Dive

"why aren't ships involving the women in the Batfam considered Batcest?"

advice for getting into pre-Flashpoint comics

[lordystrange]

how do you feel about spicy byler?

Idk if you mean the polls account, the tag, fanfics/art or spicy byler scenes in s5?

But in general, I have a positive attitude towards sex and sex related themes.

I used to think ”each to their own” with this topic and I still do BUT I do encourage people to be more sex positive in this tag. I know some of you want to separate queerness and sex because the world tends to see queerness only through the sex lens. But that’s not working. Especially the way many of you are doing it.

I know it would be important to show that queer people can have a meaningful relationships outside of sex. But I don’t think they can fully do that unless it’s also shown that the sex is meaningful.

This is not just about byler ofc, it’s about queer ships in general. Not all ships have to have sex to be taken seriously but if some of them do, it’ll help (when done right).

So yeah, I guess that is how I feel about spicy byler. 😂 and all readers pls take this from a person who has actually studied these things in university!

(These things=sex and gender, sexuality, sexual development, representation, sex and social media, queerness and social media, queer cinema, sex education etc…)

I could do a bigger post about all this if people are interested. 🤔

And ofc, before assuming I’m a bad person for all of this, why don’t you just ask about any part that’s confusing you. My asks are open and anonymous! 🙂

[thebibutterflyao3]

As a multi-shipper, I have a theory about people who ship Jily or Jegulus exclusively and am curious how accurate it is. The theory goes that exclusive shippers fall into a few camps (or a combination of them). These theories are entirely based on my own observations and not on any statistical data.

Jily-exclusive:

One, they need for Harry to exist and/or prefer straight James and/or Lily. This tends to be predominately straight people or those that prefer canon to fanon from what I’ve seen. Lily can be a very relatable character and I think some of this is a self-insert, but not necessarily everyone views it that way.

Two, they like the tidy world of Wolfstar, Dorlene, and Jily. One mlm, one wlw, one straight ship. This tends to be predominantly queer people and allies. I think it stems from the desire to see queer ships normalised in straight society. These readers/writers prefer a more realistic portrayal of these characters based somewhat in canon.

Jegulus-exclusive:

One, the opposite of the group above. They want every ship to be queer and to live a world where queer love is celebrated and accepted openly. Quite often this group is queer people who are tired of seeing homophobia as a theme in every mlm or wlw fic and who abandon canon entirely. Often, this group enjoys trans Regulus and/or James too.

Two, Drarry shippers who have joined the Marauders fandom. This group is quite varied, but already comfortable with the enemy to lovers trope, Slytherins/Gryffindors, and Potter/Black family dynamic. Jegulus is a variant of Drarry in their minds. This group is a big fan of AUs.

Three, this group want to explore darker themes and find Regulus Black to be the perfect morally-grey character to follow because he does have a redemption arc. These Jegulus shippers enjoy seeing James either drawn to the dark side or saving Regulus from it.

I would love to hear others thoughts on this. None of these groups are bad or “wrong,” it’s just what I’ve observed in the fandom.

[badass-queer-couples-battle]

Simple question- which couple is your favorite?

Propaganda for one of my first ever queer ships Solangelo:"

"THEY’RE SO!!!!!!! READ THE SUN AND THE STAR THEY MAKE ME INSANE (nico gay and will bisexual and they’re both trans (trans part is my personal headcanon but the sexualities are canon)"

"They first kind of actually got to know each other in the middle of a battle, and became friends and then started dating sometime after that. Will is a healer mostly and Nico tends to do more actual questing throughout the books, but they do both fight (both in friendly stuff like a scavenger hunt thing in a labyrinth and in legit battles like against a colossus, hunting after troglodytes, and going through Tartarus together on a quest). They also have a lot of more shipping-y moments- for example, Nico got a fake doctor’s note from Will to let them sit together during meals against camp rules, Nico calls Will his significant annoyance, etc."

Propaganda for the girlbosses Beauyasha: "They’re literally so cool, they could both snap someone’s neck in a second, but then they’d settle down for some nice tea {:"

"their first date involved fighting ninja dogs <;3"

[greeneyedvamp]

I saw a post the other day wishing there were more queer ships with characters who are good people, and began thinking about why I'm drawn to queer characters who do fucked up shit instead. tw: internalized homophobia

My family and friends, to whom I've been out for a couple of years, have mostly been accepting and nice. However, I can't easily discuss my queerness with anyone in my life because it is entirely centered around masturbation and sexual arousal. I don't have crushes, I don't date and don't particularly want to, I've never had sex and I doubt I'll ever build a family the way my relatives seem to expect. As a result, I tend to see myself as a pervert whenever I'm attracted to someone irl, and I avoid mentioning that I'm gay to people who don't already know for fear of either being perceived as a freak or as fake because I have nothing to show for it.

Romantic queer fluff to me can feel good at first, but often eventually transforms into fomo and self-loathing for not fitting into the story: not experiencing romantic feelings the way the characters seem to, having poor social skills and not looking the part.

But within stories (and fandoms) like Hannibal that feature queer love that doesn't fall within the mainstream framework of romance or ethics, set on a background of murder, I find every corner of my mind to be acceptable and true. They provide me with a vast alternative mental space to engage with, discover or observe aspects of my psyche (not limited to queerness, as the need to single it out vanishes, though it remains inherent), free of the need to mold myself into a predetermined image. In relation to this media, the secrecy is reframed from that of alienation to that of uniqueness, and with narratives to fall back on, I feel more able to face the world.

The following screenshots also articulate my feelings wonderfully:

[espresso-ships]

About me, DNI/BYF & masterlist!

Hi and welcome to my account! :D

I'm Espresso and I'm 21.

They/she pronouns (genderfluid) & queer.

I am an aspiring author and currently in university.

I have Audhd and dyscalculia, so writing and drawing is my safe space :)

I like meeting new people and interacting with other self shippers - especially if we're in the same fandoms! My DM's are open - feel free to tell me about your self ships etc! :3 (just be nice please LOL)

I also do art commissions at Ko-Fi!

I romantically self ship with Ignacio Varga from Better call Saul, and Ágata Jiménez from La casa de papel.

I'm not comfortable sharing them.

My secondary romantic f/o is Elaine Benes from Seinfeld!

Platonic f/o's: Domingo Molina (BCS), Denver & Monica (LCDP)

Queerplatonic f/o's: Klaus Hargreeves (TUA)

I ship my f/o's with self insert OC's - so theyre not me, but I relate to them in many ways.

Self insert OC's:

Laura Bernardi, Clementia Theodor & Sky

Navigation

My selfship and OC art can be found with: #🎨Art

Scenarios/imagines and comfort: #❤comfort

Fanfics and stories: #⌨fiction

Self ship games: #🕹games

Varganardi: #🐍📚

Tag: Now & forever

Athenobi: #💞💶

Tag: You stole my heart

Sky x Elaine: #☕🎭

Tag: Idiots in love

Navigations and tags are WIP so everything might not be avaliable!

If you wanna see more of my posts, here's a form to be added to my tag list!

Before you follow/DNI

Do not follow if you're...

Pro/comshippers.

Homo/transphobes

Misogynists/sexists & terfs

Zionist, racist

Ableist

If you mock people for their beliefs/religion etc

Before you follow...

English isn't my main language, so I might misspell things and my grammar might not be the best

Interaction is done from @ espresso-life

I am not comfortable sharing f/o's. If you're a "double" you can follow me, but I'll probably not follow you back. Please don't take it personally!

Same goes out for people that post a lot about canon x canon ships with my f/o.

My f/o's are very dear to me, and it genuinely makes me uncomfortable/sad seeing other ships with them.

I can tend to act "childish" or be too much. If I make you uncomfortable, please let me know!

I might be very off social medias and be dry to reply - sorry!

Other medias

Carrd - Ko-Fi - ArtFight - ToyHouse (WIP)

Looking forward to meeting you all!! 💕

[suffarustuffaru]

I don’t speak Japanese so I’d LOVE to hear more about the differences between the English and Japanese Re:Zero fandoms

yeah sure its very interesting to me now that ive noticed it more lately :o !! though ok disclaimer - i dont speak japanese either hah so if anyone is seeing this and does speak japanese + is familiar with the japanese speaking side of this fandom please add info if youd like!! and of course ill be mainly speaking from the english side of things bc im more familiar with that yes (sorry anon again im not a japanese speaker T^TT so sorry if i tread on info you already know!!). but yeah im speaking from my own experiences given the Topic at hand. ive been in this fandom since... 2019?? which is so wild to me aljsdfljsd.

anyway so - i think the big difference is mainly that the english fandom and many english speaking people that engage with rezero are. to put it bluntly, misconception runs Rampant to a very Interesting degree. to the point where it seems like the english speaking side of the fandom is More. Aggressive. than the japanese fandom. not that the japanese speaking side of the fandom is perfect - also bc what fandom is ever perfect 100% of the time, tbh - but that the louder people in the english rezero fandom are. well its a Very low bar. Very low. and from what little ive seen and heard so far, the japanese fandom tends to understand rezero and its characters better than the english fandom. which ig makes sense bc you know, rezero is japanese media, and also im sure cultural differences come into play here as well (im not familiar enough on this to speak about it in depth but the cultural differences feel Pretty Clear even though i cant 100% put my finger on what they specifically are).

but also bc yeah. its not That hard to beat some of the english fandom when it comes to media comprehension. misreading rezero is unfortunately Extremely common, both in and out of the rezero community. its Everywhere - youtube, myanimelist, ao3, ff.net, reddit, twitter, various rezero discords - and from what ive experienced, rezero tumblr basically kind of feels like finding an oasis after crawling through the desert for days on end lajdslfjs. which is probs bc rezero tumblr is Smaller and also a lot of us seem to be lgbtq+ in some way or be allies, so you dodge a lot of the misogyny and homophobia that happens in other rezero english circles. its why you see a lot of openly queer rezero-related posts on here while its a bit more. barren. in other rezero english places yes. bc its more safe to post queer rezero things on rezero tumblr rather than rezero reddit for Sure.

im not sure how the japanese fandom is with that exactly but theres some interesting differences between whats popular in the english fandom vs the japanese fandom. i mean as an otto fan ive been noticing how hes more popular with the japanese fandom—and on top of that, ottosuba is Way More popular in the japanese fandom too. reinsuba and julisuba seem to usually be the most popular mlm subaru ships in both fandoms but ottosuba is like A Little Up There in the japanese fandom. not sure if its on the same level as a ship like reinsuba but ottosubas Definitely loved as a ship. from what little ive seen it also seems like ships like vichisha are more acknowledged by the japanese fandom? im not entirely sure on like—Complete differences regarding what the japanese fandom finds interesting that may differ from english fandom, so ill really have to look more into the japanese fandoms fanart and fanfic when i can bc im pretty curious too. in general though, it seems like the japanese fandom has a bit more variety…. you can find fanart on So Many characters in rezero (which already has a very Massive cast full of very fleshed out characters) there. not that you cant in the english fandom bc theres a Bit of variety too, but id more so contribute that a little more to the Big Cast and less to having actual variety in fancontent. and of course im not saying that the japanese fandom may be a bit barren in some areas of fancontent—bc inevitably when u have a big cast of characters, side character content is gonna be more sparse compared to the main characters, but to me it does feel like the english fandom lacks variety in comparison. (and also yeah. seems like the japanese fandom acknowledges gay ships more in general tbh.)

whats focused in fancontent makes it easy to tell what may be popular in a fandom in terms of how fans perceive the source material and what fandoms want to do with the source material, if that makes sense. and its very easy to tell that with the english fandom if you just hop on rezero ao3–or even better, rezero reddit given theres a fanfic ideas thread thats usually pinned right at the top of the site. again i havent looked at japanese fanfic for rezero yet (bc i dont know where to look oops ajdndn) but when it comes to the english fandom you can tell that theyre generally more focused on the female cast both in fanart and in fanfic bc. theyre women and many fans on say, reddit or various rezero discords, are cis straight men, so inevitably… well lets just say you can tell when a man makes content for this fandom o.o theres also the. very weird reaction fic trends and trends following popular fics in the fandom, the two biggest being the watching him die again and again react fic and re:forgotten, the former of which includes a harem plot with subaru and the main girls of rezero while the latter is one of those subaru gets tortured by his ooc friends and then he gets revenge on them fics. which i suppose says something about the english fandom too.

of course on ao3 its dominated mainly by english fics (of course not all fics on there for rezero are in english— big shoutout to all the non english fics on rezero ao3 ur doing great <3 — but the majority are in english). and while yeah ur occasionally gonna find stuff like queer content or side character content or rarepair content, its definitely not that big in amount and also comes with the risk of. Hate. if anyones reading this and remembers the lone star stuff. (if u dont know—lone star was a julius x emilia fic where they NTR subaru or some shit and then it got bombed with hate bc of the ship? yeah.) so yeah english fandom is very cis straight oriented, ironically with the nastiest people being the very people that rezero criticizes. though this is also my personal experience, i do know several people personally whove been in this fandom for a while or were here for a while and yeah english fandom isnt very welcoming at times???? and it seems like at the very least the japanese fandom is A Little Less Aggressive than the english fandom is.

otherwise. yeah im very very curious about more of the differences in popular content between the japanese vs english fandom. i mean the english fandom’s main focus on the female cast for. Interesting Reasons other than their actual character depth is… interesting. and the astreas being popular in general vs otto + ottosubas popularity fluctuating is also very interesting to me (but i have several guesses as to Why that is), among other things. yeah id love to know what else the japanese fandom likes about rezero and see more of their content. i also have to wonder if characters like emilia and subaru are hated less by the japanese fandom…. T^T well that and the english fandom and many english speaking people engaging in rezero have this interesting pattern of either hating subaru No Matter What, wanting subaru to Not Be Subaru (ie using him as a self insert almost or attempting to change him into virtually another character), or putting subaru on a pedestal and ignoring his flaws and mistakes and that he Can do wrong. like theres Really not a lot of nuance there. so i wonder if the japanese fandom is. A Little more chill when it comes to character opinions like this too.

[olderthannetfic]

I think a lot of the lack of femslash criticisms also miss the fact that fandom emerges from canon and will reflect, for better or worse, what is already in that canon. So if we have a majority male cast, with the main character being male and the rival being male and the mentor-figure being male and the villains being largely male... I mean, just in terms of numbers and which relationships have the most emotional energy, fandom largely will have majority m/m. And genre fiction, which fandom tends to gravitate towards, is heavily biased towards male characters.

(And even when male side characters get a lot of shipping... usually they're fitting other common popular fandom tropes or they're essentially more fanon than an actual thing people ship-ship. You probably aren't going to be shipping the Female Love Interest™ with another side female character except in a Pair The Spares or background ship sort of way, but Those Two Guys are probably gonna get shipped and typically they're going to be dudes. And even those kinds of het or slash ships can come across as deceivingly popular when they actually aren't, because they're more like popular fanon so they pop up a lot in fics but only in the background rather than the main focus, and those are same ships I often see being brought up as "if you can ship two background men then why aren't you shipping this femslash ship!" wank alongside anomalies like Klux)

Even the Among Us fandom which has the gender-ambiguous characters often interpreted as male. Yes, from what I can tell m/m is way more popular but in terms of genre and setting which will influence how people write for it, it's mostly male characters. It's essentially The Thing In Space and The Thing had a male cast while Alien is notable for being an exception by having a female protagonist in that kind of space setting, and even then, it was still majority male characters in terms of raw numbers, all of which will influence fanfic writers and artists. Plus from what I've read there's often some kind of gender fuckery going on with the Imposter so m/m might even been entirely accurate for a lot of those fics. So while there are perhaps valid criticisms about the lack of female characters in those genres in general that fandom then reflects, it's unreasonable to suggest it's just fandom hating women. Plus everything we've already covered around how it's also related to what a majority queer women (and trans-people-who-were-AFAB) with potentially complicated feelings about female bodies find hot and fun.

But go to the magical girl genre and it's majority femslash, just like how even on ao3 any buddy-cop show with a male and female lead will primarily be het. And when there is a female relationship given the most focus, or when it's canon, the fandom will obviously be majority femslash even on ao3. And I get that it's frustrating when the genres you enjoy have a dearth of women in them or shittily written women, and I agree that we should do better with that, but it's not fandom's responsibility to do so (and it's not like there isn't an entire subgenre of fix-it fics that aren't "what if this female character was written well"). It feels kinda mean to say it, but if you want femslash right now you might want to look in different genres where the protagonist and the most significant characters related to them are all women, and one without a canon male love interest (or a really boring, blank slate one no one cares about).

--

I don't watch Xena for the dudes, definitely. Haha.

Re the Among Us thing, someone said a lot of the fic was clearly inspired by streamers anyway, so that's where the genders are coming from.