#thank GOD for the gnc people i know btw.

[alula]

where are the lesbians in my life. where are the butches in my life. how do i have so many gay friends and only know like one butch maximum can we stop being so shy fellas

[mothsgotghosts]

Soapghost Tangled Au

LOOK. I'm certain I'm not the first person to think about this but I Don't Care. This blog is basically just me saying shit about cod to the void anyway and talking like a bunch of people will see it lmao. THIS IS GONNA BE LONG AS FUCK BTW.

Also this shit is gonna feature some good old fashioned nikprice and alerudy and my several headcanons, a few of which I will share for context: First of all, almost everyone is trans in my mind, I won't lie to you. But mostly that's not relevant to the plot besides Soap and Nik are both trans men. Also Ghost is transfem and that's not super relevant but I will be using mostly she/her for her (I hc her using she/her and he/him pronouns) so be prepared. OKAY GOOD This is just gonna be me rambling my ideas in a bulleted list hopefully in the order of the plot.

The story sticks fairly close to the actual movie plot, once upon a time there was a magic flower yadda yadda. Anyway Old Man Shepherd wants to be eternally young yeah

Meanwhile the kings (Price and Nik) are like "let's have another kid", I say another bc Gaz is here also he's adopted <3, and seahorse dad Nik is real, okay great (DO NOT TURN THIS INTO OMEGAVERSE SHIT. HE'S TRANS. A TRANS PARENT.)

Anyway uh oh Nik gets sick (haha rhyme) and Price is like "go get that flower so my husband doesn't DIE thanks), Shepherd is pissed, steals their baby with magic hair

That baby with magic hair is Soap! Who is raised by Shepherd, everyone's favorite (least favorite) manipulative piece of shit!

Some background info on Soap's childhood, it wasn't great being locked in a tower and also. Soap is trans in this (as I've said), he's just gnc, but the long hair. Eehh. Not something he super loves but Shepherd won't let him cut it, obviously. The mohawk was a compromise (yes I know the hair lore but I want him to have a mohawk so shh)

Anyway Soap's 20-something birthday rolls around and he tries to ask Shepherd to go see the glowing lights, Shepherd says no, they argue, Soap asks for paint instead, Shepherd leaves to go get it

Meanwhile Ghost and Graves are robbing the fucking castle and steal the lost prince's crown, Ghost leaves Graves to get caught by the royal guard and then gets chased by a horse named Riley for a while before ditching him and climbing into an abandoned tower, and gets hit with a frying pan

Again, the story continues fairly the same. John makes a deal with this stranger in a skull mask to take him to see the floating lights, the lanterns apparently, and he'll give her her satchel back, Ghost begrudgingly agrees.

Ghost then takes Soap to get some food to convince him to go home and call off the deal, and she takes him to Los Vaqueros Saloon, run by two outlaw husbands and frequented by loads of criminals and bounty hunters

In case it wasn't obvious, Alejandro and Rudy own the saloon. Its patrons are made up of various different operators + Valeria (who IS an operator now but still).

Poor Soap is terrified bc Shepherd told him all people, esp ones like these, are bad news and then a bunch of guys lunge on Ghost to get her bounty and send someone out to go find some guards. Soap stops them, I've Got A Dream happens. Alejandro wants to be a pianist, good for him :)

Meanwhile Shepherd returns, sees Soap is gone, and rolls up right as Soap is saying how glad he is he left and gets pissed

Then the royal guard show up and Rudy and Alejandro help them escape and then call Ghost's dream stupid.

"Go follow your dream, hermano." "I will." "He was talking to him, your dream is stupid."

They get cornered by Graves, the royal guard, and Riley, escape and then get trapped in a cave and nearly drown. Ghost cuts her hand trying to pry away some rocks but it's too dark underwater for her to see. They both think they're gonna die so Ghost tells Soap her real name.

"my real name is Simon Riley. Somebody might as well know." "I have magic hair that glows when I sing." "....what?" "OH MY GOD- I HAVE MAGIC HAIR THAT GLOWS WHEN I SING!!!"

John's good old magic hair saves the day, they escape, they find a clearing to camp out in for the night and Soap uses his hair to heal the cut on Simon's hand, Simon freaks out a little bit it's fine, she's fine

John then asks why Simon changed her name to Ghost, Simon says it's a boring story but John listens anyway. She talks about her father and her brother taunting her with ghosts and skeletons, and when they died it stuck with her. She decided to become a ghost.

Simon asks about John's hair, he tells her that his "father" keeps him in that tower to protect him from people who want to steal his hair, shows her the tiny little brown strand that never grew back and says people want to use him for his hair's healing abilities, it's how he got the big scar on his chin.

Simon leaves to get firewood, and Shepherd emerges from the fucking shadows like a creature and tells Soap to come home with him, to which Soap says no because he Likes Simon, and she's gonna take him to see the lanterns, and she's nice!! Shepherd gets mad, tosses him the satchel and says to give it to Simon and see what she does, that he'll be sorry when she runs away with it, and then leaves

Simon comes back and Soap lies and says everything is fine. Shepherd runs into Graves who wants to kill Simon and makes a deal with him

Then morning rolls around and Simon is awoken by RILEY THE FUCKING HORSE, Soap convinces Riley to be nice and let Simon go for one day because "it's my birthday :)" and she's supposed to take him to see the lanterns

They make their way into town and Simon immediately is like "okay yeah your hair is too long" because people keep stepping on it and gets some kids to braid it. John looks very handsome, Simon is very queer, they run off and have a good time enjoying the town square and all the festivities

At some point Soap notices a mural of the royal family, with a certain golden haired baby that looks very familiar, but quickly brushes it off to dance with the townsfolk and Simon

Then it's time to see the lights! Yay! Simon gets a boat for him and John, tosses Riley a bag of apples that he Definitely Paid For, Okay...Or Mostly Paid For.

I See the Light happens, John gives Simon the satchel and Simon pushes it aside in favor of taking off her mask, just for John.

"but I'm not scared anymore, ye know?" "I think I'm starting to."

AND THEN HE TAKES THE MASK OFF AND. sometimes, I am a genius. Anyway, they get back to shore and Simon sees Graves and is like "I promise I'll be right back" and goes off to just give him the satchel, he doesn't want it anymore he just wants to be done with all this criminal shit, mainly for Johnny.

Graves instead is like "what if I took that magic hair guy instead" and knocks his ass out and ties her to a boat then goes to snatch Soap. Shepherd shows up AGAIN and knocks Graves out like "oh look son I saved you!" And Soap sees the boat with Simon on it, thinks she left him, and goes back with Shepherd

Simon wakes up TIED TO A BOAT WITH THE FUCKING CROWN HE STOLE AND GETS ARRESTED

Graves also gets arrested and Simon freaks out on him when passing him being led to his cell, Graves says that some weird guy showed up and took Soap back home and Simon is locked in her cell

Meanwhile back at the tower, Soap is laying in his bed all sad bc his gf left him, when he realizes the sun crest on the little flag Simon got him at the festival matches suns he's been subconsciously painting for YEARS, that when he tried on that crown Simon stole it fit, that that baby on that mural WAS HIM, that BRO HE IS THE LOST PRINCE.

Then he yells at Shepherd for stealing him away and Shepherd is like "okay fuck you" and plans to lock him up forever

Meanwhile, Simon gets broken out of prison by two cowboys and their gaggle of thieves and bounty hunters and a horse named Riley. Riley takes him to the tower where he climbs up and gets stabbed by Shepherd after seeing Soap LITERALLY CHAINED TO A WALL.

John begs Shepherd to let him heal her, that he'll go with him quietly and never complain if he does and Shepherd agrees and chains Simon up too so he can't follow them. Soap goes to heal her and Simon slices off a bunch of his hair. Shepherd rapidly ages and falls out of the window and dies, L moment. Simon dies too tho, sad.

For real though, "You were my new dream" "And you were mine" fucks me up every time. Anyway, Simon dies, Soap's magic tears of love or something brings her back to life.

"Did I ever mention...I like brunettes" "PFF- YER AN ARSEHOLE!" "Sorry Johnny, there can only be one blonde person in this relationship!"

Anyway happily ever after and all that, Soap gets to reunite w his long lost fathers and brother.

Look idk how they recognize him okay. Father's intuition? Blue eyes? The big fat scar on his chin that wasn't ACTUALLY from someone stealing Soap (he was a stupid baby)? Idk could be any or all of those.

THE END!!!!!! Thank you to those who sat here and read ALL of this <3 big preesh! Okay idk how to end this so bye

[plantdad-dante]

The world is good, sometimes

So... I was getting pizza at this kebab joint today (Germany be like that).

And it was in this wreck of an Eastern German town, with more skeletons of former shops than is probably healthy for a town, with the kebab shop nestled into the side of a big chain super market. The town itself, btw, is about as conservative as the rest of East Germany right now, which... it’s not great. Quite the opposite of great, tbh.

Anyway, I was getting pizza, and as I was about to pay, the woman behind the counter gave me this look. This once-over that my mind immidietly filed as “oh no, this person heard of trans people”.

For context: I was wearing a binder, an MCR T-Shirt, men's shorts, and shoes with rainbow-coloured laces. I also still have a mowhawk, and had managed to give my order in my best approximation of a male voice that I can do without T. I also have zero reference for how well I pass when like this.

See, I'm an idiot, who's (relatively) fresh out of the closet, and still relies on being able to fall back on the old "oh no, I'm just very flat and gnc, haha" trick when necessary (or panicking), because that had and has worked for years (even on myself). Only that the trick hurts more, now, and I'm a really shitty liar when caught unawares.

So the woman gave me this look and I hurried to get my defences up. In my mind, I had been clocked, and this would be the first time I would have to deal with a bigot directly, and I was not prepared.

She counted out my change, handed it to me and asked, in a friendlier tone than I expected, as if she legitimately just wanted to check: “You are a boy, right?”

And I hesitated for maybe half a second (”This town is way more dangerous ground than uni, But you’re out of here within the next thirty seconds anyway, and this is the least painful way to get to the end of this exchange, so fuck it, you can bluff being cis.”), before I gave a nod (which, in retrospect, probably looked a little too enthusiastic and relieved for plausible deniability, but what can you do when social anxiety rules your brain). And she smiled and nodded, and I thought the exchange was over, but then she said:

“You know, there is someone coming in here every now and then, looks like a boy but is actually a girl.”

And I kinda stood there like... 'huh?', and I didn’t say anything to that, just took my pizza, nodded, said “Thank you” and disappeared onto the street.

The reason I write this post is... Like, I know how that last sentence sounds? But I’m telling you, I’m telling you, her smile was so warm and nice, I legit think she was being affirming. I don’t know if she was talking about a gnc woman or a trans woman (or both?), but I am quite certain she wasn’t talking about someone like me. And I am that certain, because... because she kept smiling at me like that, warm and friendly, even as my stupid voice cracked on the first syllable of “Thank you”. See... I think she knew, and I think she wanted to be nice and not assume, and so she just asked me, and then tried to reassure me, and...

And...

Well. Do you know The Grin? If you're trans, you most certainly do, and if you're cis... I guess it depends.

The Grin is a thing that happens when gender euphoria happens. It spreads across your face, and you can't stop it, you can't escape it, and it will stay there, it will stay and you will grin like a fucking idiot ("like a honey-cake horse", if you're German (gods, how I hate that phrase)), and it is the most wonderful thing in the whole world.

I was grinning like that all the way to the car, and for a good while after, and as I am typing this now, it is coming back to tug on my face yet again. Honestly, I'm kind of suprised I even made it to the car, because it wasn't just my face that had to yield to the joy. My whole body felt light as a fucking feather, my legs were half-way to jello by the time I got to sit down again, my chest felt like I could breathe fully and freely for the first time in millenia, and the whole time, I was feeling like I was a kid again, like nothing was wrong in the world, like magic was real and I alone got to see it.

The world is good, sometimes.

The world is good.

[ilikedetectives]

Hey, as someone who is GNC and working(ish) alongside ubi, thank you for speaking up. I’m sorta on you young side and am not really equipped to handle this (especially because of my anxiety)

I’m bi and nb and eivor and kass make me feel represented and seen. Both characters provide me with so much comfort (first time I put on my Kassandra cosplay I started crying because I felt so powerful and comfortable) and to see those characters and my identity get pulled apart by people I’d looked up to really sent me spiraling into a depression for a good few weeks.

It hurt a lot and really threw me off but I think I’m feeling better now.

So I just want to say thank you for speaking up and defending people, especially those who can’t. Much love to you ❤️

Oh gods I don't even know how to answer or what to say to make you feel a little better. Do you take virtual hugs? 🥺😭 I can't even imagine being on the inside and watch those who supposed to be on your side constantly mocking and trashing on what makes you, you. And you know what? They can shove all that misogyny where the sun doesn't shine, you wear that Kassandra cosplay proudly! You don't need their artificial approval to be yourself. Kassandra would have wanted it and I'm sure Eivor would have loved to see it! And thank you for your kind words, it's not easy to write all this 🥺

AND ALL THE LOVE TO YOU ❤ YOU ARE LOVED, YOU ARE VALID, AND YOU DESERVE TO BE RESPECTED ❤

PSA to all: I'm still taking inputs for that comprehensive summary btw.

[ash-etherwood]

Top 5: writing memories, songs, characters that are not blank rune, runes, food

♡

Linda I love you but are you trying to kill me … that’s so many Top 5’s! But alright, I’ll do my best! (Answers will probably switch between German and English RIP to every non-German-speaker who follows me and wants to read this for some reason I swear I’m normal)

WRITING MEMORIES

5.) The entire time I spent finishing my first (second?) longer writing project It was the year 2012 and it was a cyberpunk story about my friends’ and my edgy self inserts riding dinosaurs, fighting aliens and being badass. The plot twist in the end was that my character was secretly evil and wanted to kill everyone. (Things to show your therapist) The final boss fight made zero sense and also everything was incredibly weird and stupid. But sometimes I still think about those times when I sat in my grandma’s living room at night, eating chips and listening to Vocaloid covers while thinking this story was the coolest shit ever. Truly simpler times.

4.) Researching something about universities in Texas for OvF on a rainy Saturday afternoon I have no idea why this memory is still sticking with me to this day (I think it was around 2016 or something?), but I remember that it was just a really nice day and I felt really at peace at that moment?

3.) The entire writing process of Bathroom Blues It was such a spontaneous project and I still have no idea how I managed to power though it in just a little under two months! Also it was just incredibly fun seeing you getting excited over new drafts and I loved coming up with new plot points and Halloween costumes for everyone with you. :-D Truly a summer worth remembering.

2.) FINALLY uploading the prologue and intro chapter of WWBL Not really a writing memory, but that moment was … so sexy and magical. Seriously, you have no idea how long I had been waiting to finally start that story, waiting for the Steckbriefe to roll in and see people react to the prologue and generally the idea … I even made one of those countdown graphic thingies for the designated upload date! 8D At that point I had planned that story for about six months and just … yeah, that felt powerful to me.

1.) Writing the prologue for WWBL When I first started the draft for that prologue I was sitting at the window in my favourite hotel in Winterberg, Sauerland, wore my dark green flannel, had the window wide open breathing in the cool mountain air and allowed myself to listen to my WWBL playlist for the very first time. God, that felt so amazing. I even have a photo of it (which somehow makes it look like I have the biggest football shoulders in the universe) my sister took that night. God I miss Sauerland. )’:

- - - - -

SONGS

My apologies to every favourite song of mine that I forgot about, I have a whole playlist of them, but I think these are some of my oldest faves … (Honorable mentions for Don’t Mess With Me and Not That Big by Temposhark, Goodbye by Apparat, Me And The Devil by Soap&Skin, Heart Heart Head by Meg Myers, Pain and Animal I Have Become by Three Days Grace, Beautiful Crime by Tamer, Gravity Of Love by Enigma, In Flames by Digital Daggers [thanks Phi u_u] and Murder Cries by Snow Ghosts AHHH FUCK IT I could’ve just made a playlist,,,)

5.) Vater Unser by E Nomine Starting off with some weird shit, won’t we? I’ve been in love with this song since fifth or sixth grade, when I was just starting to develop an actual music taste and although I have many favourite songs by E Nomine, this one has to be my absolute fave. Every time I can relate it to a character it makes me love said character even more. (Also I think about it every time my mom forces me to go to church for Christmas so … yay? I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t even be able to remember the Vater Unser if it wasn’t for this song. 8D)

4.) Wires by The Neighbourhood I think this is the newest all-time fave on this list, I found it in … 2015? Thank you, Youtube AMVs. Yeah man, this one is just … on so many playlists it’s not even funny anymore.

3.) Heathens by Twenty One Pilots An edgelord classic but like … it’s on EVERY playlist of mine. Every single one. It’s just so good. The first time I heard it was on the radio tho, when I was having breakfast with Jessie and I forced her to shazam it because it immediately stuck with me,,,

2.) Imaginary by Evanescence My first Evanescence song ever and the first step towards becoming who I am today I think. This song has like … such a big history for me, man. It single-handedly turned me goth in 2008 and I have never really thanked it for that.

1.) Eternal by Evanescence Might be my favourite song of all time. The number of dramatic RP scenes I have written with this in the background … man. Oh, also this song is the reason for one of my oldest internet nicknames, ‘eternala’, which subsequently shortened into Etschuh and then Tschuh, my main nickname until 2017, when I came out as trans and finally found an actual name for myself I was comfortable with!

- - - - -

NON BLANK RUNE CHARACTERS

I know this was probably supposed to be about fandom characters but I can literally not come up with a single character right now that I love with a special burning passion and that is not my or one of my friends’ OCs so you’re getting OCs now. u_u And boy do I have a lot of those.

5.) Jackson Tracey from atroCITY (mine) This little piece of shit kept me company for a pretty long time and is still very close to my heart for some reason, although I haven’t drawn him or really thought about him in detail for a while now. My favourite thing is how I only realized what a horrible person he was after I stopped regularly working with him but honestly good for me. 8D His storyline and personality is kinda convoluted and tbh I’m not really sure how much of it is canon anyway (atrc was always a little weird about canon rip) but yeah. He’s an obsessive stalker piece of shit who pities himself way too much and he is also a semi-immortal demigod who likes knives. I hate him but he also helped me a lot with some gender and sexuality stuff so thanks I guess.

4.) Mayoko Imai from Century Riders DXPrototype (Maus’ and mine) Mayoko is a magical girl protagonist with a cool cyborg arm prosthetic and her main character trait was that she was basically a reverse weeaboo, a Japanese girl who was obsessed with American media, culture and comic book heroes! I actually love her concept a lot and she also had a pretty cool character arc in her story (which Maus and I wrote together and actually finished btw!), although it could use a lot more … polishing from today’s point of view. But I love her anyway. She always wanted to do the right thing and be a hero and got broken pretty cruelly and her ending is kinda bittersweet I guess? Ahh there’s just so much nuance to it … anyways, CR3 also stuck with me for a very long time and I enjoyed the time with her a lot. :3 (Her name had a cameo in Another Incident btw heehee)

3.) Tessa *insert extremely long chain of unnecessary first names here* von Lean from Nobody Is Perfect and Infernal Temptation (belongs to one of my old school friends) Tessa is just … a hand full. I love to hate her. She is badly written and developed and just OOZES mentally ill teenage girl’s idealized self-insert power fantasy, but she just … man, she was a big part of one of my most drama-filled high school friendships which I love looking back at so much. Tessa has fucked so many of my characters … good for her tbh! There are actually two versions of her, one is just a ‘normal’ teenage girl and one can shapeshift into a cheetah, but both of them are very close to my heart. I should really adopt and redesign her some day.

2.) Judy Khayat from Original vs. Final (mine) Look, I love all my OvF-characters and every single one of them is special to me in their own way, but Judy is just … the most complex of them all I think? Man, she went through so much … she is actually one of my oldest (semi)-active characters (I created her in 2009) and her latest version is from 2016 but I should really, REALLY revise her again tbh. She has a very complicated backstory that I didn’t handle as carefully as I should have, and anger issues and religious conflict and depression and PTSD and then Vance of all people becomes obsessed with her for no reason and decides to traumatize her even more … yeah. God I really love her but I seriously need to work on her. A LOT. I should also finally rename her tbh … let’s just see where she takes me next.

1.) Okami (I don’t even remember if she has a proper last name rn lol) from Split Realm (mine) Yeah, that bitch is just my favourite OC. She’s also very old, probably from around 2009, and initially was a magical girl with fire powers who I played in an RP with my friend Flauch but boy did she grow up! Holy fuck. Okami is a horrible person but I love her so much. She is so violent and full of anger and pain and sadness and treats everyone around her like shit and she is in love and she is a demon but also apparently the personification of the concept of Chaos but she just wants to be a teenager again and run away with the love of her life and ahhh it’s all so hopeless for her … also she turned out gnc af with time passing and pretty much went through a gender/sexuality crisis in real time with me, her creator, which is always fun. :^D I haven’t drawn her in a while tbh. Should really do that.

- - - - -

RUNES IN BLANK RUNE

I’m just gonna go with the arcs here, okay? Also this entire answer might look completely different if you asked me again tomorrow, you know how indecisive I am with Blank Rune shit ahha,,,

5.) Jera Look. I know I’m boring and stupid. But I just love Tave and Liam having their disgusting little foreshadowing talk, okay? I can read it over and over. I just love my horrible little shit crime boys. Also Rhy and Phillip are there. (’:

4.) Isa This one is here because it was the first arc I witnessed in real time which gives it a very special place in my heart and it also … hit pretty hard at the time. But having read Fehu it’s become even better now! It’s just such a wonderful, tragic romance between two horrible, ruthless boys and I … I’m not immune to Rhy, sadly. :-/ Just like Phillip.

3.) Wunjo We still haven’t seen everything that leads up to Wunjo yet, but we DO know more than we did initially (wow shocker) and it’s just always a fucking blast. Also, it has the first mention of Ash’s real name … the first Rhy POV (which what the fuck!! I always feel like we had one before but we didn’t!! Wild) and it has crazy blood-soaked murder Tave, my beloved. :///3

2.) Eiwaz You guys have heard me fanboy about Eiwaz so many times already. Eiwaz-OT3 (and Kain) my beloved!!! It’s just SUCH an amazing starting point and there are so, so many things that tie back to it and every time we find out about a new one my heart makes a little jump … und es beginnt von Neuem indeed.

1.) Gebo One of the most painful but also the most beautiful arcs yet in my opinion. It’s been hyped up for so long and boy did it deliver. God, my heart still hurts when I think about that last scene. Also all the dialogue … the golden lines we got … and it’s an arc without Rhy! Crazy!! :-D I just love the relationship between Ash, Astrid and Jakob so much. God fuck I want what they have. Just maybe without the murder suicide,,,

- - - - -

FOOD

5.) Diese Sonntagsbrötchen wo die Verpackung so plopp macht, wenn man die Folie abzieht Better than normale Brötchen for some reason. Most of the time. See 2.) Look man, I just really love a good breakfast …

4.) Chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese topping One of the first things from a certain baking book I tried when I was getting into baking back in 2019. God they are so tasty. I don’t make them often so I don’t get used to them too much and eating them still feels special but ahhhh I love them so much!

3.) Grünkohl mit Kartoffelbrei und Mettendchen One of my favourite things about autumn/winter and one of my biggest comfort foods. God I love this shit so much. I just put … mountains of Grünkohl and Kartoffelbrei on my plate every time and I will just warm it up for four days straight until there’s no more left. It turns me into a fucking caveman. I’m not even big on eating meat but … yeah. Everything is different when there’s Grünkohl.

2.) Normales Brötchen mit Butter und Scheibenkäse aber ich bin beim Frühstücksbuffet im Hotel Oddly specific but that’s just how it is. Sorry. Nichts geht über Brötchen mit Käse.

1.) Chilli-Knoblauch-Nudelauflauf My beloved. My comfort food. I eat it literally every second day. At least one hour in the kitchen every time. Fresh ingredients. My only vegetable intake. And I’ve been doing that for three years. I just love it so much, man. I cook it for everyone who visits me. Chilli-Knoblauch-Auflauf cured my depression.

[yrbutchgf]

I have to do an essay for my Media class and I have hit a writer’s block. If you would like you can answer any of these. How do you feel about the way LGBT people are portrayed in the media? How has the increase in representation (or lack of) affected you? How do you feel when you see people like yourself in the media? If you saw Love Simon, how do you feel that movie impacted you? Do you have any stories about when you saw it? Any other thoughts on LGBT representatio in any form of media?

I’d love to! This sounds like a really interesting paper btw, if you decide to put it online anywhere please link me to it! My answers got long, so they’re below the cut.

1. How do you feel about the way LGBT people are portrayed in the media? How has the increase in representation (or lack of) affected you? How do you feel when you see people like yourself in the media?    Honestly, I don’t see myself in media at all. Like, at all. I’ve seen some lesbians in media, but never any butches. Never any stories that really revolve around gender nonconformity in general either. At the same time, I do really love the direction modern media is taking with respect to portraying LGBT people in a general way. Love, Simon and Moonlight are both wonderful, and they show the way that LGBT media is diversifying. LGBT media is no longer all artsy movies with weird, trippy plots and questionable age gaps in relationships – now we get some feel-good romcoms that deal with coming out, some dramatic films about coming out and how an LGBT identity can intersect with a racial identity… obviously there’s very few of these movies that are very broadly known, but the fact that they’re starting to gain notoriety says a lot.     I don’t really love how a lot of TV shows are handling LGBT identities right now. Thinks like V/oltron and similar cartoon shows are clearly q*eer-baiting and it’s so insidious to see it happen in things like that because, like, it’s for little kids – god knows what amount of younger LGBT kids felt their hearts break when they found out about the one of two canon gay characters in the show’s fate. At the same time, though I don’t think it’s perfect, I do love how much representation Steven Universe has given us – the first children’s television show to show a lesbian wedding! Incredible.     San Junipero, from Black Mirror, is also very important to me. That’s the first thing of anything I’ve ever seen that focused on a romance between two women. Not only that, but both characters were complex, and it included romance of both a bisexual woman and a lesbian in love. I loved the nuance in the romance and the way they conflicted and contrasted over Kelly’s late husband, and the fact that all of this was happening in a sci-fi universe…everything about it just made my heart sing. Black Mirror is a gift, and it’s one of the few things I can think of that really showed a romance between two women realistically, respectfully and tenderly.      There’s also podcasts like The Adventure Zone, video games of everything from Stardew Valley to Fallout 4 (apparently there’s a lesbian couple in the game, I found this out a few days ago!), but those I think fall into a different category for me because they’ve a lot less cultural influence than movies and TV shows. In all forms of media we have a long way to go in displaying diverse LGBT experiences, ESPECIALLY with respect to gender nonconformity, lesbians and trans people in general, and with LGBT people of color too. But – there’s been a lot more in the past few years, and it does warm my heart.

2. If you saw Love, Simon, how do you feel that movie impacted you? Do you have any stories about when you saw it?      A friend of mine, his name is Pat, is the only gay guy in the entire town that I know to be completely out of the closet. He and I started talking after we had a culinary class together, and we – me, him, and a bisexual friend of mine – decided to go see Love, Simon in theaters last year when it first came out. All three of us had read the book and loved it.      I remember feeling really touched by the coming out scene. I’d never had an experience like Simon’s because, thank God, my family and friends are all very open-minded, accepting (and many of them, LGBT) people – but I could still relate to it a lot. Coming out in a car was one of the big things for me. I’ve come out three times in a car. Something about it. Maybe the fact that you’ll escape the situation soon if it gets awkward anyway. But also, the order that he came out to people in, too, the fact that he started with a new friend and worked back to people he’d known for a long time…it was really well-written in that respect.      I remember Pat sobbing next to me for most of the movie, especially when Simon came out to his mother. Pat’s family wasn’t as accepting of him for a while when he first came out, and I think it just really hit home for him. (He also had a thing for the guy that played Simon, so. I mean, I kinda liked Blue more, but I get the appeal.)      At the end of the movie, people started clapping for such a long time…at several points during the movie people would turn around and show Pat that they were crying, too. I remember a lot of friends of mine being in that movie theater just by chance, all of us deciding to see it on opening night, none of us coordinating it, but we all just happened to be in that movie theater together, all in one row, experiencing it at the same time. It felt so communal in a way that my area rarely has happen. But even people who didn’t know each other started talking at the theater as we sat down. People saying they brought tissues, they brought tea, things like that. My area isn’t really the type of area just to strike up conversation. We don’t do that. Love, Simon made us do that.      Pat went and saw that movie I think four more times. He’s a doll, and I’m so happy to know him.

3. Any other thoughts on LGBT representation in any form of media?      One of the things that frustrates me a lot in conversations of LGBT representation, and especially with lesbian representation, is people often saying that butch lesbians are somehow “over-represented” in media. I’ve never experienced that. I’ve never experienced so many butches in media that I didn’t know what to do with them. I remember making a lot of my own representation; I wrote several stories before I knew I was butch with a masculine lesbian as the lead. But that was self projection. Somehow, even though nearly every piece of lesbian representation is skewed toward male consumption (overly sexualized kisses, voyeuristic poses, the tenderness bleached out and replaced with headiness) and nearly every lesbian in media is feminine – despite all this, and despite the fact that I have yet to find a single movie or TV show about a butch lesbian character – despite this, people always tell me that butches are over-represented. I don’t know where they’re looking. I would love to live in the world they live in, where people like me are commonplace. I think we need to push to get GNC and trans individuals shown more in media. We need to get leads, we need to get romances, we need to show that we can have stories that aren’t all avant garde as shit!      The other thing we need to do is diversify our acting pool. Moonlight is, I think, the only movie I can think of that focuses on black gay men, and solely black gay men. I actually don’t know of any others off the top of my head. That’s a problem! I definitely couldn’t name any movies about black trans people, certainly not about a black trans woman, or a black trans lesbian – it just isn’t a thing we make a lot of, which is really just the intersection in lesbo/homo/bi/transphobia and racism manifest in a visual form. But it’s a problem we need to deal with.

I rambled a lot. I hope this is coherent and makes sense and stuff? Let me know if you have anything you want clarity on or something or any follow-up questions. Good luck on your paper!