#stop fucking erasing canon gay men

[macdenlover]

i can not believe we have to have this discussion in 2023 but holy fucking shit i expected this from reddit but not here?? i’m sorry but headcanoning mac as bisexual erases so much of the deliberate storytelling they put into very directly addressing the real lived trauma of gay men and lesbians who go through compulsory heterosexuality. and don’t get me wrong i’m bi and i love projecting onto characters that i like too but that’s a struggle i’ve never had to face in my entire life?? and it’s such a prominent part of mac’s coming out story that claiming it as my own would feel like such a fucking disservice to the story they set out to tell. and no it’s absolutely not biphobic to say that headcanoning him as bisexual takes away from his coming out story. because it literally fucking does. the look on his face when the only time his dad cared about him was from the false hope of him ending up with a woman and having a son?? the absolute fear in his eyes when the gang caught him faking having sex with dusty and she told them all he couldn’t get it up with him?? and jesus fucking christ i’m begging people to stop using carmen as “proof” that he likes women when it’s been established that mac was blatantly transphobic throughout that relationship. having silly little sexuality headcanons and peeling away these characters from their canon counterparts for shits and giggles on tumblr is usually fine because it’s so rare for a show to put such a huge amount of thought and effort into a character’s sexuality. but when you have a show that deliberately made that choice— a show where canon is guided by the same 3 guys and one of them was raised in a queer family with a lesbian mother who came out later in life— you can’t ignore the gravity of a choice like that?? there’s a million other characters out there to headcanon as bi. this is straight up disrespectful i don’t give a fuck.

#idgaf about peoples headcanons when they’re harmless but this is straight up rancid #i’m sorry if you can’t relate to this character without morphing him out of the shows extremely meaningful canon to fit your own projection #then ur just selfish?? #im bi and i love mac i see sooo much of myself in him but he is Not fucking bi #leave your ego at the door when you engage with queer stories i promise it doesn’t always have to be about you specifically. #i’m probably getting way too mad about this rn but whatever

[winderlylandchime]

I have a big question. Well maybe not really but anyway, I saw your tags on that gifset of Brian not being interested in anyone except Justin. And i have so many thoughts on Brian and Justin and Britin as a whole on monogamy. I agree that Brian would never be monogamous (fully), maybe later on in life like 50+ but before that? Nah. I just can’t imagine it. Maybe he would slowly reduce the amount of tricks but I don’t think he’d ever fully stop. But I am wondering what are your thoughts on it? And also Justin? Because he is where I always stumble a bit. Because he did want monogamy and then he didn’t in s3/4. And tbh, I always felt like the season 3 and LA Justin was the more accurate one. He obviously wanted monogamy but I don’t think he wanted the Ben/Michael version or would even want that later on (i am ignoring that the writers fucked shit up because even Randy said Justin was always changing his mind bc of the storylines or whatever) but what are your thoughts on it? Or just Britin and monogamy as a whole? Do you think they’d ever settle down fully? Because i feel like IF they would, it wouldn’t be because Justin suddenly started dropping hints or whatever but it would be fully Brian deciding it because he wanted to. This turned out a lot longer than i wanted it to be, my apologies :) anyway if you feel like writing down every thought on this topic, this is my request for it lol

Hello dear sweet anon!

I do have thoughts about monogamy and Britin (tbh I have thoughts about everything QAF).

I don’t think Brian would ever be fully monogamous. There are some fics that I love (Only Time by Xie) where they do decide to become monogamous and somehow they remain in-character. But I think the most in-character would be to keep him non-monogamous. I have friends who are married and have an open relationship. I don’t know if they have “rules” but I do know that “no repeats” is not one of them (bc one of them had a sugar baby for a minute). They (we) are approaching 50 and don’t appear to be slowing down much, as far as I can tell. I also live in a gay neighborhood and I know plenty of queer men who are out and having loads of sex at allllll ages. So even if Brian slowed down, I don’t think he would ever be even de facto monogamous. Business trips? When Justin’s out of town? Yeah, he’s going to go out. Also, Grindr exists. So even if he’s not interested in clubbing as much anymore, he can still get sex.

As for Justin, I think he wanted some explicit acknowledgement that he was special compared with the tricks. He got that by living with Brian and by being his partner (however unconventional). I don’t understand S5 Justin. I really don’t. So I can’t fit that into my understanding. If we take S4 Justin as canon, then I think eventually he would have wanted Brian to articulate those three words (I love you) at least once. I think eventually he may have wanted marriage. And I think Brian would have married him (if only for the benefits, being an artist does not come with health insurance) (and, sure Brian, we will all let you say it was for the health insurance and not because you like making Sunshine happy).

I think ultimately, Brian and Justin would move to NYC (together, because we’re erasing S5), gotten married, remained non monogamous, and Brian would have said “I love you.” And that would be their happily ever after.

#dear sweet anon #ask winderlylandchime #queer as folk #britin #otp: ridiculously romantic #britin + monogamy

[justanisabelakinnie]

Fandom Lesbophobia

No but the way fandom treats lesbianism, whether canon lesbian characters or characters headcanoned as lesbians, or ships involving lesbians(whether canon or fanon) is fucking whack. 

Whenever a female character is canonically confirmed to be a lesbian, “fans” will always go the whole nine yards in trying to prove that the character is bi; they’ll always headcanon the character as bi and ship them with men. If you politely tell them that the character is a lesbian they’ll snap at you and call you biphobic or say there’s no proof of that or that “everyone can have their headcanons regardless” not when it’s actively erasing a canon sexuality being represented, ya dipshits. I can’t think of a single gay female character I’ve seen that hasn’t been called bi or even straight or had their sexuality dismissed by being shipped with men: Apple White, Tomoyo Daidouji, Robin Buckley, Amity Blight, Velma Dinkley, the list goes on and on. 

Even when the character isn’t canonically a lesbian but is headcanoned as such people seem super against it and will be super bothered by it for some reason. Like they’ll always ask you “why” you hc the character as a lesbian and say “but she could be bi!” And yeah, she could, but what’s so wrong with me seeing her as a lesbian? Why not just make your own post about the character being bi? And then they’ll go on to derail your post by talking about how much they ship the female character with a man. Why are you so offended at the possibility of a female character not being attracted to men? Why do all women have to be available to men, even in fiction? 

Imo people seem to hate lesbian headcanons the most, even compared to other headcanons. It’s as if a female character being unattracted to men completely intimidates them and/or is something they can’t comprehend, whether it’s canon or not. Just looking at the Encanto TikTok, when it comes to queer headcanons, fans on there seem to hate the lesbian Isabela one the most. And no, I’m not talking about Colombians who don’t want the message of the movie to be erased, I’m talking about people who simply don’t like the headcanon because they are homophobic/lesbophobic. Maybe it’s just me being an Isabela simp and looking at more content of Isabela and since I’m a lesbian the headcanon I tend to look at the most is Isabela being a lesbian as well(especially since I also have the headcanon myself), but I see it all the time, even more so than hatred for Mirabel being bi or Camilo being genderfluid even though the latter is possibly the most baseless. 

Like I am so sick of people getting mad at others for headcanoning Isabela as a lesbian and using Bubo as an excuse even though his character is a rough draft and not canon. And it’s funny as well because most people don’t even like Bubo. Bring him up to an Encanto fan and they’ll instantly say they dislike him. But suddenly you want him to be with Isabela because it’s still better than Isabela being a lesbian. I even saw someone’s account receive death threats, attacks, and hatred just because they headcanoned Isabela as a lesbian, and it culminated in them taking down all their Isabela lesbian content and uploading an apology video instead, and all the comments were saying “it’s okay I forgive you now that you understand” WHAT?! So you only feel bad that she received hate because she no longer has the headcanon? It’s fine for her to receive death threats as long as she does have it though because she deserves it for thinking a fictional fucking female character isn’t attracted to men. Fucking sickening. 

Don’t even get me started on how much more popular slash generally is compared to femslash. Because as we all know if a relationship doesn’t have men at its center then it’s not worth paying attention to and not to mention people will attack you for having the ship all the time as well. Even if it is canon don’t think that will stop fandom from tearing the ship apart and pairing one or both characters with boys. Alternatively very often slash pairers will only ship f/f ships to get them out of the way of their slash ship, and I’ve seen a lot of fics while looking for a femslash pair that I want that are tagged as such but only have that relationship in the background/as secondary. And the main and “foreground” ship is always an m/m ship every. single. time. This post goes into it in more detail so that I don’t have to, but the point is made that it’s so upsetting because this all directly stems from centering of men in society as well as fandom. idk it just frustrates me. And I wish this was acknowledged more. 

TLDR: I’m tired, please just respect lesbian characters more in fiction and let people have their lesbian headcanons and ships, that is all. Lesbians deserve better. 

#been a long time since i've written a long post lol it feels good to be back #i'm sick though so i apologize if my diction is not up to par #lesbian #lesbophobia #fandom lesbophobia #lesbians deserve better #femslash #f/f #isabela madrigal #encanto #encanto headcanons #encanto queer headcanons #isabela madrigal is a lesbian #tiktok #encanto tiktok #honestly tiktok in general is heavily lesbophobic so i'm not surprised #anyway fuck tiktok #encanto fandom #encanto fandom salt #lesbian representation #lesbian headcanons

[lokiinmediasideblog]

It's just me or Loki stans tend not to care about female character's much? One thing I've noticed about Loki-centric blogs is that some of them have side blorbos, but always male blorbos. They only care about female characters when they have some canon connection to Loki so they can talk about him through talking about her, and only when the connection in question is platonic (Verity, Frigga...). When Loki has a canonically romantic/sexual connection with a woman (Amora, Sylvie, Lorelei, etc) they either demonize her or erase the romantic factor to make them into ~mean queer besties~ like he's her gay bff. There's a difference between disliking het (valid) and erasing the canon dynamic of his relationships with women because the thought of their canon bi fave liking icky women makes them uncomfortable. Face it, Loki fandom: your fave likes boobs and coochie, stop pretending otherwise. You don't have to personally ship het to recognize that some women canonically turn him on and/or matter to him romantically.

I don't think it's unique to Loki stans. It's a misogyny problem that is both based on the biases within fandom and those of the writers. The Loki fandom is far from being the only one that targets a woman love interest so viciously (*cough* ST fandom, I've also heard other Marvel ships are like that too). And I definitely do get annoyed when Loki's bisexuality gets erased because they don't deem the female characters worthy. And yea, they'll always try to make it platonic with women characters. The "these two characters with little shared background that kissed are siblings" shit is so fucking annoying. It's fine if it's not your cup of tea,but pretending they have "sibling energy" is weird.

Writing biases:

S2 gave very little exploration to the female characters. And most Marvel female characters have little depth. Like just look at the Thor movies, we don't know much about Sif (personality is the woman warrior), Frigga(personality is mom), and Jane is just there as love interest for Thor. Valkyrie's interesting but her name isn't given in Ragnarok, and I heard she got sidelined in TLAT, the movie I refuse to watch. Sylvie had decent focus in S1 but was sidelined in S2 and relegated to product placement.

Speaking of the source material, I am not joking when I say many of the female character's characterizations in the comics before maybe the 2010s were nothing but "wanting to fuck Thor." Also, BW was a prime example of Whedon's "empowering" brand of sexualized strong female character and took forever to get her movie after getting unceremoniously fridged.

Granted, I have not kept up-to-date with Marvel movies because I am only interested in Loki and I find a lot of characters annoying, in case the shitty writing conventions for female characters have improved.

Fandom biases:

Fandom can't stomach anything other than saccharine sweetness as a personality for women, especially when they interact with a popular male character. It has been shown that in real life, women are more likely to be seen as rude or bitches for more tame behavior than men.

People claiming that Mobius was "compassionate" for blaming Loki for his mother's death and locking him in a time loop where he's beaten repeatedly, while Sylvie calling him a "clown" was "abusive".

This is interesting and one of the many examples against "abusive women are given a pass" because the "victim" in question is the same Tumblr sexyman, but the woman's non-abusive behavior that makes sense in-context is scrutinized ridiculously and Loki was not hurt physically by it, while Mobius "gave him therapy".

No one can even argue it's because Loki is the Tumblr fandom fave rather than pure fucking misogyny because actual harm to Loki gets passed as being for his own good by a rather vocal portion of fans when it's a man doing it. You'd think the fandom would have lost their shit over one of the OG Tumblr Sexymen being mistreated. But nah. (And yes, I forgave Mobius for risking his skin for Loki in S2, lol. He more than made up for it.).

Also, Sylvie RIGHTFULLY called Mobius out for putting his head in the dirt like a fucking ostrich, and the fandom threw a fit and babied him.

#anon asks #mcu!loki fandom #mcu!loki #mcu!sylvie #marvel critical #loki series critical #mcu critical #hot takes #fandom misogyny #fandom wank

[bilesproblems]

I said I wasn't gonna do it

But I'm gonna do it. Hello, y'all, I'm gonna be explaining today 5 reasons why some women who are mspec with an attraction to men may ID as mspec lesbians. This is not an explanation for all mspec lesbian experiences, it's not even one for my own. This is one for those who are directly talked about when the phrase "Lesbians CANNOT be attracted to men" is thrown around. Now, without further ado, let's get into it

#1: The Split Attraction Model

I've already heard "but lesbian is void of sexual AND romantic attraction to men" and no the fuck it isn't. Lesbian is a label, not a sacred cow nor holy grail. It's the only non-rose term that's ever been exclusionary of SAM users that aren't fully ace nor fully aro, and it has no right to be. If an aromantic homosexual woman can call herself a lesbian, than a biromantic homosexual woman can too. Her romantic attraction to men doesn't make her less of a lesbian, and y'all can stop acting like Gold Star Lesbians by implying it does. No one has ever been told "if you're equally attracted to all genders romantically but only men sexually you can't identify as pan(romantic) just say multiromantic" so why should lesbian be any different? Don't actually answer that because there's no good answer.

#2: Feeling Somewhere in Between Bi/Mspec and Lesbian

We've all heard this described as having a "lean towards women" but it's deeper than that. Someone who identifies as an mspec lesbian for this reason may feel their attraction towards those who are part of lesbian attraction is significantly stronger or more frequent than any other attraction they experience. Significance is a personal line to draw, however if someone's preference towards genders considered lesbian feels incredibly more significant, they may find themselves feeling like they're in between the two labels. They could feel partially bi and partially lesbian.

#3: Reclaiming Historical Usage

Look, I have no problems with the natural progression of language. However, the lesbian separatism that led to bi women leaving (by will or by force) the lesbian label was NOT just the natural progression of language. Many bi people, especially older ones who'd previously been part of the lesbian label, feel their place in the community was robbed from them and they should take it back. If it was important for there to be a space for women and various nonbinary people who weren't attracted to men, then they should have created a new one instead of pushing out the bi wlws and nblws from the lesbian spaces.

#4: Reclaiming Lesbian Being Used as Mspec Erasure

This title isn't my best... But let me explain. Who's heard the phrases "straight relationship" "gay relationship" and "lesbian relationship"? Who's seen canonically mspec characters, or worse REAL MSPEC PEOPLE labelled gay, straight, or lesbian based on who they're dating? How many mspec people have been told they're "gay/straight/a lesbian now" after getting in a relationship? While being harmless terms on their own, mono labels can be used to erase mspec people's identities. Reclaiming words used against us is a long standing practice in the queer community, so mspec people who are routinely mislabeled as straight, gay, or lesbians should be allowed to reclaim those terms and call themselves straight, gay, or lesbians if they so desire.

#5: Mspec people who are uncomfortable in opposite sex relationships

Some people can, for a variety of reasons, feel unsafe or uncomfortable in "straight" relationships, and may actively choose to only date people of similar genders to their own. Someone who, for this reason, only wishes to date women, fem-aligned genders, and maybe neutrally/xenically/unalinged genders despite being attracted to solely masc-aligned genders may consider themselves a lesbian because their other attractions may not count to them because they won't pursue them. It's similar to orchid aces/aros who consider themselves ace or aro despite their attraction because, in practice, they don't act like allos and relate much more to aros and aces. They're valid parts of the ace and aro communities, and we should extend the same inclusion to mspec lesbians who are uncomfortable acting on their attraction to genders not considered part of lesbian attraction. The way they live makes their experiences closer to lesbians than other mspec people.

Thanks for reading, I hope this helps some people understand

#pro mspec lesbian #mspec lesbian #mspec lesbian safe #mspec lesbian positivity #bi lesbian positivity #pro bi lesbian #bi lesbian #bi lesbian safe #bi lesbian discourse #mspec lesbian discourse #explanation

[you-can-be-what-you-want-to-be]

ugh.

so that person who screenshotted my thing now has like. Half their posts (at least since then) clowning on me and other people like me so for the record

the issue isn’t headcanons or having fun. Those are great. The issue is that the majority of people are repeatedly going out of their way to ignore everything canon (which like. Why are you watching the show if you don’t enjoy what’s there. Adding is fine but why are you straight up replacing) make their headcanons and then criticize and harass anyone who just talks about the text of the show! And then says their view is canon!

I don’t even disagree with their beliefs all I said was while he’s likely attracted to men he’s def for sure attracted to women because he was interested in other women than his wife!

This happened to when I expressed displeasure at 90% of the fandom not knowing that walking across country to see Hawkeye again was about him fulfilling the promise to see each other in goodbye farewell amen and that it would’ve not been as wonderful as they thought (Mike Farrells words! Not mine!) because all anyone talked about was how gay it was. Like 90% of people shouldn’t have to actively be kept on the dark to make your specific idea for how to ship it (Not even shipping it at all! Just using that specific thing to do it that is canonically about them falling out of touch! Why would you want that as your gay rep!) work.

like is it really that hard to not directly contradict canon and then whole heartedly say “no this is real in show stuff and to disagree is homophobic” (again! Not even saying he can’t like men or fuck them silly or anything! Just to stop erasing canonical stuff for it!) and to maybe use the word bi instead of gay. Is me being frustrated that the only kind of queer that counts to people is gay upsetting to you and wrong of me? Or is it alright to go let’s not erase canon attraction and let this guy still be into men.

Or even to realize I’m talking about text and meta stuff and go “oh it’s not playing silly right now like it sometimes does” and then just ignore me? I talk about bi repressed Bj sometimes, but you guys make it really hard to keep doing it because the community is making me sick. My issue isn’t queer readings or smashing characters together like dolls to kiss, it’s going “no I am serious and correct about this stuff and will harass people over not erasing 50% of the originals themes motifs and meanings to further support this idea they already might believe in five specific spots.” That’s the issue. That’s my problem. It’s embarrassing to be around that and say I agree with anything those people say. It’s hard to look for content knowing half of it will be out of character on PURPOSE.

I’m sorry that I came to the dramedy about traumatized war doctors for the drama of traumatized war doctors instead of for the shipping culture and that I know reading things with a queer lens doesn’t mean forcing things into a hole that doesn’t fit and shaving half of the substance away to jam it in but is instead looking at the existing text and going “oh this as is can be read as queer”

like guys. I’m so tired. Maybe just think for two seconds before responding on if this is a serious post on my love for a show and my frustration with the disservice done to it or if this is a place to try and debate with me (who already shipped hunnihawk) on the merits of your ship (which I wasn’t attacking and said multiple times I ship.)

#Don’t want this nessicarily to be wildly seen mostly venting #But am fine with other people reblogging since I know a lot of people feel the same #But I will be tagging #discourse #for anyone who doesn’t like seeing people idk. Disagreeing with others and being bombarded about it #Please don’t clown on this as stated 800000 times

[mayhem24-7forever]

First off you need to deflate that giant ego inflated head of yours.

Second I am not "harassing" anyone I am calling out a serious problem in the fandom which is that a huge number of writers are ignoring the main canon couple of the show who are also gay men in order to ship themselves with those characters. It's homophobic and unacceptable and I will continue to call out everyone who does this.

If someone doesn't want to ship Vigilmaker then okay that's a little sus but not inherently homophobic...erasing Chris and Adrian's romantic relationship and their sexualities (they're literally both gay!!!! what is WRONG with you freaks???) so that horny straight bitches can ship themselves with them is straight inarguably homophobic. It's also pathetic and cringe. Reader inserts are fucking cringe! This is literally why we need to bring back bullying.

It's not about blocking or filtering tags! It's about the fact that these fics shouldn't exist in the first place! It's fucking shameful that there are so many of them and they outnumber fics about the main couple of the show! Filtering tags doesn't get rid of them problem which is that they exist and there's a lot of them.

This fandom is not for horny straight bitches! Get out! Get out of our tags get out of fandom GO AWAY!!!!! This show isn't fucking for you!!!!

To your first point: You telling me I have a big ego when you refuse to even try and argue against anyone's points is peak comedy. So if I am the kettle, you are the pot.

Secondly, as has been pointed out to you by several people you've decided to bug about this, Vigilmaker isn't canon or the "main couple" of the show and both characters have been canonically shown to be attracted to the opposite sex (which doesn't rule out that they can be bisexual or pansexual btw). So I'm a little confused as to how you think anyone is setting canon sexualities aside for anything. But in case you don't believe me here's some proof from James Gunn himself: (https://www.cbr.com/peacemaker-vigilante-shipping-james-gunn-confused/). Also here's some proof that Chris is CANONICALLY bisexual, not strictly homosexual (https://www.out.com/television/2022/2/16/how-peacemaker-became-bisexual-in-hbo-max-show-john-cena-james-gunn-dc-comics-dceu). So technically speaking, you're going against canon.

Also, I'm wondering if your feelings on this applies to other changes to canon made by fan fic authors? Do you only read things tagged with "canon compliant" and believe that making them in any sort of AU is reprehensible to canon? Because apparently it is "homophobic" for me to not ship two characters who are canonically straight or at most bisexual/pansexual but if I were to write a fic where everyone was a pirate instead of their canon jobs, that's something you're gonna allow. Just curious how we're drawing the lines of what is and isn't acceptable for fanfiction.

The thing that annoys me the most about this isn't just that you refuse to even try and defend your argument with anything except repeating the same points that have already been refuted and proved incorrect and childish insults about being "cringe" etc. What really gets me is that you are straight up assuming everyone who writes these fics must be horny straight cis women because apparently in your eyes you are either gay or straight and there's no inbetween. Newsflash: Bisexuals, Pansexuals, and other Queer identities exist.

To your complaints about self insert/reader fics being cringe or disgusting, that's your opinion. It's something you're not into in fanfiction and that's alright, we all have our preferences. Personally, I don't like to read fics with unhappy endings but you don't see me going in the ask boxes of angst writers to complain. You're apparent beef with self insert writers isn't some moral mission to stop homophobia, because there's no homophobia going on (except from your biphobic ass). I'm not going to do you the disservice of assuming your gender or sexuality as you have done for me and my friends but no matter your gender or sexuality, you don't get to be the ruler of all fanfic who determines what is and is okay.

Yeah, it would be a valid problem/concern if James Gunn were to come out and say that Chris and Adrian are now 100% homosexual and in love and that their past references to having heterosexual sex no longer apply as they've changed and are now super duper gay and people were to make them straight for fics. But that's not what's happening so I don't know where you got this stick up your ass from. Stop policing or gatekeeping fandom, no one died and made you head ceo of the Peacemaker/DC fandom so stop acting like it.

TLDR; L + you don't know how to argue + you're biphobic + you're an asshole + you're straight up wrong <3

#anon answered #vigilmaker #if we get to gatekeep fanfic stuff I have some tropes that i don't like reading

[butwhatifidothis]

It's always bothered me how edelstans keep trying to say that she's actually a lesbian and erase the fact that she still has an s support with m!byleth. I understand wanting representation, but I think it's fucked up cause she *is* representation... for bi people. It's one thing to have a headcanon, but it's another thing to push your headcanon as.. canon. And by pushing the idea that she's only into women, you're just erasing her canon bisexuality.

They said Rhea doesn't count as bi because she's "not gay enough", which is such a horrible take. Therefore Rhea is straight and doesn't count! But Edel is good because she was "written as a lesbian" (source: just trust me bro) and she only has an s support with male byleth to appeal to male gamers. Which overall implies that Rhea (canonically bi) is actually straight because she doesn't "feel" gay and Edel (also canonically bi) is actually a lesbian because she apparently isn't interested in men enough to be bi. It's way too reminiscent of typical bi erasure takes imo.

Idk, I'm probably projecting my own experiences with biphobia. But whenever Edelgard's sexuality starts getting brought up to prove why her "haters" are bad, it's usually accompanied by bad takes. I wish edelstans would stop with the bi erasure because being bi doesn't make you less lgbtq... Sorry for ranting 🥲

No problems about the ranting lol

And I dunno, seems like biphobia to me. Like, there's a pretty clear difference between acknowledging that some characters in 3H definitely have some subtext to them that heavily imply same-sex attraction even without romancing a same-sex Byleth (like I said before, Dimitri and Petra are pretty good examples of this, because both have at least one ending with someone of the same gender that either heavily implies or outright states that they love that person), and, well. Completely dismissing a character's literal canon sexuality because you didn't "feel" any gayness from them.

Like, okay, fine, get rid of Byleth, go ahead: that leaves Catherine for Rhea in AM/SS and all of Edelgard's endings with men that have her be in a happy relationship with them. Almost like they're two bi women and thus can happily live their lives with both men and women as their partners.

And let's not forget that the comments of that post also included Mercedes into someone who doesn't feel "bi enough to be bi." Despite her flirting with fem!Byleth and outright saying that she loves Annette (at least in their JPN supports). So that's actually three characters who've had their canonical bisexuality erased in favor of either "well they're basically straight" or "Edelgard is totally a lesbian." Which is uh. Not cool

#ask #anon #exqueuese me princess #and mind this was a thread that at least acknowledged Dorothea's bisexuality - I know that's often erased too #it's just. very weird. like Rhea can marry a woman and settle down with another like bro she likes dah wahmen #it is kinda uhhh... off-putting how dead-set some Edelstans are when it comes to insisting that Edelgard is a lesbian and not bi #gives off bad vibes know what i mean

[str4wb3rrycr3p3c00k13]

ive been following you on a different platform for awhile and... jesus fuck, are people really attacking you over a SHIP? people need to realize that sea fairy isnt canonically a lesbian, and until theres proof of that, theyre literally just attacking someone for no reason. why cant we bring justice to people erasing representation for characters that are confirmed to be lesbians? (like amity blight from the owl house) people need to get their priorities straight jfc

Its literally just like:

Me: I like seamoon, but Sea Fairy isn't canonically a lesbian, stop harassing people who ship her with men.

Slags: STOP TALKING OVER LESBIANS YOU LESBOPHOBIC FUCK OMG GO KILL YOURSELVES!!

Like there's better issues to focus about in cookie run than the unconfirmed sexuality of a walking puddle, like the nfts, these guys need to touch some sodding grass-

You don't see me attacking Almond x Latte shippers going like "UH ACTUALLY ALMOND IS CANONICSLLY GAY BECAUSE HE HAS A RELATIONSHIP WITH ROGUEFORT ON OVENBREAK" so why the fuck are these twats doing it?

YOU CAN HATE THE SHIPS WITH SEA FAIRY AND PIRATE BUT DON'T ASSUME THE PEOPLR ARE AUTOMATICALLY HOMOPHOBIC CUZ OF IT JESUS

LIKE- If you're gonna be vindictive and aggressive about your gay ships, aim it towards those that are actually being homophobic or towards those who ship actually canon lesbians like Amity. Jesus.

Edit: forgot Luz was bisexual, not lesbian, apologies in advance-

#cookie run discourse #touch some fucking grass people its not hard #and this applies to other ships as well #EIMIKO SHIPPERS

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

So normally I would not laugh at something like this, but people are big mad. Though if you don't want to read the article I'll lay out what's going on. People on Twitter, IE: Twitter freaks. Mostly probably "Antis" and Minors or just can never be happy LGBT activists, are mad about this photo someone made.

Now. The reason I headed this off with laughter is actually two fold.

This game is made by a company in China. THE CHINESE hate the LBGT with a passion. And they are not shy about admitting that. Sure propaganda might say otherwise but that's all they tend to put out is propaganda. (The rest is western bait).

The same people mad about this are the same ones that get mad that there are not more platonic relationships between men and women. But the moment their "Waifu" isn't a lesbian woman and is instead FRIENDS with a woman, it's, "HOW DARE SHE NOT BE A LESBIAN!". Actually just sad.

So yeah. I'm laughing at everyone mad at this art work. Because I'm tired of a culture that makes EVERYTHING gay all the time. "Two guys are friends? OH NO! THEY AREN'T FRIENDS! ACTUALLY THEY ARE GAY CODED!"

Fuck off. I grew up in the 90's on Brotherhood and Sisterhood stuff. I saw movies like the Pokémon Celebii movie where this scene happened:

This isn't gay coded. This is two guys who got along and became great friends. A lot like brothers if you will. However, if this movie came out now, the Twitter Freaks and Antis would be raging about how they are canon gay. And any movie after that could potentially erase that "Image" would have gotten the Pokémon company death threats. Imagine being so unhinged and so up in your own feelings that you send DEATH THREATS to a person because your favorite character ISN'T the sexuality you thought they were.

Which to be frank, is a YOU problem. If you can't like a character, or keep liking a character because of their sexuality, I'm sorry to tell you this but that kind of makes YOU the bigot. Not MOST other people. It's why I wince at shallow "LGBT Inclusion". Because it's done not as a character that was just "Supposed to be that way". It's cheap, shallow and the only thing it does is activate the "Woke" crowd to talk about how inclusive it is to sell more copies because they know most of the "I DEMAND REPRESENTATION" people will literally write article after article about how "Inclusive" it is. And all they have to do is put on GAY KISS into the franchise and you just bust your load.

Honestly it's pathetic if you think about it. And kinda of sad as well. Gay representation was in movies for years. But now all of it feels either forced or shallow. OR BOTH. And most of you need to get your heads out of your asses about this "coded" bullsh*t. Two people can exist and NOT be dating. A girl and REALLY get along with another girl and not be gay for one another. Get your heads out of your asses and stop harassing REAL LIFE PEOPLE because your fictional waifu isn't gay enough in every representation of them.

Besides the fact that given she's a character coming out of China, I can almost promise that she is NOT a lesbian. And frankly speaking? You give a middle finger to everyone living under the tyranny of the CCP when you pretend that a game is being "Representative" when the country as a whole is far from that. I wonder how many LGBT people are in China right now living in fear for THEIR LIVES and having to stay in the closet lest they be jailed, or worse.

Stop being stupid. And cope harder.

#discourse #discussion #gaming

[veemark]

Get to know me tag

@gunsatthaphan tagged me years ago and only now did I get my brain to work (oops).

Three ships

AltMalMar. Battle trio! Enemies to lovers x2! Malik and Maria falling for the man that messed up their lives big time hits so right. I don’t know a novelisation; I get to decide what’s canon here, and so my 12th century polycule totally happened.

SeiSub. CLAMP is fully responsible for my warped taste in ship dynamics. These two fucks thrive on deception, tragedy, betrayal, mutual obsession, and questionable behaviour. Subaru was left so mentally and emotionally fucked up by everything Seishirou did to him that he only wanted the man to kill him so he could have some kind of twisted relevance in his life. Seishirou was so possessive he passed his eye down to Subaru so he could erase the mark another bloke left on him (it is a known fact an eye exchange is equivalent to common-law marriage in any CLAMP universe lol). They’re such good foils they were doomed from the start.

VeeMark. They’re morons. They’re terrible.They pulled the nastiest shit on each other. They neither caught a break nor got their happy ending until their mid-thirties/early forties. At the end of the day, they do deserve each other. I’ll never stop bitching about how I wish I could change the second half of the 2022 series or how much I hate that the script didn’t fully commit to the physical cheating and instead watered down their relationship to make these idiots palatable. I wanted them fully toxic and morally rotten because I love their dysfunctional asses so much! They’re the best at their worst 💙💜

First Ship

Probably TouYuki or SeiUsa

Last Song

Padre nuestro - Los Fabulosos Cadillacs

Last Movie

El señor doctor (1965)

Currently Watching

Fourteen or fifteen shows at the same time (I’ve honestly lost count). My ADHD is all over the place right now, so I’m behind on some.

Currently Consuming

The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie

Lectures on Russian Literature - Vladimir Nabokov

La revolución mexicana - Ricardo Flores Magón

Documentaries and podcasts on a wide array of topics since I refuse to be left alone with my thoughts at any given moment

Currently Craving

The only thing I want out of life is a new YinWar series with a script worthy of their talent. PLEASE just let these men graduate from uni and star in some dark stuff.

Eight shows to get to know me

Cardcaptor Sakura (1998). My child self was living for all the gay, lesbian, and nonbinary representation even though they were pretty clueless. The Latin American Spanish dub was lovely and didn’t try to censor anything, so that was a plus.

31 minutos (2003). This was a Chilean puppet show (kind of a news satire) most Latines in my generation grew up with. Some episodes haven’t aged well in the slightest, but I still enjoy watching them from time to time. A lot of moments mutated into memes over the years because they’re that legendary.

Hanazakari no kimitachi e (2007). I once had a huge thing for any piece of Japanese media that involved girls who had to disguise themselves as boys for some plot-pertinent reason (life gave me some answers years later lol). Many actors that would later become huge started here. No one told me OFC’s Mr. Takeda had been hiding under the terrible noughties hair all these years!

Fullmetal Alchemist (2009). There’s absolutely nothing I can say that could ever do justice to what a masterclass in character development, storytelling, and worldbuilding this is. Shounen peaked right here as a genre.

Tumbling (2010). Actually my favourite J-drama ever! I ate up everything and anything Yamamoto Yusuke filmed, and this series was right up my alley with a plot revolving around a gang leader forced to join his school’s male rhythmic gymnastics team. It had friendship, family, team sports, and canon queer representation.

Love Sick (2014). I didn’t even know BL was a thing back when I first watched it, but in no time I fell so deeply in love I didn’t mind waiting for fansubs to drop or the second season to air. Thailand showed me a messy bi awakening with a side of cheating and I could never look back.

Mr. Robot (2015). This is the one show I wish I’d forget just so I could experience it all over again. The narrative rewarded attentive viewers (could never be me), the plot was carefully crafted, and those four seasons had a perfect finale.

Pose (2018). What can I say? It was so good. At some point I spent nearly every episode crying my eyes out when things got too real. I’m always here to watch the Black and Latino queer community being celebrated.

#outing my trash taste today #not tagging anyone bc this is so old lmao #abt mir

[cdfreak]

I hate hate hate how so many people push the idea that if you're a gay man you have to have NEVER dated a woman or if you're a lesbian you have to have NEVER dated a man. like even queer people on here are so obsessed with that "gold star" shit they just approach it in a less overtly homophonic way

#that idea is fucking EVERYWHERE even in like. fandom headcanons #just because a character has dated both men and women doesnt mean theyre canonically bi. people headcanoning them as a lesbian or gay man #isnt bi erasure. there was nothing to erase!! a character doesnt have a canon sexuality until the creator uses their words and gives them 1 #please stop settling for scraps and then getting mad at other queer people for it #soda.txt

[danggerine]

i made the mistake of reading the notes on a lot of trans naoto posts so now y’all get responses to some of the bad takes i keep seeing. buckle the fuck up

• “naoto’s arc is about sexism specific to the japanese workplace and calling her trans erases that to fit it into a western lens!!!”

you guys do know that there are japanese trans people right. like i agree that there are lots of issues with workplace sexism and gender roles in japan, but there’s also lots of issues with transphobia. y’all do know that you do not have to be white and/or live in a western country to be trans, and that queer stories and issues are GLOBAL stories and issues right.

• “naoto isn’t a man, she just pretended to be one to get respect in a male-dominated field, if you say she’s a trans man you’re ruining that whole character arc about accepting your true self!”

here’s the thing! the way that character arc was done was fucking transphobic! the trope of a woman going into disguise as a man for safety/respect/etc is tried and tested, it shows up literally everywhere, and the trope itself is not inherently transphobic. HOWEVER, when persona 4 incorporates Really Obviously Trans elements into that trope, like chest binding and literal gender reassignment surgery, then we have a problem, because now you have a cis character going through a trans narrative in the name of insecurity.

p4 does everything it can to embody the typical narrative of a young transitioning trans guy: binding, changing your name, revising official documents to be known as a man in work and school records, dressing masculine, and forming a shadow literally based on transitional surgery. plus the stuff naoto’s shadow says isn’t about being “a weak little girl” or “no one will ever take you seriously when you’re just a little girl” like you would expect it to be for someone who’s arc is supposed to be about dealing with misogyny, it’s all “you’ll never be a real man,” “you can’t cross the boundary between the sexes,” “no one will ever see you as you are” comments. you know, textbook trans guy insecurity. but the game backtracks on that and says naoto was just insecure about being a female detective and wanted people to take them seriously, and that they should get rid of these feelings and accept their true, female self.

and this is where the problem lies. when you write an obviously trans-coded narrative, but make the character experiencing it an insecure cis person or someone trying to avoid discrimination, you say either 1. trans people are really their assigned gender and are just insecure, but accepting the gender they were given at birth will make them happier and more confident or 2. being a trans man is a way for cis women to escape misogyny. 1 is obviously stupid and has been talked about by plenty of people, but 2 is a BIG problem and a wild assumption to me. being a trans man is seen as an “out” for naoto, or a solution to a problem, as if once they’re a man they’ll face no discrimination whatsoever, when in reality things like getting their gender marker changed in official documents that would allow them to go by “he” and wear the boy’s uniform at school and passing well enough to be seen as a boy in public would be a HUGE ordeal that includes a lot of stress and rejection and danger. realistically, naoto is putting themself in a really precarious position, because if they are exposed as actually afab to the media, to the detective agency, or to the school, they are set for a hell of a lot of ridicule, discrimination, and potential physical danger. but persona 4 doesn’t reflect this at all, because it’s transphobic and thinks that being trans is the easy way out for cis women experiencing misogyny!

• really any argument that boils down to “naoto is a cis woman in canon whose struggle is about sexism, not being trans”

like i already addressed enough of this, i think, but what really gets me is that kanji’s arc is fucked up in a lot of the same ways naoto is and no one is clowning on posts about kanji being gay? his shadow is a very clear (and offensive) gay caricature, and his narrative is very much one about a mlm guy experiencing homophobia from his peers and acting out because of that. and yet the game backtracks to saying “oh no it’s not about liking men, kanji is insecure about his femininity and softer hobbies because of toxic masculinity” and then literally uses naoto to refute his queerness because “look the only guy kanji was ever shown as attracted to was ACTUALLY a woman all along and now that kanji knows she’s a girl he can be openly attracted to her!” in canon, naoto is about as cis as kanji is straight, and yet EVERYONE is on board for portraying kanji as gay in fan works like it’s not even a question, but there has to be a huge debate anytime anyone wants to call naoto trans. legitimately, i think i’ve seen someone argue about kanji being mlm on a post...once? ever? meanwhile every post about naoto being trans has to have a horde of discourse, i’m literally already prepping for the bad notes this post will get because y’all cannot leave this ALONE

in conclusion, i am not saying that everyone has to think naoto is a trans man or forcing anyone to stop liking a character in the way they want or anything like that. i am saying that the naoto’s canon character arc is transphobic and if you’re trying to fight with trans people about how they want to reclaim something that uses a lot of their experiences, don’t.

#this is petty as shit and it’s probably going to get me into sooooo much DiscourseTM but i got frutsrated #really out here writing a fucking dissertation about the opinions people i’ve never met have about a 10+ year old game lmao #gale make a post that isn’t 10 miles long challenge #but i cant HELP it i love naoto so much he is so so trans to me #persona 4 #naoto shirogane #persona #trans naoto #my thoughts

[sazandorable]

About moderating and banning content on AO3!

Okay so! I haven’t had the spoons to do this for a while but I cracked and ranted about it on twitter which is... not... conducive to long rants, so!

This is a h u g e discussion part of the l o n g history that led to the creation of AO3, which older, more informed, and more articulate people have talked about at length and can be found around if you look (I reblog some of it in my AO3 and fandom history tags for the curious). So I won’t go into that here, nor into the practical reasons why it’s not even possible to put that system in place anyway.

Arbitrarily, or the purpose of this post, because it’s the biggest topic I’ve seen brought up lately, I’ll be talking about fic depicting underage characters in se*ual situations, but honestly I could hold the exact same conversation on literally any controversial content.

This is about why you, specifically, if you are a content creator and especially if you are marginalised and especially if you are queer and especially especially if you are sensitive to fiction depicting certain things... do not, actually, want a banning system on AO3.

What? Of course we do. There’s a lot of p*do shit on AO3 and p*do shit is gross. No one should condone that, wtf? It would be easy to do — just periodically delete the entire Underage tag!

What will happen if that is done is that people will re-upload and continue to write it, they’ll just stop tagging and you will run into it with zero warning nor ability to filter it out. Again, this is not a theoretical — we know this is what happens. When I was a teen, adult content (all adult content) was not allowed on FF.NET; it was everywhere regardless, and without tags. The exact same thing happened on tumblr when adult content was banned as well. It’s not a matter of “staff not handling it well” — it just doesn’t work.

To keep safe the people who need to be able to exclude that tag, that tag needs to exist and be used.

Well, shucks. A reporting system then?

A reporting system would operate in one of two ways:

-an algorithm, which would delete a lot of stuff we wouldn’t want it to delete.

-humans, which is... the bigger problem.

An algorithm sounds great. We do want it to delete everything.

Okay. What about the daddy k*nk fics between consenting adult characters? What about the fics featuring characters that are children in the canon but are adults in the fic? What about the fics about teenagers exploring their se*uality together, written by adults about the experiences they remember having or wish they could have had? What about the thousands of SasuNaru and Drarry and other shounen and YA fics that will get written, by teens or by people who remember being teens? What about the se*ually explicit fic written by teens who are se*ually active in real life? What about the fics about CSA as trauma, about healing from it? What about the fics written by survivors of CSA to cope about their trauma? What about the fics that clearly show that it’s evil and traumatic? What about the super dark, harrowing, but beautiful and artistic that I’m glad I read even though it fucked me up for days? What about the ones that were really shitty but also horribly hot?

Well, some of these are still not okay, but maybe some might be. It depends on how it’s written. We’ll have humans moderating content and deciding, then.

Okay.

The thing is, I don’t know which of the things I just listed were okay for you to be depicted in fiction and which were too much. Odds are I don’t agree with you. Odds are if I asked 10 people randomly picked off the street, not everyone would agree.

Odds are, even if AO3 arbitrarily decided on which of those are allowed and which are not, you would not agree with their choice, and you would still be unhappy with the decision. (Or you would be happy, but your friends wouldn’t.)

Odds are, different AO3 content moderators might not agree on whether a given fic qualifies or not — is it artistic enough? Does it show enough that these actions are evil and wrong? Can the author prove they’re a teenager? Can the author prove they are a CSA victim? Can the author prove that this is to help them cope with their trauma? The author seem to be functioning alright, they mustn’t really be traumatised!

You know what I mean! There’s absolute, objectively gross shit out there that is not artistic and should not be published.

I agree that there’s vile stuff out there that makes me sick and that I think is very clearly just ped*philic trash. But there is no way to, 1) stop those from getting published anyway, 2) take those down and preserve the safety of everything else.

If we start forbidding some things, there’s two ways to go about it.

One single, clear, arbitrary rule — for instance, absolutely no adult content featuring characters under 18 (leaving aside the fact that this would not even work for the reason cited above). So we lose all the stuff from teenagers, all the coming of age stories about adolescence, all the stuff from CSA survivors; people who need to write it can’t publish it anymore, and people who need to read it can’t anymore either (and as a cool bonus, they’re told it’s wrong and made to feel bad about it). Depending on whether the rules applies to characters that are under 18 in the canon, we lose entire fandoms.

Or, subjective moderation by humans, according to what they estimate to be gross.

Let’s assume all moderators can agree on what’s gross or not.

If there is a system in place to ban some underage works because “gross shit”, then that means other gross stuff can be taken down on account of being gross and harmful.

Yeah! Gross stuff should be taken down! Come on, surely everyone agrees on what’s gross and harmful.

Ah.

But the problem is.

Here is a list of things I have seen — with my eyes seen — called harmful to be depicted in fiction:

Murder

Non-con

Inc*st

Cannibalism

Torture

Self-harm

Mental illness

Drugs

Racism

K*nk

Non-negotiated k*nk, but healthy k*nk is ok

Spanking k*nk

BDSM where the woman is a bottom, but woman top is ok

Healthy depictions of BDSM

Unhealthy depictions of BDSM

Queer people doing bad things

Abusive relationships

Rival/Enemies to lovers

Redemption stories

A happy relationship between a 17 yo and an 18 yo

A happy relationship between a 20 yo and a 60 yo

A happy relationship between a boss and their employee, or a college teacher and a student

A happy relationship between a 14 yo boy and an older teenage boy, because that’s reminiscent of older men preying on younger gay boys IRL

Se*ual content featuring a character whose age is unclear in canon and some people headcanon them as being underage, some as being a young adult

Loving, consensual fluff between characters that are evil villains, because it romanticises them and their actions

Dark content shipping female characters

Fluffy content shipping female characters, because it’s misogynistic to act like lesbians are only soft all the time

Consensual s*x featuring a canonically asexual character, because it implies that all aces can and should still have se*

Fics about the same canonically asexual character hating s*x, because that erases the experience of s*x-positive aces

Shipping a character who is perceived by some fans as queer-coded with a character of a different s*x

The tendency to ship a black character with white characters

Fluffy drunk s*x, because that’s not actually consensual

Sleep s*x, because that’s not actually consensual

Trans characters not experiencing dysphoria, because that idealises the trans experience

Consensual s*x between adults that are not married

LGBT+ content, because kids shouldn’t see that.

I guarantee you: you, I, and 10 random people plucked from the street will not agree on what, in that list, is and isn’t okay to publish and consume fiction of.

So why should your taste be the one followed? Why should it be the taste of mods you don’t know? Why should anyone get to dictate? What if the mods think your OTP is gross and your NOTP is fine?

This is the slippery slope argument.

Yes, it is the slippery slope argument. Because we know it happens. Because we’ve been there, because I’ve seen it happen myself twice already and I’m not even thirty. Because we know people do complain loudly about all of these things.

And because the second there is a banning system in place, assholes will use the system to abuse it and get stuff they just don’t like taken down using the “it is gross” argument, and one day you’ll wake up and the beautiful fic that helped you come to terms with your abuse/trauma/identity/orientation/k*nk for feet will be taken down and wonderful vulnerable creative people will have been harassed out of fandom because they argued with 1 person who didn’t like their foot k*nk fic that happened to also feature, for instance, a CSA trauma backstory.

Again: not exaggerating. Not theoretical. It happens, we know it happens, AO3 was created literally because it happens.

I still fucking hate that stuff.

That is completely fine and normal. No one likes everything. Me too! Most of the dark stuff is niche and the creators know only few people will like it the same way they do.

(For the record, I get grossed out and triggered by fics about an asexual character who does not like s*x having s*x with their partner to make them happy. Deep in my gut everything screams that that’s fucked up, terrifying and harmful, how can people write that. But I recognise that there are people who love and need that, and I leave those people and their content alone.

OTOH, I read a lot of otherwise dark shit and I enjoy it in the same way I enjoyed, say, Hannibal, in the same way some people enjoy true crime documentaries, horror movies or r*pe fantasy k*nk. It helps me explore stuff that I like to see in fiction, in a safe, controlled way. I’m also asexual, 90% s*x-repulsed IRL, and, obviously, I would never abuse a child. For that matter, I wouldn’t kill and eat people, either, nor would I do 90% of the tamer k*nky stuff I read.

Of course, Hannibal was fucked up and lots of people probably think Hannibal was gross and should not have been aired — but as exemplified by the fact that it was created, aired and watched, lots of people thought it was fine, interesting and even fun to watch.)

You can and should curate your experience and protect yourself. The AO3 website now allows you to exclude certain tags, and people have developed tools to help with that such as plugins that save your filters or hide fics that contain certain words.

But no, it isn’t going to, and it shouldn’t, get banned.

#ao3 #fandom history #aaaaand that's all im going to tag

[whendidyou-leaveheaven]

on the idea of exploiting your own sexuality...

I feel the the terrible need to unpack the whole Anthony Mackie comment and the way I see people treating it.

This is why I wish people would stop asking actors about fandom’s response. I don’t care what the actors think of gay people shipping them, and the actors shouldn’t really have to be presented with loaded questions about that anyway, because they are always going to be damned if they agree and damned if they don’t. And it’s different when you have someone who is creating the content they put out directly like say, Neil Gaiman, who is great about open conversation with fans, he makes a thing and someone messages him and asks what he thinks about the sexuality of a character in said thing and he can fully, with authority, tell people his take on it or tell them it is up to them to see it however they want.

Actors don’t write their characters. They interpret them and play them the way they are usually directed to, and yes sometimes they have more say in the development of characters than other times. Do I think Castiel would have dropped that “I love you” if not for Misha Collins? Absolutely not. Do I think the directors would have let Jensen say it back if he wanted to? Absolutely not.

Anthony Mackie is what I sort of consider old school good natured, like he means well and obviously isn’t trying to tear down queer people but he also hasn’t analyzed things a million times over like everyone online in fandom has.

He has a point which I have considered myself, about the juxtaposition of two things: erasing toxic masculinity and allowing men to have feelings, and providing gay representation...

Can the two coexist? In some ways it does seem like a potentially bad thing when people try very hard to make a ship happen, because supposedly that would reinforce the toxic masculine idea that any sensitivity or vulnerability between men is GAY. And gay is weak and bad. And therefor when we call every male friendship gay we are propping up toxic masculinity and the idea that men cannot be too close or else.

Wow. What a fucked up dynamic right? How can you be gay and reinforce toxic masculinity at the same time?

So here’s why I don’t fully agree with this perspective though. Because,

So what!! So what if your friendship is gay? It’s actually toxic masculinity that is telling you it can’t be! And if it were fine, then it wouldn't matter. Because over half the world still believes these characters are straight and will always be straight. Hell, even I think they are straight (kinda) I just like shipping some people because it’s satisfying to me but I would never in hell go and ask uh, say Henry Cavill what he thinks of this fanfic I wrote. You know?

Male friendship has always been portrayed in media forever and even though it hasn’t been as soft and open as it is now, it exists. Whereas women in media are always pitted against one another as jealous rivals, we are moving away from that idea but historically it has been a thing that women cannot be friends because then they might challenge the status quo together basically, and then start fighting for themselves instead of over a man.

We have some gay representation now in the media but so far I don’t think that any of the canon gay rep involves characters that are all that interesting (ironically that’s not the case with f/f ships, we have a few really good ones right now) or vibe with us on the level that these other characters we love do. So of course those are the ones we end up shipping.

I’m already getting long winded so to wrap this up, my point is: yes Anthony is correct, and yes he is also wrong. He’s a good captain america and I don’t think this is some excuse to say “steve is the real one cuz anthony said we shouldn’t ship it.”

Is projecting gay iconology onto too many close male friendships actually hurting gay people and keeping them from having their own representation?

Eeeeehhh,

we have been doing that since Achilles and Patroclus existed and even then you had people on both sides of the story still saying there was no way they could be lovers when it was explicitly stated. If it were female characters we were discussing would we say the same thing- oh wait, we can’t because we have already sexualized women together in literally any scenario (just look at any fashion magazine before 2010, why are these women in a perfume ad naked together??). The world is changing, we do have more diverse representation than ever before, and toxic masculinity (I am referring specifically to the Hollywood-centric production part of the world, not necessarily on a global scale) is dissolving at it’s root, however slowly. It is no more homophobic to say two male friends might love each other in a gay way than it is to say two male friends love each other in a platonic way. The two are not mutually exclusive.They are gay and they aren’t gay are actually two concepts that can exist at once without hurting anyone.

#marvel #mcu #anthony mackie #stucky #sambucky #fandom rant #captain america #tfatws

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

I love that we as a fandom have declared the clem comic an noncanon lmao. i'm curious tho, do you believe clem will get a new love interest? do you think it will be amos or someone else?

Yeah, gotta love seeing a fandom come together to agree on something.... even though that something isn't exactly invoking happy feelings, y'know? Like yeah, the comic sucks and at this point I doubt the trilogy will be much better unless Tillie suddenly starts to understand Clementine and makes some impossibly massive improvements..... but it's nice to see all of us mostly getting along?

As for the whole love interest thing, I'm like 98% sure that Clementine's going to get a new girlfriend in the comics. That's my prediction.

During the dumb xpo thing, Tillie talked about how she's excited to explore Clementine as a queer character in the apocalypse and considering Tillie's other works, I will bet literal cash that Clementine gets a new girlfriend. I don't think Amos will be the love interest, and if he does end up being that for Clem or if Clem gets a boyfriend, then I will genuinely be shocked.

.....Y'know what, I need to get this off my chest and this seems relevant enough-

I was talking with my roommate about this the other night actually. I told her all about my predictions for Clem getting a new girlfriend and how annoying this whole comic is, but also how annoying people are being to Tillie over this and like.... everything is a mess.

My roommate, who knows that literally everything is wrong in the 12 page comic and who I told about the xpo where Tillie talked about Clem being queer is important, asked me how I would feel if she ended up getting Clementine's canon bisexuality wrong, and what if she decides to make Clementine a lesbian?

And like...... I actually stopped what I was working on because this wave of dread crashed through me at the thought of that, and I could actually imagine it happening because she already got everything else wrong and if she hasn't actually played the games and is pulling this shit out of her ass.... I can't even describe to you the feeling I felt...

I want to believe that Tillie would at least know and respect the fact that Clementine is a canon bisexual. From what I've gathered, Tillie herself is wlw and I don't believe she would erase a bisexual character. She knows that Clementine is a queer character. Clementine's bisexual.

Like obviously, if I'm right and Clementine gets a girlfriend, she'll still be bisexual. Nothing will ever change that.

But I'm going to tell all of you this right now because just thinking about it upsets me.... if for whatever reason, if Tillie Walden actually erases Clementine's bisexuality and makes her a lesbian in the graphic novel trilogy while "exploring what it means to be queer in the apocalypse," I'm done.

I will have nothing left for Tillie. I will no longer support anything she does. I won't condone harassment towards her because that makes you just as shitty, but I will absolutely call that bullshit out and then never support her again. I will never talk about the comic again because how dare you think you can get away with that and still expect me to waste brain cells on your comic? Hell, I will probably be so fucking livid that I'll drive my ass all the way to barnes and noble just to return the books I bought of hers.

Dramatic? Yeah, but y'know what? I've never really touched on this outside of a few "Clem being bisexual is important representation and we love it" but her being bisexual means so much to me. It truly does, I mean.... after the dumb "btw Javi is bi, we just wrote him straight and threw in a line of flirty dialogue with jesus so we can have our cake and eat it, too-- the straight homophobes will still buy our game and the lgbt+ community will love us, win win," I cannot explain the joy I felt when Clementine was written as a bisexual woman and that she was given two love interests that meant so much to the players.

Like.... I dunno, I never got any real bi rep in games or books or movies, especially bi girls, when I was a teen trying to figure shit out. In jr high and high school, I could never find stories that has bi women as a lead because I was too afraid to look anything up. I didn't wanna be caught reading/watching things that were lgbt+ because I had a shitty boyfriend at the time and our friend group were heavily religious and judgmental. My best friend [who I haven't spoken to for years now] was one of those people who claimed to support lgbt+ people.... but also once told me that she thought lesbians were okay but gay men were lowkey gross and probably only into other dudes because girls wouldn't date them. Oh, and I'll never forget the time she told me that bi people don't actually exist because you either like one or the other.

That's a great thing to here from the best friend you've know since you were an infant after you've realized that you aren't only attracted to boys.

But now I'm out of that environment and I haven't talked to anyone from high school since I graduated, and I've felt more free to intake all the things I wish I could've before...

I just.... Clementine is important to me for a lot of reasons. I've played these games forever, I've gotten to watch her grow for years, and she's just so well-written and amazing in tfs, and the fact that the writers wanted to write her as a bisexual woman means so much, I just.... even though it's not canon, I can't help but take this disaster of a comic personally. Just from those 12 pages, everything about Clementine is destroyed and it sucks. It hurts..... but I'm still not holding anything against Tillie herself. Her comic is bad, but that doesn't mean she's bad..... however, erasing Clem's bisexuality would be the last straw for me.

.....This turned into a rant. Sorry about that. You asked a simple question and I dumped my life story on you but I dunno, I needed to get that off my chest because it's been bothering the back of my mind.

I do wanna add once more that I don't think Tillie's actually going to do that... she should know that both Louis and Violet are canon love interests, plus Clementine canonically had a crush on Gabe in ANF. I think if she's going to get anything right, it'll be the fact that Clem is bi.... I'm just expressing a major fear I have and what it would do to me, and others, if it happened..... y'know?

#asks #twdg clementine #twdg louis #twdg violet