#sounds kind of gay.

[sarasade]

One of the most generally useful things to come out of Hbomberguy's plagiarism video and Todd in the Shadows' similar video on misinformation is how they bring transparency to the internet phenomenon of "I made up a guy to get mad at".

Seriously, I've seen people make up a lot of stupid shit on the internet over the years and it's often just a manipulative attempt to paint a group of marginalized people in a bad light.

That's the TL;DR version of this post. 

ANYWAY here is the long version

Those videos are mostly about James Somerton's plagiarism of other queer people's work. However I'd like to talk about that 20-30% of Somerton's original writing- and oh boy. It's mostly about complaining about White Straight Women and misgendering well-known trans creators such as Rebecca Sugar and calling Becky Albertalli a straight woman while it's pretty common knowledge that she was forced to out herself as bi because she received so much harassment over "being a cishet woman who appropriates LGBT+ stories".

One thing that irks me especially is how in his Killing Stalking and Gay Shipping videos Somerton brings up how straight women/ teen girl shippers exploit gay men for their personal sexual fantasies. This gets brought up several times in his videos.

Being all up and arms about Somerton being a "White Cis Gay Who Hates Women and Queer People tm" is not that useful because the kind of rhetoric he's using is extremely common in fandom and LGBT+ spaces on Tumblr, TikTok and Twitter. We really don't need to bring Somerton's identity to this since he is in no way an unique example.

It's hypocritical to make this about an individual person when I've seen A TON of posts, tweets and videos where queer people talk about these Sinister Straight Women who are supposedly out there fetishizing and exploiting queer men. It's pretty clear to me that this is just an excuse to shit on women and queer people for having any sexual interests. At worst these comments are spreading misinformation about BL, a form of media that has been excessively studied by both Asian feminists and Asian queer women.

This all sounds really familiar and I think it's good that people are calling it out as what it is: misogyny and transphobia. I'd also point out the potentially racist motives behind being this hypervigilant about Asian media.

People can absolutely be misogynist regardless of gender or orientation. I really don't know why we need to create some kind of made up enemy to get mad at. I actually think it's almost sinister how "anti-fujoshi" people call Slash shippers and fujoshi misogynists or claim that they have internalised misogyny while being dismissive about women's interests and creative pursuits under Japanese obscenity laws, China's censorship, book bans in American schools and various other disadvances that are part of being a queer and/or female creator.

I think we shouldn't be naive about the bad faith actors who want to turn queer people against each other. For example Fujoshi.info mentions anti-gender (TERF, GC etc) movement using this kind of rhetoric as well.

Anyway if you want to read more:

- about the false info around BL fandom fujoshi.info

-There is the scholar Thomas Baudinette who studies gay media in Japan. Here is a podcast with him and the scholar Khursten Santos

-James Welker is a BL scholar as well. Here is a podcast interview about the new international BL article collection he edited.

-I've already talked about this Youtube channel by KrisPNatz and his great Killing Stalking video that actually engages with the themes of the manhwa

- There is also HR Coleman's thesis DO NOT FEED THE FETISHIZERS: BOYS LOVE FANS RESISTANCE AND CHALLENGE OF PERCEIVED REPUTATION where she interviews 36 BL fans and actually breaks down why fetishization has become such a huge talking point in the fandom discourse. Spoilers, it's mostly about young queer people and women being worried that they will get judged and pathologized for their interest in anything sexual.

-Great podcast about Danmei and censorship with Liang Ge

#Also I don't mean that you can always tell if someone is a transphobe or a TERF based on a couple of things they have said. #My point is that sometimes ok people can have very regressive ideas too. #This is not a call out post about how we should go around accusing anti-fujoshi people #todd in the shadows #hbomberguy #sarasade text #even I've got those “Fandom is mostly straight women fetishizing gay men” comments once and it begins to sound kind of passive-aggressive #when you're a bi woman. Lot of fandom stats at AO3 show that fandoms are montly bi women. who are these people calling straight exactly hmm #also straight women are completely ok leave them alone. I know I know Yes I'm so brave for saying this #cw: transphobia

[the-dormant-ocean]

Bloodweave every time they are setting up their tents.

#Astarion: I am immune to dirty talk #Astarion when Gale wants to share rugs: Oh gods 🥵 #Idk men sharing rugs kind of sounds gay to me🤷‍♀️ #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #gale of waterdeep #gale dekarios #astarion #bloodweave

[batarangsoundsdumb]

#this logic is perfectly and completely sound #bruce also seems like a kind of 'its not gay if you keep your socks on guy' #and a 'no listen i didnt do it bc im gay- i fucked that guy so i could gather intel' kind of man #alfred: intel on WHAT exactly? #bruce: shady dealings in the edible glitter business #i feel like ppl would and also wouldn't buy it #tabloids would be like 'oh yeah totally sound logic mr wayne sorry for doubting your sexuality' #whereas all of his friends and family would be like 'cmon man.... you limp wristed loser' #bruce wayne #dc #dc comics #oh yeah happy pride and shit

[ronanlynchbf]

#rereading trc while simultaneously falling back into aftg stuff by virtue of reading tsc and thereby transporting myself back to when i #was sixteen but it's fine it's totally fine like it's whatever 😁👍 #r.txt #anyway. me when – me when i – me when i'm trying to tell my best friend that i'm gay but i'm also trying to tell him i can take stuff from #my dreams and i took my now pet raven from my dreams like from my head i'm a dreamer but also that's kind of the same thing but also it's #really not but also it is bc it's an allegory but also that's not the only thing the dreaming is an allegory for and also i'm scared to tel #him like i'm terrified actually and i don't want to tell him but also i need to tell him but also he already knows but i don't know that he #knows and also i was goinggggg to tellllllll himmmmmm arghhhhhhh #this scene is soooooooooo like. like AOUGH. ARGH OUGH AGH AOUGHHHHHH #<- sounds of a guy taking minus xp damage with every word read of this stupid scene. he literally was going to tell gansey 😕......... #trc #ronsey #like i need 2 lay down. he came out there to tell him......the timbre of his voice being described as strange&initially unrecognizable.... #i read this part like. 2 weeks ago idk. smth of the sort. and i'm STILL thinking abt it....you came out for something.....when you'd made u #ur mind to confess but ur mouth betrayed you in the end......associated with secrets and guilt......MAN.....

[apotelesmaa]

Too many people want tsukasa to be viewed as socially cool. I think we need to accept that the only kind of cool wxs member is emu who befriends idols joined like 400 clubs and knows almost everyone. Emu has a million friends & most of the lines other characters have abt her are like “emu :)” meanwhile the lines abt tsukasa are all like “he is so weird.” & you want to pretend he’s cooler than her… be so serious…

Nene is also Lame & Rui is only cool to other nerds (gestures at pandemonium npcs). Crucially Tsukasa is an annoying theater kid. No annoying theater kid is popular or cool in highschool. It is central to his character and him being a weirdo who (canonically!) gets no bitches & yet somehow knows major celebrities is one of the funniest and most endearing things about him. Guy who in canon goes to school and people are like “it’s this weirdo again (sees he’s with rui) oh fuck oh no.”An (friends with everyone) & Akito (guy on sports teams) are the only cool characters at Kamiyama.

#i think the line where tsukasa got no valentines gifts (at least none that weren’t friend gifts) #but rui ‘widly known as a freak and basically just talks to tsukasa’ kamishiro apparently did needs more recognition #personal theory is rui is 1) genuinely very kind & acts very mature/responsible to ppl who aren’t tsukasa & sometimes akito/nene #2) 6 feet tall 3) aforementioned points made some people want to give him gifts #project sekai #if I feel charitable I will give tsukasa the excuse that every girl at his school assumes he is gay and/or dating rui so they don’t bother #also because it’s a very funny excuse. #mine #this sounds like I’m bullying tsukasa (I am) but I do love him. i just think making fun of him is the correct way to enjoy his character.

[fayevalcntine]

Positioning Louis as the "Edwardian wife who becomes trapped by her husband" in a literal sense does no justice to analyzing his actual place and role as a Black man in his society and in his relationship with Lestat. Any interpretation or analysis you do of him when it comes to their relationship cannot be stripped of the racial aspect because it's constantly there. Texts analyzing Edwardian wives (and particularly ones this fandom loves to bring up) typically were white and the dissection of their place in societal rules are always viewed from the aspect of gender that is within these texts only allowed to white women, but never to Black men or even Black women. And gender and race become inseparable when you discuss the latter, no matter how people may view it.

This is why I can't take this approach to analyzing Louis' story seriously because if you don't consider the racial aspect in his relationship even to himself and his sexuality, what's the point? You're still centering the standards that were more placed upon white male/female couples than you're willing to look into the unique structure of Black families, religion, their view of homosexuality and how that sooner heavily influences Louis than the family's "need" for him to be sold off to an Edwardian husband. Even in Louis' own story, him and Claudia being Black is more centered on than any demeaning "housewife" comment he tries to go against from Claudia's perspective. She makes that comment once, whereas we have at least two episodes from Louis' perspective that have very blatant hints and showings of the racism he still suffers from under the Jim Crow era and how it affects his self-worth as well as his relationship with Lestat who doesn't seem to take into consideration how any of the blatant racial aggressions and objections still affect Louis and what he considers to be important to achieve in his own life.

Then there's also the pointed topic of Louis' position as a Black man who is a pimp to the Black women he has as sex workers, as well as how his position as a Black father affects Claudia, another Black girl. If you insist on Louis being centered as this "Edwardian white wife" who is confined by his implicit gender in his marriage, where does that leave Claudia and the blatant misogyny and disrespect she gets from both him and Lestat? Lestat who is her white father abuses her. Positioning Louis within the strict confines of "being her mother" doesn't do her any favors because he didn't hesitate to choke her when he was deeply emotionally distressed, nor does it make him look any better when he's fine with chopping up her diaries and then delivering them on a silver platter so that Daniel, another white man, can read and dissect. Even if he does this under the sole pretense of "doing right by her", how does it in any way help when he also can't face up to his failures towards her?

#interview with the vampire #claudia #louis de pointe du lac #i just feel like all these needless 'Lestat is the patriarchy' discussions; even when done in order to shield Louis #do him and Claudia no favors because y'all keep centering these weird strictly white standards in your interpretations #'Louis is an Edwardian wife' Louis is a Black man who was turned in 1910s Louisiana #the structural confines Edwardian wives were given really aren't the same when you take into consideration the racial segregation #of Louis' time; and I feel like the specific issues that Black men then faced when it came to 'proving' their worth when it comes to gender #are then just sidelined and forgotten as if those aren't the standards Louis grew up with #if you want to discuss Louis' placement in his relationship with Lestat it's kind of really heavy-handed even on the show #that he's a black man and that that heavily affects him foremostly in this relationship #also I'm so confused over this insane idea that Lestat is somehow the patriarchy while Louis is a woman and y'all say this unprompted #without considering how it looks when you call a gay black man a woman and a white bisexual man a guy #i feel like you can evade bad stereotypes of painting black men as overaggressive without veering off into the whole other side #while still sounding vaguely backhanded #and it doesn't make it any less weird when I see other non-black/white fans insist on this interpretation #it just comes off as y'all sooner being able to connect to Louis if you see him in a role typically embodied by white women #than to refer to the actual identity he has as a black gay man

[fisheito]

finally listening to the h-scene audio after 1.5 years on mute

yakumo: gasps and whimpers in the whiniest brokenest way me:

#every time i'm on tumblr i imagine myself in a shared cubicle office space with my fellow bloggers #just typing away and creating our gay little posts #sometimes i'm sitting on an exercise ball instead of a regular chair #bc that's the kind of ~hip~ workplace we're in #occasionally i'll encounter something that forces me to take a break from my station #and my coworkers are all very understanding and supportive #this is one of those times #i excuse myself from my desk and my neighbour nods in sympathy #i'm mad. this is a new precedent. i was never into steppable men. what happened #he stifles his moans and i'm like *CLAW GRIP* #i mean i kept the sound on for events and regular storylines so the game wasn't completely on mute #but i always muted for H scenes bc i had no earphones. and this is a shared house. with very thin walls #plus it's not like i'm one of those mega voice-lovers who can pick out a specific VA from 8km away based on a single grunt #but then i got earphones!! so i was like aight let's see what i'm missing here #omniscient external narrator's voice: uh oh #yakumo

[cryptid-condor]

i really enjoy Vash’s post-Eriks outfit

#trigun #trigun maximum #Vash the Stampede #the design is kind of a mishmash of the 98 and maximum versions #cause i liked the metal hand #also i gave him a holster cause sticking a loaded gun down your pants sounds like a great way to shoot your pussy off #and spurs #cause im gay idk #the poses for those bottom two were great #there are so many stock photos of guys in suits doing silly stuff #i desperately needed to use them so: vash getting down with it #i see a guy with an amazing standout design and i start drawing him the one (1) time he wears dress pants #send help #all my rat

[thunderjackal]

spspsps tma fandom come get your feed of toxic old man yoai

ANYWAY i think a lot of elias's problems could have been solved if they let him wear dresses into the institute tbh

#peter lukas #elias bouchard #lonleyeyes #THAT IS THEIR SHIP NAME/??? STOP ITS TOO CUTE #the magnus archives #tma fanart #tma #tma s3 #tma s4 #magpod #the mag pod #emotional process went 'oh they're having a meeting together ok they know eachother i bet hes super evil' to 'oh. oh elias is leaving the #insitude with him' to 'OH NO GAY UM HE HAS CUSTODY OF THE CHILDREN' #Elias is slaying and by slaying i mean [extended sounds of brutal pipe murder] #thunders funky art #headcanon that Jon and Elias's floaty eyes kind of act as an broadcast of their emotions #and during s4 sometimes a bunch of eyes appear around Martin with little heart pupils and he freaks out #and Peter just sits there sipping his coffee like 'dont worry I've been there done that'

[halfricanloveyou]

ok ok ok like i thought “the chosen” would suck cause “blah another series about the life and times of jesus” like we GET it it’s been around for CENTURIES you guys make the same damn movie all the time

but it’s actually legit really good? lots of pretty good representation! not everyone in the movie is white. actual portrayals of jewish culture instead of just ignoring that part. disabled people. matthew being autistic. characters that aren’t just two dimensional. the people in it feel like real people. there’s actual jokes, jesus cracks a few and they’re really funny?? so far nothing hateful, no gay or transgender bashing. it calls out the church for being judgemental and hateful in a way that’s very tasteful

it’s not perfect tho. jesus is…still white for some reason? despite mary not being white? and no one else around him being white? no gay people in it which is kind of a bad and a good thing…but it’s a portrayal of jesus and the people around him as human. as real life people who felt things and made jokes and rolled their eyes and stuff. also the guy they cast as jesus is pretty hot as are all the disciples. which isn’t the point or whatever but i can’t say i’m complaining. it’s free online and i think it’s worth a watch!

#it’s an adaptation of jesus that is more realistic #ofc he’s perfect and doesn’t sin but the point was that he was loving and kind and considerate and people all wanted to be around him #he doesn’t hesitate to walk straight into the dangerous or sketchy areas #he genuinely connects with and loves everyone he meets #they take liberties ofc but none of them are bad and add to the series as a whole #also as always i’m still gay and transgender as ever so no trad catholics or whatever touch this pls #but as a christian it makes my heart feel warm #it’s taken so so long to get an adaptation of any kind that depicts jesus as the kind of man who genuinely loves the people around him #not as some deity but as a human being loves other human beings #he is very human in this. it’s something christian’s don’t like to talk about #but if he went around talking like they do to other people #he wouldn’t have been able to last 10 seconds in the areas he was at #he wouldn’t have been welcomed there #it feels more faithful to the actual bible then they ever make him sound in any church service i’ve ever been in #the chosen #seriously check it out! it’s a genuinely good watch #especially if you have an interest in religion in general #i thought i’d hate it but i love it #pls know i’m being genuine abt this #and also the dudes they cast actually could pass as the age the actual apostles and actual jesus were #instead of being like 40-50 lmao #and them being hot is like just an added bonus sorry i have eyes

[ct-multifandom]

I don’t know if this is a controversial hot take or something a lot of people feel, but I’m tired of hearing people unironically describe Ace Attorney as being “about gay lawyers”. Because it’s not. Do the lawyers act gay? Yes. But that’s not what 99% of the playtime is about.

At the end of the day, Ace Attorney is a satirical story about the corrupt justice system in Japan as represented by a kind-hearted defense attorney protecting (mostly) innocent defendants from having their lives ruined by misguided prosecutors. Its goal was to flip the cultural narrative that defense attorneys are trashy scum who make money off of sympathizing with criminals. And they did this through episodic, goofy murder mysteries.

So where does the gay come in? They wrote some accidentally romantically-charged dialogue, fans were obsessed, and the writers decided, yeah it’s pretty good, let’s do more of that. So they proceeded to toss in more gay side-banter and whatnot amongst the homicide investigations and court sessions.

Now, it’s not like Ace Attorney is the deepest, most poetic social commentary ever written, but it still has a meaningful theme inspired by a real life issue, so it’s pretty discouraging seeing people either not process it or straight up ignore it in favor of “the gay lawyers”. And that’s not even getting into all the other meaningful, non-romantic character relationships that have way more presence in the plot.

I know there will always be uncritical, shipping-brained people in every fandom, but what gets me about how bad it is here is that people who only know as much about AA as what they’ve heard really think it’s “about gay lawyers”. I was watching Drawfee recently, and genuinely all they know about the games is contextualized by Karina’s gay lawyer ship art and brief plot description of how gay the lawyers are. My friend recently told my other friend that Ace Attorney is about gay lawyers to which he was like oh yeah I heard about the unnecessary feelings scene. This is all he knows about the games.

I don’t want to make this sound like a bigger deal than it is, but damn. It truly feels like a lot of people refuse to engage with media in any way that doesn’t involve smashing male characters together like dolls. If you comb through the entirety of the Ace Attorney franchise, you’ll see that such a small fragment of everything that happens is homosexual law, yet that’s the thing that gets amplified to ridiculous proportions. All I can do for now is focus on the posts from fans that love the games themselves just as much if not more than they love the ships.

#ace attorney #aa #ace attorney series #phoenix wright #phoenix wright ace attorney #sometimes I wonder if the worst of those people had some kind of IGN guide that lets you mindlessly bypass all the puzzles and shit and #stops you whenever something gay is about to happen only to speed run the rest of the text boxes #ik a lot of them are quote unquote joking but still it shows that of all things is their main takeaway #I hope this post doesn’t sound too whiny or accusatory or pretentious and I’m sure it’s been made before but hearing this stuff makes me #sad that people don’t actually seem to appreciate the games for what they are. I don’t engage a lot with the fandom and this is a big reason #why. if I had a magic filter that separated heavily fanon gay lawyers posting from meta and memes and cute fan art I’d be a lot more present

[magicstormfrostfire]

Gaming is a lil gay boy and you can't convince me otherwise. He is so fruity. I love him. If anything happened to him I would kill everyone in Liyue and then myself.

#gaming genshin #genshin impact #i just love him okay #his english VA is fucking adorable sounding #it reminds me a lot of Ben's performance with Kaveh #you cant convince me Kaveh isnt gay in some kind of way. pansexual he/they at least. #gaming 100% he/they gay boy. to me.

[cowlovely]

i’ve just been rotating the eddie and bobby convo from this ep in my head on a loop for the past hour and a half. cause literally if eddie isn’t gay then why…then. th.

#ivy.txt #9-1-1 #911 abc #911 spoilers #i’m trying not to sound entitled but if we get bi buck but not gay eddie i will be genuinely bummed #because i love buck! and bi buck is real and true to me and always has been!! #but something about gay eddie….it’s got a specific kick to it #honestly comphet as a plotline in general just makes me go crazyyyyyyyy #(also want to add that i’ll be extremely happy if we get any kind of queer eddie in canon. but gay eddie is so so special to me)

[weedle-testaburger]

something that makes dead end really, really special imo is how amazing it is to see so many different times the characters casually say they’re queer

#personal crap #dead end paranormal park #dead end spoilers #i love how the last one managed to make a joke out of sharing pronouns that sounds like the kinds of jokes enbies make too! #it's so easy to make it sound forced like in taz graduation or kinda transphobic #but this nailed it #lgbtq #transgender #bisexual #gay #nonbinary

[izzehands]

#ofmd #izzy hands #ofmd critical #the amount of like psychic damage i’ve taken reading some of these takes #and i’ve done my time in the shipping trenches it’s not like i don’t understand the merit of this kind of analysis #but not here it just doesn’t fit here #and it feels sooooo dated to say ‘oh pirate is dedicated and loyal and devoted to his captain the only reason there could be for that #is if he also wants to sleep with him’ #???? #why is the common narrative here: if man has too many feelings he’s gay #do you guys realize how that sounds? #anyway #izzy’s my favorite character of the show and i guess it’s silly to complain about on tumblr but i get the sense people can’t enjoy him #unless they make him gay first #wild to me people aren’t frothing at the mouth for this kind of platonic captain/first mate #owner/guard dog dynamic #like they can’t appreciate it unless they insist it is absolutely gay in canon #wwhhhhhyyyyyy would the show not have just made it canon if it was #one of the weirdest fandom conspiracies i’ve ever seen #the izcourse

[puhpandas]

Evan Afton is genuinely SO Norman Babcock. like his whole family doesnt understand him and in fact dislike him and actively tell him so and act callous around him (save for Norman's mom)? his family treats him like hes different or weird and excludes him? hes bullied at school and is small for his age? he keeps to himself and has unique interests that everybody ridicules? he actively tries to stay out of peoples way because hes seen as a burden? he spouts on about 'fake' visions he has and people think hes crazy for it (Evan with the nightmares, Norman with the ghosts and prophecies)? he gets dragged into some decades long tragedy and has to deal with it? they share the same role, but Evan is the beginning while Norman is the end? come on man

#obviously their stories are very different so not everything will apply #but like damnn #also pretty sure norman is kind of a gay allegory so do with thag what you will #its not that i think Evan is gay #jts that i think he probably feels disconnected from masculinity because of how much he isnt manlg #hes a boy who should be starting to grow up at his age who instead has really intense emotions and anxiety and nobody to help him with it #and of course his two manly family members will probably be telling him all about how he needs to toughen up and act like a 'real' man #when he isnt really kike that #he'll face different treatment than what girls his age will face #but thats just what i think #thoughts #evan #afton family #ALSOOO norman is probably the number 1 voice claim i have for evan #for these reasons i just listed and also because he just sounds how i think evan would sound #go search his voice up if you dont know #i think he fits really well for evan