#like actually GOOD queer representation

[risingfire17-the-weeb-trash]

40 Day Anime Challenge Day 5: Anime world you'd want to live in: Sakura's world in Cardcaptor Sakura (1998)

Synopsis: Sakura discovers a mysterious book in her father's study, and when she opens it, she accidentally releases 52 magical beings from their card forms. Now, with the book's magical guardian and her friends, she has to catch these beings and return them to card form before they cause a catastrophe. But it wasn't coincidence that Sakura opened that book....

Why would I want to live here? First off, everyone is so wholesome! Like, everyone is super kind to each other (except Sayoran and Meiling at the beginning but it's fine they get better) Like, these kids even become friends with random shopkeepers! Sakura has the most loving family, the most supportive friends, and the most dedicated magical guardians ever! Even the "villains" are only doing villain things to help her get stronger, and they become besties after it all!

Secondly, this show is queer af!!!! There are openly bi characters, crossdressing, and a genderless character! And it's just treated as normal, no one makes a big deal out of it! Like, you can be queer and your entire arc isn't about you or others coming to terms with your queerness! Actually, none of your arc is! It's just queer people living their lives!

Thirdly, this girl has a magic card for like, every situation. Come on now!

Also, she's got the best wardrobe ever, thanks to her best friend Tomoyo!!!

#anime #40 day anime challenge #anime challenge #cardcaptor sakura #sakura kinomoto #magical girl #feels #queer representation #like actually GOOD queer representation

[emotinalsupportturtle]

neil gaiman and RTD are absolute legends for being the showrunners of 2 mainstream shows funded by large production companies in the year 2023, and proceeding to make the most queer positive episodes ever seen by man

meanwhile david tennant is just vibrating with joy because he gets more opportunities to wear his one-thousand-and-twenty-four pride pins

#neil gaiman #rtd #good omens #doctor who #rtd looking over at the loki showrunners and calling them cowards #i mean that actually did happen #i'm just imagining rtd taking disney money and neil taking amazon money and chucking it in at a queer generator #oh we got more money? great let's throw in another lesbian #while all those execs look on in horror #David tennant frantically signing the contracts #nobody doing allyship like dt being the common denominator for both these #good omens eason 2 #doctor who 60th anniversary #the star beast #david tennant #lgbtq+ #queer representation #trans rights #nonbinary rights #anthony j crowley #aziraphale #there are too many queer characters in GO to tag #the doctor #14th doctor #rose noble #beep the meep #yes lol im tagging beep here too #meme? #our flag means death #not in this but it's also queer positive media released this year

[eliounora]

red white and royal blue was so cheesy and predictable I enjoyed it thoroughly. making banal queer romantic comedies is hard but necessary work

#sooner or later we'll start getting them with lesbians too *shakes fist in determination* imagine #nor's rambles #ALTHOUGH it would be refreshing to get a film that does not hit all these romantic comedy beats #or that would be a romantic comedy but actually good. like palm springs but gay. the big sick but gay #WHEN HARRY MET SALLY BUT GAY although that really hits the beats ahgvadhbfds #also personally i like queer stories that don't give much attention to labels and such. i think those are really important too #it's one of the reasons i'm not the biggest fan of hearstop*per (censoring so it doesn't go into the tag to ruin people's fun) #because i feel like it's just taking all the letters from the LGBTQIA and assigning each character with a letter #which is not wrong in any way and once again i am older than the intended audience it's not For Me #but i am often left craving something sort of... less defining. more free. more just being what you are and doing what you do #kind of like.. something done for the sake of the story and the art instead of just representation for the sake of representation??? #that is important too!! but kinda craving stuff for us who don't really like labels as well???

[mundifinis]

i pray the day never comes when tiktok discovers gregg araki's films (specifically the teenage apocalypse trilogy ones) because the amount of discourse i can already picture.... oh my god

#“actually it's problematic all these bad things happened to these queer people!!! it's bad representation!” #tell me you missed the point of these films #sorry this isn't h*artstopper..... #like i think these films #and other films apart of the new queer cinema genre (not new as an adjective to describe NEW modern queer movies #but the genre itself) are important to watch and learn #because a) they're actually good and show the context for queer history #but also b) it's authentic and usually made by queer people and they didn't have to worry about appeasing to cishet society #but like most of them would cause tiktok's head to explode and frankly i do not wanna be there for that #can already picture the too many brain dead takes.... #very glad i deleted it though so when that day comes i will not see it! #gregg araki #nowhere #the doom generation #totally fucked up #mysterious skin #the living end #film #ashla.txt #hmm

[walker-lister]

I just have to remind myself sometimes that no matter what anyone else says, the way a piece of media makes me feel and the positive impact it has had on my queer identity is valid, and that tearing myself apart thinking I have to defend it or questioning my own place within queer communities is not at all important when compared to the almost tangible sense of 'rightness' that piece of media helped me to feel about myself.

#just something i've been pondering the last few days #kind of like no matter how much people debate or i suppose theoretically deconstruct media featuring queer stories #the most important thing is how it makes a queer person feel #and I do think it is of course a good thing to ensure queer stories are executed with respect and authenticity #but there's this grey area in fandom spaces in which people may have found rep from a 'unreliable' source i suppose #or something which is queerbaiting- sherlock springs to mind for example yet if people have been able to explore and nurture their own #queerness through that media does that therefore mean their experience is invalid? i don't think so #and my worry is the more we focus on theory the less we focus on emotion and therefore the actual queer experience itself #and sure theory can inform the queer experience and ensure the media is a 'healthy' site of queer identity formation and identity aid #but at the same time scorning or being rude to those who have found certain media an aid is not the right approach to be taking #especially as queer experiences are so wide ranging that one person's idea of 'good' representation is someone's else's of 'bad' #and that unless a piece of media is clearly offensive in its portrayal of queer experience there has to be some benefit of doubt #I think we're still in a period of progression in media espc tv where queer creators are coming to the fore of their own stories #and we've got to 'live and let live' a little about where people are finding sights of queer validation and joy #and perhaps this a naive and simplistic way of thinking but i think queer people can either recognise when something isn't the best rep #but was helpful for them anyway and therefore in a way confer 'ownership' of the media to themselves in how they engage #or there is variety in queer experiences represented in media so that perhaps not everyone finds a 'site' of rep but that does not #therefore invalidate it or make it 'bad' representation #this is just my opinion and it'd be hypocritical for me to not now mention this is only formed from my own queer experience lol #so i'm not trying to tell anyone how to feel or anything just something i'm pondering

[magentagalaxies]

just finished interviewing bellini for one of my finals in my comedy class and i'm losing my mind over bellini going on a tangent about how if he were grading my comedy over the past year he would give me an A+. like i didn't ask him to say that and it wasn't related to any of the questions i asked but you better believe i'm leaving that in to be like see professor? BELLINI gave me an A+!!!

#it was very sweet lmao and a great conversation over all #last time i was in town i told bellini a one-liner i came up with about the 2SLGBTQIA+ acronym having the exact qualifications #for a strong password (8 letters a number and a special character) and he said he's repeated it to several people #and it's always gotten a big laugh!! which is so cool!!! i'm not typically a ''joke'' writer my stuff is usually character-driven #so that's awesome that both bellini AND scott really loved that line!! #bellini in particular has been such a fan of my comedy since we first met (across multiple eras now) #like we met while i was working on my musical ''other girls'' and he was so excited to hear about it when i first mentioned it #and had me send him the recording as soon as i got it #and he's been so helpful in developing aubrey as a solo sketch character too #it's so cool having a professional comedian (especially one with such a meticulously good ear for comedy like bellini) #be as excited about my work as i am and be able to help me refine it into something even better #and especially as a queer comedian today who's finding it difficult to navigate this landscape of being ''bad representation'' #bellini having been an openly gay comedy writer for almost double my lifetime is such a great resource to have!! #of course a lot of this is true for scott too (tho scott hasn't actually *seen* any of my comedy yet. he's just heard me tell jokes from it #but bellini is such a special mentor for me and i'm so happy we randomly connected over mouth congress over a year ago

[dennistakesamentalhealthday]

man like i loved macdennis and i still do but the obnoxiousness of some shippers has put a sour taste in my mouth like i get people want to see the ship they like be Real And Canon On TV but it's getting weird and reeks of entitlement and not being able to see past your gay ship being gay. and tbh the idea of macdennis going canon doesn't excite me as much anymore because i just know if it did happen people are not going to know how to fucking act and make it weird!!! glob is fucking weird btw don't do that. i know ship and the potential of canon can be exciting but i need people to step out of their macdennis echo chamber and think about the way they talk about these real life men. like part of me doesn't want on screen, undeniable macdennis at this point because of the way people treat rob and glenn as dolls and extensions of their characters i KNOW people are going to be fucking weird if they get content like that

#this is more about sunnytwt so not a vague btw #like maybe they wont give a shit and do macdennis anyway but since that is completely hypothetical #i don't actually think rob and glenn owe us any kind of on screen relationship/affection for the sake of the greater good #of gay representation or whatever #because people are so fucking weird and fetishist about glob like they're not real men with wives and children #it's not about being obnoxious on twitter at this point...like it's homophobia and fetishization!!! harassment! #so many fucking mlm gay shippers or whatever don't actually know how to behave when it comes to the idea #of men actually being queer and being together #because their only experience of it is from reading ship fanfic or whatever #yeah im getting mean with it. be normal about queer men and mens affection and friendship #and stop treating real people like characters and feeling entitled to their sexualities

[sarahsupastar]

*Gasp!* A romance novel acknowledged the existence of aro people!

In classic cliché fashion, the protagonist begins by saying he doesn't ever really get feelings for anybody - essentially describing an aro experience, though he's presumably allo. BUT! Instead of following the cliché by then having him meet "the right person" and finally fall in love, this author had someone immediately clock the aro vibes of that statement and directly ask the protagonist if he's aromantic! And then, instead of just perfunctorily checking the box for acknowledging aro people exist and having him say no and move on, the author has him explain that what he means by "I don't get feelings" is: "I had my heart broken and have since actively avoided developing romantic feelings at all costs" - Not: "I've never experienced romantic attraction before this one special person"

#finally some good fucking food #aromantic #romance novels #Sarah talks at the internet #i feel like I'm starving for scraps with the way this minimal acknowledgement seems so meaningful to me #this is helping to heal the wound in my soul from that one hallmark Christmas movie that put me off the entire genre #the benefits of consuming queer media #sometimes they actually acknowledge that people like me exist #like the one KJ Charles novella where instead of getting smutty like usual the protagonists both turn out to be ace 💜 #The book is #Hijinks With A Hellhound #Louisa Masters #if anyone's curious #though don't read it - or the rest of the series it's in - if all you're after is aro representation #this moment was delightful because it was unexpected #the books at large very much center on falling in love and fucking #tag rant

[lyxthen]

I like it when old people have romance plots in media. Divorced parent gets a new partner and their child loves them. Widow re-marries and finds happiness with their new spouse. Old gays finally able to have their dream wedding and live their lives openly. Elders finding love in a nursing home found-family style. Just. People older than 30 falling in love and having fulfilling relationships is what I mean. Because all I see ever is divorce plots and grief and loneliness because apparently you can only ever be happy and have fun as a teen/young adult. The moment you hit a certain age you stop being elegible for the role rom-com protagonist. It's a little discouraging tbh. I want to see that change.

#What I mean to say is. We need more shows like Grace and Frankie. There I said it. #A while ago I watched a few episodes out of order because my mom really likes it and she was binging it #And I wasn't really paying that much attention to it #But I thought it was sweet. Like genuinely. These people are having struggles with their relationships yes. #They have children. Grandchildren. They have struggles. #But it's still a rom-com. It's all lighthearted and focused of the unlikely friendship of these women #After having their lives shaken by the revelation that their life partners are actually gay #And also there's Jewish representation. Idk if it's good. But listen. #I'm just happy old people got their well-deserved silly plot with silly overly convoluted love triangles and online dating #AND ITS ALL SO UPBEAT!! #Anyway #queer #Also queerplatonic relationships pog #Media #romance #Tehanu is a good book also. If you even care #It's not a comedy #But it's still very sweet. Everyone here is really sad and traumatized but they love each other so much. They had enough adventures #It's time to settle down. Adopt a child. Have a low-stakes plot. Falling in love. Found family.

[slenderboo]

finding out in the year of our lord 2023 that doctor who, the only show I didn't watch out of superwholock, was ultimately the only one to not queerbait its viewers hurt my soul, 11/10 happy for all the doctor who fans out there

#I am in pain #you're telling me I sat through 15 seasons of supernatural #4 seasons of sherlock #and then abstained from watching doctor who because 'I don't feel like hurting myself with another one of these shows' #only to miss out on THE ONLY ONE WITH ACTUALLY GOOD QUEER REPRESENTATION??? #superwholock #supernatural #doctor who

[all-seeing-ifer]

prefacing this by saying that I know that this is truly not a hill worth dying on, it is merely one I am choosing to die on because. idk man I make bad decisions. but I do think it's a crying shame that steven universe got saddled with this negative reputation as being kind of the quintessential example of a piece of media that's very safe and unchallenging and quote unquote wholesome, because like. ok i get that this negative reputation is really more about the fandom than about the show itself (and that's fair. the fandom sucked. i would never deny that. i was there gandalf etc.) but it does still feel a bit unfair bc when you take steven universe For What It Is (namely, a cartoon network show aimed primarily at kids and families) and compare it to other contemporary shows with the same genre/target demographic, it honestly was pretty challenging and complex and ambitious. even leaving aside for a second that it was very ground breaking in terms of children's media acknowledging that gay people exist in a way that left the crew constantly catching shit from the network, I struggle to think of any other children's media that would dare to explore the kind of themes and topic that su explored. things like grief, bereavement, how this kid's relationships with the adults in his life are impacted by the fact that his mum died in childbirth giving birth to him, trauma and mental illness (I know that dealing with mental health has become more common in children's media recently but there's definitely none that have been prepared to address the uglier sides of mental illness in the way that steven universe future did), explaining consent in ways that kids can understand, letting its protagonists be genuinely unlikeable at times, introducing the idea of restorative justice and there not being one singular bad guy that can be killed to save the day. These are topics and themes that you don't see a lot of in kids' media because they're hard to portray in a way that feels honest while still being appropriate and understandable to kids, and I think the show does deserve the credit it got for actually being willing to tackle this stuff and imo doing it very successfully most of the time.

AND to be honest, at the risk of leaning a bit close to talking mad shit about some of su's contemporaries (especially when at the end of the day i do quite like these other shows), it does. kind of grind my gears that other tumblr-popular animated shows like gravity falls and the owl house have managed to completely sidestep getting saddled with the same kind of negative, unchallenging reputation that su has, despite the fact that from a purely storytelling perspective both these shows are WAY safer and more easily digestible than su ever was lmao

#i mean toh was very envelope pushing in terms of queer representation hence why it got cancelled #but in terms of pure storytelling? yeah it's a pretty conventional good vs evil story #and like i think it does that WELL same for gravity falls but they're not necessarily. breaking any new ground #which is fine! not every show has to! #and i am going to shut up now before i say anything. actually potentially inflammatory about them lmao #steven universe #ifer rambles

[aeide-thea]

an impulse i don't get—

or rather, so as not to be disingenuous, an impulse i get perfectly well but strongly dislike when i'm faced with it, which means i need to reexamine it in myself when i generate it—

is the impulse to sit in judgment about What Counts As Queer. like. yeah, okay, i do get it really, we're all disempowered by hegemonic culture and setting ourselves up as petty kings shores up our egos! but if there's anything i've loved about discovering queerness in and for myself, it's been the realization that there were worldviews beyond my own—and that there still are, almost certainly! that the world is a firework show of exploding possibility, and that i and my current understanding of myself and everyone else are just one bright spark in a whole connected series of them, and that more will come after me, bringing new colors and configurations to my field of vision, if i just keep my eyes open…

and so i just always feel. god. how close-minded, to shut your eyes to someone else's vision of queerness, to say not just 'that isn't a version of queerness that i recognize or feel represented by,' but to say categorically, 'that isn't queer'! if someone's saying in all sincerity, 'this feels alien to the framework i grew up with, and exciting or comforting or both to me'—i want to hear them out, and make space in my own understanding for a multiplicity of queernesses. i'm not always perfect at it! but i want to.

because what's the alternative? join with the biphobes and transphobes who would've said my gq4gq relationship with my transfem ex was really just straight, or at least enough of a union of opposites for government work? join with the aphobes and arophobes who are constantly insinuating that if you're not actively sucking or fucking, you're a square—never mind those of us who are isolated, or traumatized, or anxious, or any of the thousand other reasons why our queerness might not be siting itself in sex or romance, right now or ever! join with the people who sneer at poly and flinch from kink, as if reexamining those relational conventions were somehow cleanly separable from reexamining all the other ones—as if we should want it to be?

anyway, this is about a lot of things, really, and at least one of them i pretty actively don't want to talk about in specific; but i just think, god, i wish we could all learn a little more generosity, and a little more humility. we know the world, and the human heart, encompass more than is dreamt of in kyriarchal philosophy; why then are we so resistant to the idea that they might also encompass more than is dreamt of in our own? movement after movement of queers have come, and built, and been built upon in turn; our personal convictions are not, i feel certain, the final course to be laid down on the great work of enlightenment and liberation—and how depressing it would be, if they were!

#there's an invisible Works Referenced here that includes a post i keep not reblogging bc it's too aggro #but it's about like. there's no single masculinity or femininity #similarly i think. there's no single queerness‚ because there's no single straightness; it's a complex construction—constriction— #and so our resistance to it must necessarily be equally complex‚ to meet it where it crops up and set it aflame #and so like. just because something isn't your queerness‚ or mine‚ doesn't mean it can't be someone else's! #there's something else i was thinking of‚ too‚ but i forgot it already‚ lol #this isn't the like. clearly-structured post i wanted to write‚ i got mad and florid instead #and i expect i've left out some of what i meant #but like. sometimes you—i—have to just run with that‚ or else express nothing at all… #anyway i just think like. yeah‚ models of maybe-queerness we see in the world might wound us‚ or anyway look as though they might! #it's a possibility! #but what's not a possibility‚ but a certainty‚ is that the rhetoric i've seen used to *dismiss* various representations #as Not Queer Enough #has for SURE wounded me! and almost certainly wounded others who've just curled up silently and said nothing about it! #anyway. idk. 'NOT HET BUT HETERODOX‚' proclaims my protest sign #is this coherent without specifying all its context? maybe not. but the fundamental stance isn't contextual for me— #it's something i think is important to uphold‚ and where i fail at it (which i do!)‚ to give myself a good hard squint #and work out how to realign my reactions with the principles i actually want guiding them #anyway. good morning‚ lmao. have a diatribe

[castrotophic]

you know what it is actually so refreshing to watch a show and see signs of a queer relationship and then the relationship is actually canon. i am obsessed with this. like we can actually have real hope for queer relationships because not all of it is queerbaiting anymore. this is so beautiful actually

#when people were like “wow aziraphale and crowley are in love right?” #the writers said YES #like ??? this is insane #they kissed fr??? #we were like “huh ed and stede are seeming kinda gay lately” and THEN THEY WERE #destiel was subtext for years and then castiel said i love you in real life #like idk this just blows my mind #imagine having actual queer representation #sorry lmao lokius is taking hold of my brain rn #i have fr hope about this one 🙏 #destiel #ineffable husbands #blackbonnet #ofmd #spn #good omens

[3ct0plasma]

cookie run fans when a 10 year old casual player misgenders dog food cookie on the fandom wikia

#theres alot of posts on how 'wlw and mlm see themselves in these cookies so calling them that is good' but when you use pronouns #for a cookie you see yourself as theyre like 'its they/them actually' #im gonna get shunned for this take but i think anyone can hc anything for these characters as long as its not harmful proship bullshit #devsisters is not good with their representation i know how important it is to hold onto what little nonbinary rep we have #but you dont have to go so far as to say shit like 'if you say this cookies a man im gonna kill you' #this fandom. focuses. way too much on queer headcannons specifically and it drives me up the wall because theres so much story outside of i #haltxt #cookie run

[horsetailcurlers2]

this is mostly just silly and i’m not smart enough to write any think pieces on queer baiting or representation so please take this with one hundred grains of salt but to me nothing will be gayer than a show that aired in the early 2000s with no intentions of being gay that vehemently fights against all allegations of queerness, despite there clearly being insane chemistry between two same sex characters. like, oh these two allegedly straight characters just look at each other like that and say things like that for no reason???? you just dressed them up in gay little outfits to go on completely heterosexual dates???

#think about it #so many shows most popular canon ships are often the ones they didn’t intend from the beginning #it’s usually the one where they were like: oh these actors actually have really good chemistry and the fans seem into it so let’s write it #it’s such a shame that they never did that for any of the gay ships #and other than the really good shows these days that actually have lgbtq+ rep in the writers rooms #a lot of them try to write gay relationships that don’t end up feeling compelling #bc it feels like they are writing a straight persons idea of a gay relationship #instead of writing fleshed out characters that just happen to fall in love with each other and be queer #this may not make sense and my brian may not be braining #lmk if this sounds dumb lmao i’ll delete it #lgbtq #lgbt writing #lgbt representation #lgbt television #lgbtq community

[oldtvandcomics]

Happy Queer Media Monday!

Today: No Man of Woman Born by Ana Mardoll

Honestly? Hype this one up.

(The book cover.)

No Man of Woman born is the second anthology in Ana Mardoll’s Rewoven Tales series. It is an anthology, containing seven short stories with seven heroes from different places on the transgender spectrum, all of whom somehow manage to trick a prophecy by not following the gender requirements set in it.

It is a nice book, though by no means perfect. Like all anthologies, some of the stories in here are better than others, and like all fairy tale / myth retellings, some are more original than others. But they are all nice stories, and every one of them features a different trans or nonbinary identity, with different neopronouns used for the heroes. I personally really liked this book and would absolutely recommend it.

You can get it from Amazon, as ebook, paperback or audiobook.

Queer Media Monday is an action I started to talk about some important and/or interesting parts of our queer heritage, that people, especially young people who are only just beginning to discover the wealth of stories out there, should be aware of. Please feel free to join in on the fun and make your own posts about things you personally find important!

#I actually recommended this to my local queer center #I made them a list of books I liked #they haven't bought any yet but I hope they will #as they don't have that much fantasy yet #I feel like reading these stories helped me understand nonbinary identities a little better #though that would probably have been the case with any stories featuring good representation #books #book rec #transgender #nonbinary #anthology #short story collection #fantasy #queer retelling #Queer Media Monday #Ana Mardoll #No Man of Woman Born