#I want there to be so many lesbians in the cast that not a single isle of Home Depot in remnant is empty

[pixelwishess]

“But if Yang gets labeled as a lesbian that means we’d have 5 official lesbians on screen, isn’t that a bit much?”

No as a matter of fact I think we need more. Next question.

#rwby #yang xiao long #I’m talking the ones that have been like 100% confirmed #so the terra-cotta arcs #illia obviously #coco my beloved #and the bad bitch herself #I want there to be more #I want there to be so many lesbians they could start a roller derby tournament #I want there to be so many lesbians they could fill a gay club #I want there to be so many lesbians in the cast that not a single isle of Home Depot in remnant is empty

[fishing-lesbian-catgirl]

There are times I think about playing Arknights just to see if it's as gay as your posting makes it seem.

Actually it's probably better just to ask it here. How gay is Arknights?

Well. The answer depends on how willing you are to read into subtext. If you’re the type who only cares about extremely explicit gayness to the degree of them literally saying it out loud or to have their relationship with another woman described in text as a relationship, then I guess the answer would be not that gay. There’s Tomimi who professes her love to Gavial in The Great Chief Returns event, and there’s Scavenger whose operator file describes how she was in love with a woman but they got separated, and by the time she was able to return to her her partner was dead. I think that might actually be it from the “turn to the camera and say ‘I’m gay’” level of gayness.

The reality of Arknights is that, despite all the things it does well (and there are seriously a lot of those, that’s why I’ve become kind of obsessed with it for better or worse), it is still a gacha game. And when the profitability of a game is tied directly to how much you can convince your audience to spend money to get the characters they want, it unfortunately makes them make so frustrating decisions to avoid any potential loss of profits. Specifically I’m referring to how characters are not allowed to be in relationships in text, as self-shippers are a potential revenue source (despite the fact that a character having a girlfriend vs a character being single is a much smaller roadblock to dating then the fact that they’re not real). Also it suffers from the very common problem of lack of body diversity and skin colors, fanart that you see that seems otherwise is likely fanon.

But if you like queer subtext, there’s quite a lot to work with. Especially since so many characters and their relationships with each other lend really well to lesbian readings with fascinating dynamics. Women will straight up flirt with each other in text somewhat frequently depending on the characters. Some women have relationships that are really really hard to read as anything other than lesbian (but people will always find a way, usually by not reading in the first place). It very often turns into a “there is no heterosexual explanation for this” situation. And the important thing to know is that ~80% of the characters are women, a lot of whom are very real characters with stories and everything that is well written and respecting of them (with a few exceptions). The majority of their interactions are with other female characters. If you’re picky about it any only want heavy subtext with minimal reading into it, you’ll have a number of good options of characters and relationships to enjoy, like Margaret Nearl and her two very obviously girlfriends/wives (depending on your interpretation), or Skadi and Specter, or Franka and Liskarm who got an official manhua dedicated to their relationship as mercenary partners that was so gay that the scanlators who put it on mangadex tagged it “Girls’ Love” only for the official translation to make it gayer.

It really is a your mileage may vary situation. If you’re like me and can read into the potential yuri in even the slightest interaction, it’s an unending feast. But if you’re only in it for the explicit canon then you might want to look for something else. Regardless, it is a gacha game but also it is a game with a majority female cast of usually well written characters in stories where they are the focus. Seriously, the first like 6 chapters of the main story only have a few men, most of whom are nameless npcs or antagonists, and even the main antagonists get to be fascinating women a large portion of the time. I know it might sound like I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel here but misogyny is an extremely present force in storytelling and the bar is really low. I can elaborate more if you want me to, but as you can probably tell I’m not good at being succinct, and any further elaboration would be as long and rambly as this

#arknights #asks #long post

[vegasandhishedgehog]

Just a non-comprehensive list of all the things P'Jojo touched on throughout the entirety of The Warp Effect:

The harm of forcing teens to promise absolute abstinence from sex while not providing space for safe and open discussions about it

Some people have a strong sense of their sexuality/gender identity. Others don't

Even guys who seem like good ones can do horrible things and be unaware. They are not required to be forgiven no matter how guilty they feel

Being single by choice is not shameful

Fwb is not shameful either

No one has any right to expect more out of a relationship when you have communicated what you are up for up front

Female friendship is a beautiful, wonderful thing, why would we pit so many bad bitches against each other when they're cooler as friends?

Nonsexual kinks are valid and with the right person can make for a beautiful relationship

There are several methods for pregnancy and it's important to discuss things with your donor (if you've chosen one personally)

Listen to your partner! It is actually possible to be together for a decade and still be unaware of something they like/dislike!

You can be forgiven for being shitty in high school but that is not up to you, it's only up to the person you have wronged

Always know the age of whoever you're talking to so you don't accidentally sleep with a minor

Fatphobia and transphobia have never been cool

Trauma hurts and the journey to work through it is difficult. It's not wrong to want to reconcile with someone and find that you can't. It's not wrong to try to push past it numerous times. It is not your fault someone ruined what should be a good experience for you

Nonsexual intimacy is valid and the right partner will work with you to understand your needs

The choice to have children is a really big one and no it should not be an excuse to keep the relationship together. The choice not to doesn't always have to break it up either

Abortion is a personal matter and should be done safely and legally

STDs have all sorts of origins and are an important matter to address in terms of being polyamorous or even going from one partner to the next. They are also not a reason to feel shame and are simply a matter of getting proper treatment and abstaining from sex while healing. Straight couples can get them, it isn't just a gay stereotype

Anyone can have a romantic relationship and not have sex

Parenting from afar isn't being responsible, but it is still possible to create a relationship with your estranged child

Dick size is nothing to be concerned about - you can find someone who enjoys a sexual relationship with you no matter what

It is so important to see your doctor. If that doctor makes you uncomfortable, though, you should be fine to leave and go somewhere else

Gay does not mean pedophile and it's important for you and your children to know the difference because there are gay teachers and coaches who have enough on their shoulders

Cheating doesn't have to include anything physical if you're seeking pleasure from someone who is not your partner and have not discussed such things with your partner or the person you cheat with

Sex work should not be criminalized and more of us need to standing up for the rights of sex workers

Masturbation is normal and doesn't have to be treated as sad or pathetic

Cishet people can be amazing allies. You can have your group of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and trans people with a bunch of them included and it can be a fabulous group

Casting agents that don't allow for body and gender diversity don't deserve their job

The show gave us a whole PSA on pelvic exams????? HELP??????

ALWAYS PRACTICE SAFE SEX NO MATTER WHAT YOUR AGE, ORIENTATION, OR IDENTITY IS - ALWAYS HAVE A PROPER DISCUSSION AND STICK TO WHAT EVERYONE CONSENTS TO. ALWAYS

I swear I'm still missing stuff but everything that The Warp Effect said is so special to me

#the warp effect #thai shows #gmmtv #p'jojo

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

Saw your Neil Gaiman post and as someone that found comfort in Good Omens (and got hyperfixated on it), I'm finally glad that some people are finally talking about how he isn't that great.

Even as a Fan, GOmens fandom is so...weird. See, in other fandoms people won't give much of a flying f/ck about the authors besides some mild respect or praise, but GOmens praise Neil SO HARD, despite giving off some iffy vibes (that now I understand why, after that big post) Never liked how almost every single POC character in GO has such a minimal role, same with women characters, the fact he's been caught (and that can be easily checked) lying about his ideas surrounding GOmens, the way he went from "Is not a romance, but it can be if you want to" -> "i always wrote it as a love story" also how he went from "There won't be another season because of Terry and because the ideas for the next book were incorporated in the show" -> "It was in 2019 when I finished writing S2 with the ideas I discussed with Terry before he died" and like seriously no one never noticed how much of a clown he his lying and backpedalling all over again again? Then there's how bad rep for fat people Sandman was and instead of accepting criticism he just keeps giving some "vague intelligent answer" and sits and waits for his legion of fans with a parasocial relationship to defend him. But somehow he's treated as a world treasure and a genius with a big brain. And this is less problematic and more petty but I'll be honest. He isn't that much of a good writer anyway? The prose is okay is good, but the worldbuilding and lore and characters is mostly edgy and lacks deepness. His fans seriously want to make a sea out of muddle puddles,,, and that's fair! Is such a big part of fan culture to dig into the smallests of things and make an universe out of a cardbox background character, but please, don't give Neil the credit that he doesn't deserve. And what proves more to me that he isn't that good of a writer, is just...take a look at that mess of a S2 of Good Omens, it was so bad that some people had to THEORIZE that it was bad on purpose. I have such a beef with S2, characters like Muriel, Saraqael and Michael and Maggie and Nina were so heavily promoted and of course everyone was hyped, finally more POC, more disabled characters, and yay, women! And they're lesbians! And and...and hold on, how it is that Muriel didn't do that much at all? How it is that Saraqael after being so hyped BARELY had almost nothing to do, is really that all the disabled rep we got? How is it that Michael and Uriel barely had anything to do and were just background characters again? It just angers me with how with so many fem-presenting characters, and POC and disabled persons cast, they literally add nothing to the series, AND NO ONE EVER TALKS ABOUT IT. Is just this endless praise for Neil and his oh big brain. All praise Neil Gaiman, our lord and saviour of queer people. HOW IT IS, THAT THE TWO LESBIANS HYPED ROMANCE WAS ALL RELATED TO AZIRAPHALE MEDDLING WITH THEM TRYING TO SHIP THEM? And it also was bad, very badly done, is really this the women representation we got, seriously??? Talking about misleading advertising.

S2 was such such a mess, it just shows how much Good Omens needed Terry to be, well, Good Omens. I really suspect Neil stole ideas from the fandom because S2 was just a trainwreck of all the fanfic tropes you could find in GO fandom and is almost disrespectful to Terry's work in Good Omens, and I don't care for how much Neil makes his friendship with Terry as a pity party and as a "it gives me so much joy, Terry would be so happy", because seriously it's almost manipulative. Talking about Manipulative. His meddling with fandom is starting to feel unprofessional, but this ask is already long... Sorry lmao, something on me snapped after getting finally the solid evidence that Neil .Is. Not. Great

Oh he’s always been completely unprofessional but since he types in a mixture of corporate-speak and “cool dad” talk his fanbase doesn’t notice.

Here’s the thing about Neil, he’s both petty and extremely insincere. People criticized lolicon sin his presence and he was so offended on the behalf of weirdos who pleasure themselves to Hentai depicting child molestation that he wrote a several paragraph long response dismissing simulated child pornography as simply being “icky speech” that should be protected by the sacred American constitution despite, you know, the fact he’s not even American so his weird obsession with the first amendment and only ever really bringing it up to defend simulated child porn is and always has been suspicious.

As for his backpedalling, the man sees $$$$ and just goes for anything he can find to make more. People love to say “oh but he donates tens of thousands to charity!” yeah, usually to HIS charity for bailing out pedophiles. With funds typically out of the wallets of his fans due to fundraising it rather than coming out of his own checkbook so it’s not exactly a charitable action as much as it’s an empty gesture. And frankly he almost certainly just does it for tax benefits if we’re going to be honest here. He continued good omens because it would make money and generate more attention towards him and he’d be the brave hero who brought back show that did well. That’s it.

He’s just discount, off-brand Elon. Rich white man who thinks he’s gods gift to man despite bumbling through even the most basic concepts because his fans would walk into traffic blindfolded to defend him from even the mildest of criticism.

People on here just like him because they’re starstruck that a creator of a popular IP is active on this site and because he produces media that’s adapted with white middle aged twinks who are dubiously romantically affiliated.

#How was his weird comments complaining about people calling the main characters gay not the end for him #’oh they’re played by male actors and in love but it’s NOT GAY because they Uhm have no gender and also no genitals so they don’t have sex’ #there’s nothing wrong with writing the characters that way #but it’s very weird to make a major fuss because you think ‘gay’ only means two cis men boinking #and frankly his protests read more like he wasn’t actually comfortable with the idea of showing two male presenting characters #in an intimate manner #and the weird language he sometimes uses to describe characters in his writing really makes me thing I’m right about that

[gatheringbones]

[“The way I told my mom was less than ideal. I was home on a school break and talking to Jessie for about an hour on the telephone. My mom kept knocking on my bedroom door, telling me to get off the phone. I was totally frustrated and came storming into the living room. She said something snide like, “I don’t know who this Jessie is and why you have to be on the phone with her for so long.” “She’s my girlfriend! And I’m bisexual!” I shouted angrily. I don’t actually remember what she said after that.

Telling my gay father was a lot less dramatic. He just said some thing like, “That’s great—whatever makes you happy.” Interestingly, he wasn’t jumping for joy over me joining the team or anything.

Jessie and I didn’t last very long; we really were better off as friends. I don’t think people, including me, realized how serious I was—this wasn’t an experiment or whimsy—until I met Jen.

Jen was the Big Dyke On Campus. She was a senior, super intelligent, opinionated, really out. Everyone knew who she was because she was a big-time activist, very outspoken about things like sex, SM, and porn. She also went to class dressed in men’s shirts and ties. This was no friendly, sporty lesbian that everyone found charming. She was a butch dyke, brazen in her gender and style, and I was drawn to her. She was frantically finishing her honors thesis when we first met, and so our early encounters were at the library. I remember kissing her for the first time on the library steps and feeling such intense desire that I thought I would explode and shatter into tiny bits of flesh at her feet. She was a brilliant flirt, so self-assured, so deliberate and generous with her words, so powerful at casting a spell on me. Consumed by her, I wanted to surrender, to give her everything. She was the smartest, fiercest lesbian I knew. And then she was my girlfriend.

Jen used to read On Our Backs and Susie Bright’s Lesbian Sex World to me at bedtime every night. (She was even in charge of bringing Susie Bright to speak on campus that spring.) We were so connected, so engaged in the relationship. Every single day, there was something new to learn, share, discover. I did so many things for the first time with Jen. Jen was the first girl I ever lived with. I experienced the tremors of my first earthquake in bed with Jen and her yellow lab. I had my first taste of what now is my favorite all-time food at the hands of Jen: sushi. Jen was the first woman to fuck me with a dildo. Jen was the first woman to tie me up. The first woman to spank me. To fuck my ass. She topped me for the first time, I bottomed to her for the first time, and we switched. We watched fag porn together. She was the first girl I ever fucked with a strap-on. She was the first girl I ever stripped for. Jen was the first girl I ever bought a tie for. Jen brought me to buy my first pair of Doc Martens. She was so articulate about her desires and her politics, so sex positive, that I felt like I could tell her anything. She was my lover, my mentor, my dyke teacher, and so much of who I am today came from her.

Before her, I felt closeted not only about my desire for women, but my desire to explore the myriad possibilities of sex. Coming out finally gave me the freedom to do so. I was never tortured or miserable with all the boys I’d been with; in fact, physically, they were pretty satisfying. I couldn’t always connect with them on an intellectual or emotional level, so I always felt like something was missing. While I was sexually precocious with men, I never tried new things, experimented, voiced fantasies—being a dyke totally coincided with my overall sexual liberation, and the two awakenings became intrinsically linked.”]

tristan taormino, from this girl is different, from a woman like that: lesbian and bisexual writers tell their coming out stories, 2000

#tristan taormino #bi literature #currently reading #terra preta

[sophiaforevs]

Between the early cancellation of Discovery, Seven/Raffi and Mariner/Jenn being erased in their respective shows, and SNW having queer coded characters but not confirming anything on screen, I'm really afraid that we're entering another "No Gays in Trek" era.

For those who don't know, 90s era star trek featured so few queer characters b/c Rick Berman largely held a policy of not wanting any homosexuality in his shows. And yes, we all remember the handful of episodes that slipped through that addressed it but the fact remains that there were no canonically queer main cast members before Into Darkness in 2016 gave us a five second shot that could be cut when whoever was showing the movie found the idea of two men in a loving relationship disgusting.

Then we got Discovery with multiple queer characters that allowed people to feel seen. And people never stopped bitching about them. The amount of times that I've had to listen to people complain that Adira's only character trait is that they're non-binary despite that literally being a single thirty second scene and never brought up again makes me understand that they very likely don't want to like the queer characters in that show. And it's not that there aren't criticisms to be made about the queer representation in Disco: Discovery Buries it's Gays before the end of the first season. Making your trans characters aliens who already have a history of gender fuckery is problematic b/c it somewhat plays into the idea that queerness is unnatural for human beings. But I never hear those complaints. Only the pronouns. Only the "We get it you're gay but don't shove it down our throats." But I don't want to get too off topic.

Now Discovery is being canceled early. And by early I mean, the writers weren't given proper notice that their show was ending. They were halfway through production and allowed to adjust the end episodes of the season to try to give a satisfying ending.

In Picard and Lower Decks, we got two sapphic relationships ("sapphic" meaning a romantic or sexual relationship between two women who aren't necessarily strictly lesbians) and they were pretty good. People had been asking for Seven to be queer and Jeri Ryan had been playing her as such since her introduction (see again: Rick Berman) and to see her finally get to express that was really healing. Mariner got off to rocky feet when the creators tried to pull a "Dumbledore is gay" where they said she was bi but didn't commit to it, but they she actually got a fairly satisfying relationship in season 3.

But in their most recent seasons, both were completely written out. Seven/Raffi gave us no explanation beyond that they "broke up." They went out of their way to keep them from being on screen together for most of the season. Mattis said in a Reddit AMA that he wanted Seven to be captain and Raffi to be first officer at the end of the season and that Starfleet would have regulations against relationships between the two despite the biggest reason Seven was promoted to captain was that she was a rule breaker. We didn't even get that much for Mariner/Jennifer. Jenn just wasn't in this season except for two background appearances.

And in Strange New Worlds there's just… nothing. SNW is the most recent new show and there's no queer representation. They code Ortegas as gay but don't actually confirm it on screen. There's just… nothing.

And this is how you loose the culture war. The bigots make enough noise that the show that is supposed to be a beacon of diversity doesn't necessarily side with them but they just kinda bow out of the conversation. They decide that it's easier to not bother than to take a stand. And so I and many many queer star trek fans are left wondering:

Does the franchise even want us any more?

#Star Trek #Prick Berman #No Gays In Trek #Disillusionment Trek

[midnightsun-if]

Sorry if this sounds rude, but I have some things I need to get off my chest. Frankly, the whole Scarlett situation kind of sucks, and the way you’re handling things is not exactly helping matters. I get you have a specific vision for her character, and as a fellow author I would never suggest you compromise that to appease a bunch of sexist, entitled fans, but you’ve given so much attention to her character that it honestly comes as no surprise that people wouldn’t respect her sexuality, as bad as that is to say.

I’ve personally sent numerous asks in the past, and you haven’t answered a single one, so either you’re intentionally ignoring them, or tumblr ate them. If it’s the later, then I’m sorry for accusing you. You’re obviously not under any obligation to answer asks you don’t want to, but I admit it does sting a bit to see Scarlet Ask #523759690 on my feed when I have yet to see a single one of mine. You may not think you have a favorite character, but from an outside perspective, you 100% do.

The amount of attention Scarlett receives compared to the rest of the cast (seriously, when was the last time Caden got an ask dedicated to them?) is truly astounding. Fans will naturally have their favorites, but as an author you should remain impartial… which you really haven’t. In fact, it seems like you actively encourage the Scarlett attention. It’s like you keep showing off a fancy car that only a few people can actually buy, then get upset when people complain they can’t buy the car as well.

Anyways, I’m sorry for this rant, but I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. I wish you luck on your writing journey, and hope you have a happy holiday (if you’re in a country that celebrates any upcoming holidays)!

I truly don’t know what to say other than the fact that I haven’t seen your asks and that I’m trying to avoid Scarlett asks when it specifically involves the discourse with her sexuality— which also may contribute to the possibility on why I haven’t seen them, if that’s what they involved— as I mentioned in my one-and-done post about it… I don’t want to keep this as a reoccurring theme on the blog as I know that many people will grow tired of it just like I have.

I answer Scarlett centric asks, barring when I answer scenario asks about the family and/or the ROs, mainly due to the fact that she’s the one people single out— if someone sends me an ask about C, or Blake, or anyone else, I’ll answer it… It just happens to be that Scarlett gets the most asks when it comes to that sort of thing— and those asks are typically much easier/faster to answer than the all-in-one asks— I’d be more than happy to answer singular asks about any number of my characters. And I have in the past when someone sends something in.

All I can truly say? If not being able to romance Scarlett is this big of an issue, and I truly am saying this as nicely as I can… I don’t think Midnight Sun is the right IF for you. I believe I know a couple more IFs with an Ice Queen type RO, or adjacent RO, that may suit you better if you’d like to me share them!

And, I’d just like to make this small point, I get upset, or am starting to, because it’s a point I’ve brought up over and over again— Scarlett isn’t a lesbian to create an inconvenience for the player… She’s a lesbian because it’s part of who she is. Sending me asks saying “I can change her” or “Give us Scarlett and the F!MCs Koda” (among other things) is absolutely abhorrent in the best case scenario. There are 7 other ROs for you to choose from— all of which offer their own unique routes and experiences within Midnight Sun.

Scarlett isn’t changing, I’m standing firm with this. I’m not going to ever change my mind about it— I’m sorry if that upsets anyone, but it’s not something I’m backing down on.

#midnight sun #asks #ro: scarlett voltaire #and if I haven’t answered your singular asks it’s either because I haven’t seen them #or I couldn’t figure out the correct response and decided to come back later… #and forgot 😅 #which is my bad #as I typically try to answer them whenever they first arrive due to the fact that they’re relatively simple to answer #and I can send them out quickly (depending on what it is of course) #which means this will also be the last one I’ll be responding to #barring special circumstances

[lily-orchard]

ur video on baldur's gate with the shape of water mention made me clicked about how i actually wanted to have an established romance with the character and not just to bone them because i find them hot.

Yeah, that's how I've always felt about video game romance. I want there to be an interesting connection between the character and their LI. I'd take fewer options if those options were more interesting.

This is why I like Imoen Romance so much. Squick aside, there is so much depth to the character and every single path you can take (Romance, Friendship, Healthy, Toxic, Breakup, Encouraging Imoen to pursue Aerie, etc) is interesting and fleshes out the relationship between the Ward and Imoen.

And the best part is that in Throne of Bhaal, if you've begun a romantic relationship with Imoen, you have to maintain it. If you don't regularly force-talk her and do the little events in there, the relationship rots and you eventually break up because you were neglecting her. And it can either be amicable, if you were nice in the mandatory conversations, or hostile, if you were cruel or abusive.

If your character is of an evil alignment but you're perfectly attentive and loving to Imoen, the game throws a massive fucking curveball at you in the epilogue that WILL make you feel sick to your stomach.

And part of why it's that in depth is because they spent thirteen years making a mod for one character because they loved that character so much. It had four writers and two coders.

Honestly it's put the idea in my head that the number of romance options in an RPG should be ONE. ONE character that is closer to the protagonist than the others that you could choose to pursue a romance with, or just pursue a regular close friendship. And all the time and resources that would otherwise be spent making fucking scenes for the other 12 party members is just spent on making that one relationship really interesting and in-depth.

Sure you might get grumblings from people who wanted to fuck the token evil teammate, but sometimes for the sake of a good story you have to restrict player freedom. Hell just do a Haven and let them choose the gender of that character as well but it's the same character either way.

The problem with RPG romance is that it was always kinda goofy at the start when it was still experimental. It really hit its stride in Mass Effect 2, when Garrus and Tali were made available. And part of why Garrus and Tali are favourites in this regard is because they have a really close relationship to Shepard. More so than any other party member. They're the only party members that are in all three games.

However immediately after that, "Fucking the Party Members" became an expected feature. And for a lot of RPGs, and this includes BioWare's later games, less focus was put on interesting character dynamics and more focus was put on making the "romance" aspect into just a dating sim packaged into an otherwise normal RPG.

These days, I've taken the view that the less restrictions there are, the less work has been put in. When every party member is romancable and bi, it screams to me that the writers did the bare minimum and none of them are going to be interesting. That's not even a mark against the writers, there's only so many hours in the day, and the more characters you add to the list the less time you can spend on all of them.

The most interesting Romance I've seen in the last ten years outside of SWTOR is actually the romance you can set up between Parvati and Junlei in The Outer Worlds. First off, Parvati's an ace lesbian and that reminds me of my wife so I want her to be happy, but the whole questline is really cute and adds this nice little moment of joy between a party member I honestly quite liked.

It was like setting Imoen up with Aerie. Helping my friend get a cute girlfriend. It works because it's not like there's a whole cast of characters to set Parvati up with, it's just the one. It's a small quest, but it's adorable.

The problem video game romance comes down to is people don't want to have to make hard decisions. They wanna have everything. This is what annoys me about the "everyone is poly" aspect of BG3 and Fallout 4. It feels less like they thought about what it's like to be polyamorous and more like they just used polyamory as an excuse to have consequence-free three ways.

People claim this is "Poly Rep." No. No it's not. Part of being polyamorous is having to deal with the fact that not everyone is. You're just not compatible with everyone. And that means have to communicate things with your partners early on and be up front with them.

Honestly I felt more seen by Mass Effect 1 having the Virmire Survivor and Liara confront you if you progressed both romance paths, asking if we can't all just work something out, and being firmly told "no." It at least told me the developers thought about it.

Being able to fuck every party member consequence free isn't "Poly Rep." Because it wasn't made with polyamorous people in mind. It was made with horny, indecisive people in mind. And I've been to therapy, I'm not really "hypersexual" anymore.

I find a lot of RPGs are so obsessed with being "open" and they completely miss where good character work really shines. Ironically this is why Black Isle went out of business and why Obsidian keeps floundering when making games that aren't based off someone else's game, and why Larian always feels like the pantomime of someone else's work. They focus so much on the world and making an open game that the characters in it are flat and hollow.

So many devs whose entire library is "ripping off BioWare" and they forgot the one thing that made BioWare so legendary. Everyone's making open worlds now, the Bethesda style isn't unique. But one good character is an eternity of delight.

KOTOR 2 was carried by Kreia. Baldur's Gate's worst moments were carried by Imoen. Look at every beloved CRPG and inside it you will find that one character that just made the whole experience wonderful.

[martyfromgiant]

thinking about how pretty much every single show with lesbian representation has been cancelled or ended by the network in the last year. it hurts so fucking much to see shows being cancelled that have a huge fan base or killing off lesbian characters without a second thought. it’s not gay shows that are being canceled, no, it is wlw shows. mlm shows have continued to go on getting praise and renewals where shows like first kill, even though they’re cheesy and shitty, that have lesbian main characters one being a black woman and having a half black cast are cancelled. it had twice the viewing of shows like heartstopper, a show with two white gay men leads, that got renewed in the first few weeks of its release. even with netflix setting first kill up to fail by releasing it at the same time as huge shows like stranger things and umbrella academy, it still was a huge hit and had such a loving fan base.

the wilds with a lesbian main couple and diverse female cast literally centered around the concept of girl power. huge and dedicated fan base. cancelled. killing eve lesbian main characters one of them being sandra fucking oh that explores the dark side of ourselves while giving really good rep. one of the most dedicated fan bases i’ve seen. cancelled. and not just that, what could have so easily been a happy ending for the couple was ripped from us in the last five minutes right after the characters finally admitted feelings after four fucking seasons. one of them is murdered right in front of the other.

i can’t speak much to shows like everything sucks and the society because i haven’t bothered to watch them knowing they get cancelled. i don’t want to get attached to beautifully written and relatable characters for some big rich homophobic network to tell me no, no you can’t have this anymore. that’s happened too many times to me. right as the couple is happy and things are okay, one of them dies in front of the other like clexa, villaneve, dani and jamie from bly manor. some don’t even really get the opportunity to get to that point and others are just left with their relationship unfinished, with things left unsaid. and don’t even get me started on queer baiting.

yeah gay shows in general with good representation are fucking hard to come by but i’m sorry. mlm don’t face the same kind of hardships that wlw do. there’s a reason burying your lesbians became such a well known trope. because lesbians in shows die all of the fucking time for no good reason. i wish companies like netflix, hbo, and prime would stop fucking being cowards and admit the real reason they’re cancelling these shows. it’s not because they’re not being viewed enough or don’t have a strong fan base. it’s because they’re fucking lesbophobic i don’t want to hear anything else about it or any bullshit that it wasn’t a big enough hit. it may be the 21st century but lesbians aren’t magically equal even within the lgbtq community. the only place to get good representation these days is from fan made sources like fan fiction and fan art. made by people who understand how hard it is.

it’s where we get to see what we’ve always wanted to see, the characters we love, loving each other and being happy. we don’t have big writers scratching ideas because it “wouldn’t look good or be good for ratings”. we get a world where villanelle and eve lived happily ever after instead of villanelle dying in front of eves eyes and and floating into the abyss. not some bullshit from laura fucking neal who knows absolutely nothing about the characters we know telling us it’s what they felt was right. glad burying your lesbians feels right to people. but in our fan spaces we get to see villanelle make it out alive, we get to see them have a normal life and watch movies together. we also get to see and express what we feel is right with the fuck ton of queer coding in media. we get to see nancy and robin fall in love, emma and regina confess their feelings for one another, and any of the endless amount of amazing ships that we desire. there is a reason we flock to those spaces, it’s where we feel safe, seen, and where we feel like maybe one day we can have a relationship like that, to be loved like that. but it sometimes doesn’t make up for seeing it all play out endorsed by a company and written by people that actually care about representation and their viewers instead of just money. we all want to be loved and feel accepted and seen but sadly, because of the events of the last year, i’m not gonna hold my fucking breath.

sorry this is a lot, i’m just so fucking pissed

#killing eve #first kill #the wilds #once upon a time #netflix #wlw #fuck netflix #the haunting of bly manor

[sugaroto]

I've seen a lot of posts saying that "It's okay if being lgbt was a phase for you", and I know that you're gonna say it's not a phase

And it's not. For most of us

But there are people who may have identified as bi for a while and later found out they were gay, lesbian maybe even straight

Maybe people thought they were lesbians but were actually pan

Someone could identify as asexual but later figure they're demisexual

Maybe they identified as something, but later figured out they were straight

All this journey... is personal and maybe you're not sure for your identity yet, maybe you want to keep it personal, maybe you're coming to terms with it

When someone is figuring their sexuality, or maybe they already have, they don't owe it to anyone else

When they feel like it, maybe they tell people who they care about

Maybe they shout it from rooftops, maybe they whisper it to the mirror

So many posts telling people "you don't have to come out. Do it when you're ready. When you're safe"

And yet... an 18 year old boy was forced to come out

Why? Because he's famous? There could be a million reasons he didn't want to come out yet (or never)

Kit is just a year older than me.

Why did he have to come out?

I don't think I would come out to the whole world in a year either, the only reason *I* am out on the internet is because I'm no one, I'm anonymous here, you know me as Sugar, you don't know where I live, who I am and what I do

What If I was in the cast too? No one in my family knows I'm lgbt, let's say I had the chance to play a character, cool, then what, would the internet force me to come out to the whole world? To my mom? My aunts and uncles? My Grandparents?

I did came out when I was younger, to my friends, and I have regretted telling 2 people, because we weren't close then or because we lost touch later

I also came out earlier than I should have, I was still figuring it out at the time

But I did, and it was my choice

I came out as bi,

But now I'm questioning I might be on the ace spectrum too, would I need to come out twice?

If I was famous too, would people say I queerbaited them for figuring stuff out? About my personal life?

What if I never wanted to came out? I'm also a demigirl, but I don't want to come out, that's my thing, it's personal and it doesn't change the way I dress or act, or even my pronouns cause 'they' can't be used in my 1st language

I want to keep this thing for me

If I was famous and had the chance to wear a binder, would people say I queerbaited them? Would they force me to tell the world I'm not cis?

I'm not famous, but Kit is just a year older than me. We could have been in the same school (in a different world)

You don't know his personal life, he could be dating someone he knew for years, he could be single, maybe his parents know he's bi, maybe he doesn't want to tell them, maybe he was figuring stuff out, maybe being bi was his thing, his thing that he wanted to keep to himself

And people took that away from him

#im not sure if this post makes much sense #but i just wanted to say some things #its weird comparing myself to someone like Kit #but hes not that older than me and it was easier for me to see that maybe we're not that different #just one year difference and we're both bi ... so i just started comparing #we're probably Nothing alike i don't really know. i haven't been so *in* the fandom to know everything about him #even though i said im now questioning my sexuality again ive been identifying as bi for years so.... #sugarenia talks #sugarenia #sugarenia thoughts #sugarenia ted talk #sugaroto #lgbtq #lgbtqiia+ #lgbtq community #kit connor #heartstopper tv show #heartstopper comic #hearstopper #heartstopper alice oseman #alice oseman #oseman tag #osemanverse #maybe I'll delete this later who knows #to delete later #to delete

[coochiequeens]

It occurred to me that maybe 'trans' did not refer to transsexuals. This was borne out by a look at the glossary provided by Stonewall, the LGBTQ+ lobbying group. TRANS: An umbrella term to describe people whose gender is not the same as, or does not sit comfortably with, the sex they were assigned at birth." - Graham Linehan

Why do I risk everything to battle the madness of the trans activists? What's my endgame? It's simple. I am concerned about women losing their words, safe spaces and sports to fanatics who denounce the very idea of womanhood. I want to reveal the havoc gender identity has wrought on society, expose those who enabled it and help to bring about its end.

I flew into this battle full of beans. The beliefs of the other side were so insane I thought my friends would quickly realise how crazy it all was and start lending a hand. I believed it was only a matter of time before they would fly to my aid, the satirists, the stars, the progressives, the feminists... those I'd made famous with the TV sitcoms I wrote, and who had made me semi-famous in return. I thought they'd be along any minute.

But to my astonishment, no one turned up. I begged friends to say something about how children shouldn't be undergoing experimental treatments with no evidence base, about the crime against humanity that is telling gay and autistic young women that if they only removed their breasts then they would be happy. But most stayed silent.

Instead, I was cancelled. Friends were ghosting and blanking me, not returning calls, giving my wife grief on the phone, writing nasty letters about the importance of kindness, and perhaps worst of all, sympathetically nodding while telling me why they couldn't get involved.

From the start, I was subjected to waves of activists on Twitter. First came anonymous violent threats, then hot on their tail the 'trans ally' celebrities who didn't understand the issue beyond the opportunity it gave to broadcast their virtue and harass me.

One of the cast of teen comedy series Derry Girls (a product of Hat Trick, the same production company as Father Ted) started campaigning for my removal from Twitter. Pretty soon the public perceived me as toxic and they also tuned me out. I was targeted, too, by a media eager to find some dirt on me. Gender-goofy newspapers such as The Guardian and The Independent interviewed colleagues of mine to get them to condemn me, which many were delighted to do.

The LGBTQ+ website Pink News – which reports few gay issues and even fewer lesbian ones, existing primarily to pump out trans propaganda – has to date written more than 75 hit pieces on me, all of them designed to paint my perfectly commonplace beliefs as evidence of bigotry and madness. There's no doubt about the sheer scale of the media machine that makes this happen. If anyone edits my Wikipedia page to say 'campaigner for women's rights' (which is what I am) rather than 'anti-transgender activist' (which I most definitely am not), the edit reverts back within 15 minutes.

The ideological capture of the media is such that, if a celebrity comes out as trans or non-binary, they fall over themselves to use his or her new pronouns. When this involves the use of 'they' for a single individual, it tends to make an article unreadable. It's even worse with news reporting involving those who identify as trans – notably on the crime pages.

The more-captured-than-most Independent ran a story headlined 'Armed and Dangerous' about a woman sought for allegedly killing her boyfriend and brother.

You had to do some puzzled digging before you discovered that the 'woman' was a man and the 'boyfriend' a woman. Through a gentle tweak by an unseen hand, the meaning of essential words had been changed, and journalists used this planted evidence to pin the blame for a horrific episode of male violence on women.

A lot of people trying to shame me into silence will say, 'Why do you care so much?' The implication is that a concern for women's rights (normal, explicable) is actually an obsession with trans rights and is bigoted and deranged.

But trans rights only become an issue when they negatively affect women's rights. There aren't too many areas where these conflicts come into play. However, when they do, it's devastating. All over the world, male prisoners are being admitted to women's jails if they announce they're trans, and female prisoners run the risk of receiving extra time on their sentences for 'misgendering' these opportunists. 'Misgendering' became taboo practice because of the combined efforts of trans activists and the privileged members of the laptop classes enforcing the new orthodoxies but it's a taboo that has been imposed without debate or consent.

Which is why, according to our new ethical overlords, an Oscar-nominated actress has re-emerged as a man called Elliot Page, and activists and 'progressives' consider it a hate crime even to mention Elliot's former name.

But these taboos, supposedly driven by 'kindness', empower the most dangerous men in society. If we rewire our brains to such an extent that we see men as women, it will be easier for opportunistic predators such as Adam Graham – the double rapist almost admitted to a Scottish women's prison by Nicola Sturgeon's government – to access single-sex spaces across society, not just in prison.

No matter how many times I explained all this, the same question kept coming, over and over. 'Why do you care so much?' All I could say was: 'Why do you not?'

The intercession of the most famous children's writer in the world in the trans debate was a moment when I thought the argument would shift decisively in my direction. So beloved were the Harry Potter books, so impeccable were J. K. Rowling's socialist credentials, so compelling her backstory, she would be listened to.

But no, not a bit of it. HMS Rowling – which had piped on board generations of children, and taught them to read for their pleasure and then for their children's pleasure – was deserted faster than a plague ship, so taboo were the author's perfectly commonplace views on women's rights.

The young actors from the Harry Potter series of films instantly betrayed her. If I were a star who had never shown any ability to act past the pre-pubescent level that got me into the business, I'd be keeping my head down, not signing statements insinuating that my old mentor was a bigot.

Those actors – Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint – deserve to be remembered as symbols of the most remarkable arrogance, cowardice and ingratitude. But asking what Rowling actually said that was so terrible produces nothing. You've never seen a transphobic statement from J. K. Rowling because none exists.

Another time I thought the argument must surely be won by my side was when Martina Navratilova, one of the greatest tennis players of all time, publicly addressed the problem of male cheats in women's sports. I thought, well, Martina is golden; she's a lesbian icon, she even had a trans coach, so they had nothing on her.

I reckoned without Anthony Watson, a gay British businessman who is on the board of a leading American LGBT group. He told Martina she should be ashamed of herself. Watson lobbies for this, the most homophobic movement in history, which tells children who would otherwise likely grow up to be lesbian or gay that they're born in the wrong body and need lifelong medicalisation. He's scarcely a public person, whereas it's hard to think of a more iconic gay figure than Navratilova. It was a big shock to me that such an inconsequential character could talk to a lesbian hero like that.

There's a crucial question in the trans debate we rarely hear asked, let alone answered.

Quite simply, what does 'trans' mean? Does anyone know? I have never heard the same definition twice.

I used to think it meant transsexual – those who suffered terribly because of a disconnect between how they saw themselves and how the world saw them and it was impossible not to sympathise.

Your heart goes out to anyone with so debilitating a condition that they take drastic steps – often life-shortening, always irreversible – by means of surgery and medicines to bring reality into line with a vision of themselves they can't shake.

Society treated them with a fair degree of respect. The Gender Recognition Act of 2004 encoded their vision of themselves into law and the Equality Act 2010 protected them from discrimination by including gender reassignment in its list of protected characteristics.

All this seemed admirable, society doing its best to help troubled people. Crucially, it was only a tiny subset that these laws were serving.

But one day, early in my fight, a comedian friend complained that 'Terfs' ('trans exclusionary radical feminists') had 'hurt my trans friends'. I was mystified. Trans friends? How many did she collect? How was she continuously encountering what we were always told was only a tiny portion of society?

It occurred to me that maybe 'trans' did not refer to transsexuals. This was borne out by a look at the glossary provided by Stonewall, the LGBTQ+ lobbying group.

TRANS: An umbrella term to describe people whose gender is not the same as, or does not sit comfortably with, the sex they were assigned at birth.

There are a few problems here. First of all, sex is not 'assigned' at birth; it is observed and recorded, often before birth.

And what exactly is 'gender'? GENDER: Often expressed in terms of masculinity and femininity, gender is largely culturally determined and is assumed from the sex assigned at birth.

Stonewall's site lists all the individuals supposedly encompassed by those categories: Transgender; Transsexual; Gender-queer (GQ); Gender-fluid; Non-binary; Gender-variant; Crossdresser; Genderless; Agender; Nongender; Third gender; Bi-gender; Trans man; Trans woman; Trans masculine; Trans feminine; Neutrois.

Note that transsexual is second on the list.

The same Wikipedia which has been smearing me as a bigot for years lists a few more, which I include here mostly for their comic value: Omnigender; Graygender; Eunuch Pangender; Neurogender; Man of trans experience.

I haven't made any of these up. No wonder my comedian friend was suddenly swimming in 'trans' people if anyone could call themselves one.

This was around the same time that Stonewall began to push for what is known as self-ID. This would mean that, if you were a man who wanted to legally change your sex, all you had to do was declare yourself a woman. If this idea were enshrined into law, any chancer could put on some purple lipstick and invade women's spaces, such as changing rooms, toilets and rape-crisis centres. Self-ID didn't just unlock the hen-house for any passing predator; it scattered a buffet of treats to lead it to the door.

The more I looked into the issue, the more I found that 'trans people' covered too many different experiences to be a useful phrase. It described young women who were succumbing to a new, more viral form of anorexia that caused them to remove their breasts and take drugs that gave them the dubious gift of male-pattern baldness.

It also described middle-aged men who decided to leave their families in order to live as clownish visions of the women they had fallen in love with online. And it covered young men disgusted at what they felt was their own toxic masculinity, and young men who enjoyed nothing better than indulging in it. These groups had little in common with each other. 'Trans' was not a stable category.

While there's no precise data on the 'transgender' population in the UK, estimates suggest it is around one per cent, which means roughly 670,000 people. Other information suggests the majority of trans-identified males retained their penis.

These weren't transsexuals. These were just men, acting under a variety of motives, some benevolent, some far less so. But crucially, under self-ID, there was no way for women to tell the difference.

This led me to investigate some of the people being protected by this uniquely violent form of discourse. I'll give just one example, but a significant one: Aimee Challenor.This individual began dressing in girls' clothes and using the name 'Aimee', and immediately gained a crucial upgrade in social status by suddenly qualifying as a 'transgender teen'. In Aimee's home town of Coventry, local LGBT groups and progressive political organisations became 'allies'.

Over the next few years, Aimee's political career and online profile could not have been hotter: Aimee joined the Green Party and within two years became its national spokesperson for equality. By the age of 20, Aimee was running for deputy leader of the party, and was celebrated with a fawning profile in The Guardian.

Aimee was also advising on safeguarding in institutions such as Girlguiding, MI5 and the NHS as a member of Stonewall's Trans Advisory Group.

Footage of Aimee at an Oxford Union debate reveals an awkward young person with no charisma, ability or insight, an unexceptional talker and thinker repeating trans-activist talking points to yet another docile audience too cowed to ask questions.

This swift rise took place under the close supervision of Aimee's father David, who also went into the Green Party. Despite the fact David had been charged with raping, kidnapping and torturing a ten-year-old girl, Aimee appointed him as election agent.

David Challenor is now serving a 22-year sentence for tying the girl to a joist in the attic of the family home, where Aimee also lived, and raping her and torturing her with electric shocks. The Green Party launched an inquiry, but long before this reported back, Aimee cried 'transphobia' and ran into the welcoming arms of a bigger party, just as eager to climb aboard the trans bandwagon: the Liberal Democrats.

They dumped Aimee less than a year later when it emerged that the activist was engaged to marry an American named Nathaniel Knight, who openly bragged on social media that he had written pornographic stories about molesting children.

Having crossed to the US, Aimee became an influential moderator at the social media behemoth Reddit. With a much older, cross-dressing friend, Peter 'Katrina' Swales, the pair used his grip over LGBT social media to silence critics who brought up safeguarding issues around trans activism, such as vulnerable minors being targeted and groomed by adult men with fetishes.

Aimee was brought on to Reddit's payroll after becoming so powerful at the corporation but was then dropped when Reddit users started asking questions. It's widely believed that Challenor continues to moderate a swathe of Reddit's forums.

I have some sympathy for Challenor. But I have nothing but contempt for politicians, charity bosses and journalists who thrust Aimee into the spotlight, abandoning all critical thinking on hearing the word 'trans' and silencing whistleblowers who tried to raise the alarm.

Challenor is one example of what I called a 'central outlier', someone supposedly unrepresentative of the 'trans community' yet who was lauded and promoted within it.

There are others. The muddiness of the word 'trans' empowers opportunistic men, even as it disempowers children and women.

When the internet turns on you, as it did the moment I entered into the debate around women's rights v transsexuals' rights, it isn't pretty. What I find particularly galling is that I remember how excited I was when the internet arrived in our lives. The future was bright. We had an instantaneous method of communicating with practically anyone. In this new world of transparency and connection I simply couldn't imagine how an epoch-defining darkness such as the Holocaust could ever occur again.

If we were all keeping an eye on each other, then everything should be fine, shouldn't it? We now know differently – that it is possible for a group such as trans rights activists to poison the internet's nervous system, to use it to overwhelm society with so much misinformation that reality itself warps and woofs.

The most extreme voices are finding it too easy to steer others who have less certainty about their opinions, who have a desire to be told what the right thing to do is so they can go and do it.

Not bad people. Busy people, who are nevertheless well-meaning.

But when we trust the cat's cradle of gossamer-thin connections we've made online and fail to check the reliability of primary sources, we leave ourselves open to having our society hacked by a conspiracy of online weirdos who know what buttons to press to make life's vending machine give them what they want.

© Graham Linehan, 2023

Adapted from Tough Crowd by Graham Linehan (Eye Books, £19.99) to be published October 12. To order a copy for £17.99 (offer valid to 15/10/2023; UK p&p free on orders over £25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 31

#jk rowling and the ungrateful brats she made famous #Emma Watson and liberal feminism #Graham Linehan is telling the truth #Does any other movement get canceled for not wanting minors to have life changing cosmetic surgery?

[spiderlingh]

obx s3 thoughts (obviously contains spoilers!)

this is just my opinion, please don’t come for me if u disagree :)

i was a bit disappointed with this season ngl, definitely my least favorite season of the series so far

action sequences were really good but i felt like a few episodes were just straight meaningless action scenes and that definitely felt unnecessary to me

cleo pope jj owners of the season <3

drew starkey can certainly pull off a buzzcut but man do i miss his sexy haircut from season 2 😭😭

WAY TOO MANY BIG JOHN SCENES oh my god look i get it, it’s a miracle the guy turned up alive and shit but i am not john b i do not give two shits about this rather mean looking man and i felt like he was on my screen more than the main cast

shoutout to his actor tho. he did a great job portraying him

i thought i would be a jiara shipper but i don’t like them together at all… i lowkey hate that the writers now literally paired kie with every guy of the pogues when that seems so out of character for her

saw a post about kie being lesbian and you know what? y e s. even though i think a love interest wouldn’t be necessary for her to begin with

i’m a jjpope girlie sorry their chemistry is just chef’s kiss but it’s never gonna happen bc according to the writers there’s not a single gay on that silly lil island

(it’s completely fine if you do ship them bc they did have chemistry in the previous seasons)

not the sarah x topper drama getting reused from last season… i love sarah but girl what the hell

speaking of topper i thought it was fun how they included him in the train heist

but the way sarah manipulated him and used him… i’m no fan of his at all but i did feel for him bc he pulled so much for her and she went straight back to john b 😭

my boy really said i’m gonna light this place up like a damn bonfire lmfao

anyway back to it

the main villains (ward and rafe) of the past two seasons became pretty much irrelevant this season?? huh???

rafe did a near complete 180 out of nowhere… which was strange

like this man’s whole trauma was solely fixed on getting love and respect from his father and the whole donating the cross situation really sucked if you look at it from rafe’s perspective but i do not believe that THAT was all it took to suddenly become so hostile towards ward. even if he still ended up saving him.

this guy was so stuck in the cycle of violence from the pilot up to the final episode of season 2 and his character development was so interesting to see (that scene in s2 when he says he’s not okay and needs help and ward tells him to man up still stuck with me) and it feels like they threw it out of the window and pretty much sidelined his character for no reason at all.

new boring villain is introduced and gets killed in the same season

worst parent award goes to mike and anna

I WANT TO SEE MORE OF JJ AND SARAH WORKING TOGETHER OR JUST INTERACTING PLEASE

they’re such a fun dynamic like give me that please i’ve been asking for this before s2 even came out

the pogues had pretty much 2 scenes together and that’s it… i had hoped to see more of them and their dynamics and just more of them on that deserted island??? wasted potential oh my god

is it just me or was the filming style a lil different this season…

wasn’t rafe’s love interest supposed to be a bigger thing? because the few scenes he shared with her were completely irrelevant and so was her entire character tbh 😭

rafe and kie teaming up… was awesome i loved it

jj and kie running into pope and cleo when they were just about to get off the bus and immediately had to run from people with big ass guns is peak obx energy and i thought it was hilarious

i audibly gasped at the time jump!! such a weird way to end the season, it almost seemed like a series finale but knowing that season 4 is already confirmed i’m genuinely wondering what direction they’re gonna take this. the root of it all was that they were looking for the treasures because some of them were connected to it in their own ways (john b and the royal merchant bc of his dad, pope and the cross/denmark tanny bc family) and rafe and ward were perfect villains up until this season.

if there’s something i want to see in the next season, it’s just more pogue scenes, strengthening their own characters and developments and their dynamics with the other pogues. we really do not need the same romance drama every season. it’s boring and frankly annoying. honestly in this show there’s so much going on that i don’t feel like each one of the pogues needs to end up with someone. i would love to have jarah and jjpope as endgame and have kie and cleo end up solo or maybe have other love interests (but not really).

just give me the pogues doing what they do best — bickering while they’re off chasing some mystery and putting their lives at risk and miraculously getting out of it alive and well.

because season 3 was just weird. really weird. idk this is all for now but i might add more later!

#outer banks #obx spoilers #obx s3 #jj maybank #sarah cameron #john b routledge #kiara carrera #pope heyward #cleo obx #jjpope #rafe cameron #ward cameron #obx

[raziraphale]

I've learned not to trust my memory, so I wanted to make a note for myself of some things I enjoyed from the Neptune production of RAGAD before it all leaks out my ears. It's mostly for me but thought I'd post it here in case it's interesting to anyone else.

Note for people that aren't me: this is the only production of RAGAD I've seen live. I've seen the movie and the 2017 NTL recording as of writing this, for reference. So, forgive me if I gush about elements/choices that are common to RAGAD productions and not unique to this one lol. Also I was an English major but not a theatre guy outside some Shakespeare, so also bear with me if I'm lacking some specific terms.

Performances:

I feel like this almost goes without saying but Boyd and Monaghan are excellent as Guildenstern and Rosencrantz. Their chemistry is great. There was an excellent rhythm to their dialogue together that was really fast-paced without feeling artificial (imo there is a certain point where performers talk so fast it can only feel fake. They were all believable enthusiam).

I particularly liked Monaghan's Rosencrantz! like there was just something so earnest about him. He had this character tic of chewing on his finger most of the time out of anxiety or inattention and that stuck out for me for some reason. It was endearing. Also the line "I wanted to make you happy" made the whole theatre let out a wounded animal noise.

Also Boyd's Guildenstern really did a good job of projecting an aura of "person trying really hard to appear in control but may also snap any moment". Control freak recognizing control freak o7

The Player (Michael Blake) was amazing. He had such huge stage presence that you really believed the character was a seasoned performer. I fully believe this man could successfully sell me snake oil with the power of his presence alone.

Personal note but I was jazzed to see Drew Douris-O'Hara as Alfred. I'm not a regular Neptune patron so I don't know how often he appears in their productions, but I have seen many a Shakespeare By The Sea show in my time so he's a very familiar face. Always a really fun presence.

I also feel like I have to mention Ophelia (Helen Belay) even though she obviously doesn't get much to do here. The actress really sold every small appearance though like my heart broke a little every time I saw her in anticipation for her off-stage fate. Less important but have you ever seen a woman so beautiful you started crying?

Costumes:

I really liked Ros and Guil's tattered suits. They looked like they were dragged behind a horse. These are the clothes of two guys that have been trapped in a play for like 50 years, truly.

They also had an inverted colour scheme (Ros had a blue suit with a green waistcoat, Guil had a green suit with blue waistcoat) that really emphasized the two-sides-of-the-same-coin/ yin & yang vibe. Also the colours weren't really shared by the rest of the cast much (they tended to be a bit more muted) so it made them stand out as separate from the rest of what was happening.

Also personal note but I was enchanted by Monaghan's slightly stupid-looking grown-out fauxhawk. He basically had a lesbian mullet haircut. That combined with his single dangly earring was a Look.

The Player's coat was gorgeous. It felt grand but also appropriately dated/worn. It wasn't fully a feather jacket, but it had a smattering of large feathers that got more dense as it went down. It kind of reminded me of a vulture, honestly, which I think is fitting, with him being an opportunist that loves some corpses.

Script:

Misc. Stage Stuff:

Unless I'm really mistaken, I think they cut/modified the few lines with some outdated racial terms (I have two specifically in mind, referring to Chinese and Inuit people). So unless I just somehow missed hearing those, that's nice.

Just a note to say that the line about who the English King is will depend on when they get to England got a huge laugh. Thank you to King Charles' cancer for making everything funnier

The lighting !!! It really did a lot to separate the scenes from Hamlet from the rest of it. The stage was dark for most of it, with cool lighting (like a blue darkness). For the Hamlet portions, though, the lights were suddenly bright and warm yellow. That combined with the differences in the performances gave a strong impression that the curtain had just suddenly risen on a more traditional production of Hamlet right in the middle of Ros and Guil just doing whatever.

I really liked how they used the two risers on wheels they had (not sure if that's the right word -- they were those three-tiered platforms I remember from doing choir in school. Kind of like bleachers). They looked like they belonged on an empty stage and also gave the actors something interesting to climb on. They were able to reposition them pretty easily with the wheels, which really worked for the portions on the boat tbh. They just pushed them together so that the lower tiers touched to create a half-pipe-shaped skeletal "boat". They could climb "above deck", or even go below while still being fully visible from whatever angle. The whole thing was spun around a lot during the pirate attack, which was fun.

The risers also separated the stage really well in the first two acts. For most of it, there was one on the left side facing the audience, for characters to sit on, and one on the right facing backwards and partially obscured by the curtain they had covering that side of the stage. The curtain was backlit, so you could see the silhouettes of anything behind it. At some points, you could actually see shadows of events in Hamlet happening in the background while Ros and Guil were doing their thing in the foreground. Unfortunately I didn't get the best look at them, bc I was sitting at far right of my row, so the far right of the stage was partially out of my sight line. Still a really cool effect!

They did turn the risers fully around to face the back during the players' performance of The Murder of Gonzago, with the curtain pulled across. You saw the shadow of the king standing up and storming out.

For the final scene, they did the expected thing, where Ros and Guil are alone in the dark, illuminated by a single narrow spotlight each. The spotlight goes out when each of them die and they disappear from view. The detail that made me insane though is that each time a spotlight went out, they played the sound of a flipped coin hitting the stage and the audience was so quiet it felt like a gunshot both times.

After all the deaths they had Rosencrantz and Guildenstern start from the opening scene again tossing coins for a bit before the final curtain. They did not escape the narrative 😔

Will add more if anything else comes to mind?

#this felt good to write out #cementing the details in my brain #since alas I cannot follow the show to toronto #and it doesn't look like it's going to get filmed #which is a travesty #beyond lucky to be able to see it at all #things like this never come out my way it's nice lol #reilly.txt #rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead

[lorekeeper-backset]

PKMN IRL Master Post

This post is a list of every single one of my Pokemon IRL blogs. It will lengthen or shorten as I create or delete blogs. Mostly lengthen, probably.

@fox-poke-fanatic: A blog run by Caleb, average college student who wants to become the ultimate expert on fox pokemon.

@aura-acolyte: My take on the protagonist of ORAS, here named Mare Birch. She has Aura Powers and is also the Chosen of Rayquaza, a role that is both poorly defined and well defined. She gets involved in a lot of high stakes stuff. She's also the protagonist of that fanfic I linked.

@the-looker-bureau: A blog focusing on Looker and Emma. In this universe, Looker continued being a private detective and father figure for Emma.

@last-lorekeeper: A blog run by Zinnia, the Lorekeeper of the Draconid people. She's taken up teaching in her spare time.

@twinchampionsofkalos: A blog run by Calem and Serena, who in this universe both take the role of Champion of the Kalos region. Calem's the responsible one while Serena's the more reckless one. Calem is an Acearo malewife and Serena is a Lesbian girlboss and certified disaster gay.

@appeallove: A blog run by Lisia, contest spectacular idol. She's always peppy, never dropping her cheerful demeanor even when mad. She may be one of the scariest people on the planet.

@rocket-cast-official: Prepare for Trouble and Make it Double. The Team Rocket Trio hosts a podcast. Hopefully they won't be blasting off again.

@glitchskulls: A blog co-run with @newworldenderdragon. It focuses on the newly established branch of Team Skull in Glitch City, a region where space is weird and Glitch Pokemon are the norm. Due to the nature of Glitch Pokemon there is a general unreality tw on this one.

@guardian-ofthe-sky: Rayquaza runs a blog where it tries to play the responsible parent. It's very proud of it's Chosen.

@aqua-magma-official: The account of the reformed Teams Aqua and Magma, run by their twin PR heads Magma Grunt Kai and Aqua Grunt Nicky. Yes, they are genuinely reformed this is not a secret evil plot. Blog is usually low stakes and will not become high stakes of its own accord.

@hoenn-tv-official: After one too many hospital trips and legal snafus, Gabby and Ty have been demoted to Social Media Rep. However shall they cope.

@phantom-flower: A blog for Phoebe, Ghost Type Hoenn Elite Four Member.

@the-new-eon-duo: A pair of Superheroes backed by the Devon Corporation. If your first reaction was "ew corporation" you have the right idea.

@themostspecialestlegendaryever: A blog for Latias, the world's best, most specialest legendary ever.

@pokestar-rosa: A blog for Rosa who decided bring Champion wasn't for her and became an actor instead. It's also an excuse for me to give screenwriting and movie nerd rants.

@landandseaunited: Archie and Maxie are reformed and dating. Good for them.

@kalos-news-network-official: The official blog for the Kalos News Network, run by Malva, Chief Bitch.

@leavesofbattle: A blog for Leaf as an adult.

@naranja-uva-student-council: An AU where all four protags of ScarVio are on the Student Council instead of just Nemona. Inspired by Kaguya-Sama: Love is War.

@shiftingbetweenrealities: As a result of the final showdown at Spear Pillar, Cynthia has found herself cast out into the multiverse, constantly changing universes. Unfortunately, her physical body was not cast into the multiverse, only her mind, so she inhabits the body of whatever Cynthia is native to that universe.

@hoenn-battle-frontier-official: Blog for the Hoenn Battle Frontier, located in LaRousse City, run by Anabel.

@xxcodeveeveexx: Cassiopeia | Any Pronouns | Likes: Veevees, Coding, Anime, Video Games | Dislikes: Social Interactions, Bullies

@lea-hi: "Faller" (not really cause no Ultra Wormholes but I'm the only one who seems to care about the actual definition) blog for Lea from CrossCode.

@friendly-neighborhood-calem: You can call her Callie. Or Cal on boy days. Yes, I made a second Calem blog shut up. This one's the rival, not the protag, so it's different. And also she's gender-fluid.

@its-gonna-be-may: It's May but something's kinda off about her. Is she even who she says she is? (read the pinned, its important)

#backset blabbers #pkmn irl #pokemon irl #irl pkmn #pokeblogging #master post

[mylesimeblr]

Actually, what I feel now is anger, not because Byler isn't canon (not when it went that far...) But because they played us for fools, using the most cruel marketing I have ever seen in a very long time. I'm angry at Netflix and the cast for doing this. The LGBT community didn't need that.

My husband watched me go crazy on my own and just said: "Did you truly believe your Mike and Will would ever be real? This is a mainstream show for a mainstream audience. They would've never done that. No one would have seen it coming because there was nothing to see."

And I hate to say that, but he's right. The Milevens were right (yes, Milevens, rejoice, your ship is canon, we were delusional, you won.)

And so, I would like to officially thank the Duffers, Noah, Finn, Netflix, everyone involved in this wonderful joke they played on us during Pride Month.

Thank you for reminding me why growing up queer was so lonely, miserable, depressing and led me to try and commit suicide many times.

Thank you for reminding me that gay people never find happiness.

Thank you for reminding me why my gay and lesbian best friends have so much trouble finding someone and are still single and lonely at 30.

Thank you for reminding me why one of my Muslim gay friend who will turn 40 this year will never come out to his Muslim parents and still pretends to be someone they're not to their dad.

Thank you for reminding me why statistically speaking a majority of bisexual people will end up in straight marriages (like I did in the end) because finding someone of the same sex is just so much harder.

Thank you for reminding us that most of our crushes will end up being straight and that hetero love is the only valid one.

I really wanted to believe that for once we would have two people loving each other even if it's two boys in a non LGBT show because it would have made so much sense and it would have had such an amazing impact on the normalization of people in love regarding gender. But I guess not. So thank you for this much needed reality check. Now we're really gonna be the joke of the fandom.

Signed, the clowns.

#byler #byeler #stranger things cast #stranger things season 4 #noah schnapp #finn wolfhard #duffer brothers #queerbaiting

[outrunningthedark]

i hope i can articulate this properly but the problem (for me) with how they've written most of the love interests for buck & eddie so far is that they've never gotten them integrated with the other main cast much at all. so it feels a little like they're taking away screen time i'd rather see spent on other people with scenes that are just buck + LI at home or eddie + LI at home (although they can at least get chris in there with those too)

like in restrospect it's kind of hilarious actually that taylor was involved in way more scenes with the 118 before she and buck got together then after

I think your feelings are echoed by many in the fandom, and it's the main reason why I stopped pondering the future for Natalia and Marisol. I personally don't see what a DIY-er and a death doula are going to bring to the firefam dynamic when neither character has a history with them (TayKay) or is a parent to someone's kid (Karen, Shannon). I do have a couple #unpopularopinions in relation to this, though. o1. Difficulty integrating has not been limited to Buck and Eddie Lis. Michael was a main. He had his best friends, his kids. But did his love life get a lot of attention prior to the hospital explosion? And then why did the hospital explosion episode even happen? To give those characters a friendly sendoff. Had Rockmond never been let go over his actions, we can't say that part of his story would have gotten any better.

Maddie is a main. She has a child with a firefighter. They're getting married. Why does Maddie go missing in big moments? Why was she not around during the dispatch fire or Henren's vow renewal? Why is she not having "girl talk" with Hen and Karen, her soon-to-be-husband's best friends? Why is she so isolated that the fandom can't even agree on who would be her maid-of-honor? o2. Buck and Eddie can't both have first responder LIs, I'm sorry. Yes, it's the logical choice if the show wants to make new characters "fit", but that would leave only one of the mains with a LI as a background presence - Hen. I realize that the show isn't actually for us gays, but having the lesbian relationship be the one with intentionally less screen time is a path I'd prefer they not take. o3. Not directing at any specific person because I don't know the opinions of every single one of you, but I will repeat something I said the other day and apply it to future LIs. *I* think it's too little, too late not only to get the GA on board with Buddie, but also to get the fandom - the Buddie shippers - on board with other LIs. The excuse for not liking outside relationships has been that they don't feel like part of the family (agree there), but had Tim shut down the possibility of Buddie for good with Ana, or brought in a new LI for Buck in 4B that wasn't previously criticized...we wouldn't be having these conversations today. Lucy comes in as a first responder and people hate for the cheating angle, sure, but what really stung for most of them was the reminder that the fate of Buck and Eddie would never have been a debate were we watching a man and a woman as opposed to two men. Eddie could fall in love in season seven and the reaction would be "Why does Chris need a new mom when he already has Buck???" Um, because Eddie is supposed to be straight? The only way for Buddie to be co-parents without the confirmation would be if we were watching a queerplatonic relationship. Except...neither one is queer.

You know when you try to clean a stain and somehow make it look worse than it already was? That's what it feels like to watch this show and those characters post-s4.

#anonymous #tina speaks #tv: 9-1-1 #tv: 911 #buddie