#i could not have asked for better mlm rep

[radish-girl]

Bro,, they've been together for 100 years and they still get shy and fluttery about each other???

Geoff being the flirt while Jeff gets all bashful? ;__;

They're so cute putting together this fake game show.

Host Jeff and lovely assistant Geoff~♡

They're so stupid and adorable they make me wanna explode

#they live rent free in my head fr #i could not have asked for better mlm rep #theyre old. childless. jeff is so in love with his partner it makes him look stupid. #geoff is such a sweetie and its nice to see his affections being reciprocated 🥹 its what he deserves tbh #jeff is so catty too. hes insane to me. #tgamm #the ghost and molly mcgee

[bluedalahorse]

Complicated queer media feelings beneath the cut…

Is anyone else feeling… I dunno… complicated about the part where we have Heartstopper, Red White and Royal Blue, and likely more YRS3 promo happening all in the same month?

I find a kind of enjoyment in each of these, so on one hand, I’m happy about it! (YR is my dearest fandom love right now about which I have many deep feelings, Heartstopper brings me joy and is what I’d watch with my middle school kids if I had kids, and RWRB is more on the “fun popcorn media” side of things for me but also has a lot of government humor that I laugh at as a person living in DC who gets subjected to motorcades etc.)

And I also think it’s awesome that queer rep has come a long way since when I was in high school, and there was only kinda Will and Grace and Willow on Buffy and you barely heard about some kids watching Queer as Folk if they were lucky enough to have HBO and parents who weren’t weird about it.

And and at the same time I know I’m going to be looking at my dash like, huh, that is a lot of mlm romance kissing between photogenic cis men.

Which. Again. Is progress? But also I’m a not-skinny aroace homosocial queer who is very interested in the stories of women and nonbinary people as well, and stories about friendship as well as relationships that reject traditional definitions. I want sweet romantic moments in my stories and decent makeout scenes but I also want stories about how queerness can challenge capitalism and hegemony and how we can create new families of choice and so on.

And for some of the texts I’m talking about, the canon definitely delivers? Things feel balanced? YR explores the class system with so much skill, and makes me ask powerful questions about justice and identity and such. It also has incredible female characters, including Sara as B Plot Protagonist driving a significant part of the story. (I wish I could find more fanfic from female characters’ POVs. I wish there were just as many “can’t wait until they get their happy endgame” posts about the Sara-Felice friendship as there were about the Wilmon romance, and I adore the Wilmon romance. I just love everything else about the show alongside it, and sometimes I find myself desperately craving discussion about the other aspects of the show while not knowing how to find ways of engaging about it.)

Heartstopper—I love how a multiqueer friends group is so centered in the story. Nick and Charlie are the main characters but Charlie’s friendship with Tao matters as much in the first season as his romance with Nick. I love how the show chose to have Elle carry a significant subplot in season 1 (although they could do better with that) and I am hopeful that we’ll get an ace discovery story for Isaac in season 2 and I’m looking forward to seeing more Imogen and we get a new disabled character and we’ll also get Tara and Darcy being Tara and Darcy! I don’t really follow people for Heartstopper necessarily, because it’s not really something I analyze or write fic for, but, you know, there’s a lot of it that goes around and I have generally positive feelings about it. I’m curious about what parts of the show and what characters people will choose to focus on.

RWRB… well, it’s been a long time since I’ve read the book, but I’m sort of holding off on comments until I see what’s different between the book and the movie.

Long story short I think I’m going to feel great about these various mlm pairings individually, because they’re all distinct personalities with stories and such, but I’m going to be feeling kind of weird and overwhelmed about the attention and gif visibility and squeeing that mlm romances between photogenic cis men get in aggregate.

But also also. Maybe that’s on me for not being into something like Yellowjackets fandom or not spending more time browsing the tag for XO Kitty. So the problem could also be me. I mean who knowsss?????

[matan4il]

I don't know if you watch Grey's Anatomy but in this week's episode (19x15), there's a kid who is a patient just when he was supposed to have his bar mitzvah, and so the doctors organize for him to be able to do it at the hospital. And he does it with his grandfather who hadn't been able to have one in Germany. It was really a nice scene :)

Awwww, Nonnie! Thank you for telling me! That sounds so sweet. I used to watch Grey's Anatomy, but i kind of had to stop. I loved Callie's storyline with Erica Hahn. I know, seems unpopular. She started out as a not-very-nice surgeon, but I liked it when they brought her back and allowed her to be more human. I liked that she became a multi-faceted character. And then when they were started to throw out hints about her and Callie? When they were doing the build up for them? Don't get me wrong, it was still NOT in the ballpark of hetero slow burns, I guess you could call it a 'mid burn', though it was still better than what most mlm couples get (with maybe the exception of Black Sails and Our Flag Means Death, at least of what I've seen). I was the eyes emoji. And then the show actually followed through, it ACTUALLY let them get together and kiss with the music swelling? :o I was in awe, I loved it, I was SO there for it. They even explored what it means for Erica to figure out she's gay later in life versus Callie exploring her bisexuality (I didn't always love how they went about Callie's bisexuality, but I did like that they let them each have her own discovery story).

And then they just... got rid of Erica? And in almost no time replaced her with Arizona? And it was so clear they were intent on telling a wlw story, which was awesome, but when the audience didn't react well enough to Erica, they just... got rid of her and brought in a younger, "softer" version of her, as if queer characters are that easily replaceable. I was offended. I LIKED having an older queer woman's story being told. And I get Erica didn't start out nice, but by the time her and Callie got together, I did like her. So it was hard for me to warm up to Arizona. And even when I kind of reluctantly accepted her, because hey, it's better than no queer rep for wlw, I ended up not liking a lot of what they did with Callie and Arizona. Like the way Callie gets pregnant. They had a ridiculous fight between her and Arizona, just so Callie wouldn't be technically cheating when she sleeps with Mark and gets pregnant, and then Arizona comes back and magically, all the stuff that drove her and Callie apart is not there anymore, and Arizona accepts the baby with relative ease, but it just became yet another storyline that doesn't show how MOST same sex parents ACTUALLY become parents. So IDK when exactly, but at some point around that time, I quit GA rather than quietly rage about how bad the wlw rep was IMO.

I want you just to understand what it means that you managed to make me wanna watch an ep of GA again! IDK, but I will. Thank you so much for telling me about that and just in case you're curious? There are actually a lot of real life stories like that! Holocaust survivors who get to make up for the bar and bat mitzvahs they were robbed off. Here's an example, there's a program that brings survivors annually to the Western Wall in Jerusalem to have their bar/bat mitzvah there! I find it very moving, because THEY are so clearly moved by what they get to do.

Have a great day, lovely! As always, my ask tag. xoxox

#jewish rep #jewish representation #jr #ask #anon ask #grey's anatomy #erica hahn #callie torres #gay rep #mm #jewish #jewish stuff #fandom love #kindness #thank you! #<3333

[alexzalben]

hey Alex I saw another one of your ask about Choni being endgame becat it be bad rep to have only lesbian on the show end up alone and I am curious now do you think it's good rep that one of the reasons Choni is written to be endgame is because there is no other options for Cheryl ?

This is a VERY good question. And a complicated one. I don’t think Choni becoming endgame is bad rep, but there could be better rep. I’m always frustrated by the “we got one” nature of LGBTQ+ couples on shows - there’s one wlw couple, one mlm couple, and that’s usually it. Box checked. That’s not actual rep, that’s a nodding of your head.

That said, with something like Riverdale I do think there’s something to be said for that, despite the focus on shipping by the fanbase… There’s not a ton of couples? Betty dated Jughead and Archie. Jughead dated Betty, Tabitha, and barely Toni. Veronica dated Archie and Reggie. Cheryl dated Toni. Heather and Minerva. Other than Archie, no characters have dated people on the scale of the usual gamut of hook-ups on these types of shows.

It doesn’t excuse the minimal LGBTQ+ rep, but I do think there’s something to be said for Choni not necessarily being an outlier in that respect.

#riverdale

[peppermint-rat]

Also the creator insisting up and down that the characters are NOT gay because they are both non-binary... Ok, great, so are you gonna make their NB identities something explicitly illustrated in the show? Or are we only given this information when we dare to criticize your show's gay rep, to shut us up? We don't get to be upset, because you're actually so much more woke than all of us for making the characters non-binary, and we're so narrow-sighted to have thought that two masc-presenting characters who use he/him pronouns could possibly be gay men.

"Logically, these people would have no need for gender" - sure, the queer audience might see that on their own, but you can bet the rest of the audience just sees two men. Your representation is not brave or woke if the only people who can see it are the ones who want to see it and who won't be upset by it. You take no risks.

You know what else is risky? Clearly and undeniably depicting on-screen mlm relationships in mainstream media. But when your loyal queer fans ask why you're not taking that risk, you shut them down by claiming you're taking a different risk, /when you're really not taking it at all/, it's just a cop-out that makes sure you still seem like a queer ally and therefore queer people will keep watching your show

As a non-binary lesbian I find it deeply offensive that NB identity is used as an excuse not to have better gay rep while the NB rep is not even there, and also NB people can still be gay! Fans aren't wrong for suggesting that these characters could be gay!

Get fucked

[llitchilitchi]

tbh i have mixed feelings about ks being mlm representation, like on a surface level it could be considered that, but i think its too much a reflection or real horror stories around gay people? like especially considering the murder guy is straight, it represents more a story of a gay man as a victim of straight violence - i dont think this is necessarily bad, just for me its also not good rep of homosexuality in horror or sexual horror - especially since homosexuality is used quite a bit within sexual horror to condemn homosexuality, which i think could implicitly be represented through the stalker guy's obsession with the straight murder guy which ultimately leads to his sa and torture, as if he was asking for it (not that i think thats what the writer intended, just that it does reflect other aspects of queer sexual horror)

this is /nm ofc, just my interpretation ! sorry again if its a little rambly, media analysis is just like my favourite thing psksks

okay so I got this a couple days ago while we were discussing this and first I want to apologise for not answering this sooner, I've been busy, and secondly, as much as this conversation is probably over this is something that's been stuck in my mind since I first read it

this one gets heavy so this is a last warning for anyone to skip over this ask, we're talking about killing stalking here so all the tws that come with that will be discussed

I see where you're coming from! we do have to ask what we consider mlm/queer representation in media though. is killing stalking even mlm? one of the protagonists is gay, yes, but it isn't exactly Men Loving Men, it's a gay man being taken advantage of because of his infatuation with his abuser (who is straight).

besides, this is a psychological horror/thriller kinda story, so the sexual horror is somewhat expected, even if it is reflective of the horror real queer people undergo. it's something women go through in relationships with men, too, and there are several stories that are realistic-ish (the first to come to mind would be Jennifer's Body, and, in a way, Rosemary's Baby.) there are many stories that depict straight relationships like that and since I personally believe in 'stories with queer characters and same sex couples shouldn't be just pure and sweet and it's better like that, actually' it never was an issue to me that the main couple was two men.

the story also never came off as condemning homosexuality. while it was somewhat used against yoonbum it didn't read like the author herself was condemning him for being gay. the tone might have changed in the later chapters, if it did then that's just awful. but as far as I remember it was on the side of parodying classic yaoi tropes, as in pushing them to such an extreme it was the author more or less screaming at the readers THIS IS MESSED UP!! THIS IS WRONG AND NOT RIGHT!! NOT BECAUSE IT'S GAY BUT BECAUSE IT'S RAPE AND ABUSE!!

especially the intro, if Yoonbum was a woman the stalking would still result in abuse and rape, so I don't think it was intended to be read as 'if he wasn't gay this wouldn't have happened' cause hell, if Sangwoo was a woman the story would most likely read the same!

it does beg the question of why the author chose to write both protagonists as male, which I suppose, the best answer is 'why not?'

I get that writing these stories is tricky, especially with how people still view same sex relationships as either bad or as a fetish for them to indulge in (I'm talking fujoshi culture and straight men being into lesbian porn, for example), but I do feel like the best way to normalize queerness is writing any story with a queer character. including a story like killing stalking. (and before anyone comes at me with 'so you're saying that-' as long as it's not condemning them for being gay it's fine. as long as it's not saying All Queer People Bad it's fine. if the character is fucked up and gay then that's fine.)

tbh the only way I could see this story as being 'bad queer representation' would be if yoonbum was straight and sangwoo gay, tho I guess even that could be argued over. but you get what I mean by this, probably /genuine

#asks #idk I have complicated feelings about this story and I wish Id gone into it blind OR knowing its a horror story #your interpretation is very valid! it just depends how you approach these things ig which for me is not many fucks given in this regard #plus the reception definitely made us look at it differently to what the author was going for

[emptymasks]

The Fluidphobia in the Loki Series and it’s Fandom

These are posts I made for my Instagram but I was asked if I could share them properly on here. As much as I’ve talked about these issues on here, I’ve not shared these more coherent posts out of fear from the backlash I got from a couple of non-binary people. But I need to make one thing clear: if you are LGBT+ but not specifically genderfluid, you do not get to say what is and what is not fluidphobic. Sadly, gays, bisexuals, transgender and non-binary people can be fluidphobic.

Am I trying to cancel the show? No, I’m still watching it and enjoying a lot of it. Do I think they were fluidphobic on purpose and malicious? No, I think it’s out of the ignorance and privilege of an all-cis creative team who didn’t consult real genderfluid people. If they hadn’t boasted about how they were making MCU Loki genderfluid and MCU Loki had remained a cis man then I wouldn’t be making this post and I wouldn’t be complaining. But they made him genderfluid, they bragged about him being genderfluid, and then did this. Genderfluid people deserve better.

And before I get any comments that I’ve been getting everyone else saying “it’s fiction, it’s not real”, bad LGBT+ representation does affect real life. Bad and offensive and inaccurate LGBT+ representation actively affects how real LGBT+ people are treated. Already the fluidphobia in this fandom has surged and I’ve had a lot of firsthand experience of it as a genderfluid person. Don’t tell me that it doesn’t matter when I know people who have gotten death threats, hate, abuse, harassment, who have been told ‘genderfluidity isn’t real’ ‘only fictional character’s can be genderfluid because you need to be able to shapeshift to be genderfluid’ ‘Loki isn’t genderfluid, he’s sexfluid’ ‘Loki is only ever male because everyone calls him he/him and brother and god’ ‘Loki is bi/pan because he fucked a horse’. Just stop. And stop conflating the myths with the Marvel character, they’re not the same things and there are many differences between them.

Real people matter more than fictional characters. Real people getting hurt is more important than whether you think something makes a good story or feels in character for Loki.

I’m so tired guys, I just want a few simple things:

Stop misgendering Loki. The cast and crew, Marvel and Disney, have all confirmed he is genderfluid now in the MCU. not a cis man, and not ‘sexfluid’. Stop calling ships with him in m/f or het or mslash or mlm.

Stop saying “it’s not real, it’s just fiction” when a queer person complains about bad queer rep. It’s horrible and naive. If representation didn’t affect reality then why would we want more and better representation? Bad and homophobic/transphobic scenes and characters in the media actively affect and increase the homophobia and transphobia in real life.

If you’re not genderfluid stop assuming you understand genderfluidity better than genderfluid people do and stop telling them to shut up and that they don’t understand or are reading too much into things when they say something upset them. If you’re genderfluid you’re welcome to think I’ve said wrong things, I do not and have never claimed to speak on behalf of all genderfluid people. I always put a preface on my posts stating that as I get people angry at me when I haven’t.

And dear god please, please stop using the horse fucking in the myths to justify anything. I’ve seen biphobes using it to say why Loki is digusting and why bi people are bad, and I’ve seen allies and LGBT+ people using it to say why “Loki’s amazing, he can do and be anything, of course he’s bi, he’s always been bi, he fucked a horse!”. That is not empowering, that is not supportive of bi and pan and genderfluid people. Bestiality is something that has been used for a long time to harass bisexual and pansexual (omnisexual, polysexual) people. It is a panphobic belief that pansexuals will fuck anything including animals. Comparing bis and pans to the horse fucking is not the support you think it is. And Marvel comics and MCU Loki have never done that. Slephnir is not Loki’s child in Marvel. The myths are different from Marvel and the MCU. Hela is Loki’s daughter in the comics but not in the MCU.

#loki discourse #loki series #loki series spoilers #loki #loki spoilers #lokiedit #lokiseriesedit #genderfluid #fluidphobia #lokius #sylvie #sylvie laufeydottir

[i-did]

Do you know when the racism and ableism accusations against Nora started? Because back when I was active in 2016/2017 and don't think they were a thing, or were very low-key. Was it something she said or are people just basing it off the things she wrote in the books?

From what I remember, the first time I heard the blanket statement of “Nora is racist/fetishizes gay men” blanket statement was early fall 2019 (which is so ironic for the fandom to say on so many levels lmao). There wasn’t a catalyst or anything, just she went offline 2016 and no new content was coming out and the aftg fandom is such an echo chamber that… an accidental smear campaign happened.

 Before then, I would see occasional “Nora used ableist slur” which… is funny (not that ableism isn’t serious) to me people care more about that than Seth saying the f-slur. IMO this is because with Seth, it clearly shows the character thinking it and not the author who is writing about what will be an end game mlm relationship. 

But anyways! Long story short, it's the fact that she’s an ace/aro woman who wrote a mlm book, and based off of the events in canon. There is no “Nora called me/someone else a slur” it’s “Nora wrote a book where slur(s) are used” and “the Moriyama’s are Japanese.”

Below I put my own opinion on these claims and go into more detail:

CW for discussions of: racism, ableism, mlm fetishization

Fetishization: (and mentions of sexism at the end)

To one question in the EC about her inspo for aftg she jokingly responded how she wanted to write about gay athletes. On other parts of your blog you could see she was a hockey fan and an overall sports fan (anime or otherwise) but I've seen this statement taken out of context and framed as “she's one of those BOYXBOY” shippers. Considering how… well-developed both Andrew and Neil’s relationship is, and it takes them until like the 3rd book and there is a whole complex ass plot going on around, you can see how that's just. Not really true. And considering the fandom is like… 85% women (queer women but still women) and I've gotten into a discussion with someone who is a woman and called Nora a fetishizer and was ignoring my opinions as a mlm, and I really just wanted to say “well what does that make you?” it's a very ironic high horse. She didn’t write 3 all 3 books to put Neil in lingerie pwp or crop-top fem-fatal fashion show, fandom did. 

Also, I talked to an ace/aro friend about this, and she talked to me about how AFTG spoke to her very much so as an ace/aro story. Neil is demisexual, Nora didn’t know of the word at the time of reading it, but she did get an anon asking if Neil was demi after, and she said “had to look it up, and yep, but he doesn't really think about it” (paraphrased). Obviously it would have been cool if andreil were canonly written as wlw by Nora instead, (which would have increased the amount of wlw rep and demi rep) but tbh I don’t think tumblr would have cared about it nearly as much and everyone would just call Neil a cold bitch–like people do with Nora’s other published book with a main character who's a woman. Plus they're her OC’s, not mine. 

The fact is that 50% of all LGBT+ rep in literature is mlm, mostly white mlm, and not written by mlm. I’m not going to hold her to a higher standard than everyone else, she already broke a shit ton of barriers in topics she discusses that otherwise get ignored. I’m grateful to these books for existing even if it's a mlm story written by a woman. I still will prioritize reading mlm written by mlm–and vice versa with wlw– in the way I prioritize reading stories about POC written by POC. But credit where credit is due, this is a very good story, and a very good demi story. 

Ableism:

To me, AFTG is a story about ableism and how we perceive some trauma survivors more worthy than others. Neil and the foxes using ableist language shows how people actually talk. Neil thinks shitty things about Andrew, like the others do too, and thinks he's “psycho”. The story ultimately deconstructs this idea and these perceptions of people. Wymack, someone who says the r-slur (which is still not known by the general population as a slur even in 2021 much less the early 2000s when the book was beginning to be written and what the timeline is based off of) is a character who understands Andrew better than most of the others do, and gives him the most sympathy and understanding despite using words like the m-slur and r-slur. Using these words isn't good, but it is how people talk, and this character talks. Wymack is a playful “name caller” especially when he’s mad, the foxes think Andrew is “crazy” and incapable of humanity and love because of it. They call his meds “antipsychotics” as an assumption and insult in a derogatory way, when really antipsychotics are a very helpful drug for some people who need them. Even Neil thinks these things about Andrew until he learns to care about him. All the foxes are hypocritical to am extent, as people in real life tend to be. Nora herself doesn’t use these or tweet them or something, her characters do to show aspects of their personality and opinions and how they change over time.

Racism:

As for the racism, I've seen people talk about how racial minorities being antagonists is inherently bad, which I think lacks nuance but overall isn't a harmful statement or belief. However, Nora herself said she wrote in the yakuza instead of another gang or mob because she was inspired for AFTG by sports anime, (which often queer-bait for a variety of reasons). I haven’t seen a textual analysis acknowledging the racist undertones surrounding the Moriyama’s as the few characters of color who are also major antagonists, but instead just “Nora is racist”. Wymack having shitty flame tribal tattoo’s is just… a huge 90’s thing and a part of his character design. Her having a character with bad taste in tattoo trends doesn’t mean she's racist. There is the whole how Nicky is handled thing, but that's a whole thing on it’s own. The fandom… really will write Nicky being all “ai ai muy spicy, jaja imma hit on my white–not annoying like me–boyfriend in Spanish. With my booty hole out and open for him ofc.” and as a Mexican mlm I’m like … damn alright. 

I think there is merit to the fact that she writes white as the default* and unless otherwise stated a POC a character was written with the intent to be white is another valid criticism, as well as the fact that the cast is largely white, but everything Nora is accused of I've seen the fandom do worse. That goes to the debate of, is actively writing stereotypes for POC more harmful than no representation at all? And personally I prefer the lack of established race line that lets me ignore Nora’s canon intent of characters to be white and come up with my own HC’s over the fandoms depictions of “zen monk Renee with dark past” “black best friend Matt who got over drugs but is a puppy dog” “ex stripper black Dan who dates Matt” vague tokenism. I HC many of the upperclassmen as POC and do my best to actively give thought behind it and have their own arcs that also avoids the fandom colorism spectrum of “darkest characters we HC go to the back and fandom favorites are in the front and are the lightest.” 

*I however won't criticize her harsher or more than… everyone else who still largely does this in fanfiction regarding AFTG as well as literature in general. This isn't a Nora thing, it's a societal thing, and considering the books came out in like 2014 I'm not gonna hold her to a higher standard than the rest of the world. She's just someone who wrote her personal OC’s and self-published expecting no following. I don’t know her race and I’m not gonna hold her to a higher standard than everyone else just because. 

The criticisms I've seen have always been… ironic IMO, and clearly I have a lot of thoughts on it. I think most people say those things about Nora because they heard them, and it's the woke thing to say and do and don’t critically analyze their actions or anything, but just accept them. 

#ask #aftg discorse #fandom culture #fandom politics #fandom psychology #mailob #damn cant wait for my words to be twisted lmao #sorry the ableism one is the shortest I wrote that one first actually

[cjcroen1393]

You know what? Screw it! I’m gonna explain to everyone WHY I call myself a yaoi fanboy and WHY i don’t bash the genre or its fans.

With all those asks I’ve been getting trying to start discourse, I feel like I might as well.

Before I go on, I’m not going to go too deep into any personal shit obviously but I don’t entirely need to in order to do this. Still, like JaidenAnimations, I’ll only be giving the cliff notes version, okay? Okay.

(That said, this still ended up being longer than I anticipated so under a cut it goes!)

So I first started to notice how not-straight I was around high school and at that same time I was getting really really into anime and manga. I was also becoming a major troper, perusing TV Tropes on a nigh constant basis. Yes, this is relevant because they had a whole library of anime and manga for me to discover.

And of course there was also Fanfiction.net, Deviantart and Tumblr itself. Those were pretty big influences.

So why are these relevant? Well it’s because these are all where I discovered how much I liked seeing anime guys kiss. And that was also part of how I came to terms with the fact that I was bisexual.

I think it started out small. Ouran High School Host Club, not yaoi but contains many references to the genre, was my first “proper” anime, and I got into Hetalia later on. Later, while waiting for episodes of Monster on SyFy channel’s anime block, I watched Descendants of Darkness, which isn’t yaoi but is kinda “yaoi adjacent” if that makes sense. I really enjoyed it, but more specifically I loved it for the strong, affectionate bond its two male leads had. It wasn’t a perfect show, no, but it was enjoyable and it was easily my first peek into what would someday become my fondness for yaoi.

Next I got into Gravitation, I believe, my first actual yaoi and likely the most quintessential of them. It was a fun show for me, but I won’t deny, it was problematic to a degree. Still, I enjoyed it and Ryuichi Sakuma remains one of my favorite anime characters to this day.

and of course, over the course of all this, I was getting really big on reading gay fanfics.

Now how did all of this help me come to terms with my sexuality? Well, you may not believe this, but it kinda…and I hate this fuckin’ term but “normalized” same gender relationships for me? Like, the more yaoi or yaoi adjacent works I read and watched, the more I thought “yes, it is normal for me to be attracted to other men; it is okay for me to want a romantic relationship with another man”.

I’m not gonna pretend it wasn’t problematic of course. A lot of yaoi is problematic; aside from the…questionable relationship the genre has with consent, it should still be remembered that most yaoi—not all, but most—is written by straight women, for straight women and with a straight woman’s understanding of how gay or mspec men work. I am not denying that, and I generally avoided the skeevier shit, like all those ones where the “dominant” partner is portrayed as predatory and gross.

BUT—and this is very important—regardless of that, yaoi was still an outlet for me. An outlet through which I could explore my sexuality and become more comfortable with it. I didn’t have a lot of exposure to works that do lgbtqa+ representation better—the only western media exposed myself to was a bunch of cartoons where the gays were either non existent or stereotypical side characters and frickin’ Harry Potter which was determined to never have any lgbt rep at all—nor did I have a lot of works that went into detail about mlm relationships. Yaoi and anime/manga that borrowed from the genre was my main outlet to explore that stuff…and it helped me a lot.

And here’s the thing: I don’t even do yaoi shit anymore. I still ship gay couples more than straight ones but I don’t think in terms of the yaoi genre anymore. And for good reason! We now have plenty of gay representation in media! It’s wonderful and I’m happy about that! I’m ecstatic! I’m so glad we as a community have been getting better representation over the years. Even in the anime industry, we got stuff like Nabari no Ou, Yuri on Ice, Sk8 the Infinity, etc., works that are either explicitly lgbt or have undertones thereof and sometimes are even written by lgbt authors (the author of Nabari no Ou is non-binary, for example).

And yet…I can’t really bring myself to rail against yaoi or to bash it or its fans or do anything of the sort like that. Because while it may be a slightly cursed and embarrassing memory for me…it still helped me more than it harmed me. I know my experiences are not the same as everyone else’s, I understand that. And again, I know the yaoi genre has issues. I’m not denying that at all.

But at the same time, I would really, REALLY like it if y’all didn’t treat my experiences as invalid, simply because of the media I used as an outlet or god forbid, my identity as a bisexual.

Anyway, I just had to share my thoughts on this matter. Sorry it was so long. Peace out everyone.

#lgbt #bisexuality #coming out #yaoi #cw yaoi #yaoi discourse #discourse #long post

[mittai]

☕ renarlain?

uhhh it could've been better. like i do still have hopes about an mlm couple featuring heavily in pt 2 of the series. and i think i appreciated a lot of what sanderson wrote into rlain's pov in row (awareness of the dynamics btwn singers & humans, awareness of microagressions even from friends, all of that was a breath of fresh air).

however, i'm worried about both sanderson falling into questionable tropes and the fandom y'know. being weird about it. like we already have potential problems w/ the way renarin is infantilized and rlain is depicted as "tough", esp when he's indigenous & renarin is autistic, so it could lean into some not great stereotypes about both poc & neurodivergent people.

i also wish sanderson kind of hadn't told us about it? like i'm just :/ whenever authors do kind of sort of out of canon word of mouth confirmation shit. and sanderson's done it a lot (bi adolin, bi shallan, jasnah was like 3 sentences in canon, etc). and i feel like the fandom just sort of gave him credit for writing a bunch of queer characters, when he didn't? i appreciate some of the accidental queer subtext and his support of our interpretations, but like. ... i'm just not ready to give him credit for actual rep until he properly executes it and writes it into canon. but i am keeping my hopes up!

Ask Game: send me ☕️ + [topic]

#00 #inbox #ella #ask game #sff #cosmere

[septiembrre]

I'm a little late but I just saw your post from a year ago about latinx rep in good girls and its sad reflecting back on it and how the show could've done better. Rio was just another stereotype, I hate how he was ambitiously latino and there was just no connection to his culture. Was he first, 2nd, or 3rd Gen? If he was 1st Gen it didn't make sense to have the family speak English. One thing that always annoyed me is how OOC he was at times and how the writers purposely made him out to be like some brown aggressive misogynistic man. They didn't bother making him complex. In a way I'm glad the show got canceled. As a Mexican woman the way Rio was written was racist.

Wah, I’ve been sitting on answering your ask. I wanted to tease your ask apart and respond to it sentence by sentence. But... my brain kept rechazandolo, so now I have feelings dump instead.

Since Good Girls ended, I have been parsing through how I feel about S4 and GG overall — sometimes more positively, sometimes more negatively. Then, I flip to reminding myself it’s not that serious (it's just tv! this is supposed to be my leisure activity!). Then, I waffle back to reflecting.

So, no textual analysis just feels and whining under the cut. I know folks are still mourning the end of the show and I don't want to yuck anyone's yum. Tagging with #ggnegativity.

My short answer is that Good Girls is my beloved, sometimes joyful, sometimes hurtful, complicated little show. Even now that we’re no longer getting new episodes I’m wary of sifting through the information we have about Rio because it’s a mess and it seems like a lot of his character was poorly thought out (ahem, all those dumb messages from Bill Krebs confirming multiple instances of lack of intentionality or care!).

I say this because I was tempted to start responding to you by riffing off of your comment with, “y'know, now that you say that, I think he’s third or fourth gen…”, pero who cares? And the point was never specifically about what gen he is, or even more specifically about... lol, I was going to say it doesn't matter what nationality he was, they just needed to pick one. Ugh, but the wording of that is too glib. The lack of intentionality behind these details feels sanitized to me, it feels very white gaze, it feels lazy.

However, I could have forgiven a lot of this weak character construction if his baseline, plot-related characterization on-screen was more consistent. But, Rio was often used as a plot device in a way that often fell flat for me, a weekly recurring bogeyman whether his antagonism made sense or not. On one hand, I feel for the creative team, because I think they were in a hard place, trying to avoid romanticizing Rio, and trying to seemingly backtrack the sexualization of him in Season 2, but... Idk, it's complicated.

Retrospectively, it’s sitting with me how much Good Girls is rooted in whiteness. While it's something I discerned before (lol, most obviously with 2x13 and in S3 with Lucy's disposability), you know how some shows get to their third or fourth season and finally start investing in their marginalized characters? It’s a crappy thing to hold out hope for, they're crumbs! But, I was. And we did get some Rio worldbuilding. But, ultimately, it felt weak to me -- under-conceptualized or under-worked.

For example, I liked Nick as a Bigger Bad who drove Rio and Beth together. I also thought that Nick's non-existent moral code was a lovely foil to Rio's, and that this contrast humanized Rio in a way that he needed. It also cast a new light on Rio's behavior of the earlier seasons, outside of Beth's perception in a way that I thought was healthy and needed. Great, meaty stuff! However, Nick and Rio's relationship came across as shallow to me. There really did not seem to be a lived-in quality to their scenes. The show really struggled with that element overall -- even with the three lead protagonists (their decades-long history with each other and interactions between their families being largely absent). I wonder why they made that choice.

It's strange because on the flip side we got a hefty amount of contextualization for MLM guy Vance and Annie's bf Kevin... Even that cop who Mick killed! All white men, too.

Me da pena.

Or maybe the thing that bothers me is that those scenes between Nick and Rio didn't center Rio's perspective effectively? Despite the one-on-one scenes being outside of Beth's framing (Rio being a secondary character typically tethered to Beth's story arc), there still was a lot of distance between Rio and the viewer? Like I think of Vance in his kitchen with his wife and child, and the way we as viewers were brought into that to empathize with him, and I think of the distance of Nick+Rio boxing scene or the scenes at the bar. Argh! It's hard to pinpoint without the textual analysis I feel too grumpy to do. It was such a narrative choice to keep Rio aloof and I side-eye it.

Anyway --

Overall, the writing room/show creators/decision-makers didn't seem to consider Latine/x/a/o viewers throughout the crafting of Good Girls and that sucks. It really feels like I'm being told to conform to the white gaze in watching the show, and after 2x13 that makes me feel prickly and defensive. A part of me yearns to do a rewatch to map Rio’s character (and inconsistencies) but I still yield joy from Good Girls — it’s been my main comfort story during the pandemic. I also rendered joy from Season 4 specifically — some of those scenes between the leads at the end were phenom!!

I am leaning into what's bringing me joy right now, so I feel hesitant to stew in critique, even while I also feel some sort of need to make sense of the hurtful racializations. I have a compulsion to write them all down on the same post or list -- somewhere where I can see them all at once and understand. But, at the moment, it’s not a use of my time and energy that feels good. Opting into fics and writing is bringing me a lot of joy during hard times.

I have to close with one final whine, that I am SO fatigued with television options right now. I find myself desperately wishing for more TV out there whose priority audience isn't only white folks. Good Girls isn't alone in its treatment of Latinx characters, or alone in mishandling characters of color or gay characters, or prioritization of empathy for white het male characters, but certainly, creating something more thoughtful shouldn't be so hard.

#preguntitas #gg negativity #lol this is basically a long journal post #good girls and latinidad #nbc good girls

[anarmorofwords]

I kinda wanna write a better version of tlh where Tatiana is still insane but there's no Belial bc that makes zero sense to me

In this version there would be:

Kamanna done correctly with actual genderqueer rep and not toxic relationships

Barbra and Oliver bc fight me she didn't die

Genie and Filomena bc I love them and all the lightwoods are queer

The gracelet doesn't even happen bc I refuse to write that

Grace is pretty much still the same but she breaks off their(hers and james') relationship bc she notices that he loves Cordelia

No bad James. He's not a shitty person to Alastair, and he doesn't treat Cordelia like a sex object

Anna puts a stop to Kellington and Matthew's relationship before it gets serious. She also tries to get him to stop drinking all the time

Alastair apologizes around seeing them again for the first time. The merry thieves are a little reluctant because of some of the things he did but they don't actively try to keep him away from events that they're at

Matthew notices how Alastair looks at Thomas and locks them in the sanctuary with Genie and Cordelia's help

Grace gets badly injured due to a mistake in necromancy and Christopher helps her treat it without letting people know

Lucie meets Jesse, and falls in love ofc, so in order to bring him back successfully she asks Malcolm to train her in using her magic

Matthew opens up to his mom about the incident. She doesn't blame him at all and instead apologizes for often putting her work before him

Matthew finds out about Charles and Alastair because he found Alastairxs break up letter to Charles

Matthew, the mother hen he is, decided to attempt to murder his older brother, only being stopped by James who had been there at the right time

Kamala ends things with Charles and tells Anna that she still loves them and hopes that she will give her another chance

Anna told her that they needed time to think, and that she is worried how Kamala's reputation will be affected if anyone besides their friends and Anna's family finds out

Kamala respects her decision and doesn't contact her until Anna's ready to talk about things

The merry thieves don't ignore Christopher and they actively listen and help him

The merry thieves also aren't terrible to Grace bc they realize she's been isolated alone with Tatiana and 1) she might not understand what's saying/doing is wrong or 2) that sometimes she's trying to push them away so her abilities don't accidentally make them do something

Good tid parents

James and Alastair being respectful to each other despite personal differences

Matthew, Alastair, Kamala, Christopher, and Grace being besties, or as I call them, the neglected squad

No fetishizing mlm/wlw

Domestic cuddles and taking care of the other one when they're sick

Jesse/Lucie/Matthew pairing bc I love them and I refuse to pick between lucie/matthew and lucie/jesse

Christopher teaching Grace the elements(at the time) on the periodic table

Tatiana dies at the end yay

It's very unpolished and I'm open to b hearing any feedback and/or suggestions that anyone may have

The idea came to me and I decided it would be best if I told someone before I forgot

hi, I'm sorry it took so long,but I wanted to properly answer this and I keep having either internet connection issues or little time

DON'T BE SHY, WRITE THIS 👀

In all seriousness tho... THIS IS ABSOLUTE PERFECTION?!? I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO START I AM UTTERLY IN LOVE WITH THIS IDEA, I NEED IT

Look, I've been on the verge of rewriting ChoI, and I keep saying I want someone to write a TLH that will live up to its potential, but I've never actually came up with a proper idea for it, and you?!! YOUR BRAIN DARLING THIS IS GENIUS

ok hold up I'll just react to each and every single one so

yes please?!? I mean it started off so sweet in EEV?! Also actually genderqueer Anna and not dancing around the subject like CC is doing now?! That's what they deserve, and that's what we all deserve too

yesss please. also just,,,, Barbara, the feminine, not-wanting-to-fight-which-doesnt-make-her-less-badass queen that she is, getting the page space and appreciation she deserves

that's actually brilliant?!? it would be so great, just imagine the new girl arrives for her travel year and Genie is completely awestruck. I'm so invested in Joshwood it's difficult to imagine not having them, but this is actually the only valid alternative?!

ok that's fine. I think it could still happen and be done well, but tbh for now... the gracelet doesn't seem to have done anything relevant to the plot itself? I mean yeah it messed up James's life and Jordelia, but what did it give Belial? Tatiana? nothing. It makes no sense atm.

could be! maybe she's still encouraged by Tatiana to befriend/seduce him, but without the gracelet it doesn't work out? or maybe James somehow manages to realize that she's in danger and he actually like,,,, kidnaps her? idk idk

yes. YES. just,,,,z James is a sweet compassionate literature nerd who accidentally makes a good leader and he actually cares about people, and not just judges them from his high horse; he does still have hero syndrome, but he's kind and respectful and overall a good character

ANNA INTERVENES ABOUT KELLINGTON PLZ. PEOPLE ACTUALLY NOTICE MATTHEW'S STRUGGLES. JAMES DOES, TOO, BECAUSE THERE'S NO GRACELET.

ok yes, so what about: basically TMT don't harass Alastair and accept his apology, and realize they were also being stupid and mean at times at the Academy (especially Math). Matthew doesn't want to accept Alastair's apology, because of The Sin, but his behaviour alerts the rest of TMT and they inquire what's wrong and he tells them about the sin and that's how he later tells his parents (because his friends encourage him) and as you say, she just hugs him and reassures him it's not his fault; so after that Matthew slowly begins to heal and accepts it wasn't Alastair's fault, and also since they've kind of adopted/started including Alastair in things, he can't help but notice he's actually changed and he even starts to grow fond of him

then like you said, Matthew notices Thomas likes Alastair PLEASE HE SO WOULD. I'm not sure about the Sanctuary, if it actually happens (I'll get to why later on), but him and Lucie get really invested in the matchmaking schemes, they include Genie/Kamala because these two are friends with Alastair (both? Or at this point only Kamala?) but they also share some Moments during their scheming/talking about love 👀 (yes I'm a Fairdale shipper, I think it's time to expose myself lol)

Which leads me to (sorry I'm going off order rn) YES YES YES LUCIE AND MATH PLEASE. A FELLOW SHIPPER, HELLO, NICE TO MEET YOU. But since we're actually fixing him then we can give Jesse a personality and I'm totally down for poly Math/Lucie/Jesse

Lucie seeking Malcolm's help in secret, morally gray heroine style?!? no, it's probably not legal. but also has there ever been a Shadowhunter like her? If the Law doesn't expect such situations, it can't really forbid them...

Plz Matthew ready to strangle the carrot when he learns about their relationship, YES. sure, maybe he's still not the biggest fan of Alastair, but he's seen how much the boy's been through and starts to develop an attachment to him, and besides, NO ONE DESERVES TO BE GROOMED AND TREATED LIKE THAT. He's SO MAD at Charles, and he confronts him about it - remembering Kellington as he does, and it makes him sick to think his brother would do the same thing to someone. Maybe he gets very emotional over this and later finally tells his friends about Kellington? Maybe they didn't know before, only Anna did? So when they all realize what was happening then they comfort him etc? Or maybe it's just Alastair that learns now, and the others knew before, and they share a bonding moment over that?

Injured Grace seeking Kit's help is a genius idea I didn't know I needed

Kamanna giving each other time and space and deciding they need to question their relationship and figure out if it actually makes sense would be great. Anna realising she's very privileged and Kamala doesn't have those same opportunities, and also in general realising coming out should never be pressured or forced. Just,,,, Anna being self-aware and respectful towards Kamala. Well-written Anna. Plz. Also Kamanna is actually developed and not just "in love" because,,,,, they're attracted to each other? Maybe even remaining friends while Anna makes up their mind?

yeah just TMT being more compassionate and less judgy because they're not written by Judith so her bias isn't projected onto them

It's not a want, it's a need. They adopt Alastair and Grace eventually. Like, maybe not literally - although, Grace? - but you know what I mean.

I think they all should just have various friendship dynamics and switch between them, because people need more than one friend group

no fetishizing, no watching your brother make out with his lover, yessss

yes domestic cuddles, affection, taking care of wounds, all those things. plz.

Gracetopher bonding over science yes

obviously. or maybe she's imprisoned?!

ok, now for some more notes/my ideas etc., if you don't mind:

I actually think Belial could still be featured? After all, I don't think Tatiana could do much on her own, and since she seeks help from demons, it makes sense to include a Greater Demon as well. But Belial would have to be a stronger villain, written better; I'll think more about this

if that was the case, the serial killer plot could still happen, but be done better. and it would allow for a scenario I talked about with @littlx-songbxrd to happen, where it's Alastair who's falsely accused of murder. It creates a great opportunity to explore some things, because we know Alastair is much more likely to be seriously suspected, considering all the prejudices and bad rep his family has and all that

...what do you say to well-written Jordelia? 👀 Cordelia hasn't been obsessively in love with James since childhood, she only had a crush then. And now that they meet again, she's fond of him but not in love, not straight away. They're both grown up, and different people, but as they spend more and more time together, they fall in love. What if Cordelia gets to flirt with some other boys first? What then. What if she ends up choosing James, instead of going for the only boy she's ever had feelings for and idealized since childhood. What if we even make it friends-to-lovers and have James be a little jealous at some point?! but not in a possessive awful way, just "oh damn oh no"

Now I won't know peace until this exists BUT THANK YOU

#ask answered #thank you this is brilliant #alt tlh #save for later #the last hours #tlh #anti cc #yes I'll be adding/thinking more about this I AM OBSESSED

[kandi-pendragon]

I was planning on making a YouTube video for this but I’ve got my hands full and I’m too lazy so here we go:

I’ve seen a lot of fellow Merlinites begging for a season 6 of Merlin, probably hoping for it to follow the script that three young women came up with (look them up on YouTube under the name 3RingsLeft. I love them and their songs own my whole heart) in the absence of closure from the Merlin finale. Now personally, I don’t want that to progress further than a script, but that’s only because I’m a sad pathetic excuse for a human who’s only purpose in life is to roll around in her misery and enjoy not getting any closure whatsoever from a show. And I doubt that I’m the only Merlinite out there who feels this way. That open ending is precisely what hooks you at the very end, it’s exactly what makes you so obsessed. The acting, the plot, and the characters keep you watching, but the finale keeps you thinking about it long after you moved onto other shows. And I’m too much of a coward to put that feeling of obsession on the line by rooting for closure, because my obsession is about the only thing I have going for me right now :)

Anyway, back to my point. I have been thinking about this for several months, and I wanted to get it out there. I know it might never happen but like I said. I’m pathetic. I cling to hope until the devil comes along so I can sell my soul to make my dreams come true. What have I been thinking about, you ask? Simple: BBC Knights.  

Here’s a little information I wrote down ahead of time to organize my thoughts on the matter:

What is it?

Exactly what it sounds like. The idea of BBC Knights would be a spin-off of BBC Merlin, featuring the Knights of the Round Table, set in the time jump between season 3 and season 4. During this time, Lancelot is still alive, as is Uther. Arthur is newly appointed regent, and Morgana has quieted down for the time being. We get to explore so many things that we never got to before. Nothing would interfere with the finale of season five, of course. This would only be a filler, to give more content for the fandom, as well as more information, to better understand some of the characters.

Because you can’t have the Knights of the Round Table without also having Arthur and Merlin, the two of them would still be included in the show. However, they would no longer be the main focus. This would excuse some things too, for instance, not having to use Kilgarrah anymore. If the show is not focused on Merlin, we don’t have to find our way around not including Kilgarrah, because his voice actor, John Hurt, is no longer alive. (Rest In Peace, Mr. Hurt)

Focusing on the knights and this time frame would let us see more of Lancelot being a knight of Camelot, too — something he had been working towards his whole life — while BBC Merlin only granted us 2 episodes of that before killing him off. He had an entire year of being what he had strived to become since he was a child, and we never got to see it.

It would also give us the chance to better understand some characters’ backstories, something that the actor Eoin Macken said he wanted to do in the original show, had the last two seasons not been solely focused on the plot, and achieving the finale. Gwaine once mentions that he has a sister: “Well my sister is an evil old toad, so I’d be eternally grateful.” But we never even learn her name, much less what she did to make Gwaine hate her. We know that Lancelot met Percival before the others did, but we know none of the details. We know Elyan traveled around on his own for years, but we don’t know what he did, where he went, or who he met. We know Leon has been a knight for some time, but we don’t know anything about his childhood with Arthur, nor his friendship with Gwen and Elyan. There is so much potential for backstories, not to mention character development.

Of course, this all might be hard to achieve, since it’s been 8 years since Merlin ended, and the cast has aged (though not noticeably. I swear they’re immortal.) There have been hairstyle changes, beards grown, muscle mass gained. However, it’s shouldn’t be too hard to pass off. Maybe Arthur wears a crown or circlet to cover up the fact that he doesn’t have bangs anymore, Maybe Gwaine’s hair grows like a weed, Maybe Lancelot hasn’t shaved in a while, that sort of thing. Plus, it’s the fans. Merlin’s skin could be blue and we would just be grateful to have new content to analyze and cry over.

Things to include??? This is not obligatory, however, just some of my ideas. Obviously BBC Merlin changes some of the legends that they use. The Cup of Life instead of the Holy Grail, Leon instead of Galahad, the Afanc not collaborating with how it’s described in Welsh folklore, not to mention they used characters from Arthurian legend and made them their own, like Gwaine. (Gawain) Obviously if we included more adventures that the legends speak about, we would have to change the version of those legends, to better suit the characters as the show made them. However, the legends are still worth looking into, because I believe they would make for interesting episodes if done right, and they might also provide inspiration.

* Gwaine & The Green Knight * New Characters (Yvain, Drudwas, Sir Kay, Sir Bors etc.) * Yvain & His Lion * Drudwas ap Tryffin and his Adar Llwch Gwin (his griffins) * Agravaine coming to Camelot (and everyone’s first impression of him) * Explanation of Morgause’s Injury (why did it look like half her face had been paralyzed/burned off when all Merlin did was throw her into a wall?? Idk maybe I’m just stupid) * Agravaine Meeting Morgana and Morgause * Sir Kay and the Cath Palug (Palug’s Cat) * More insight to the Knights views on Magic * More detailed and fleshed out backstories for the knights (Gwaine’s sister, How Percival met Lancelot, More depth on why Elyan left Camelot, embarrassing baby Arthur stories from Leon, etc.) * Character development * New Opening Titles (main actors will change, and it wouldn’t make sense to use scenes from the original show. Also it would make more sense to keep Kilgarrah out, since he most likely won’t have a presence in the spin-off. Music could stay the same, but the scenes and names in the opening titles would probably change, as well as the whole “The destiny of a great kingdom rests on the shoulders of a young man. His name… Merlin” would be replaced, since the focus is no longer on the young Warlock.) * Meliodas the Demon King ._. * More POC representation, more POC in the cast. * Maybe queer rep? Casual, passing mentions of a mlm fling in the knighthood (doesn’t have to be someone we know) a character going by they/them pronouns without explanation and without making it a big thing, etc. Small, but noticeable things. It’s 2021 we deserve the bare minimum. * Tavern scenes! We know they spend a lot of time in there, but only get to see a few moments and hear about a couple more. * Maybe a first mission with all the main knights. Them working as a small team for the first time. Bonding around the campfire. This would give an excuse to create some insight into the characters while also sticking to the plot * Arthur struggling with the responsibilities of being regent (brief scenes or mentions, him leaning on his knights for support, them having to go on adventures without him) * More Gwen and Elyan!!! Being siblings!!! Please!!! * Introductions of characters we’ve already met: King Bayard, Elena, Vivian (seriously wtf happened to her?? Is she still in love with Arthur??) * Training scenes!!! When Arthur’s busy!!! Give me Leon teaching Elyan some sword moves and laughing about something from when they were kids! Give me Percy and Gwaine sparing only a few feet away! Give me Merlin helping Lance with his armor and Gwen watching her brother from across the field! Give me insight into each characters fighting style, skills, and weapon of choice! D e t a i l s!!! * More mythical welsh creatures, like the welsh cousin of the Kelpie who’s name I can’t remember but translates to water horse. So much opportunities for cool magical creature encounters! * And more!!!!

Now that we have a director in our cast, (who was rooting for this kind of characterization chance btw) I think maybe, if we’re lucky enough, we might have a chance. Idk, maybe I’m too late, but Eoin already said that he was working on a Pseudo Merlin project (whatever the hell that means) and I just. I love entertaining this idea. Who knows, maybe the spn fandom can help us summon a daemon and we can all collectively sell what little fragments of our soul we have left.

Those who still want a season 6, I get it! And I don’t blame you! And guess what— this would not interfere with that at all. Maybe we can both get what we want :)

But right now I’ve accidentally hyped myself up and made a petition so uh. Feel free to sign? If I get enough people on board I might do something about it and message Eoin, as soon as I know he’s done with his Merlin project and it would all work out 👉👈

If you have anything to add onto this post, go ahead! What would you want out of a spin-off?

#i hate myself for making this #but at this point why the hell not #if making a petition and pretending I have a chance brings me joy #then I gotta do what i gotta do ig #bbc merlin #Merlin #Arthur Pendragon #Morgana Pendragon #Sir Elyan #sir gwaine #sir leon #Sir Percival #Sir Lancelot #merlin bbc #bbcm #bbc #guinevere #merlin fandom #a signal boost would be greatly appreciated #king arthur #Merlin cast #bbcmerlin #BBC Knights #Daffodils and Chrysanthemums

[im-the-punk-who]

Hi! I’m new to the fandom and I’m simply curious (not trying to start a feud or anything), why don’t you like Steinberg?

Hello dear anon! And welcome to the fandom! 

Oof. That’s a question. xD 

I’m going to try and stay as uh. neutral as possible. Because I’ve already written the post I know I failed but, the intent in answering this is also not to start a feud or hurt anyone’s feelings. 

Okay, so I got fairly negative in this chilis tonight, so I want to start by saying that even in light of the opinions I’m about to express, Black Sails is one of, if not my number one, favorite TV shows of all time. Certainly in recent memory - I’ve been hyperfixating on this show for 18 months with no sign of stopping, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for everyone who worked on the show - even Steinberg. (The one exclusion is Michael Bay, he can go twist.)

AND I think Stienberg is an incredibly talented writer. Black Sails is one of my favorite shows because it does such a wonderful job of weaving stories, creating characters, and melding things in a way that is both unexpected and makes sense narratively. I have changed as a person because of the show, and they will have to pry James McGraw and Thomas Hamilton from my cold dead knives-attached-to-them hands. None of what I’m going to say is meant to detract from that.

I will also say that a lot of these issues are not particular to Steinberg and are in fact a systemic problem with American TV + Film. And I’m not leaving Robert Levine out of my criticism, it’s just that Steinberg had the biggest hand in the pot(he wrote a full half the episodes) and a lot of what I’ve heard as far as talking about the show comes from Steinberg. So, he gets the brunt. But it isn’t that I think Steinberg was the only problematic element of the show. 

Also, these are all my opinions and are colored by how I interact with my fandoms. I am not only a fandom veteran, but I work and pretty much live in the entertainment industry. I work in indie film and theatre and am surrounded by artists and creators of all walks of life, like, constantly. I know what is possible, and when I see something that can be improved, I want to note it because it is important to me to always be striving forward. Like Miranda says about Thomas, this isn’t out of malice, or out of hate. It’s because I genuinely love this show, and I love entertainment as a whole, and I think in order to get to a better, more inclusive industry we have to have hard conversations and look critically at the media we consume, and it is frustrating to me to time and again see the same faces in the room. 

But if that isn’t your cuppa, that’s fine! Fandom isn’t meant to be stressful and if all you want to do is watch a show about gay pirates that is your tomato and I applaud you. Have at it you funky motherfucker.

OH! One more. At some point I’m going to talk about Silverflint. When I do, it is NOT meant as a ‘you shouldn’t/cant ship this’ or ‘this pairing is bad’ or any negative attack on the people who ship that pairing. My criticisms in this post are exclusively about what it means for Steinberg as a writer and Black Sails’ representation of gay and mlm men. While it’s not my cuppa, this is a sail your own ship blog. 

OKAY! SO! 

My main criticisms of Steinberg & Co boil down to:

The homozygosity of the writers and directors shows a complete lack of desire to include marginalized people in the writing of a show that is about them. Which leads to:

The centering of white men while choosing a historical setting and time period that was in fact dominated by people of color and specifically a black woman, 

The gratuitous inclusion of violence against women, particularly sexual violence, and again, that the female characters are often sidelined for the central male characters. 

SO.

Black Sails is a show centered around queer, female, and black leads, and yet there were only two non white-male directors (one bi-racial man and one white woman) and only 7 female writers - one of whom was Latina. The entire rest of the major creative staff was white men. I’m not going to comment on sexualities but none of the writers or directors are out as queer according to a quick google search. 

Let me reiterate the important bit there. 

In Black Sails, where the last two seasons specifically feature around a real, actually-happened-in-history event that shaped black history in the Caribbean, there was not a single black writer on the entire show. 

This is the main difference between inclusion for inclusion’s sake, and actually centering marginalized voices. Black Sails has a ton of gay, POC, and female rep in front of the camera but practically zero representation behind it, which leads to storylines and implications that Steinberg and his writers, as white men, simply would never realize.

It’s like why Silver and Miranda never realized the true reasons James was waging war on England. They just did not have the life experiences to realize they were missing a piece of the puzzle, and so they filled in their own without even realizing they’d done so. 

Because no one in the room of Black Sails was a part of these marginalized identities, nuances get lost or mistranslated, motivations get muddled through a white man’s gaze(or a straight person’s) and implications that someone within those communities might think is obvious won’t even come up.

And again, because there were no writers or directors of color in the last two seasons (the biracial man directed episodes 2x02 and 2x04 - WHICH MAKES SENSE IMO) the entirety of the historical lore that the show bases itself on in its latter half is filtered through a white man’s lens. And so there is no discussion of how changing something changes the meaning, how leaving someone out or changing their role to be more minor might affect people for whom that is their heritage. How the entire story they’re telling might change with one simple exclusion or addition.

So, how does this relate directly to Steinberg, you ask? Well, simply, because it was his show. 

Steinberg(and Levine) were involved in every major decision about the show, from its conception, to the script, to choosing the writers and directors. They chose how they wanted the show to look, to think, what stories to tell and how they wanted to tell them. Their decisions(and the biases that formed those decisions) are woven into the show.

And look. I don’t for a second believe any of this was willful or malicious. I don’t think that John Steinberg and Robert Levine sat down one day and said ‘you know what would make the gays really angry? If we locked the only two canonically gay men up in a prison camp.’

But the decisions that were made in the show were based in ignorance in a way that shows more than just simple negligence or laziness(especially given the attention to detail in everything else). The things they leave out or change in the Maroon War plotline for instance are not small details easily missed. They are big, giant waving flags. They are things that are irreplaceable to still have the same events and stories and tell them respectfully. 

It shows an insane amount of privilege to, for instance, write a show airing during a time when the Black Lives Matter movement was at the forefront of the American conscience, include black characters and black storylines, and yet not include a single black voice on their creative team. 

In a show that centers a gay man’s love and his journey in attempting to process the horrible things done to him and his lover because of it, we are given just forty minutes of the entire show dedicated to their relationship - and just fifteen of those minutes actually feature the lover! 

(Relatedly, the entirety of the gay romantic rep is two kisses, and a forehead touch. That’s the entirety of your gay intimacy representation. And yet there are in the first two seasons alone - because that’s all I’ve clocked so far - something like twenty seven minutes of scenes involving a naked or half naked woman. Five minutes of that is explicitly wlw sex.

Again, I just want to reiterate this because it’s important in recognizing bias. 

There is fully twice as much female nudity in the first two seasons, as the entirety of the time the two gay characters have together on screen. )

Steinberg is a perfect example of how a lack of understanding why the diversity you are representing is important, matters. I dislike Steinberg because he, just like every other straight white cis man I have known, profited off of marginalized voices without including them or creating with them in mind.

Art does not exist in a vacuum. You cannot create something - especially something as back breakingly, intensely a labor of love as Black Sails - without putting several pieces of yourself into it. But those pieces color your narrative. They will expose things about you that you don’t even realize. And it’s in these places we are weakest, and why a diverse group of writers with a diverse group of experiences can help a piece be stronger. But for whatever reason, John Steinberg thought that he could make art with only people who looked and thought and experienced like him. 

The lack of representation behind the camera in Black Sails was evident in front of it and yet Steinberg is out here getting to pretend like he created the most inclusive groundbreaking show that ever existed. It is important to me, personally, to acknowledge that. And that it kind of makes my skin crawl in the way all media made by straight white (cis)men makes my skin crawl. I wish I didn’t have to feel that way about my favorite tv show just because it was created by a man of privilege, but here we are.

SO. I hope that helped? Feel free to take what you want and leave what you don’t! 

Below the cut is a more in depth look at things that I think show what I’m talking about, but that up there ^^ is the gist. <3 |D

SURPRISE!

The Maroons and the Maroon War

So the first thing I want to point out is that the Maroon War was a real thing that happened. It lasted ten years, and resulted in the most substantial victory the Maroons ever achieved against the British. Not only that, there was in fact a KICKIN’ badass female leader of the maroons named Queen Nanny, who is to this day honored as a national hero in Jamaica. While they weren’t able to drive the British out, the outcome of this war led to a mostly self-governing Maroon population in Jamaica from the mid 1700s on. This was a long term fight that had a very tangible and real outcome, even if it didn’t end in the destruction of colonialism. 

And what is this war turned into in Black Sails? A white ‘madman’s revenge’  that is doomed to failure after six months.

That, my dear pirates, is a problem for me. (And those familiar with my brand of spiceyness know that I do not ascribe to the ‘Flint is a Madman’ trope, but that IS what Steinberg ascribes to, what he seems to have written the show thinking.) 

There was no narrative reason to include the Maroon War in the narrative of Black Sails. The Maroon War didn’t happen until a decade after the Golden Age of Piracy, and aside from Silver’s wife being a black woman there is no mention of Silver ever having contact with them. To me, this feels like the choice of a showrunner who found a cool historical event and saw a chance to up the stakes of their white male heroes while getting in some sweet sweet POC rep. 

Except that they then took the major events of the Maroon War and gave them to their white characters, Flint and Silver. 

Here’s the thing. If you’re going to take a piece of culturally important history and use it for your show, you NEED to have sensitivity writers. You need to have people who are at least familiar with those events and who care about them to do them justice. Have an expert come in and read your script or go over your ideas. Or just like. Hire a black writer. Hire ONE black writer. As a treat.

The important Maroon figures, Nanny, Cudjoe, and Quao, all get sidelined or ‘sexified’ and then used as plot points for the white characters. Nanny gets split into two women - the older mother queen and Madi, the young naive warbent visionary. Quao(Mr. Scott is the closest, or Kofi possibly) gets killed off because the writers realized they didn’t exactly have a place for him in their writing. Cudjoe(Julius) gets a few scenes and one good speech but his entire role in the war gets given to Silver. And THEN. That sexy Queen Madi figure gets used as emotional bait for Silver and then has to learn he has betrayed her and destroyed the hope and freedom she had wanted to bring to her people. 

Gross, pirates. Gross.

Anne Bonny/Max/Mary Read - a heads up, this section includes a semi in-depth discussion of both Max and Anne’s sexual assaults. If that bothers you, the paragraphs talking about that begin with a ***

COOL NOW LET’S TALK ABOUT LESBIANS. Words my 20 year old self would never have imagined coming out of my mouth. 

Specifically, I want to talk about Max, and Anne, and their backstories both involving extreme sexual trauma at the hands of men. And then Mary Read and the once again sexification of female characters.

(Actually while I’m here another criticism I have of Steinberg is that his writing does not seem to recognize how queer people existed in the past - again, likely because he didn’t have any gay historians to be like ‘actually buddy that doesn’t make sense also why is Anne not dressing as a man? If you want to fuck with anything and insert modern day terminology and ideas into this show, make her non binary and REALLY piss off the hetties.’)

(This same ficitonal gay dramaturg who is definitely not me has also questioned John Steinberg repeatedly about where Mary Read is, unsatisfied with the answer ‘well we wanted her to be hot so we made her a sex worker and then had Anne have to rescue her but then we realized it would be weird not to include her actual character so we gave her a five second cameo at the very end of the series and also made her like 13.’)

Anyway! So my main point in bringing up Anne and Max is the sexual trauma they are exposed to in the show, particularly being that they are the two primary wlw in the show, who Steinberg has said he views as being completely gay, and what THAT whole unexamined idea looks like. 

***Max. My dear Max. There was literally no reason to have her be repeatedly r*ped(and for the love of god there was even less reason to make it that gratuitous and graphic). Max being assaulted like that did not add anything to the gravity of Eleanor’s betrayal. The traumatic event was being tossed aside by Eleanor, and that could have been just as emotionally damaging without the sexual assault. And the only reason for her to be continually assaulted was to bring her and Anne together. 

***The reason imo that Max’s r*pe plot was added was because it was the only thing these white straight men could come up with that felt emotionally damaging enough to them. The act of betrayal itself wasn’t enough, the act of being thrown away, of having a lover put your life in danger because of her own ambitions wasn’t enough, they needed her to be r*ped to really drive home the point. 

***Anne, on the other hand, is never shown being sexually abused, but we are given an explicit account of her own traumatic history and how Jack saved her from this vile beast who was passing her around to his friends.

But here’s the thing pirates - that never happened. According to every account we have of Anne Bonny, she chose her husband, and married him against her father’s wishes. They were probably relatively happy until her husband started being a pirate spy and Anne started cheating on him with Jack. 

And yes, when they were found out. Her husband had her beat. That’s not fucking cool, and if they really wanted to go the damsel in distress route they still could have had Jack ‘save’ her from that. But at no point was she sexually abused by her husband(at least not in any accounts I’ve read.) 

You know who did likely sexually abuse her or at least manipulate her and Mary for his own benefit? If you guessed our Rat man Jack Rackham, you would be correct, because when he found out about Mary and Anne’s (supposed, but probably real) relationship, it’s implied he extorted both of them into fucking him to keep their secret from the crew. 

The addition of sexual abuse to Anne’s past isn’t done to be true to her character and was in fact explicitly untrue. Now of course I don’t know the reasons why they chose to do this, but I can guess. Just as with Max, the most traumatic thing a male writer can think of for a female character is for them to be sexually abused.

And the most disturbing part of this to me? The parallels it has to the real world of why straight men think lesbians exist. These characters who would be called man haters in present day are given these incredibly traumatic man-centered histories. It brings up something very uncomfortable in me about particularly wlw sexuality being viewed as a reaction to trauma at the hands of men. It’s just gross, I dont like it, and honestly there is no fucking excuse for it besides a room full of white straight men writing this bullshit. A room that Steinberg chose, because they fit his ideas.

In Fact heck, the women of Black Sails in general

***I honestly struggle to think of a single female character who I think was treated fairly in Black Sails. Miranda and Eleanor are killed for taking sides and not understanding their partners, Madi is betrayed in the worst way possible, Max is given a pseudo empowering ending but has that fucking terrible start. Idelle ends off fairly well, but tied to a man she may or may not have any actual feelings for, in what is essentially a political marriage. And Anne has her entire identity tied to a man who will be dead in two years as she is robbed of any agency whatsoever without him. (Oh, and the whole r*pe thing. And also her support for Max’s r*pe or death until she started having fee-fees. Who wrote this stuff. >_>)

Even though the characterization of each and every one of these women is PHENOMENAL - and again I will repeat that I absolutely LOVE these characters as they exist in a vacuum. I think they are well rounded, real, feeling people given motivations and drives and FEELINGS and they SHOW THEIR ANGER and i LOVE THEM. 

But the show punishes them for it. Miranda is essentially fridged to move Flint’s storyline along, and to make room for Silver. Eleanor is killed for the emotional damage it will cause Rogers. Madi is placed at the center of a conflict she explicitly says she is willing to die for and then not only is her entire cause taken from her, but when she tells Silver to fuck off he - in possibly the most predictable white man move ever - says ‘no i will stay until you change your mind. I will never leave you. I don’t care about your choice in this matter, I will wait forever for you. I’m your biggest fan. I’ll follow you until you love me. papa, - paparazzi.’ 

And I touched on this before, but I want to talk in more detail about what is possibly my hottest take to date, the sexification of Mary Read and Queen Nanny, as they are presented in the show. 

Max is to Anne what Mary Read is, historically. She is the lover that Jack Rackham discovers with Anne, and then he joins them in their bed. They form a triumvirate that upholds Jack at the expense of the women. But for some reason, Steinberg didn’t want to just include Mary Read as an actual character. For some reason he needed to make Anne’s love interest a sex worker who was in need of saving (and who, coincidentally, we never see working the brothel after she becomes lovers with Anne, because she is now a madam. :) Gross.)

And Madi. My dear sweet fucking Madi who didn’t fucking deserve any of this bullshit send tweet. 

So, historically, Queen Nanny was the Queen, spiritual advisor, and the military tactician of the Windward Maroons. She would have filled both Madi and the Queen’s character roles(and Flint’s, but who’s counting. A BLACK GAY LEAD? Inconceivable. I digress.) But, I guess, because they were wishy-washing with Silver’s sexuality or felt they needed to give him a female love interest because of Treasure Island, or because they were leaning a bit too hard into the gay shit and needed to backpedal, they took Queen Nanny and split her into a character who is for all intents and purposes powerless in the war and Madi, who is young and naive and does not have any real world experience outside of the Maroon camp.

Because that’s sexy, or something. They could have had the Maroon Queen be a fucking badass lady who works and fights alongside Flint and Silver and one ups them and teaches them shit and has her own ideas about where the British can stick it, but instead they made her into the perfect caricature of a female monarch, letting the big strong men handle the dirty work or something. Because white male power fantasies. 

Just let women be powerful and not nubile and let them have character arcs over fucking thirty and let them be CENTERED in their own. fucking. narratives. 

God damnit Steinberg.

James Flint, mlm extraordinaire

Oh, my love. My most amazing child. The light of my life. My purest cinnamon roll. 

~~And now we’ve come to the dreaded Silverflint criticism part of our programming. Please please know and remember this isn’t a criticism of people who ship Silverflint. As I said up top, Your Tomato Is Not My Tomato and that’s cool. Please don’t take this next part as an attack on Silverflint as a fandom ship.~~

My criticism of Steinberg as it relates to Flint is related to:

What a romantic/sexual relationship with Silver being the basis of the tension and plot means for Flint in particular as a gay or mostly mlm man. 

Refusing to confirm Thomas and James being alive at the end and honestly the whole finale in general but like I’ll try and focus.

The major problem I have with Silver and Flint being coded as in love with each other is the implications there in terms of gay men’s relationships to other men. 

From every corner, men are inundated with the idea that any close relationship between them must be gay. That intimacy cannot exist unless there are sexual feelings involved. That a relationship cannot be close, deep and soul shattering and life altering, unless one guy secretly(or not so secretly) wants to bone the other dude. That two men cannot value each other as partners or friends or truly know each other unless they are gay.

Seeing both of the meaningful relationships Flint forms with other men be sexually coded feels a bit the same way as Anne and Max’s sexual assault plotlines does vis-a-vis being wlw. (Even with Gates, Flint never spoke about Thomas or his plans - Silver is absolutely the closest person to Flint besides Thomas and Miranda.) And this is just as true for Silver. Having both Flint and Madi - the two people he trusts - both be people he’s in love with also just feels. I don’t know. 

It feels like a confusion between male intimacy and male love that is so so familiar to me as a gay man I could choke on it. Where they wanted these men to have a deep and really lasting connection, but could only figure out how to do it if they were in love. Friendship wouldn’t have been enough - only romantic and sexual love is enough for the gay man(or men, at all).

Just because it isn’t queerbaiting doesn’t mean it’s good rep, and I would have liked to see truly deep male friendships that did not center on sexual attraction - particularly for Flint as a confirmed mlm(and Silver too, if you’re counting him. The same arguments for why I dislike Flint being paired with Silver are also true in the reverse.) 

Even if both Flint and Silver were confirmed mlm I still would have LOVED to see a platonic relationship between them. In fact I would have loved that EVEN MORE. Men! Who fuck men! Not needing to fuck each other to be important to one another! Who made this. Very delicious. 

But because there weren’t any queer writers on the show, writers who understand this kind of struggle that gay and mlm men face, they thought ‘oh, let’s also have them be in love with each other. More gay rep is better gay rep, right?’ False. THOUGHTFUL gay rep is better gay rep.

Okay and here’s my last thing. The fact that Steinberg refuses to say whether or not the explicitly mlm men are alive at the end of the show - that the words he specifically uses are ‘up for interpretation’ is. Fuck, it’s gross, okay? It’s fucking gross. 

I have been around enough men, enough people in power, enough people with leverage who also know how to play the field, to know that when someone wants a group’s support but does not agree with them, their go to phrasing is that it is ‘up for debate’ or ‘up for interpretation.’

Say the gays are alive. Steinberg refusing to acknowledge the reality of the ending of his show to maintain his own sense of artistic integrity is what, honestly, really sets me off about him and I don’t care if this is a nuanced take.

Like yes, death of the author. I honestly don’t care if he thinks they’re dead or alive. What I care about is that he thinks he can get away with being clever and leaning hard into a story is true/untrue’ - doesn’t realize what the implications of that are, and didn’t when he was writing, and didn’t have anyone else in the room who would think about it either. 

ANYWAY. So this is....my long drawn out explanation for why I do not like Steinberg. Uhhhhh tune in next week for more of my totally unpopular opinions!

#good....fucking lord #i am so sorry #how many opinions can milo fit in one post #i mean i have more but yknow lmao #black sails #behind the black sails #milos black sails meta #long posts #my increasingly devoted attempts to find tumblrs word limit #Anonymous #john steinberg #js critical but the js is jon steinberg

[khaleesiofalicante]

You know, a while back I saw a post complaining that CC is constantly attacking the queer characters in TSC, and I don't get that AT ALL. I went through and counted all the LGBTQ+ people in the books, and we have: Anna, Arridanae, Alistair, Thomas, Alec, Magnus, Dianna, Kit, Ty, Aline, Helen, Kieran, Mark, and those are just the ones I could think of off the top of my head. It doesn't seem fair to attack an author for putting queer people through hard times when queer people make up a good 60% of the main cast! She's not going to kill off the main couples or the most important people like Clace or Jemma. Sorry, I just have a lot of feeling about this. It feels like so many people just want there to be issue when there isn't one.

You asked the wrong person because I don’t honestly know. 

I don’t think the criticism was particular on the level of representation (which as you mentioned got progressively better - with TLH being dominated by gays #wekeepwinning)

I think it probably has to do with particulars of certain characters. For example, one criticism I remember is that how wlw ships get less prominence than mlm ships (agree on that one - but I also think as the audience we tend to focus more on mlm characters too)

But yeah. I think it’s the particulars. I don’t really know what they are. But I know that people who relate to these characters (because of their sexuality or gender identity or even ethnicity) are able to relate better and identify these flaws better. 

So even if we might not be able to see it. Someone else probably can. 

But I'm still grateful for the queer rep in tsc. It helped me in more ways than I can describe here. So, I'm grateful they exist - flaws and all :)

#tsc

[alexiaugustin]

hi why do you say that young royals is a bad show? im just generally asking, not trying to cause drama! :) because i (also an ex skammie gotta admit) really liked it! mostly because there was no nonsense drama between the main couple like there often was in skams 😭 and the characters just felt very real. and the girl friendship was just lovely in there. i know people bring up the whole 'its not relatable they r royals pf' but for me it was fun to watch while keeping in mind to not take it so seriously. and i also loved how it showed how "accepting" the monarchy wants to look but they are quick to push out their own people for being different. waiting for your answer! have a good day!!! 😁❤

hey anon, i don't hate young royals at all!! i have no idea what post/tags made you think that i do but it must be some kind of misunderstanding- i absolutely cannot stand the fandom (at least the tiktok fandom i haven't really checked the tag on tumblr but from what i've heard it's not much better on here). there are so many people who consume mlm media in such weird ways and im really just tired of hearing people go "this is the show we've all been waiting for!! BEST queer rep since skam!!! i will literally die if they don't renew this show i need it like i need air to breathe!" and then those very same people probably don't even remember the names of any characters besides wilhelm and simon. like. write an essay about felice' character development and her friendship with sara. and while we're on it spare some thoughts about how the writing could be improved in s2. be quick. im not sure if most people could answer this.

and then again.. people obviously have double standards when it comes to cis mlm media compared to any other queer media.. you can bet that people would have been critical of the outing scene or the writing in general if this was a wlw show but since it's about two dudes people aren't even trying to have a few thoughts about it apart from.. OMG IT'S SO CUTE!! obviously not everyone is like this but most of the reactions i see are and it's SO annoying. wtf*ck fandom 2.0 truly.

but apart from that i absolutely agree with your ask.. i think that the character were all really real and actually felt like teenagers (i know that the actors are young which already helps but the writing also made them feel like teenagers as well which is good). the show was barely four hours long but i really liked the complexity in simon's family and their dynamic.. his relationship with his mum and sara.. the diffrent ways they feel about their father (honestly i would have loved for them to dive a bit more into simon's feelings about having to buy alcohol for the party to get in, wilhelm calling him drunk and simon picking him up.. like if you asked me basing their conflict on the problems that had to do with alcohol combined with simon wanting to be out n wilhelm still being in the closet would have been a FAR better cause of relationship problems then yet another outing storyline). loved felice's and sara's enemies to friends development and how supportive the girls were of each other instead of pulling some misogynistic rivalry plot between them. also don't get me wrong, i definitely think that wilhelm and simon's relationship was very well written and a good example of healthy teenage relationships, that underlines the importance of good communication. i think that wilhelm could have been a bit more developed as a character on his own because i found myself being way more interested in simon and his family life at times soo.. i would love to see a second season but if they do cancel it i would mostly mourn the loss of never seeing simon, sara and their mum again

#when simon was outed and his mum hugged him.. i cried a lil you love to see wonderful parent rep #young royals #ask #wishing you a good day as well anon!!💕